Astro Bot emphatically proves that Nintendo hasn’t cornered every good idea in the oft-neglected 3D platformer genre. This joyous adventure is platforming nirvana, boasting inventive stage design, a gorgeous presentation, and perfectly tuned controls. Developer Team Asobi has crafted the PS5’s best exclusive to date, successfully showcasing the platform’s capabilities while raising the bar for its contemporaries.
The little bot’s previous strong outings, Rescue Mission and Playroom, feel like dress rehearsals building up to this exuberant third act. Leaping through dozens of eye-popping worlds never fails to make us smile, and traversal feels as good as it looks thanks to the effective and playful use of the DualSense’s haptic feedback features. Every stage offers a cool hook or surprise, whether we’re stomping around as a water-soaked kaiju sponge or playing an abridged reimagining of a beloved PlayStation title. Whenever we think Astro Bot could peter out of ideas, it lobs another neat twist on its mechanics, making it feel like a bottomless well of creativity.
Though it achieved this before, it remains impressive how Astro Bot’s interactive tour through PlayStation’s history feels like an endearing celebration rather than a commercial. An impressively deep roster of cameo bots representing a multitude of game franchises, iconic and forgotten, offers the perfect reward for completing a fun platforming gauntlet. Everything about Astro Bot feels expertly tuned to deliver maximum entertainment at the highest quality, and sometimes a superb video game just needs to be unabashedly fun. We can confidently say that no title this year kept a smile plastered to our faces more than Astro Bot.
