"...a platformer which never loses track of what gaming is fundamentally about... Having FUN!..."
PS5
HOW I PLAYED: Purchased a disc version and I got the Platinum Trophy. About 4 hours of my playtime was on my PS Portal.
STORY 16/20
INTRO
The game begins with a shortish cutscene of an alien bully ruining a perfectly good PS5 console spaceship thingy. The game then swiftly gets you into gameplay. Your goal is to fix the broken PS5 and save as many bots as you can along the way and finally dealing with the alien bully.
CUTSCENES
Cutscenes are well crafted and do not overstay their welcome. A lot are served perfectly for "fan service". Returning to a level you have completed and not being able to skip a cutscene however, is just annoying. Games should not force us to sit through these again and again if we don't want to.
WORLD BUILDING
The game is set in a fictional world where a lot of robot versions of PlayStation game characters have decided they want to be really excited about being saved by the main robot character. The worlds feel like cuddly and cute versions of the PlayStation games worlds the characters are from as you go to each one.
OVERALL STORY
The story is engaging enough to keep the player interested and understand what the goal is but I will say that the whole "rebuild the PS5 by finding all its main components scattered all over the galaxies", felt a tad lazy and a bit "we did this last time....". This is not meant to be just another "tech demo"? Right?
GRAPHICS - 15/15
CHARACTER MODELS
The models are extremely well detailed and top tier. Astro Bot has amazing art direction and does well to make all the PlayStation game Bots all fit in the game together cohesively, in a fun and visually impressive way.
ENVIRONMENTS
Extremely well detailed and the environments are vastly different throughout Astro Bot. Having not just a large array of biomes, but also having considerably different moods as well. My kids, for example, enjoyed the "spooky" levels with the ghosts, while I preferred the more upbeat levels.
SPECIAL FX
"Visual eye candy". Again, same as with the character models and environments we have a level of detail here that is achieved when skill, passion and team work combine to make a quality game.AUDIO - 15/15
AMBIENCE
Astro Bot nails the atmosphere in it's levels with its inspiring and appropriate music. This is partially due to the subtle sounds coming from the DualSense controller. (optional and can be turned off; of course)
BOSS MUSIC
Most bosses have their own music and the songs add suspense and a sense of urgency to the fights.
SOUND DESIGN
Each sound is so well done. Astro Bot walking across cut bamboo sounds so "real" and I even found myself appreciating the sound of Astro Bot being electrocuted while typing this part of the review as one of my kids was playing. Again, the DualSense being a lovely cherry on top here!PERFORMANCE - 10/10
FRAME RATE
There are no modes to change at all. But the game runs a locked 60fps, as reflected in our FPS test. See video below.
STABILITY
I had no crashes at all and no issues with stability. The game ran so well for me that I almost didn't bother with the frame rate test either. GAMEPLAY - 35/40
CONTROLS
Controls are intuitive, responsive and the DualSense has such great implementation here. I am not trying to overhype this controller but this game is utilising it so well. Thankfully, we didn't have to blow into the controller in this Astro game... Or maybe this should be seen as a step back?.. (Joking...) However, the camera is your enemy sometimes as I found myself fighting it for some areas and it made it hard to judge depth/where I was about to land. The camera tries too hard to go where it assumes you want it and this is not enjoyable.
PS Portal note: The input lag was noticeable in the harder ("challenge") levels. (no effect on score at all)
MECHANICS
Being a full game sequel to a "Tech Demo", free for all PS5 owners, I had high expectations for the games mechanics, again glad no more blowing into the controller though.... Most levels have an add-on pack that will need to be utilised to complete the level and each was quite fun to use. One level has you basically become Ant-Man, giving you the ability to go small as a mouse and back to normal size; instantly. This mechanic was one of my favourites, but all were quite fun to use.
PACING
The pacing of each level was great, with most levels taking around 10 minutes to complete. The challenge levels were mostly done in 1 minute and were simply side content, or for boosting your bot count.
UI/UE
The UI was extremely basic. There was no time when it felt like I needed more though. The menu was a bit minimal too. Being a game for kids and adults alike I do wish it was harder to reset a save file as I did hear from a friend that their child reset their game progress. (Yikes)
BOSS QUALITY
The bosses are well designed to all be quite unique and offer a good challenge without having too harsh of a difficulty spike at any point. Some boss battles granted you "lives" and this allowed the game to push the difficulty up a little more, while still being "forgiving". Great move by the developers.
ENEMY VARIETY
There are mostly the same few enemies used and reskinned for each level. But there are some more rare enemies that I saw and was like "Oh, I remember that one!". Astro Bot has a good amount of Enemy variety. Overall, there could of been some more aggressive or flying enemies with varied attacks. Even if it meant the heart system, from some of the boss fights, was needed throughout the whole game and simply revoked specifically for the challenge levels. But this would change the gameplay loop considerably, so I don't want to go down the rabbit hole too much and it is really just an idea for the developers for the next game.
GAMEPLAY VARIETY
With the add-on attachments granted in a lot of the levels, the levels were kept feeling fresh. But thinking of a game that Astro Bot reminded me of during my playtime: Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped on PlayStation 1, which I played many times as a kid. I will point out that you had levels where you rode a Jet Ski or a motorbike. Astro Bot did not really have any of these kinds of levels, but it did have weird tasks like cleaning the side of a PS5 plate and slotting in RAM into RAM slots. Not really my cup of tea, but I understand some kids and/or powerwash simulator fans will love this kind of thing.
REPLAYABILITY
The game gives reason to replay levels to collect all the Bots and Puzzle pieces (assuming you didn't clear them all in one run...). But other than that there is no speed running option or alternative modes to give the player a real incentive to replay any levels. I do suspect there will be small amounts of content like this added over time, but we review what we have at Based Game Reviews, not what is "possibly" coming. This being a kids targeted game though, it has some replayability for that crowd as the levels are upbeat and simple enough to keep kids going through a few times, or more, with large amounts of enjoyment.OVERALL - 91/100
INCREDIBLE
Astro Bot is a breath of fresh air as a lot of development studios seem to have forgotten what gaming is fundamentally about... Having FUN! More developers need to understand this. While Astro Bot is really catering to kids and more casual gamers, judging by the gameplay difficulty, there are some (optional) harder levels for gamers who want a bit more of a challenge.
TL;DR 91/100 (INCREDIBLE) - Astro Bot is a platformer which never loses track of what gaming is fundamentally about... Having FUN!
PICK UP ASTRO BOT HERE:
CHECK OUT OUR VIDEO REVIEW HERE
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