Astro Bot Review
BOTY - Bot of the Year
There’s surprisingly little to say about Astro Bot, but more to say about what it represents and its place within gaming in 2024. There are multiple discussions surrounding the game and two kinds of people. Some people will love the game and appreciate the charm of a simpler time for gaming. Others will see the game as a soulless graveyard for IPs that haven’t been touched for literal decades. The thing is, both are right, but I think people in the graveyard camp are viewing it is a negative just to be cynical rather than being realistic as to WHY these franchises are dead. This is a situation where you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
The premise of Astro Bot is simple. You play as the mascot of the PS5 flying a spaceship with hundreds of similar looking bots. A green evil alien shows up and destroys the ship. You must rescue the stranded bots and piece back together your ship to save the day. Some of the bots look generic while others are dressed up as a variety of mascots exclusive to the PlayStation brand (or once were), like Jak and Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, PaRappa the Rapper, Aloy, and more.
The game plays like a traditional puzzle platformer with numerous levels filled with secret areas and branching paths. Every region has a dedicated boss, and a level specifically themed around a PlayStation franchise that unlocks after defeating the boss. Astro Bot’s gameplay loop is rather addictive since the levels are short but full. They are also easy to revisit thanks to almost nonexistent load times.
Astro Bot’s Playroom was underrated, and it served as a reminder that game developers are not using the hardware to it’s best potential. In true sequel fashion, Astro Bot continues the trend showcasing how interactive the DualSense controller is. Multiple puzzles feature haptic feedback for vibration and triggers, use of the in-controller microphone, and the speaker. It almost ruins other games for you because it makes you wish these features were in more games outside of using a bow and arrow in Horizon Forbidden West. I understand it is hard to develop for but if your game is going to be a PS5 exclusive it should use the full range of features the console has. After all, we pay $500 for them.
It is very easy for us to get pessimistic about games releasing these days. Money doesn’t go as far as it used to, and game publishers are getting more and more greedy every year. It is easy to get caught up in the unfinished slop that Ubisoft or Bethesda releases, but we have had some of the best years for gaming lately. However, gaming now does feel as though it has lost of some the luster it once had. Nostalgia is a big money maker, and it is very easy to do it poorly (I am looking at you Disney/Marvel). The main discourse surrounding Astro Bot is that the mascot characters serve as a three-part Venn Diagram, Nostalgia Bait, Appreciation, and Graveyard. (Click the image to read the notes)
I find when people attempt to criticize Astro Bot using “Nostalgia Bait” (as one Backloggd reviewer put it, “gamers soyjacking over their favorite unknown character”), it is a shallow criticism. PlayStation has a legacy, and this game functions to acknowledge that legacy. If the game was purely original characters, it wouldn’t have sold like it did, and it certainly would lack the charm. Yes, it uses nostalgia, but the game’s identity is designed around it, from the gameplay to the story to the visuals. The nostalgia in Astro Bot is not a negative. It is a positive, and a good selling point.
The next circle is Appreciation. While Sony PlayStation does not appreciate the legacy characters, the game and developers clearly do. There is an appreciation for gaming and its history in Astro Bot. It is right in the gameplay. This is enhanced by including the mascot characters. But Astro Bot plays like a classic. I miss the whimsy that gaming once had. The medium has evolved beyond the need for whimsy, but gaming feels so serious sometimes. That’s why I loved playing Astro Bot so much. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good story. Recent games like God of War Ragnarok, Elden Ring are all great, but they take themselves seriously as games. It is not a bad thing. I just like how different Astro Bot is in the current gaming landscape.
The final circle is calling Astro Bot a “Graveyard” for these characters. Which again, is not inherently a bad thing. But in the context of criticism, it is. A graveyard is a place for us to remember. There’s nothing wrong in using Astro Bot as an “In Memorium”. The common franchises that gamers are saying PlayStation has “done nothing with” are, Sly Cooper/inFamous (SuckerPunch), Jak and Daxter/Uncharted (Naughty Dog), and Rachet and Clank/Spyro (Insomniac Games). All these developers have been making new games and new IPs for the last 10 years, some of which ARE ALSO IN ASTRO BOT. SuckerPunch was making Ghost of Tsushima (Now Ghost of Yotei), Naughty Dog has gone all in on The Last of Us, Insomniac Games has been making Spider-Man and now the Wolverine game. When do these companies have the time and manpower to also make new additions to old franchises? We already have too much reliance on nostalgia in our media and have been begging industries like Hollywood to stop making sequels. (Bloodborne fans need to move on).
Games like Astro Bot are perfect for this kind of thing and that’s why I think the game works so well. In any other way it’d feel like a gimmick, but the “VIP Bots” feel like they belong within the framework.
This game has bright and beautiful visuals with incredible sound design. There’s a healthy amount of challenge and the game’s pacing is surprisingly well done thanks to the easy to revisit, small levels. Astro Bot is truly a love letter to traditional gaming that is no longer part of the culture. I have found that younger gamers are much more negative about Astro Bot. While people in their late 20’s and mid 30’s, like me, have gotten to see gaming evolve from the things like the Game Boy or N64 to what it is now. Astro Bot reminded me of that Golden Age of gaming when every new console release felt like an upgrade. It felt new and was genuinely innovative. Gaming now has started to stagnate.
As of right now, if I was to name a GOTY, I would say Astro Bot deserves it. These developers made a mascot platformer in 2024 when Nintendo has completely perfected and dominated the market for literal generations. And they managed to make it unique and function without add-ons. It is a standout game in the way a GOTY should be. I highly recommend every PS5 owner get this game.