I went into Astro feeling a little cynical about it, it's very easy to if you're a fan of older PS games but I found that cynicism melting away super fast almost the moment I actually played it and started to see that while yeah it *is* an IP graveyard of games I like a lot more than PS's recent output, it's also a lot of fun, made with tons of love by people who also genuinely care about these games and it also makes good on a great foundation started by Astro's playroom, the free game pre-installed on your PS5, it's not quite the GOTY for me that it is for a lot of people, but I can absolutely see why it would be.

okay so the references, i actually like these a lot, sure there are times where it can be super overbearing like with some of the dlc ones (like having 4 helldivers or having both spidermen who don't feel like they fit at all) and how the hero levels overload you with characters from one IP to the point it can feel a little ad'y, but honestly i do still love it, it's no different to something like smashbro's to me and i think people who get mad at this but unquestionably love smash are missing the point a little, it's a game in love with video games, mostly sony games sure but there are *tons* of third party characters here, almost as many even and to me it just feels nice to see this much love and recognition for the things i love in a game as well received as this, i like video games and i don't think i'm cynical enough to not fall in love with this aspect, like it has reiko Nagase and robbit, you can't hate that. i mean yeah, there are elephants in the room, many studios whos work are referenced here are shut down, some by sony themselves, places like Japan studio and London studio, the latter of which shutdown around the time the game came out and most of the IP's here are long since dead, leaving the game feeling like a graveyard for some of the best games ever made, but in a way i don't mind that, it's a swan song for them to get one last shoutout in an era that tends to want to forget about them, would i rather have these studios and games back? yeah of course i mean i'd sacrifice my own blood for a new jumping flash game, but if it came down to "nothing" and "a loving shoutout", i don't see anything wrong with the latter, sometimes it's fun to just see the thing you like and this game has tons of things i like.

tons of resi cameos, dante, characters from games like dark cloud 2, rogue galaxy, wild arms, arc the lad, alundra,, okami, intelligent qube, puppeteer, multiple for gravity rush, ape escape, locoroco, tomba, G E X, games like concrete genie, the infamous games, several persona cameo's, some really lovely team ico cameo's (you can even get an ico costume that i used for most of the game), best boy Kazuma kiryu gets a spotlight as does other bestboy raiden, though sadly his much worse rising design instead of his best design from MGS2, the prince from katamari, lara croft from tomb raider, the mc from suikoden 2, dart from legend of dragoon, samanosuke from onimusha, William from nioh and even a shibito from siren (might be my other favourite one), even things you never would have expected to show up like boku no natsuyasumi, singstar, Tokyo jungle, mister mosquito and tearaway, even KNACK *AND* jak are here and this isn't anywhere near all of them, just some of my favourites, i don't know, i like it, makes me happy and that's the games aim, so i think it did its job well there even if its not going to be something that appeals to everyone and even if most of the playerbase won't know even a quarter of those names.

there's tons of fun levels, cool ruins full of things to find and puzzles (using the duelsense rumble to find tiles to push), construction sites that have you use magnets to make projectiles of Debre and that have you platforming with a jetpack, one that has you freeing a giant in a non-linier level as you break his chains and it does a really cool thing where it starts out stormy and rainy but after you free him it becomes bright and sunny! one of the coolest has you using the mouse suit, which lets you shrink super small and the level has you changing between the two sizes to find stuff and progress, it's great! there's the level with the tree you need to make grow where it then opens up the whole level to inside the tree (and gives you one of the games coolest power ups with the vacuum that lets you make your own platforms), the casino level has an amazing slow motion gimmick that makes it maybe my favourite normal level in the whole game, it has my favourite enemy type which is a card dealer that throws cards at you and you need to slow down time to jump on the cards to hit him, it's so good. there's an onsen level that has you turn into a sponge to absorb water and go big which has some really cool puzzles to it with how you spray water when you grow and shrink, like making sponge platforms bigger or making plants grow. there is a cool magma level where you get a mario sunshine style water sprayer where you have to cool the lava to make platforms which is another big standout. there's cool ruin levels full of traps and later on you get a really cool desert city to explore full of stuff to find that eventually transitions into a more linier one after you free a genie and you have to traverse a tornado, jumping on Debre to reach him.

