Astro Bot

When we talk about party games, we often think of games that bring people together and create a great atmosphere. For me, Rock Band, for example, was synonymous with evenings with friends for many years. Astro Bot is a party game of a different kind. It doesn't make me want to gather my mates and crack open a beer, but every pixel is designed to instil a warm sense of frivolity and mischief. You can feel it in the bouncy soundtrack, the colourful graphics that are constantly in motion and, of course, the bringing together of a myriad of characters from PlayStation history that make it a great celebration of the brand and an excellent platformer in its own right.

Astro's path to stardom has been a winding one. In 2016, the diminutive robot made his debut in the minigame Robot Rescue, the highlight of The Playroom VR collection. The character and formula showed so much potential that Asobi was given the green light to develop a full game based on the concept. The result was Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, which was released in 2018 to excellent reviews - including a 9 from yours truly. However, it failed to make a wider breakthrough, mainly for the simple reason that as a PSVR exclusive, the game could only be played by a few. 2020's Astro's Playroom didn't have that problem, as it is pre-installed on all PlayStation 5 consoles, but as a glorified tech demo the excellent little game still left you wanting much more.

And now we get that. In a way, Astro Bot's simple title feels like a new year 0 in the Astro timeline, almost as if Asobi and Sony are telling us that this is the true beginning of what I think they hope will become the console mascot and focal point for the celebration of PlayStation. If it succeeds, well, good on them. Astro Bot revitalises the 3D platformer with a perfectly paced collection of levels that constantly surprise with new twists that take the simple core gameplay in exciting new directions.

At first glance, Astro Bot's family-friendly content and colourful graphics may seem like a big break from the story-driven blockbusters that Sony's internal studios have become synonymous with since PlayStation 3. Asobi's game is a welcome change from sad fathers, violent young women and code-breaking samurai, but behind the colours lies a bombastic 3D platformer with spectacular set pieces that would fit right in with Uncharted or God of War.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the six boss battles that serve as the climax of the galaxies the game is divided into. There are both old favourites and brand new enemies, but what they all have in common is their stunning visuals and varied battle designs. Most of the battles evolve along the way, for example, forcing you to move from one battle arena to another. This, combined with the varied attack patterns of the bosses, gives the battles a wonderful dynamic quality, backed up by fabulous animation and camera work that sells the comedy brilliantly. The way you get shot out of a cannon and almost knock out the giant bird Falcon McFly, for example, is a costly introduction to the dynamic showdown that takes place entirely at high speed far above the ground.

Each boss is also built around one of the handful of special abilities, which this time around are given much more room to be explored. Where their use in Astro's Playroom was promising but ultimately too shallow, here they live up to Nintendo's design philosophy of introducing, expanding and distorting to surprise. The metal ball starts off as a way to roll over spikes, before you realise that it naturally doubles as a shield against bullet-spitting enemies. Just when you think defence is its only function, Asobi introduces sequences where tilting the DualSense controller will have you rolling through a 2D maze - just one of several delightful uses of its motion control feature.

Other abilities such as the time-slowing VR goggles are more one-dimensional, but nonetheless hugely satisfying when, for example, you turn flying high-speed cars into usable platforms instead of the death traps they otherwise are. And then there are those that are mainly just fun to use offensively, such as the frog gloves that turn Astro into the robot equivalent of Mike Tyson, or the dog jet pack that lets you smash through enemies and walls.

The bombastic set pieces and suits are the secret ingredients that enhance the experience, but it's the rock solid core that allows the game to shine. There are more mechanically complex platformers on the market, but Astro Bot's strength lies in its execution. As connoisseurs of the series are used to, Astro is controlled in its basic form with just two buttons. One to jump and one to punch. The former makes Astro float with an extra push, while the latter, depending on the context, can also be used to pull things. No, it's really not complex, but it just feels absolutely perfect, and when you miss a jump or get hit by an enemy, it crucially only feels like your fault and not the controller's.

This mechanical minimalism is equally well executed. Whether Astro is rescuing his friends on tropical beaches, among gleaming skyscrapers or old, haunted houses, the razor-sharp graphics shine with their clean lines and broad yet tasteful colour palette. In addition, there's a sense of movement in the tracks in the form of thousands of fallen apples or snowdrifts you can clear to find secrets, adding to the sense of life and joy that Astro Bot so exemplarily instils. As does the infectious soundtrack. It's not often that I find myself softly humming along while tapping my foot, but it happened here - and quite often. Special praise must also be given to the sound design related to the effects that come out of the DualSense controller. Often these annoy me to no end, but here they contribute to the incredibly immersive and tactile utilisation of the controller. DualSense seemed so promising years ago, but it's as if its special features like haptic feedback have been forgotten. Here they shine. Asobi is really just building on the combination of speaker use and rumble that they did so brilliantly in Astro's Playroom, but here everything is just that bit sharper.

Structurally, Asobi doesn't reinvent the wheel, but sticks to what works. The game is divided into a series of galaxies, consisting of a mix of mandatory and optional levels. The former are the classic and more extensive ones, where the aim is to reach the end of the road and rescue as many of the distressed robots as possible along the way. Other collectibles like puzzle pieces and coins that can be used in the game hub (more on that later) and portals to secret paths make exploring the corners of the levels a pleasure, but it never gets out of hand as the genre tended to do in its heyday. The levels are typically modelled on Super Mario 3D World's design philosophy with a linear design where the corners hold all kinds of secrets, but there is also room for more open areas where Asobi experiments with a more sandbox-like design. The optional levels are shorter, but also more challenging and test you in the use of special skills or techniques.

The idea of dividing the game into separate galaxies makes sense thematically, but I wish Asobi would have been a little more strict with the thematisation of the levels. Each galaxy has a colourful mix of visually different paths instead of the biome approach used in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, for example. You could argue that galaxies are diverse, but I would have preferred a little more connective tissue that held it all together and gave the individual galaxies their very own identity in addition to the boss that symbolises it visually and waits at the end of the road.

An interesting gathering point is the game's hub, a desert planet where you can open vending machines that let you buy different things with the coins you collect along the way. This is also where all the robots you rescue are sent, and in true Pikmin fashion, you can use them to open up new parts of the planet. Seeing Kratos standing on the shoulders of Daxter while carrying Nathan Drake so they can make a robot rope for you to climb is simply an experience I didn't have on my bingo card, but I am grateful for nonetheless.

And now that we've opened the PlayStation bag, it's appropriate to confirm that Astro Bot takes the celebration of the PlayStation brand and its wider ecosystem that Astro's Playroom began and flies to the stars with it. You rescue game characters in bot form and fly around on a DualSense with the larger goal of repairing the mothership which is of course, yes you guessed it, a PlayStation 5 console. But the big attraction is a handful of character paths that take shape visually and gameplay-wise after a series of PlayStation IPs. I won't spoil anything other than the fact that they're absolutely marvellous, and thankfully there's room for more than just the big guns. More of them Asobi, please!

While the celebration of PlayStation as a brand sometimes threatens to get out of hand and undermine Astro Bot's own identity, it's also wonderfully nostalgic to see the characters and series I've followed since the late 90s come together in one game. And Astro Bot is a far better platform for this celebration than PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale ever was.

At the end of the day, however, Astro Bot is especially worth celebrating for its own unique qualities. It's something as rare as a AAA 3D platformer that doesn't come with Mario at the forefront. And not only that. Astro Bot is an exceptionally successful game in its own right, injecting pure happiness into your body over its 10-15 hours. It's exactly what Sony's console needs right now with its brightly coloured exterior, sharp controls and simple yet varied gameplay. The course for the stars is set, and I'm sure Astro will make it to the top.