Astro Bot review: An Ode to Joy

by: Jonathan Frankel

It's exceedingly rare these days to find a AAA release that is so unashamedly fun for fun's sake. One that aims to put a smile on your face and keep it there for as long as it possibly can without making the player grind a battle pass or locking its best bits behind a paywall. This is what Team ASOBI has been able to pull off with Astro Bot, a nonstop barrage of charm, creativity, and utter delight around every corner all stuffed into an absolutely superb 3D platformer that gives Nintendo a run for its money.

Made up of remnants from PlayStation's now defunct Japan Studio, Team ASOBI burst onto the PS5 with their launch title Astro's Playroom in 2020, a follow up to their VR-exclusive game Astro Bot Rescue Mission in 2018. Pre-loaded on all PS5s, Playroom was a bite-sized 3D platformer, a glorified tech demo if you will, to show off the brand new features of the DualSense, as well as the PS5 itself. It was a cute little experience, easily platinum-able (if you're into that sort of thing), and chock of full of easter eggs and references–ranging from subtle to overt–to PlayStation's hardware and software history. It's tight gameplay and wonderfully creative gameplay mechanics left players, including myself wanting more. A lot more.

Now, four years later, Team ASOBI have delivered exactly what I, and seemingly everyone else, have been craving: more. Turning what was essentially a proof-of-concept into a pristinely polished, fully-fledged 3D platformer rivaling the greatest hits of everyone's favorite Italian plumber. But while Astro Bot clearly wears its Nintendo inspirations on its sleeve, it remains a uniquely PlayStation experience. If Super Smash Bros. is the ultimate fighting game crossover, Astro Bot is the ultimate tribute to PlayStation, new and old.

The premise of the game is as simple as it needs to be: Astro and all his bot-buddies are merrily exploring the stars aboard their PS5-shaped mothership, when [insert generic alien antagonist here] sends the PS5 crashing into a nearby desert planet, scattering the console's components across galaxies, and taking Astro's pals along with them. With your trusty new DualSense rocket ship in tow, you'll (predictably) explore the known universe to build the PS5 back up and rescue your lost friends. Not the most intricate plot to follow, but as an excuse to explore a vast variety of lovingly crafted worlds, it does the job swimmingly.

Astro Bot follows the philosophy established by the Mario series that the act of simply moving the character around should be fun in and of itself. Astro can run, jump, punch, spin, and hover with his laser boots. It might be a far cry from the expansive moveset boasted by modern classics of the genre like Super Mario Odyssey, but that's where the game's multitude of special abilities come in. In nearly every level, you'll be treated to a power-up that fundamentally changes the way you play. From using frogs as a pair of boxing gloves, to slowing time to a crawl at the pull of a trigger, to strapping a penguin to your back allowing you to jump in and out of the water like a dolphin, Astro Bot never rests on its laurels, always providing the player with something new and fun to do.

It speaks to Team ASOBI's confidence and creativity that some of these ideas are only used once, and then thrown away just as quickly. As for the power-ups that are used more than one time, there's always an interesting spin on the idea that reveals even more of its potential than you ever thought possible. There are even a few abilities from Astro's Playroom that surely had a little more juice in them that don't make a return, but if ASOBI couldn't find a totally unique gameplay angle for them, they were presumably tossed in the bin for good reason. I wouldn't want to spoil it here, but the level "Downsize Surprise" was a particular highlight of mine, and is one such example of a brilliant idea used once and never iterated upon again. It's no surprise considering how much of a headache that level must have been to design and implement, but I appreciate what a technical marvel the studio was able to showcase in just one 15-minute chunk.

Team ASOBI could have easily built entire worlds around some of these abilities–I know I'd play an entire game centered around the aforementioned time-stopping mechanic. But in a world of never-ending AAA bloat, it's refreshing that this studio opted to make 15 hours pure, distilled joy instead of 30+ hours of rehashed ideas that makes the player feel exhausted by the end.

It's more than evident that Team ASOBI, a studio of just 65 people, mind you, poured their heart and soul into every inch of this game. You can feel in the DualSense the pitter patter of Astro's steps in direct correspondence to the surface he's walking on. Grass looks, feels and sounds like grass. Punching a random bush in the corner will, at the very least, cause it to shake and throw out a coin or two. Each level oozes charm from every orifice, and I highly recommend playing the game with headphones because my god, the music is immaculate.

Kenneth C.M. Young has been the composer for all of Astro's adventures and he knocks it out of the park every single time. I still find myself humming the "I'm Your GPU" song from Astro's Playroom all these years later. Even if music is repeated in Astro Bot–and it often is–it never bothered me as much as I worried it might. Hearing the triumphant "I Am Astro Bot" at the start screen was as charming to me the first time as every other time I booted it up. Not unlike the game mechanics themselves, some songs are heard in just one level, then never again. One ear worm in particular comes in the form of the "Papa Tree" song in the Trunk of Funk level, in which a colossal robot tree raps to you throughout the entire level, from beckoning you inside its mouth (not as weird as it sounds!), all the way up to the boss battle on its top branch. I pity any passenger in my car once this soundtrack comes out on Spotify because it's gonna be nonstop Astro jams for the next few months.