there's some cool voxel art pixel levels that actually work the voxels well into the gameplay, with you needing to take chunks out of the enemy sprite with attacks which is really cool. there's levels with cool light puzzles a little like some of the darkness levels in crash 1, where you need to carry a light around in order to see platforms (it also uses goo in some levels to do the same thing with invisible platforms, it's really neat). there's a lategame level i love that has you shifting it from daytime to night, which changes the direction the level faces and a similar one in a different zone with ice and lava doing similar things, where you transition from ice to lava levels as it goes on. there's a great level set in a pyramid where you turn into a ball for some of the games best puzzles, like being shot out of canons and finding secrets under tunnels. there's an amazing underwater level where you get to use a PENGUIN AND YOU GET TO EXPLORE WITH IT IT'S SO COOL, which is a cool non-linier level that lets you explore a cool little underground ruin with a pirate ship in it, it's one of the games best levels.

the combat is barely here but it can be kind of fun, the boxing gloves are great and super well used like how you use it to wrestle and throw around worms in one of the cave levels or to break open chunks of ruins. you can use other ones as weapons too, like the cymbals stun enemies, the monkey hands to hit them or throw objects, even the magnets can be used to make your own projectiles, but it's not a game about combat at all outside of a few boss fights which, are all fine i guess, none really stood out as being all that fun, many were finished in under a minute and the only one i really remember is the one in the jungle for how long and tedious it was to do, they're all reused from rescue mission too which did feel a little iffy, they could have thrown in maybe a fun side boss that references other games or something, rather than the more generic ones we got. the god of war level does have more in depth combat though, as i'll talk about in a little.

the god of war level comes into it with the hero levels, you'll find hero levels scattered throughout the game at the end of each world, with each i think correlating to a console (sadly nothing for vita :( i'd have killed for a freedom wars or soul sacrifice level) with ape escape, god of war, locoroco, uncharted and horizon all getting a full level each with their own mechanics and theme. the best of these are the ones that do just feel like a mini ver of their games remade in Astro, those being ape escape and especially locoroco. locoroco is the best level in the game bar none and it feels just like a modern remake of one of that games levels, it capsures the vibe the best and its the one that feels like its had the most love poured into it, it feels so authentic with the audio and the visual style and the gameplay and finding the roco bots feels so authentic here in a way that finding the bots can feel a little out of place in some other hero levels, though ape escape also doesn't have that problem. it's just the best and it makes me really wish for a full new loco game someday. ape escape also feels super authentic, giving you some gadgets like the net and the finder and throwing you in a small sandbox to find all the apes (complete with a monkey statue of liberty in the level) and it's a lot of fun, it would be a great proof of concept for a new ape game and i think i'd rather have this team give us a new game there than a new Astro game if i'm being honest, this level is that good and i think they'd be perfectly suited to it, the music is also killer like it might be the best song in the game, though the visuals aren't as good as the locoroco level, where that one felt fully fitting to that games style, this one does still feel super like it is just an Astro level themed.

the uncharted one is worse than this but still fun, the theming works and is very noticeably uncharted 1 and the music is super iconic, plus the mechanics of the gun work super well with the game, honestly i would have liked a few more levels using it, it liked this one a lot, it even has some of the spectacle of the main game with things like exploding cars and some minor puzzles to find treasure, it's great! the horizon level is a little worse than this though, it's much less noticeably horizon and the music isn't as good either, the peaks here really are climbing the tall neck and the final boss which is a fun chase sequence, and both are great, the bow is fun too, but the stage theming just isn't amazing and if you removed the robots i'm not sure i'd even have noticed. the worst of them is the god of war one, the theming is barely there, it just feels like any other ice level, the music isn't great and it's one of the games worst tracks, the melee combat isn't great and the stage is just a little boring, especially with how good the other ice stages are, it just barely feels themed and feels like a waste of a level, especially compared to how much cooler a Greek god of war level would have been, or maybe a jak one, or cool freedom wars/soul sacrifice level, heck a gravity rush one would have been amazing, i just wish we got anything other than this one because this just wasn't great, it's probably the games worst level.

