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In the era of 90s, it was unthinkable to have a console without a recognizable figure to serve as its herald. Nintendo had Mario, SEGA had Sonic…even the 3DO had Gex. While the original Playstation had Crash Bandicoot as its unofficial mascot, I’d always wondered why Sony never bothered to create one of their own. It may have taken decades, but we finally have a Sony mascot now in the form of Astro Bot.
I’m not ashamed to say that it’s one of my favourites in all of gamingdom. I’m still a SEGA hardcore at heart (so Sonic will always reign supreme) but Astro Bot has sealed second place for me after playing through The Playroom and Astro Bot Rescue Mission.
Astro Bot simply cements its position in adamantium because there is no way anything can beat Astro Bot for number two after playing this game.
What is Astro Bot?
Astro Bot is a single player 3D platformer. Developed by Asobi Studios and published by SIE, it is a Playstation 5 exclusive. The game launched on September 6 2024.
Our review code was given to us by the kind folks over at SIE. Thanks so much!
The whole time I was playing Astro Bot, I was never bored. I never stopped smiling either! There’s a certain infectious happiness that permeates every facet of the game. You can’t help but enjoy yourself when you look at the game. The challenge is a bit on the easy side (unless you do the special bonus stages based on the Playstation face buttons), but it’s still fun for beginners and experts alike.
The stages are all varied, every single one a joy to play. If you’ve played Astro Bot Rescue Mission, you’d be right at home here. They even have some of the same enemies! Controls are tight and responsive and I never blamed the game whenever I screwed up…which is how you know a game is pure quality.
Most stages are fun, but a few truly stand out. These are usually the ones that have Astro Bot gaining special moves in them. My personal favourites are the PS VR googles (which slow time), the rocket chicken (which boosts Astro Bot straight up like a rocket) and the sponge (which allows Astro Bot to soak up water and grow HUGE).
The powers are so fun I wish that they were available in every stage instead of just specific ones. They’d break the stages for damn sure, but they’d certainly be fun to mess around with!
Like Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Astro Bot also makes superb use of the Playstation 5’s Dual Sense controllers. Every single function is used and used well! I really love blowing air into the controller to trigger some of the in-game effects. Super cool!
The best part of Astro Bot is definitely finding the bots scattered throughout the stages. Some are ingeniously hidden away behind secret areas and puzzles and you’ll need to scour the stages to find them. That’d be fun by itself, but Asobi Studios went a step further and made some of the bots look like characters from games.
There are a ton of them.
Some are well known to pretty much any gamer. You have Solid Snake, Big Boss, Ratchet and the like. Some though, are incredibly obscure hardcore references!
There’s the Cube from I.Q.: Intelligent Qube, Rudy Roughnight from Wild Arms, Polygon Man (one of Sony’s earliest pseudo mascots from the PS1 days), Kain from Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen and even Richter Belmont from Rondo of Blood and Vibri from Vib Ribbon!
Holy crap! Some of those are names I haven’t heard of in years! Team Asobi, I salute you guys! These references make me all warm and fuzzy remembering all the games I’ve had the pleasure (and displeasure) of playing through the years on the Playstation.
The only thing is, I wish Team Asobi mentioned which games these characters come from. Perhaps it’s a copyright issue (they’re never really named in-game too) so maybe that’s why their identities are only hinted at via their personal blurbs.
Some, like Nathan Drake, are special. They only appear after you beat the final boss of a section. They have their own cutscenes and all when you rescue them. Hearing the Uncharted theme when I rescued the Drakebot was so freaking AWESOME!
That’s not the end of it though.
These special bots also have their own special stages themed after their games! I absolutely freaking adore God of War’s! The music was just amazing and it even had the same gameplay mechanics as God of War Ragnarok, with you throwing Kratos’ axe to solve puzzles! Even the green ravens return and hitting them (most of which are hidden, just like in Ragnarok) all nets you a special reward! Unchartered’s was cool too, with the theme playing and Astro Bot shooting people with a gun like Drake.
Man…talk about attention to detail! Team Asobi really nailed it on this one. While Astro Bot Rescue Mission was a celebration of Sony’s consoles and hardware, Astro Bot is a celebration of all games on Playstation consoles past and present!
I simply love the cutesy aesthetic of the game. From the chirps and moans of Astro Bot to the look of the enemies and secondary cast. I can’t get enough of them! Super duper cute! I found myself smiling and giggling quite often as every time I encounter a new enemy or creature!
The only visual downside that the game has is that the reflections in the game are pathetically bad. I don’t think there’s ray tracing in the game, which is a damn shame. Everything moves at a super smooth framerate though, so I guess it’s something we can all live without.
It’s quite rare for me to really listen to the music in most games I play unless they really stand out, so believe me when I say that the score of Astro Bot is incredible. Dear Sony, if you’re reading this, I would buy a soundtrack for this game as soon as it comes out. Please make it so!
The funky funk, smooth jazzy beats, the Gregorian-esque chants, the thumping techno…every stage has a distinct vibe to it and the music fits them perfectly! The only downside for me is that some tracks repeat for the bonus stages and some of the later stages too. That kind of sucks but it no way detracts in the quality!
I’m only complaining because I love the tunes and would love more of them!
Oh yeah, I really recommend you beat the game. Not only is the final battle super epic, but finish Astro Bot and you’ll be treated to one of the best credit sequences in recent memory! I just wanted to highlight that because it’s a fine way to cap the experience.
Of course, if you get all 300 then the game extends just a teeeeeeny bit with its greatest challenge yet…
The Bottom Line.
Sonic will always reign supreme, but Mario just got dethroned for Number 2 in my book.
Astro Bot is a damn fine 3D platformer and a love letter to games on the Playstation consoles. Tight controls, great humor, awesome art design, super music…there’s barely anything bad to say about the game.
If you have a Playstation 5, this is one of the games you MUST have for it. Seriously. It’s non-negotiable.
TLDR:
The best 3D platformer to come out in the last few years, definitely the best on the Playstation.
The Good:
- Character designs are adorable.
- Tight controls.
- Stages are cool, especially the first party themed ones!
- Lots of bots to rescue.
- Insanely catchy music.
The Bad:
- Reflections are crap.
- Some bonus stages reuse music.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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