Astro Bot is basically Astro’s Playroom 2: Now With More Game. As quick refresher, Playroom was the PS5 Pack-in Propaganda Piece, it consisted of 4 worlds / 4 levels-per-world, each themed after one of the exciting new features of the PS5 (Like COOLING! Not a Joke!), with each world featuring a new gimmick “suit” for Astro to show off the thrilling gimmick input modes ONLY possible with the DualShock®™ 5® Controller™ which will then never be used by any developers ever again.

Astro Bot is the sequel, so it’s that, but blown up to be something Sony could charge $50 for with a relatively clean conscience.

Basically everything in Astro Bot is an upgrade from the previous edition except for the visuals, which already effectively peaked in Astro’s Playroom. (They’re still really really good, I just think they physically can’t get any perceptibly better.) It’s up from 4 worlds to 6 galaxies and a hub world. Each Galaxy has 6-10 normal levels, plus most Galaxies have an assortment of “mini” no-checkpoint levels vaguely reminiscent of a 3D Mario “puzzle” level, like a FLOOD-less level in Sunshine or a sub-area moon in Odyssey… but the key is you still have all your movement kit, there’s just no checkpoints so it’s slightly less breezy. Each galaxy starts with a tree of levels that slowly opens up as you complete them, then a boss, then a special game-themed level where you get the Iconic Abilities of a specific PlayStation Franchise Protagonist whose world you’re thrown into.

Same as Astro’s Playroom, a big focus of the game is on bots and PlayStation franchise references. In Playroom they were just sort of there, existing as a set-dressing. Now they’re the game’s core collectable, there’s 300 plus one strewn across these levels, usually 4-10 per level, with a mix of them being “normal” bots and “VIP” bots in franchise tie-in costumes. Every level also has 2-4 puzzle pieces to find like the original, but thankfully they’re not tied to specific puzzles anymore, they just arbitrarily fill up whatever the next puzzle is to unlock the next bonus room at the hub world.

Astro Bot’s power-up gimmicks are also mercifully less fiddly and gimmicky, and (unsurprisingly) there’s more of them. Basically all of the power-ups in the previous game were shameless tech demos to shoehorn in some sub-waggle garbage-tier input method. Some of these things carried over, like the Monkey Arms are back, but instead of the entire Monkey-Arm-Experience being “waggle the controller back and forth to climb a wall”, now when it’s time for Monkey Arms you get them for the whole level, and you get a unique attack for them, a special attack (throwing balls), and yes can still have to use them to climb walls. All the power-ups are built to this standard, and unlike the previous game none of them suck out loud, the only letdown is the Armadillo Friend who is similar but legally distinct to the Ball Mode.

Another point of high praise I have for Astro Bot is that it respects your time pretty well. None of the levels overstay their welcomes. They’re all reasonable lengths and have checkpoints all over the place. There’s no filler in the game, and to get all the Trophies – even the one that requires you to get most of the stuff out of the gatcha machine – I never had to farm for coins. If you do all the levels and take your time to find all the bots you’ll just end up with enough coins to naturally get all the stuff you need. I beat the game with all levels, all puzzle pieces, all bots, all trophies, and 150 of the gatcha stuff in 15 hours. I expect averages to be in the 10-20hr range depending on how thoroughly you wring gaming content out of it

As a platformer / collectathon, it’s fine-to-good. It’s competent. The difficulty spectrum or depth is nowhere near that of a 3D Mario, but it’s fine. Better to use a light-touch than be an overbearing mess with 30 distinct types of collectables.

As a PlayStation 5 tech demo it’s still excellent. Other games push the PS5 plenty, but Team Asobi have really nailed how to use everything you can make the PS5 do in such a way that you notice that what they’re doing is impressive, but it doesn’t beat you over the head with it. Even the “basic” graphical and physics-modeling stuff is so insanely over-done that they consistently make it immensely clear that this game is doing outright stupid things for fun because they can. If they’re going to throw some shiny physics-interactable gems with 23 quintillion polygons in a room, they’re not going to put down a couple, they’re going to hold the “SPAWN GEM” button down for 5 minutes and completely fill it to the bursting point, and then they let you gleefully flail around in those piles of gems sending them flying in all directions.

As PlayStation propaganda it’s good but it’s getting a bit old. They really need to figure out how to branch out to something else if they do another one of these.

Thankfully, Sony are only asking $50 for this, rather than their usual $70, and at that price point, if you enjoyed Playroom, go for it. If you didn’t play Playroom, and have a PS5, go play that first, there’s even an in-game tie-in where it transitions directly to Astro Bot. It’s good, I Highly Recommend it, but it’s not a system seller or on my short-list for Game of the Year.

Kiddo’s Mini-Review⌗

Kiddo watched me play through the whole game, and has finished the first couple galaxies himself so far. He liked it, but it’s hard to find games he doesn’t like. He didn’t specifically mention it in our retrospective discussion of the game, but one thing I noticed he absolutely couldn’t get enough of was the waggling.

Waggle truly is unironically the official input mode for children just as we all derisively claimed 17 years ago, and it’s all over the game. He was most enthralled by the ability to open the “hatch” on your in-game DualShock 5 and see all the bots you’ve collected for the level, and if you flip the controller up you’ll bounce them all into the air. Every level he’d get halfway through and then hit pause to sit there and do that over and over.

Anyway, his Micro-Review is as follows:

  • Astro Bot is a really fun game that I liked a lot.
  • Favorite Bot: All of them. But especially Parappa, Chop Chop Master Onion and The Prince of All Cosmos.
  • Favorite Level: The lead-up to the Final Boss, and also the Gorilla Galaxy and the Bird Galaxy.
  • Favorite Boss: The Gorilla
  • Highly Recommended but only if you are in The Sony Fandom.
    • I promise this was a direct quote I did not coach him on whatsoever.
    • He is 6 and said the Sony Fandom.