Review [Video Game]: Astro Bot by Team Asobi

A beautifully-written love letter to fans of 3D platformers and of the PlayStation legacy

While anticipation for Astro Bot flew under the radar following its announcement, its reception has soared. Team Asobi may be new to the scene (originally a subsidiary of the now-defunct Japan Studio), spinning off in 2021 to become a standalone team. But from the release of their three Astro Bot titles, you would think they've been at this forever. As the first official Astro Bot for the core console (Astro Bot Rescue Mission being a VR title, Astro’s Playroom; a free download for PS5 to show off the Dualsense controller), Team Asobi has created an indelible game that excites and delights. As someone who usually gets bored halfway through platforming games, I found Astro Bot struck the perfect balance. Let’s get into it.

The opening scene sees the adorable little Astro and crew traversing the cosmos, partying in their PlayStation 5-shaped spaceship when they are waylaid by a fiendish green alien in a UFO. The alien pries open the PlayStation 5 spaceship, steals the CPU, and spreads the rest of the components and fellow bots across multiple planets. The spaceship crash lands on a desert planet where the player is given control. This cutscene is succinct, sharp, and adorable. This can be said for the rest of the game as well. While there is a story, Astro Bot doesn't weigh you down with expository nonsense for longer than necessary. What little is there, cooky or not, makes sense within the context of the story they’re trying to tell.

Astro Bot is a treat for multiple senses. At first, Team Asobi treats your eyes and ears to the immaculate visuals and fantastic audio, then the haptic feedback hits and the sense of touch is activated. Anyone who played Astro’s Playroom knows what I’m talking about, but for those who don’t, Team Asobi are masters of the Dualsense controller’s haptics, making the game not only visual and auditory but tactile as well. Raindrops, clanking metal, tiny footsteps on glass, snow crunching underfoot, jumping off of a diving board into a pool, and so many other sensations are meticulously crafted and implemented into the game to add a third dimension to gameplay. The game feels satisfying. While the promise of the Dualsense has gone mostly underutilized throughout this generation, Astro Bot is the perfect example of what can be done with the tech, and how it elevates an already engrossing experience.

But let's get back to the visuals. Beautiful, simple, crisp. Astro Bot looks amazing on the PlayStation 5 from boot up and is maintained throughout. The game has a Pixar-like quality, and it is easily one of the best-looking games on the PS5. This extends to the visual effects as well. Water, snow, textures, and reflections all look fantastic. This is in no small part aided by the art direction and level design. From some of the more vibrant, cheery levels to the darker, more ominous ones, Astro Bot shines in the visuals department. For instance, the Creamy Canyon level is based on confections. The pastel-colored level reminds me of Easter but with ice cream sprinkles that can be kicked around (and felt with the controller). Other levels are more vibrantly saturated but are nonetheless visually balanced.

The sound design is fantastic. The soundtrack and sound effects both make this game pop. The sound is implemented into the level design, assisting players in finding hidden bots throughout the level (you can usually hear them struggling somewhere nearby (and yes, it’s adorable)) and in helping with the timing of obstacles. The music is easy to vibe to and fits whatever level it's in. But my favorite songs were the mash-ups with the PlayStation classic levels, which I will allow you to discover for yourself. I wouldn't put the music on the level of a Mario game, but it stands on its own. Astro’s personal sound effects were adorable and didn't grate on my nerves like a certain Italian plumber I know. His sound effects are robotic, charming, cute, and quirky, just like Astro himself.

But what does Astro have to do? What is the player tasked with? Well, you have two tasks; rescue your fellow bots, and collect the missing pieces of the spaceship. You accomplish this via 3D platforming: jumping, hovering, punching, grabbing, and through the use of special items. The levels are straightforward and show you what you need to do. Most levels have seven bots to rescue and three puzzle pieces to find (some special levels have fewer). A few levels have some cleverly placed portals to secret levels in another galaxy, so be on the lookout. It’s easy to tell when you’ve missed a bot or puzzle piece because you’ll be notified on the UI which bot you’ve gathered, so you can always go back and recollect. If you’re having trouble, each level (after you’ve completed it at least once) allows you to pay two hundred coins to unlock a little bird that will follow you around and sniff out missing bots and puzzle pieces (though it isn't necessary in most cases). Astro Bot’s gameplay is inspired by the greats of the genre, especially the 3D Mario games, and it’s all the better for it.

One of my favorite aspects of Astro Bot is the pacing. Each level is short, mostly around ten minutes, some are two minutes, but none much longer than ten (not counting the challenge levels). This makes the game easily digestible. With every AAA game being sixty to one hundred hours nowadays, it's difficult to feel like you’ve accomplished something after ten minutes of game time. Astro Bot manages to do so repeatedly, all the while ensuring the game feels fresh. Every vista feels new, and every level creates new challenges and allows the player to feel like they're making progress in a short time. Not to mention, they don't overuse the supplemental items in the game. For instance, there is a robot bulldog that boosts Astro forward with a lot of force, damaging anything (almost anything) in your path. It’s used in a few levels here and there, but not to the point of exhaustion. And that’s the same with everything else. On some levels, Team Asobi uses a mechanic once and never again, which is refreshing. In addition, boss battles aren't repeated over and over. They use unique mechanics, despite being rather forgiving (Astro usually dies in one hit; versus bosses, he gets three). Each boss is one and done, and it’s a wonderful thing. I have to reiterate how much I loved the pacing: Astro Bot’s mechanics never overstay their welcome.

