And while you don’t need a long history with Sony systems to enjoy it, it is especially a delight for those with a piece of PlayStation in their heart as a treasure trove full of playable nostalgia awaits. Many of the PlayStation characters appear as short, charming cameos, but a handful play fully-fledged supporting roles. I won’t spoil who gets the star treatment here, aside from one – the previously revealed Kratos. His introduction sees you wield his ice-infused Leviathan axe and take on the role of the exiled Spartan himself in a thrilling change of pace, the frosty blade boomeranging around the level. It’s here where Astro Bot becomes truly magical, elegantly blending nostalgia with new ideas. Such moments essentially let you play these iconic games in miniature, lending Astro their powers and letting him loose in a level entirely built around familiar stories and settings, soundtracked by remixes of heroic themes.
Team Asobi has shipped the kind of polished product you expect from the best developers – refined to a fine sheen, excellent performance and clever solutions for every possible rough edge. Loading between levels never robs you of control and is super fast. It feels finely tuned from top to bottom and I think that’s something to commend.
Rescue Your Crew
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Astro Bot’s gameplay and story. Upgrade your lifestyleDigital Trends helps readers keep tabs on the fast-paced world of tech with all the latest news, fun product reviews, insightful editorials, and one-of-a-kind sneak peeks. One of the only PS5 games that really feels like it was built around the DualSense.
Your job as Astro is to go around to all the planets and collect your friends. The games have lots of fun platforming to execute, with grappling hooks and hover-jumps and all kinds of fun things. There are also plenty of alien and robotic enemies and bosses to take on.
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You can soak up water then spray it on flaming objects to put them out, similar to Kirby and the Forgotten Land. However, in giant sponge form, Astro Bot can smash through obstacles in a glorious display of destruction. You’ll see this throughout the game and smashing up the world is always a joy. Let’s get the traditional Digital Foundry bullet point specs out of the way. Astro Bot uses dynamic resolution scaling and I noticed a 1440p to 2160p rendering window (though of course, this could change according to content).
Microsoft’s purchase of Rare, a studio that had created platformers with mascot-like characters for Nintendo, almost seemed like an afterthought. While today PlayStation’s headquarters may be located in San Mateo, California, the history of Sony’s beloved video game console brand started in the early 1990s in Tokyo, Japan. Ken Kutaragi – who would later become known as the father of PlayStation – had been working together with Nintendo on a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo. When this got canceled, Kutaragi went to Norio Ohga (Sony’s CEO at the time) with the proposal of making Sony’s own console.
After reaching 100% completion you will have close to 15,000 coins if you don’t spend them on satellites. If you don’t have enough coins you can always replay levels to get more. Players have long expected more DLC, however, as a number of unreleased bots appeared in the Astro Bots credits. Featured here are licensing 789win for Rayman, Worms, Assassin’s Creed, Beyond Good & Evil, Croc, and Tomba, potentially revealing which five special bots will be released alongside these levels. That being said, Armored Hardcore is almost certainly a reference to Armored Core, while Cock-A-Doodle-Doom is likely Doom, so bots from these franchises are also likely.
The most alluring feature, though, is its PlayStation-themed collectibles. Every level has a set of hidden bots that Astro needs to rescue. That would be a charming Easter egg hunt, but Team Asobi isn’t just investing in empty references.
Every power is interesting, has a meaningful impact on the level it’s a part of, and feels like it unlocks a new way to play. While some return from previous Astro outings and others are quite standard, there is a unique flair to how they feed into the level design here. Sony proves with Astro Bot that the company can still put out charming action platformers, but the love letter to PlayStation fans fails to include features that made previous games of the genre so fun to replay. Even within a level, an ability is used in several different and creative ways, but always stemming from its singular mechanic featured in that level.
The Playroom Vr
I think I’ll actually buy the game now because it seems absolutely wonderful. This is the first PS exclusive I’ve been excited to play for a couple of years as I absolutely loved the PSVR game and the free PS5 game. The news that fans can expect more Astro Bot was met with praise, though some hoped it would not lead to a yearly release schedule.
At some point during your playthrough, I recommend muting your TV and leaving your controller audio on. You’ll immediately feel and hear just how much Team Asobi uses the controller to sell its visuals. While “toy” has become a derogatory term when talking about video games, Team Asobi sees no shame in embracing it. I can see that when I find a cardboard standee in a construction site level. I poke my head through it, only to summon a flock of pooping pigeons. There’s no tangible reward for doing it as it’s not a tracked collectible; it’s just a purely entertaining moment that gets an honest laugh out of me.
Normally, these levels are as brief as 30 seconds, but they require perfection and give the game a taste of trial-and-error it otherwise consciously rejects. Each bot you find returns to the (mostly) safe zone, the Crash Site, which acts like a hub world you can explore and decorate. Here, the game carries forward the same PlayStation Museum vibe seen in Astro’s Playroom, albeit to a lesser extent. You won’t explore past PlayStation consoles, but the mothership you’re trying to repair is just a giant PS5, and the spaceship you use to explore the overworld is a DualSense controller with wings. It feels a bit like that meme of Obama awarding Obama a medal, but it’s not distracting, so ultimately, it’s fine. I haven’t seen a platformer marathon through so many varied, whimsical, and blatantly cool ideas like this before.