the world of Astro is one of its coolest aspects, it's a beautiful game with super varied levels that all feels like a fruitiger aero wallpaper come to life. it's all so shiny and i love the white tech look to it, it looks less iPhone and more like an old vista laptop, you know, the colours and all the cool plant life and the lil creatures, mixing tech with nature, it's such a beautiful look and it helps with the nostalgic vibe the game is going for in a lot of levels like the flowery cloud zone, the shrinking level, the starting level with the flamingos and a ton more, though there's a lot more than just that. deserts, one of the few lava levels i really like in a platformer, some super pretty Japanese levels including an amazing onsen themed one, tons of cool snow levels that all feel distinct, like one that replaces the snow with cream you can walk through or one that has a really cool transition midway through between a rainy beach on a stormy night into a sunny one, the cool shrinking level with oversized assets and furnature or the tree level, plus the pirate themed jungle with cute beaches that gave me big jak 1 vibes, space casino levels ala sly cooper and an amazing deserted ruin level that gives me big wild arms vibes, it even has you scale a big oasis on the outside that looks amazing with tons of greenery and sand waterfalls. though i mentioned a lot of these in some form earlier, there's just so much variety here, even when level styles do repeat they do so in ways that make them feel distinct, like one snow level being cream and the other being normal snow, or one beach level being rainy and the other being pirate themed. though some are just reruns of level themes from the previous games though, like the unlockable worlds mostly being old themes like the fan one or the caves, the spooky levels and the ninja level which looked amazing, plus a level about picking up trash that was very fun (i'm hoping it being here is a reference to trash panic, you find the patapon here which look like the guys from trash panic so it has to be intentional) and even some of the themes in the main levels are super similar like the construction site or many of the future cities.

the game had a few big post launch updates so far, a few speedrun levels of varying quality, with most of them being at least pretty fun but the ape one was overly difficult and unfun to control especially with the motion controls on, it also gave bots referencing a lot of recent games like stellar blade, rise of the ronin and like 4 helldivers guys, plus a few nice retro bots too like wesker from resi and nariko from heavenly sword, the latter of which felt like a really weird omission from the basegame. they're a free update and the first 4 are really fun 1 min long challanges so i would recommend trying them. shoulg get you a good half an hour if you want to 100% them. there's also a big new winter level, it's big and full of secrets and it has you finding presants to light up a tree, its the most chill level with very few enemies and the objective letting you leave early but it has an amazing atmosphere and its one of the games best looking levels, plus the music is great too. here you'll find THE GEX BOT which makes it worth playing alone, but also some other cool ones like the worm from worms, tomba of the fast pants, croc and rayman, though it does have some spiderman bots which feel really out of place with the games cast and was the first time the games more advertisyness really became apparent, they just don't belong here. it's also free and well worth a play, it's an extra full on level and it might even be one of my favourites.

the game also gets the best use out of the duelsense so far, while i find the controller too big and unwieldy and it hurts my hands super bad, games like this do show its potential, the haptic feedback is super impressive with how it can convey texture, like how different it feels to walk on ice and metal, or through leaves and snow, even bones and gems, it's really impressive and the best use of vibration I've ever seen in a game. even the triggers get good use here with the items you find, like the boxing gloves that can be used to swing around or the monkey one that has you climbing with the triggers (though this one is a little awkward), there's also the dog jetpack that blasts you! two actually because the chicken jetpack also does this but upwards instead of forewards and an elephant that... inflates you, i'm not even touching that one but it's used well. i don't think it quite hits as well as it did in playroom through, just because there aren't as many and they don't feel as built around showing off the triggers like the haptics were here. the motion does get time to shine though, with you using it for a few of the abilities like the monkey hands and you also use it to fly your ship and control things like water turrets , this is one of the more used ones since at the beginning of every level you fly in on the ship and control it to get a few extra coins or puzzle pieces scattered around the route in, it's great and it made every level entrance feel super unique. most levels tend to have at least one gimmick and they all work super well.

the game also has a lot to do outside its levels, you have a really cool hub world with its own bots to find, a gatcha mechanic that gives you costumes, accessories for certain bots and skins for your duelsense, you even a cool safari with all the games creatures in it that you can take pictures of, the hub itself even lets you see all the bots you found as they sit around the place, they even have little animations that play out if you hit them (though some will need the accessories first). there's also tons of hidden challenge levels, a whole hidden world full of original levels you need to individually find levels for (they're hidden throughout the game in the form of hidden warps in and a hidden final challenge after you finish all those secret levels, though it's not that tough a level, now the super secret *other* final level is that difficult, that one requires you to actually collect all the bots and puzzle pieces, it's a great level but very tough, you're expected to do a bunch of the hardest platforming in the game in one life and it will take you a while unless you really have a hang of the platforming, super cool though and well worth doing.