So we've established that Astro Bot is an audio/visual feast with best-in-class gameplay, but what are you actually doing throughout these levels? In typical 3D platformer fashion, it's essentially a collect-a-thon, with your main collectibles being your lost bot pals. There are also puzzle pieces to collect that unlock new features back at the crash site hub–things like a costume select, a "safari" zone (which also grants a handy photo mode utility), a DualSense ship color customizer, and a gacha machine to unlock even more collectible items. But bots are really what you want to be looking out for as they serve as the primary mode of progression. You must have a certain amount of bots to proceed to the final boss of a galaxy, to unlock the next galaxy, to access new areas in the hub world, you get the idea. Some of them are really hard to find too, often requiring you to think outside the box using your newfound level-specific powers. I think I only fully completed about half the levels on my first try. Thankfully, once you go back in to collect what you missed, the game doesn't force you to complete the level again; you can simply exit to the galaxy map from the pause menu.

The bots would be serviceable collectibles on their own, but that special PS sauce is what makes finding them truly compelling. Just like in Astro's Playroom, special "VIP" bots–designed to resemble a famous (or not so famous) character from PlayStation's past–appear throughout the adventure. There are usually only 2-3 VIP bots out of 7 to find in each level (with the exception of challenge levels which always reward you with one), but that made it just a little more special when I did find one, and made it so I was always eagerly anticipating what the next one might be. They'll often be grouped together based on their respective genre or by the theme of the level. Jak will be hanging out in the same area as Crash Bandicoot, while Sly Cooper, Joker from Persona 5, and the devil from Devil Dice (yeah, I didn't know this one either) can be found together in the casino world.

This is all well and good, and it's fun to collect bots dressed up as your favorite characters, but the thing that really cranks this game up to 11 are the character-specific special bot levels that serve as an end cap to each galaxy. I wouldn't dare spoil all the surprises here, but I do want to at least talk about the first one, where Astro finds himself (herself?) in a land filled with bananas, monkeys, and butterflies. As they approach a bot donning a familiar outfit, they're thrown a net, transform into Spike, and boom, you're playing Ape Escape! Now you're chasing down monkeys, grinding on rails, and sporting a rad haircut while the reverently remixed theme music blares in the background.

These levels are such a treat, and I couldn't wait to see which franchise would be represented next. My personal favorite was the second of these specialized worlds, in which you play through a hilarious homage to one of PlayStation's biggest properties. The whole way through, I had the widest, dumbest smile on my face like a kid in a candy store.

It's easy to be cynical about the endless parade of PlayStation (and PlayStation-adjacent) IP, to dismiss it as self-indulgent using many characters from long dead/dormant franchises for some sort of masturbatory exercise in nostalgia bait. I mostly disagree with this sentiment, but I do see a grain of truth in there. Here's the thing though: Astro Bot is an extraordinary game, with or without the PlayStation brand. The fact that Lara Croft and Spyro make cameo appearances doesn't make the game play any better, the levels any more inventive, or the music slap as hard, but it certainly doesn't hurt. I see the relentless references as icing on a delicious cake, not the meat and potatoes.

However, as much as Astro Bot doesn't necessarily need the PlayStation brand to be successful, I will admit that a few aspects of the game are woefully uninspired. Namely the basic ass enemies you'll be fighting in pretty much every level–little bipedal mean-mugging robots that'll either headbutt you or pop spikes out of their body, forcing the player to play a tad bit cautiously. While their visual designs tend to err on the generic side, the boss battles that cap off certain levels are the best kinds, ones that mechanically and thematically tie the whole level together into a kind of final exam requiring the player to think on their feet using the level's power-up in unique and interesting ways.

After about 16 hours, having collected all 300 bots, finding 100% of all puzzle pieces and secret exits, struggling through the final challenge level, and finally kicking [generic alien]'s butt, that coveted platinum trophy was mine–even the end credits sequence is a joyous, triumphant delight. It's bittersweet saying goodbye to a game I loved to pieces, but I'm glad I was left wanting more rather than begging for it to end. After all, there will be more soon! Sometime this fall, Team ASOBI is releasing 5 additional challenge levels with an extra 10 VIP bots to collect, all free of charge.

As it currently stands, however, Astro Bot is the complete package. A brilliant 3D platformer, a love letter to PlayStation, and a bangin' electronic mixtape all rolled into one, Katamari style. It may prove a tad too easy for seasoned players, but its endless creativity and emphasis on fun ensures everyone is having a good time regardless of skill level. Astro's next galaxy-hopping adventure may be a ways off, but I'm confident Team ASOBI is cooking up an experience worth waiting for.

Final Rating: 10/10