Sony will likely give us a fantastic new platformer. And it looks like a love letter to the classic platformers fans.
Lately we got a trailer for the upcoming platforming game from Sony, Astro Bot. The trailer was a part of the Playstation State of Play presentation. And it was the one that had my jaw on the ground. I’m a sucker for a good platformer, and Astro Bot trailer seems like a promise of a fantastic game. We also already have first gameplay videos and analysis from various YouTubers. Let’s break it all down.
There’s a lot to talk about with the new game from Team ASOBI, a Tokyo based developer. The japanese game developers really get how to make a great game. It shows with awesome titles from Japan each year. This time we will see a platformer, that promises a throwback to the great old days of games from past Playstation and Nintendo consoles, but with a modern setting, mechanics, graphics etc.
Let’s break it all down to specific elements I want to cover.
Main character – Astro
First of all. The main event will ofcourse be the protagonist of the new game. First time I saw Astro in Astro’s Playroom I fell in love with the character and the setting immidiately. It was craftsmenship worthy of a place next to the best platformers ever made. And it was just a presentation of the Dualsense controller.
Astro is a very likeable character from the very first moment you get to play as him. He seems a bit like a throwback to the early 2000s designs, at least for me. And it would make sense, since Astro Bot looks like a throwback to the classic titles from that era. As a guy in my early 30s, I’m on board.
Aside from the design, Astro’s personality is what shines the most for me. He’s cute and puts a smile on your face with his little quirkiness. The animations showing on his face and sounds he makes, it’s all spot on.
Mechanics
There’s no great platformer without great gameplay. Astro Bot features fantastic controls and awesome gameplay mechanics and features. This is where I see resemblence to newer titles from Nintendo, like Super Mario Odyssey and Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Astro has plenty of different abilities, like getting big by soaking water like a sponge, slowing time, shooting stuff with different weapons, having sticky boxing gloves for fighting and moving around and much more. While it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, it seems the developers put a lot of attention to the details, so you have as much fun as possible when playing as Astro.
There are around 50 planets you discover in the game, each with its own personality, hopefully. After all, we only saw a glimpse of what’s to happen. But from what we saw already, it looks like a lot of fun.
Other thing that caught my attension is a whole palette of different playstation cameos. We can spot characters resembling Ratchet (Ratchet & Clank), Kratos (God of War), Aloy (Horizon), Nathan Drake (Uncharted) and many, many more. It’s like a celebration of everything Playstation.
Not only characters make an appearance, the console and the controller themselves are here too. You get to different planets flying a small ship, which looks exactly like the Dualsense controller.
Last thing is the haptics. I think too many developers neglect how fun the haptics of the Dualsense can be. Exactly like it is with the Joycons and Pro Controller from Nintendo. When I played Astro’s Playroom, the haptics were the essential element that made it so much fun. Well, it was the controller’s capabilities presentetion after all. From what we’ve heard from Digital Foundry on YouTube, for example, it seems the developers are implementing the haptics big time in this game too.
Planets and enemies
Like I said. There will be around 50 planets to discover in Astro Bot, each with plenty of adversaries to fight I assume. The design of both the world and the enemies brings back memories of older platforming titles, especially Kirby, for me. The planets are very colorful and the developer takes the advantage of all the power PS5 brings to the table. That makes the world and characters stand out.
There will be plenty of NPCs and opponents, each with their own characteristics, mechanics and ways to intreact with or defeat. In this regard, I see a lot of Mario in this game. I’m comparing this title to Nintendo games much, but don’t see it as a bad thing. Team ASOBI takes the best ideas from the best platforming developers in the world. Nothing wrong with being inspired and going your own way.
The bosses are extremely exciting too. Each seems to be unique both in design and ways to defeat them. You will fight on the ground, in the water, in the air and in outer space. Hopefully the devs found the right balance between fun and challenge for players of all ages to enjoy beating the boss fights.
Audio and visuals
Lastly, let’s cover the audio, music and the graphics of Astro Bot. In short, it’s all awesome. The trailer music theme still rings in my head from time to time. The sounds both Astro and any other character make is a music to your ears. I see (hear, hehe) great attention to detail here.
In terms of graphical performance of the game, it’s going to hold steady 60 FPS through the whole adventure, according to people who had the chance to play the demo of the game already. There’s plenty of great designs, the animations are insane. There’s fluid simulations, fire simulations and many more things that show you what the PS5 is still able to show.
The artstyle is unique, like I already said. Like a good mix of the old and the new in the platforming genre. I’d love to see more games looking like this in the future.
This game is going to be the showcase of the PS5 capabilities for sure. Both in graphics and sound.
Summary
As you can tell, I’m very excited for Astro Bot. And I don’t think I’ll be dissapointed. From what we’ve seen so far, this title could be a system seller, not kidding. We got plenty of serious games on both Playstation and Xbox. Time for some classic Nintendo charm to make its way to the Playstation again. I wish for this game to be extremely succesfull and spawning a whole series of great platforming games.