the music is great, though it can be pretty samey sometimes, very few level themes stick out to me as being theirs, if that makes sense and so many are remixes from the very similarly styled predessessor but it's still a killer OST. it's really good in the moment though and there are still some standouts, like the hub theme which sounds super wild-arms'y, the sad seed and papa tree are total standouts for one of the games best levels and i love how its sung *by* the level itself. there are some great remixes like cooling springs, disco tree, theres a few for the main theme like a menu rendition and a really cool chiptune-y one for the retro levels and even the subterainian theme from rescue mission comes back and is a real highlight any time i get to hear it again or any of its other remixes here. some of the bot level music is great like the locoroco theme and the new ape escape song (which might again be the games best song) though the ones for the god of war and horizon levels are pretty forgettable (just like the music in those games!), push the boat out is a great chill song, tan tradic which sounds kind of like it'd be from a sega game, trapped in time, broken bridge (also super wildarms'y), pit of peril and marine serine are also really great tracks to try, especially marine, it fits the whole "fruitiger aero" vibe of the game super well.

it's a pretty long game too, you're looking at a good 10 or so hours if you rush it and about 20 if you want everything, some of those warps are really difficult to find and the bots can be really tricky too, plus the extra levels and the hub stuff and the two final challenge levels you unlock but it's not a hard game really outside of that final final level and its very fair by not having a lives system or anything and checkpoints are very frequent, it's a great game for beginners and old PS fans alike. it's not on anything but PS5 though, no ports and it's super recent so it may still get one, but honestly this game is so made for the system that i don't think it would work well on anything else, your ship is a ps5 and your lil other ship is a duelsense, it's made for this and i think you would lose a lot by playing it on a PC, especially without the duelsense there. it is also available physically, it's expensive though and hasn't went down much, if it wasn't a Christmas gift i'm not sure i'd have played it this quickly because it is a high asking price for the game, but i do think the game is worth it if you're really into platformers, but i would recommend playing the free game first, Astros playroom, on your PS5, it'll let you know upfront if this will be worth your time because this is really just an extended version of that, if you love that, you'll love this.

the game had a few big post launch updates so far, a few speedrun levels of varying quality, with most of them being at least pretty fun but the ape one was overly difficult and unfun to control especially with the motion controls on, it also gave bots referencing a lot of recent games like stellar blade, rise of the ronin and like 4 helldivers guys, plus a few nice retro bots too like wesker from resi and nariko from heavenly sword, the latter of which felt like a really weird omission from the basegame. they're a free update and the first 4 are really fun 1 min long challenges so i would recommend trying them. should get you a good half an hour if you want to 100% them. there's also a big new winter level, it's big and full of secrets and it has you finding presants to light up a tree, its the most chill level with very few enemies and the objective letting you leave early but it has an amazing atmosphere and its one of the games best looking levels, plus the music is great too. here you'll find THE GEX BOT which makes it worth playing alone, but also some other cool ones like the worm from worms, tomba of the fast pants, croc and rayman, though it does have some spiderman bots which feel really out of place with the games cast and was the first time the games more advertisyness really became apparent, they just don't belong here. it's also free and well worth a play, it's an extra full on level and it might even be one of my favourites.

the game was made by what is more or less the remnants of Japan studio with team asobi, who also made the previous 2 Astro games, the VR game rescue mission which was great and one of the real showpieces for the tech and one of its best games and also playroom, the free PS5 tech demo that came free with your console. it's all we have left, really, though it's heavily diminished from what once was, and it's also ran by a French guy which kind of struck me in a bad way for what is meant to be their big Japanese studio, a lot of the major roles in the game, direction (by Nicholas duchet who also worked on the other Astro games, some eyetoy titles and what might be one of my most disliked games in the demons souls remake, i like his work on Astro but that game is offensive) the music is by kennith young (a long time sony composer who worked on tons of great games like concrete genie, dreams, the other Astro games, the getaway black Monday, heavenly sword and tons of little big planet games, plus tearaway, though only unfolded, which is the worst version but still! he's actually super talented and i have nothing bad to say about him), the technical art, the art direction and the environment art, it really feels like it's status as a Japanese game is almost tertiary and not all that applicable, though i would assume some Japanese artists had a say in it since it does reference some Japanese exclusive games like my kitchen and boku no natsuyasumi, just feels weird though, is all. i do recommend the game all in all and i hope hugely that more games like this are to come out, even with it's strange production staff credits this is still the last real breath for sony Japan's development and i would hate to see it go, given the success of this critically with the Geoff awards, i think they'll be fine though and i imagine they'll be gearing up for another production soon, hopefully at the very least a current gen port of rescue mission, and you should try all these games, they're all fantastic, hell if you own a ps5 you already own one of these games for free, so you really have no excuse not to.