Astro Bot review – A heartwarming platformer down memory lane

Astro Bot is a sublime video game in every sense of the word. Its charm so pure you’d be hard-pressed not to smile from start to finish, its design so elegant as to test but never frustrate, its adoration for PlayStation so delightful you can’t help but be swept up in its nostalgic allure. It’s a game built with love for anyone who’s ever picked up a controller.

When the PS5 finally reached the market in 2020, every bit of hardware came with one crucial bit of software ready to go. Astro’s Playroom came as a free accouterment, serving more as a demonstration of the new machine’s power rather than standing tall as its own game.

Team ASOBI knocked it out of the park with this brief experiential package, and now, after four years of essentially morphing the tech demo into a full-fledged release, Astro Bot is upon us and it’s simply magical. Sony has lucked out in landing on a generational hit, one of their best exclusives in years, and an all-time great 3D platformer rolled into one.

While on the surface, Astro Bot is a play on nostalgia, scattering PlayStation icons for us to hunt down, in looking back, Sony has now cemented its future. Although the charming little robot has been around for years, it’s now well and truly earned its spot as the brand’s mascot for years to come.

Astro Bot – Key details

• Price: $59.99 USD (Standard) | $69.99 USD (Deluxe)
• Developer: Team ASOBI
• Release date: September 6, 2024
• Platforms: PlayStation 5

Astro Bot trailer

Utter delight

In an age where games as a service run rampant as companies look to hold your attention and extract every cent possible, Astro Bot is a much-needed breath of fresh air. It’s a 10-15 hour platformer that maximizes joy over all else, with every second spent playing an absolute treat.

Every pixel comes to life with a sense of wonderment. Be it Astro Bot’s whimsical reactions, gorgeous visuals as particle effects and physics-based objects flood the stage, or even just the endlessly pleasant soundtrack pushing you along with every beat, it’s all so brilliantly put together. Each aspect incredibly realized in its own right and then coalesced into a spectacular moment-to-moment experience.

From the very first level, I was sat with a smile on my face, grinning ear to ear as Team ASOBI not only harkened back to PlayStation’s heritage, but to the industry’s simpler days. It’s a twofold rush of nostalgia as you stumble upon gaming icons while remembering how fun the medium can truly be when that alone is placed above all else. Fun for the sake of fun.

Astro Bot’s biggest strength is in its simplicity. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, there’s no microtransaction economy baked in, you won’t find any predatory mechanics designed to open your wallet, it’s just a pure video game that knows exactly what it’s about. A masterfully made platformer through and through.

A PlayStation collect-a-thon 

At its core, Astro Bot is a simple 3D platformer. Your goal is to swat away enemies, jump across gaps, and make it to the end of every stage using the many gadgets at your disposal. However, playing just this way defeats the real purpose of the game.

Before you take your first steps as the adorable mascot, your home is thrown into disarray. PlayStation icons are strewn across the galaxy and it’s your job to bring them back together. In rallying the troops, you can rebuild and continue on your journey. 

Each level houses a handful of themed bots along with many more generic ones for you to track down. Some are left in plain sight while others can be extremely tricky to reach. Many require you to veer far off the main path, using your abilities in unique ways and often pushing your mechanical skills to reach 100% completion.

With over 300 bots to rescue, dozens of puzzle piece collectibles to find, and a raft of secret portals to unlock new levels, there’s plenty to see and do here. It’s to your own benefit to see and do it all. Whether you’re a lifelong PlayStation fan or a relative newcomer to the brand, you’ll be swept up all the same in its joyous appreciation of what came before.

Tracking down icons from previous eras is always a thrill. Uncovering that next bot dressed like your favorite hero or villain you haven’t thought about in a decade, stumbling into a character you never thought you’d see again, it’s just an infectious celebration of all things PlayStation.

It is worth noting, however, in some cases, themes don’t exactly align. Obviously, levels can’t be designed around dozens of unique games and the characters found within. But when the tones match, like finding a Silent Hill character in a spooky platforming section, it feels right. It makes it all the more odd when random PlayStation characters show up in nonsensical locations with respect to their titles, but this is clearly a nitpick.

Must-buy for PS5 owners

Beyond the allure to PlayStation fans new and old, along with its fundamentally excellent platforming, Astro Bot is simply a must-buy for its use of the PS5 alone. It’s a celebration not only of the brand as a whole, but to a degree, a celebration of the latest machine itself.

Much like how Astro’s Playroom showcased the power of the new hardware, Astro Bot does the same on a grander scale. 

Haptic feedback has never been better utilized as the DualSense comes to life with every footstep and every drop of rain vibrating through the controller.

Sound design through the PS5 controller is a key feature too, with almost every part of the game emanating from the controller’s small but mighty speaker. 

Visuals are absolutely stunning across the board, not just in terms of fidelity, but performance too. Even when hundreds of objects are physically reacting to one another and thousands of particle effects are flooding the screen above them, the PS5 holds steady. You won’t see a single frame dip nor will you encounter any bugs. It’s a perfectly refined experience.

Through it all, load times are all but nonexistent be it when traveling between planets or respawning after a failed run. Every little detail falls into place to make it one of the most well-rounded exclusives since the PS5 launched four years ago.

If you have the console, you have every reason to buy Astro Bot and see just what your not-so-cheap machine is capable of in the hands of expert developers.

The Verdict – 5/5

From start to finish, from top to bottom, no matter how you look at it, Astro Bot is simply sublime. A genuine treat the likes of which we haven’t seen from any first-party PlayStation studio in far too long. 

Not only has Sony found a new franchise that absolutely needs to continue with new iterations every few years, but in Astro Bot, the company now has a new icon it can rely on for generations to come.

Review on PlayStation 5