Astro Bot is definitely my Game of The Year! (sorry Suicide Squad)
I’ve heard some people say that it is giving them Mario Galaxy vibes and other people say it’ll be Playstation’s Mario 64. Even though the game has a space aesthetic where you travel to different galaxies, the Mario game Astro Bot reminds me the most of is Super Mario 3D World: a mostly linear 3D platformer where you go to reach the goal but there’s a few secrets and collectibles to find along the way. There’s also some tough platforming challenges in a void which reminded me of Mario Sunshine. Though this game is leagues more charming and fun than Mario 3D World imo.
Even though Astro’s Playroom was really great, this game definitely makes it feel like the tech demo it was. There’s just so much more here in Astro Bot: a ton of different level aesthetics, new powerups and items to utilize, and a ton of new enemy types (plus several of the common ones get reskins to match their aesthetics)! Just like Playroom, this game also utilizes the DualSense Haptic Feedback feature well, if only more PS5 games would! The game’s soundtrack has a ton of amazing new tracks, but they also reused/remixed several of the songs from Playroom. This didn’t bother me too much, but it was weird that in a space themed level they kept in the “SSD” vocals.
I love the collectible bots you find which are themed to various franchises! I can confirm that the game does feature Dante from the Devil May Cry series! Some of the bots are famous, some more obscure, and some were real surprises. I did not expect there to be a Crash Bandicoot bot since Microsoft owns Crash now. My favorite is the Claire Redfield one, who’s trying to open the heart door but doesn’t realize the heart key’s on the ground.
Some of the best levels are the bonus ones you get at the end of each world which are each themed around a Playstation Franchise: Ape Escape, God of War, Uncharted (my favorite level in the game, and sadly probably the biggest Uncharted-related thing we’ll get this console generation), LocoRoco (which I have never heard of before but now want to check out - the advertising worked!), and Horizon (which reminds me that I should really get around to playing Zero Dawn sometime) I do wish there were more than just 5, however.
Another huge highlight in the game are the boss encounters. Playroom just had the one boss at the end, but this game has 6 massive bosses and several more in the levels themselves (16 bosses total if I counted right?). They have a ton of personality and some very intense attack patterns. My favorite is Wako Tako the octopus (pictured below). One thing though is I wish there were more rematches against the bosses where you take on a harder form. They only did that for one boss.
The only big criticism I have with the game is the difficulty curve. The main levels with a ton of stuff to find were all pretty easy, and even the boss fights while fun did not give me too much trouble (maybe I’m just such a Pro Gamer). And with the secret challenge levels where you need to do a whole challenge with one life, they were either super easy or super tough, there wasn’t much middle ground. I thought the super secret final challenge was also easier than many of the earlier challenges too, a The Perfect Run it was not.
All in all the game is excellent and made me feel pure joy at several places (especially the section leading up to the final boss fight). If you have a PS5, get it! It was a plenty big game, but now I want even more! I do think we could see a few DLC worlds get made, if they took the time to add new stuff to Astro’s Playroom they can add to this game too! If not, then I look forward to Astro Bot 2!