Critics have praised its charming aesthetics and the seamless gameplay mechanics, but some note the occasional repetitive elements. Despite minor flaws, it stands out as one of PlayStation’s finest platformers, with many calling it a Game of the Year contender. Astro is revived by his Dual Speeder, a smaller spaceship resembling the DualSense controller, and together they begin reactivating satellites and exploring galaxies to rescue the crew and rebuild the mothership.

While some of these are repeated, these same gimmicks are mixed with more interesting overall level designs to keep things fresh. Everything looks aesthetically pleasing and fits right in the game’s world, not to mention the amazing Astro bot designs that reference numerous older IPs. Each of these designs is distinct and instantly recognizable from the characters they represent, which is amazing knowing that they’re only limited to a robotic mascot. In luck8 to this, the animations of the game are also works of art.

The Great Master Challenge can only be accessed once players have found every Puzzle Piece in the game and rescued 300 Bots. Astro Bot’s win for Best Family Game is probably the least surprising of the bunch. Put simply, just about anyone can appreciate Astro Bot’s strengths, not just seasoned gamers or astute, wizened audiences. “Each level comes with a brand new Special Bot to rescue and, once that’s done, can be replayed in Time Attack mode with online rankings.”

The controller features a white and blue trim that perfectly matches the Dual Speeder in-game, as well as a smiling set of eyes on the touchpad. The game also crashed on me twice, both times erasing more progress than I’d have expected since I assumed it auto-saves after each level, but I’d lost about three or four levels of progress in both instances. However, I admit these crashes came at the end of my long 11-hour session with the game on my first day with it, so maybe it was an issue Team Asobi will address. Still, the hard crash backpedaling on my saved data was strange and somewhat soured what was a marathon of smiles for about 10 hours of that day.

Since its release, Astro Bot has received several free updates that greatly expand on its content. First, there was a series of five speedrunning levels between October and November, challenging players to complete their trials as quickly and efficiently as possible. More recently, this was followed by Astro Bot’s Winter Wonder update, a free, Christmas-themed level with plenty of fun holiday surprises for players to discover. It’s not that the powers are cool, that it’s fun to blow into your controller, or that you get to meet Aloy.

Astro Bot is a certified Game of the Year contender as our own review painted it as one of Sony’s best first-party exclusives in years. This review of Astro Bot was facilitated with a code provided by the game’s publisher. As of now, Sony does not have a PlayStation 6 on the horizon, nor does it seem to have any other major new hardware coming soon.

Thankfully, the DLC levels continue that element and Armored Hardcore is no exception. The Vicious Void Galaxy DLC has added the likes of Jade from Beyond Good & Evil and Heihachi Mishima from the Tekken franchise to name a few. Inside Armored Hardcore, players can rescue Ezio Auditore, a master assassin representing Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise. After announcing the news back in February, the DLC levels for Vicious Void Galaxy are now all available. As part of Update 1.016, the game has added a new level called Armored Hardcore, which focuses on Astro Bot’s Iron Suit ability.

Astro Bot’s Awards

This made me wonder just how many levels there actually are in the game. The amount of collectibles and secrets there are to discover is also staggering; it’s enough to keep you playing for hours on end and keeps achievement hunters busy. Lastly, the game even has a ton of gameplay callbacks to their older IPs which pulls the nostalgia strings perfectly. Astro Bot is, without a shadow of a doubt, this year’s best platforming game. Hell, it could even be a contender for Game of the Year (GOTY) because of how complete the game is as a whole package.

As for the audiovisual aspect, this is where Team Asobi has truly outdone itself, delivering a somewhat candy-colored but beautiful graphic design, with each planet offering a unique visual style. Familiar pop culture motifs frequently appear in the game, but they never feel repetitive, always introducing something new and fresh. The music, while occasionally repetitive, can also pleasantly surprise at times. One level even features a singing tree, and its song is something I’ll be humming for a long time.

Sony Aibo (retro) – Real Life Companion Robot

Astro Bot confidently shows us that we don’t need to abandon that thinking just because tech has changed and the industry has grown. There’s still room for an expertly designed collect-a-thon platformer that’s filled with love and wonder. Plenty of stages require patience, awareness and a high degree of platforming skill, though resets are generous and failure doesn’t cost anything other than your time. Completionists will have a great time with this one — there are so many secret passages and hidden bots to find, most of them cleverly tucked away and easily missed unless you’re actively looking for them.

That, in a nutshell, is what the first minutes of the game look like. There’s nothing beyond familiar forms and frameworks, yet it still manages to bring a smile to our faces. There’s not much to say about Astro Bot’s plot; it serves as a simple introduction, giving the player a reason to rescue bots in need and search for console-ship components to continue the journey through the vast cosmos. What truly sets Astro Bot apart from the competition, however, is the gameplay.

That focus on variety also applies to the game’s visuals and aesthetics, with the game painting a huge swath of memorable locations — from ghoulishly haunted mansions to arid desert settlements and vast space stations. The simplest way to describe Astro Bot is honestly to compare it to Mario, as it employs a similar kind of “world” structure. There are six themed galaxies you’ll explore, each of which is filled with a handful of main story worlds, hidden extra levels and challenges, a boss battle, and a final world themed after a prominent PlayStation franchise. The series began with 2018’s Astro Bot Rescue Mission, a title for Sony’s PlayStation VR headset. It was followed by 2020’s Astro’s Playroom, a free pre-installed launch title for the PlayStation 5. The series’ first retail, traditional title, simply titled Astro Bot, released on September 6th, 2024.

After completing a level, restart and you’ll spot a small birdhouse near the start of the level. Smash the glass casing on the birdhouse and pull the cord to get a bird companion who will point you towards any missed collectibles, including bots, puzzle pieces, and portals. It will cost a one-time fee of 200 coins per level, but it’s well worth it. Once you’ve paid the 200 coins, you can restart the level and summon the bird as many times as you want for free. In tandem with expert level design are the game’s diverse and exciting mechanics.

But where the real brilliance of Astro Bot becomes apparent is in the worlds themselves, which constantly add unique features, gimmicks, and mechanics, but integrally those all build off those core foundations of gameplay. In one, you hit switches that change the level between night and day, changing the entire layout at the same time. In another, you shrink into a tiny mouse, seeing things from a whole new perspective and opening up wild new solutions to puzzles.

Balan wasn’t great but each suit even for 80 to me went yeah I can sense each has a fair purpose even if not implemented well of the use cases, it still has a use. Like Rayman 3 did with it’s suits which is why I bought Balan, I still got my fun out of it besides how bad it is for sure. But I think this all the time with videos I watch/games I play/research and end up with large comments like this.