Astro Bot begins with a PS5-shaped spaceship traveling the stars when its crew of 300 Bots suddenly encounters a mischievous alien who breaks the ship and scatters its pieces and crew across multiple galaxies. As players take control of Astro, they’ll work to repair the ship and rescue their crewmates. Environmental puzzles and exciting set pieces await players in Astro Bot’s dozens of stages that can take anywhere from a couple minutes to a quarter of an hour to complete. Fans of PlayStation history will be very tempted to spend more time on each stage thanks to the many nods to past franchises and moments.
Vibrant colors make me feel like I’m in a cartoon, but Team Asobi doesn’t flatten its environments or skimp on detail. In one level, I start by walking across swaths of bright green foliage. I feel the crunch of the grass between my metal feet and hear the sound from my DualSense’s speakers. Then I move on to a metallic checkerboard floor, where I hear my legs lightly click-clacking on the tiles. At some point during your playthrough, I recommend muting your TV and leaving your controller audio on.
The game on ps5 i’ve been waiting for since i got one basically… The switch has remained my most played platform after all these years because of the lack of games like this, for me the essense of gaming… [newline]Carefully jump onto the invisible platforms above the other sunken stones in the desert until you reach the other side (remember to use your booster dog). Open it and take the secret exit to unlock the High-Suction Hero level in the Lost Galaxy. Use the whistle (Triangle) to all call bots, then use Camera Mode (D-Pad Up) and move the camera around until you’ve found both explorers.
When we award the Polygon Recommends badge, it’s because we believe the recipient is uniquely thought-provoking, entertaining, inventive, or fun — and worth fitting into your schedule. If you want curated lists of our favorite media, check out What to Play and What to Watch. The Stranded Scout, Nightmare Guardian, Greedy Ape, and Pro Driver Cameo Bots will only be available at the Crash Site once players have unlocked them in Astro’s Playroom. @carlos82 Thanks for the heads up on that (King’s Canyon Christmas level in Kayak VR) – I’ll have to check it out.
All these power-ups combined with the varied level design make for a game that never runs short of ideas, and it’s brilliant. PS5 pack-in Astro’s Playroom was a taster dish, teasing players with a short but sweet experience; Astro Bot, then, is the full three-course meal. Once you’ve beaten all 10 of the Lost Galaxy levels (although it’s currently unclear if you also need to get the 100% completion gold flag on these levels as well), a present will appear in the middle of the nebula. Fly over and activate the present to enter the Final Encore level, which has five bots and two puzzle pieces — just like the rest of the Lost Galaxy levels. [newline]Team Asobi has announced that five new levels are coming to Astro Bot as weekly drops, starting on Feb. 13. (That’s today!) As with previous additions to the Game of the Year winner, the new levels are free to download — and, of course, each comes with a new Special Bot to rescue.
Astro Bot Latest News
Even better, Astro Bot’s soundtrack comes with many highlights. Its gimmick focuses on a day/night cycle, and the way Young composed it is genius. The day portion has music that’s a lot more jazzy, while the switch to nighttime sounds more like a lullaby. There are many touches like this throughout the game, but the best and most stellar music is reserved for the boss battles. For many players, part of the fun was discovering all of the cameo-inspired robots in Astro Bot. Thankfully, the DLC levels continue that element and Armored Hardcore is no exception.
I arrived at the end credits after nine hours but had only collected 206 out of a possible 301 bots on my journey. There’s plenty to do after the main levels are done, including finding the remainder of the crew, building out the rest of the hub base, and unearthing new secrets among the stars. There’s so much, in fact, that it took me another nine hours (so, 18 in total) to 100% Astro Bot and acquire the platinum trophy that comes with it. While I’d never say any of its main worlds ever approach being truly “difficult” in the pursuit of that 100% completion goal, some enemies or obstacles did take a few tries. Thankfully, checkpoints are often generously and frequently located, meaning you’re only ever moments away from the spot of your previous demise. The Sponge appears in the Bathhouse Battle stage of Astro Bot and has similar powers to the Elephant.
In Astro’s Playroom, the Puzzle Pieces found throughout will piece together murals in the PlayStation Labo. In Astro Bot, however, they’ll still put together a picture, but once it’s complete, it’ll spawn a new place to explore and others to customize both yourself, your Dual Speeder and the saved Bots around you. For example, you can get a Changing Room that keeps all the Outfits you get from the Gacha Machine for you to choose from. It’s pretty worthwhile and honestly a lot of fun to reap sweet rewards from your treasure hunting. While it may seem simple enough, there are a lot of things to do in the over fifty levels Astro Bot has to offer. Check every corner, hit every object or look below every platform and you may find a secret cord or passageway to a Puzzle Piece, Bot or even a Vortex to a secret world!
Astro Bot’s Next Step Seems Unclear
If you liked Playroom overall, though, you’ll definitely like this. I read the review, not worried about spoilers in a platformer, and I’m wondering how many of the different one off play mechanics felt gimmicky? I really like platforming but going back to Playroom I really hate that climbing gyro mechanic, doesn’t feel fluid or natural at all. My wife and I enjoyed It Takes Two but some of the one off I was glad to get rid of. My kid on the other hand hated how you kept learning new stuff only for it to be dropped and never return again, just like this review, and I was getting this for them for their birthday.
Speaking of the use of DualSense, the game uses all of the controller’s features to the max. It adds so much to the in-game experience that this game might actually be the perfect demo to showcase what a PS5 and DualSense can do. The use of adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, and gyro controls makes the game perfect for the console. gg88 can be found as you progress through Astro Bot, each one dressed as a character from PlayStation’s long history. There are hundreds of them to collect, appearing in each level of the game.
Astro recovers the CPU, but when he and his crew defeat Nebulax by blowing up the spaceship he is attached to, it creates a black hole that begins to suck Nebulax in. Nebulax grabs Astro to try to take him down with him, but the crew take hold of Astro to try to pull him back. Refusing to let the crew sacrifice themselves for him, Astro lets go of them and falls into the black hole, which explodes into a supernova. Simply put, Astro Bot is not just one of the best platformers I have ever played, it is a celebration of what makes both PlayStation and gaming at large great. The player can then take the bots collected back to a hub world of sorts known as the Crash Site. There they are given the chance to spend their hard-earned in-game currency on collectible set pieces for each of these gaming icons.
Like its predecessor, Astro Bot is a love letter to PlayStation–not just its current make-up, either, but its illustrious history. From first-party icons like Kratos and Ellie to third-party heroes tied to the hip with Sony’s gaming past, such as Lara Croft and Leon S. Kennedy. There are 195 hidden cameo characters in Astro Bot’s dozens of levels, and part of the fun is tracking them all down. They, like in Robots Rescue and Astro Bot Rescue Mission, are scattered across the game’s levels and have to be rescued by their captain. In the story of the game, the Alien returns (now named Space Bully Nebulax), and scatters the Bots across the galaxy by stealing their ship’s CPU, causing the ship to break down and eject the Bots from it.