Review: Astro Bot (2024)

Over the years, I’ve been watching Astro Bot’s career with interest. The series had humble tech demo origins, and now, it’s a full-on mascot platformer.

This little bot has a lot of potential, and now with a full game under its wing, developer Team Asobi has managed to knock it out of the park — and then some.

Astro Bot (PS5 [Reviewed])
Developer: Team Asobi
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Released: September 6, 2024
MSRP: $59.99

Astro Bot may go the traditional “level select” platformer route, but there’s a lot under the hood as you continue through the roughly 10-hour core adventure. I’m not going to spoil basically anything from said adventure, including all of the cameos, Sony homage levels, and challenge-esque bonus stages, so don’t worry about that. No need to fear: Astro Bot is far more than just cameos and Easter eggs. It stands on its own as a breezy, and occasionally challenging platformer.

The general flow, and wordless setup, will be very familiar for those of you who orbit this genre (especially Mario, and specifically Mario Galaxy, which this takes a few cues from). Astro Bot is just minding their own business when poof, a big bad shows up and wrecks their ship. It’s up to them to assemble a crew of robots (the main collectible in the game) to fix the downed craft, then take off for a final confrontation. Along the way, all of the bots you pick up (which range from regular old NPCs to deep-cut cameos) will be hanging out in the hub, which also serves as a way for players to change costumes, find secrets, and generally hang out.

The hub is straight-up adorable. You can lightly interact with the unique bots you’ve saved, all of whom sequester themselves with folks from the same franchise. Every half an hour or so, I’d find myself going back to the hub just to see what they were getting up to, and buy them more goodies with the game’s core currency, gold.

You can go back to the hub at any time through the game’s world map screen, which houses a few secrets of its own, amid a host of optional and required levels, all capped off by a boss fight in each zone. It’s a cute way to add a little more agency to a rote-level select concept, and the secrets aren’t so esoteric that you’ll be pixel-searching. Again, Astro Bot is all about ease of play, baked right into its DNA.

As the titular hero, Astro Bot has all of their old tricks at their disposal, which consists of two core moves: a punch/spin, and a double jump/hover mechanic that also shoots lasers out of their boots to damage enemies. The game does a lot with just these two concepts, and you do not need any prior franchise knowledge to pick it up and play.

Where Astro Bot really brings out the big guns is with the individual levels themselves. Most (but not all) have a fleeting power-up gimmick, like a chicken robot that serves as a vertical jetpack, or a pair of frog boxing gloves that are linked to L2 and R2 for left and right-hand punches, respectively. It also houses one of the best “shrinking mechanic” levels I’ve ever played.

Because Astro Bot rarely lingers on one single mechanic, I found myself wanting to dive into optional levels on a constant basis. The game offers a constant sense of discovery, within the levels themselves and as a central tenet of its design. Of course, the levels look lovely, and expand upon what was offered with the pack-in for the PS5’s launch.

Although I wouldn’t say that the DualSense functionality is a selling point, it does still feel incredibly snappy to control Astro Bot itself, and the little sounds and haptic feedback are once again tied to whatever terrain you’re stomping around on. This creates a cacophony of sound, especially as I was blasting the game’s catchy soundtrack.

Astro Bot is also completely reasonable when it comes to divulging its secrets. If you’re missing one bot, puzzle piece, or warp from a stage, you can go back in, get that missing link, and quit immediately: you’ll keep that collectible without having to finish the level. You can even dive back into a level you’ve already completed, and buy a power-up for 200 coins that helps you sniff out those last remnants you need to 100% a world. It’s very, very, chill, which gels perfectly with the general tone of Astro Bot.

If you’re a platforming fiend, you’ll probably be 100%ing the game either way, and that’ll take roughly 15 hours to hit everything (again, the story is around 10 hours; less if you’re looking to rush through). At no point did I ever feel like it overstayed its welcome, and for this review in particular, I ended up snagging 260/300 collectible bots (FYI, you need 200 to fight the final boss and finish the game properly). I’m going for the Platinum this week, and free DLC aimed at “speedrunners” has been teased for later this year.

Astro Bot on PS5 feels like the culmination of every Team Asobi project before it. Given how many mascots Sony has lost over the years (this game’s constant cameos certainly reminded me of that!), I’m completely on board with them adopting the little bot as their new face. They’ve earned it.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}