Astro Bot review – Pure bottled joy for these dark times

It’s simple to lose pleasure as an grownup. With a backdrop of terrible international information, and persistently dour financial updates, staying constructive is a marathon effort. It’s a must to need to consider the world is best than it appears, and that finally, the whole lot shall be okay. In the event you’re seeking to encourage that perception, then Astro Bot is an efficient place to start out. As a result of for all intents and functions, this recreation is pure, unfettered pleasure.

Astro Bot cribs quite a bit from nostalgia, however is a beautiful, impactful platformer as standalone. There’s familiarity in its design – 5 worlds filled with particular person ranges, and funky collectibles to be discovered – however the creativity on this journey is immense at each flip. As Astro, you’ll flit throughout the celebs, defeating all method of creatures, all whereas encountering grand, spectacular sights dropped at life in vivid splashes of color and creativeness.

You’ll go swimming with dolphins, and chart terrifying volcano programs. You’ll enterprise right into a dream-like land the place gravity is a mere idea, and face down intergalactic threats in opposition to a backdrop of stars. It is sensible that Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot each seem as collectible bots on this recreation – regardless of their rights being owned by Microsoft – as Astro Bot remixes a number of the greatest concepts of those franchises right into a grander scale trendy format.

Increasing horizons in Astro Bot

It’s not simply eye-catching worlds that shock on this recreation. Astro Bot presents contemporary quirks with every new stage, introducing further mechanics (a rocket enhance, a large punch, a floatation machine, a time-stopper) to increase your horizons. It persistently asks you to rethink your method, presenting new and extra complicated environmental puzzles that power you to discover extra totally. There’s puzzle items and bots hiding in every stage, they usually require ever-more-clever pondering to uncover.

Dolphins leap by way of the air, and you may marvel at their ascent – however if you happen to suppose deeply, you’ll realise you have to cease time, and leap off their backs, to rescue a bot stranded on a far distant construction. A flower is slightly fairly, however it may additionally aid you nab a brand new puzzle piece, or escape the evil slimes of a close-by beastie. It’s these little options that outline Astro Bot – a recreation which inspires experimentation and evaluation as you chart lovely worlds of hazard and delight.

Learn: Nailing the Astro Bot aesthetic: An interview with Workforce Asobi’s Nicolas Doucet

There’s a beautiful sense of problem in finishing the whole lot it has to supply, however it’s additionally completely viable to take a seat again and breeze by way of every stage, and also you’ll nonetheless be glad with the whole lot you encounter. It’s a stunning recreation past its mechanics, with ranges stuffed with flowers, and clouds, and wonderful sights to ponder. Within the later phases, you’ll even unlock a particular digicam mode that allows you to seize your joys as you journey, making a digital scrapbook of your time with the sport.

It’s a neat contact, and provides to the bright-eyed, joyful sense of journey that defines the sport.

A touch of nostalgia

In fact, Astro Bot can also be distinctive for its corralling of dozens of famed online game franchises. Whereas the first motion revolves round exploration in pretty 3D worlds, you’ll additionally discover an array of easter eggs littered all through every stage, as there are “particular bots” to gather that are impressed by basic PlayStation characters.

What wasn’t spoiled by early advertising and marketing materials is that a lot of Astro Bot‘s particular tie-in characters are literally themed to sure ranges – so if you happen to enter a dream stage and all of a sudden end up greeting acquainted little creatures, you shouldn’t be stunned. Likewise, in its Japan-inspired ranges, you’ll discover faces from Ghost of Tsushima, and past. Sure characters additionally get their very own particular ranges – and one specifically is liable to trigger tears for many who bear in mind the sport greatest.

There’s an actual area of interest array of characters chosen for highlighting, which makes for a beautiful feeling of shock and appreciation when the most recent bot you stumble throughout is a forgotten favorite. (We nonetheless love you, Cole MacGrath.) There’s additionally loads of sudden crossovers, lent courtesy of an array of Sony’s largest companions.

The hunt to seek out your favorite characters pushes you alongside in Astro Bot, however not alone. It’s in a mixture of the sport’s wonderful platformer mechanics, its idyllic and various worlds, and its satisfying steadiness of enjoyable and problem that evokes fixed return.

It is a recreation designed with purity at its coronary heart. Actually, it’s the cutest product placement you’ll ever see. Whereas it’s a celebration of PlayStation as a model, and a pat on the again for years of excellent enterprise, it’s one which feels well-earned. It’s a nod to the numerous adventures that PlayStation has created and supported, and a beautiful tribute to many years of constructive reminiscences.

It evokes the enjoyment of childhood in its design, and retains these vivid, pleased emotions alive with its fixed sense of shock and delight. It’s simple to play the sport and really feel your cynicism washing away, as you do not forget that true pleasure exists on the planet. It’s not solely present in Astro Bot, however this recreation is actually begin for these soul looking.

5 stars: ★★★★★

Astro Bot
Platform(s): PlayStation 5
Developer: Workforce Asobi
Writer: Sony Interactive Leisure
Launch Date: 5 September 2024

_{A code for Astro Bot was supplied by the writer and performed for the needs of this overview. GamesHub opinions had been beforehand rated on a five-point scale. As of 29 July 2024, they’ve been rated on a ten-point scale.}