Astro Bot review: Move over, Mario

Quite frankly, I can’t believe it’s taken this long for Sony to commission a full-blown Astro Bot game. First introduced in 2013 as part of VR exclusive The Playroom, this adorable little robot slowly but surely became a modern icon of PlayStation hardware, despite being largely relegated to tech demos and VR experiences.

When the PS5 launched in 2020, the short and sweet Astro’s Playroom tech demo changed the game. Yes, it was mostly intended as a way to sell players on the all singing and dancing features of the DualSense controller, but it also beta-tested what a framework could look like if Astro Bot were to get a full title of its own. Fast forward to now, and Team ASOBI has delivered one of the best 3D platformers any console has seen in years.

With pixel-perfect movement mechanics, brain-tickling puzzles, and enough deep-cut PlayStation references to intrigue the most veteran of players, Astro Bot is a must-play for anyone with a vague interest in video games.

Reach for the stars

We pick up with Astro Bot and his crew travelling through space aboard their ship, an identical replica of a PlayStation 5 console. Before long, they’re intercepted by a pesky alien, who steals a bunch of core components from the ship and whisks them away to a collection of neighbouring galaxies.

This sets the scene for Astro Bot’s tried and tested structure. Outside of the ship's crash site, which operates as a hub area for the game, you’ll travel to each of these different galaxies in hopes of retrieving the components of your ship. Each galaxy holds within it a collection of planets that act as level stages, each containing a wildly different theme from the last.

While there are a few genre-specific tropes that you’ll recognise (of course there are desert, underwater, and haunted house levels), Astro Bot mostly offers up new and original ideas that are a pure joy to explore. 

My personal favourites include a level that looks like a snowy environment at first glance until you realise it’s actually icing on the cake of a dessert theme. Another takes place in a traditional garden setting, with the twist of being able to shrink yourself down to the size of a mouse, opening up a world of exciting gameplay and exploration possibilities.

One of these things is not like the other

So far, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Astro Bot sounds extremely similar to Nintendo’s Mario Odyssey - and you’d be right. It’s clear that Team ASOBI has taken at least some inspiration from the design philosophy and structure of how that game is put together. And honestly, who can blame them? It’s one of the best 3D platformers going.

That said, Astro Bot does just enough to separate itself from the competition, and that’s mostly down to its unique gameplay power-ups and the way it leans on PlayStation’s rich history and culture.

For one, Astro’s basic movement takes a little getting used to as you realise you can’t jump on enemies to take them out. That’s done by either straight-up smacking them with a press of Square, or by using a double jump to shoot lasers from your feet and glide over the top of them.

It’s a subtle change but makes a world of difference to how Astro Bot plays, mostly because you need to consider your aerial positioning to both the platforming and other incoming enemy attacks. Especially on the more difficult challenge levels, using the double jump to take out tricky enemies adds a whole new layer of awareness that you rarely have to contend with in other platformers of this ilk.

Then there are the power-ups. At the start of each level, Astro will come across one of several upgrades that give him an ability specific to that stage. Gadgets like the monkey arms return from Astro’s Playroom, but there are plenty more toys in the box for you to discover. From jet-packs that turn you into a literal Bullet Bill, to an armadillo-esque bowling ball that lets you roll through levels in a breeze, it feels like Team ASOBI has gone wild with how far they can push Astro’s abilities, and tailor-made a bunch of levels to suit that particular theme - and it’s all the more fun for it.

Enemy types are also especially varied, with the game constantly throwing new ones at you right up until the credits roll. Whether it’s variations upon headbutting scuttle bugs or fire-breathing chameleons, Astro constantly has new work cut out for him, and learning how to take them down efficiently is always a delight to figure out.

Respecting a legacy

Just like the tech demos that Astro used to inhabit before his big break, his latest adventure is as much a celebration of PlayStation as it is a fantastic game in its own right. Each level has a bunch of hidden Bots that need rescuing, with a selection of those dressed up as iconic characters from the publisher’s past - both old and new.

Once rescued, these Bots return to the crash site hub planet, where they set up home within small dioramas that pay homage to their heritage. They’ll also help you perform certain tasks around the crash site as you call on them to help you reach new areas, climbing up the faces of Solid Snake and Crash Bandicoot as you scoot up them like ants.

Seeing all the Bots and related paraphernalia fill up the crash site as you unlock more from the levels and gacha machine is an incredibly spurring method of progress. I constantly felt inspired to go back into old levels and find new collectables as I was always dying to see what the next reference would be, and what little adorable animation they’d play out when I visited them in the hub.

PlayStation icons are more deep-set in Astro Bot than just cameos, though. A few levels dedicate themselves entirely to some of Sony’s biggest franchises, even borrowing and poking fun at certain game mechanics from them. I won’t spoil them all, but the God of War level is especially fantastic, with Astro wielding the Leviathan Axe almost like he was born to. The recreation is so good that I found my muscle memory defaulting to the God of War controls instead of Astro Bot’s, which is a testament to Team ASOBI’s excellent gameplay design.

In these levels, there’s the risk that Astro Bot could ride the coattails of these existing franchises so much that it dilutes its own identity. Thankfully, Team ASOBI has injected enough of Astro’s lighthearted DNA to ensure that it’s clearly celebrating the work of other developers rather than aping it. There’s even some fun poking at tropes like shimmying through a small crack in God of War or having plenty of waist-high cover in an Uncharted spin-off that keeps things grounded. It’s all incredibly endearing, and a constant joy to experience.

My only gripe with Astro Bot comes from an accessibility point of view. Again, Team ASOBI has made full use of the DualSense’s capabilities, with the simple act of walking across different surface materials reflected in the haptic feedback of the controller. There are also sections where you’ll need to use the gyroscope to tilt your controller and navigate through levels, harking back to the more wacky physical gameplay era of the Nintendo Wii - there are even puzzles that are solved by blowing into the microphone.

While this remains fun as a fully-abled player, times have moved on since the days of the Wii, and developers have more of a responsibility to ensure their games are accessible to as many players as possible. At the time of writing, there are seemingly no accessibility options to enable alternate control methods for the gyroscope sections, or other puzzles that require more physical input from the player. As such, Astro Bot might be uncomputable for those with impeded motor function.

We’ve reached out to Sony for comment on whether accessibility features will be coming later down the line. But at the moment, the omission is a small mark on what otherwise feels like an almost timeless video game.

The Verdict

If, like me, you’ve been waiting for Nintendo to deliver a new 3D Mario game for the best part of a decade, look no further - Team ASOBI has done it themselves.

Put simply, Astro Bot is an exceptional video game. It finally sheds light on one of PlayStation’s most underused IPs and presents a 3D platformer that can easily go toe-to-toe with some of the industry’s heavy hitters. Not only does it celebrate PlayStation’s legacy charmingly and thoughtfully, but it does it all while offering some of the best platforming action we’ve seen this generation, wrapped in a package that makes the PS5 hardware sing.

For those who own a PlayStation, consider Astro Bot an essential purchase.

5/5

Reviewed on PlayStation 5. Code provided by the publisher.