Astro Bot is an expertly designed platformer that finally invites young players back to PlayStation.
It was a prime beach day in Cape Cod, but I couldn’t pry myself away from my cousin’s PlayStation. He had brought it over to my parent’s summer home one day in the late ’90s and hooked it up in the back bedroom. We drew the blinds to block out the glare and spent hours playing a new game instead: Spyro the Dragon. I was transfixed. When I pressed a button to spew fire, it was like the controller disappeared. The colorful 3D world transported me to my own personal playground, a place beyond my imagination. What other frontiers were out there for me to explore?
At one time, this was a fundamental video game experience; a 3D platformer was just about the coolest game you could have. These were tightly designed adventures that understood the ways that digital play could activate creativity, even through a silly little cartoon with nothing to say. In recent years, major video game publishers have abandoned that idea. While Nintendo still reveres that power, once great sanctuaries for kids have crumbled as publishers have set their sights on courting “mature” audiences through photorealism and weighty themes. Video games are richer for that change, but young — and young at heart — are getting left behind, stuck wandering the vast desert of Roblox games with nothing but their parent’s credit card in their pocket.
It’s as if we’ve forgotten that the first word in PlayStation is “play.”
That’s why Astro Bot feels as consequential as it does even if it just looks like your average 3D platformer full of collectibles and clever power-ups at a glance. The expertly designed PS5 exclusive plays like an intervention with its own publisher. It brings the PlayStation platform on an intergalactic journey through its history to rediscover its long lost sense of wonder. It’s not just a very effective ad for Sony; it’s an exuberant adventure that remembers that there’s power in play.Pitch-perfect platforming
While Astro Bot is the third game in a series, it feels like the first. I believe that Astro Bot: Rescue Mission is the greatest 3D platformer of this generation, but its PSVR exclusivity meant that few experienced it. Many more got to try the series through Astro’s Playroom, a short and sweet pack-in game that comes pre-installed on every PS5, but that’s more of a great tech demo for the DualSense controller. Astro Bot, on the other hand, is a full-fledged 15-hour platformer that’s loaded with levels, collectibles, and secrets. It earns its statement title; it’s a proper start for what’s previously been treated as a B-series.
The general structure is identical to Astro’s Playroom, but delivered on a grander scale. The adventure starts when a PS5-shaped spaceship full of adorable robots gets attacked by a gooey green alien. It crash lands in the desert but its parts fly off to different planets, as do all of its bots aside from Astro. It’s a simple setup that gives the hero a reason to travel to six different worlds filled with distinct levels, bosses, and optional challenge stages to recover the ship parts and his pals. Right from the start, it’s clear that Astro Bot is committed to being an almost classical platformer. It isn’t aiming to turn an old-school genre into a Hollywood blockbuster, like Insomniac’s superhero-like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. It’s fully focused on exploring the good-natured joys of poking around a delightful digital world.
What elevates that beyond a bit of throwback nostalgia is that developer Team Asobi may be the most skilled studio working today when it comes down to game feel. Astro Bot plays like a dream thanks to its ultra precise movement. Part of its secret weapon is Astro’s hover jump, which lets him float in the air a bit longer before landing. That allows me to always land exactly where I want to. I never lose my momentum because of a mistimed jump and can usually recover if I misjudge a spinning platform’s trajectory. Basic combat is similarly pristine. In addition to a punch and spin attack, the jets from my boosters can fry enemies below me. That means that I rarely need to stop moving to take care of a few pesky bots. Platforming and fighting are one in the same.
With the basics on lock, Team Asobi lets players focus on Astro Bot’s wildly inventive level design. Each of the 80 or so stages is teeming with creative energy.