I mentioned the challenge levels a bit earlier, and there are quite a few. Some do put you to the test (curse you, rubber ducky lava level!), but for the most part, the game as a whole is quite easy. Exceptionally enjoyable, but easy. Now, I know difficulty is relative, but this is my personal experience, and I feel like the game could benefit from just a bit more challenge outside of the challenge levels (of which I would have gladly accepted more). Not only this, but I feel like it could have been enjoyable to hide some of the bots a bit better (some are brilliantly hidden, but most are easy to spot). The aforementioned rubber ducky got a bit frustrating at times because of its inconsistency when aiming, but other than that, I can’t think of anything else negative to say about the game. It’s that good.

One of the most special things about Astro Bot is that it’s a love letter to PlayStation fans, and to a larger extent, people who have played games that have existed on their platforms. Fans of The Last of Us, Ratchet and Clank, Horizon, and Parappa the Rappa will find Easter eggs here, but so too will fans of Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, and Yakuza. PlayStation has been around for over thirty years (and goodness knows what kind of mischief they’ve been up to recently), and the platform has been home to so many first and third-party games. Astro Bot shines a light on some of those IPs and does so in a humorous, heartwarming way. Also, this is probably the only place you'll see any attention given to the Bloodborne IP from a Sony studio (sorry, Bloodborne fans).

From the lovingly crafted levels to the intricate haptic feedback implementation, Astro Bot is an impressive title that, despite its ease, goes on to compete with the heavyweights of the industry. If you like inventive 3D platformers, if you like your non-speaking protagonist to endear and charm you, or if you like to run around with a robot-chicken-rocket strapped to your back propelling you upward to new heights, this is the game for you. If you are a fan of gaming, especially PlayStation, then this is a love letter for you folks. If you have kids, I highly recommend it. If you like your video games to make you smile in childlike glee, go pick up Astro Bot now.

The Math

Objective Assessment: 9.5/10.

Bonus: +.5 for perfect pacing. +.5 for art direction. +.5 for tactile feedback. +.5 for endless charm.

Penalties: -1.5 for overall lack of challenge. -.5 for a few brief experimental levels that, while good, weren't as good as the rest.

Nerd Coefficient: 9.5/10.

Posted by: Joe DelFranco - Fiction writer and lover of most things video games. On most days you can find him writing at his favorite spot in the little state of Rhode Island.

Review [Video Game]: Concrete Genie by Pixelopus

Paint some murals, save some lives.

Concrete Genie follows protagonist Ash as he tries to rid his old hometown of Denska of an encroaching darkness that threatens to pervade all. It is evident that the darkness is tied to the negativity that the old fishing village has had to endure over the last number of years, and despite its ugliness, Ash still waxes nostalgic over Denska. And then there are the bullies. In the opening moments of the game, Ash’s binder of drawings is scattered by a bunch of mischievous kids who torture him for no reason. Despite his parents’ warnings about the dangers of the town, Ash still tempts fate and finds himself in a pickle.

Concrete Genie is one of those unique “indie” games in that it isn’t indie at all. With the backing of Sony, Pixelopus released a smaller-scale title that feels like an upscale indie game. In combination with Media Molecule’s Dreams technology, Pixelopus set out to create something unique, and for the most part, they did.

The gameplay could best be described as a puzzle platformer, where you have to solve simple puzzles to proceed. There’s never much difficulty in the game and I never found myself stuck on any part for too long. It doesn't hurt that the platforming works well, so you don’t have to struggle with those controls. You can summon genies at specific parts of the map and it’s up to you to appease them with the help of your trusty paintbrush. The game gives you a preset number of designs (which you can find more of as you play through the game). You use these to create murals and bypass certain areas. These are the main forms of puzzles you will encounter, and while they don’t present much of a challenge, they are dazzling and unique. The colors and combinations can delight the senses, and it’s fun to watch your genies play with your paintings. Using your art to light up a district and bring color back to the town is an enjoyable treat. In tandem with the already striking claymation/stop motion visual feel, the game is visually entrancing.

For a game about being an artist, there isn’t much in the way of personal artistic expression due to the exclusive use of pre-selected designs. Don’t get me wrong, the options given are better than anything I could personally create, but it would be wonderful to see what other people could do with the tools, especially considering Pixelopus used Dreams tech to help create the game. It seems like a bit of a missed opportunity.

The “painting” is done with the Dualshock 4 or DualSense (depending on which platform you're on) controller’s motion sensor. While the sensor works well for what they want to do, it sometimes goes out of whack, which pulls me out of the game for a moment so I can recalibrate. Sometimes traditional controls work just fine, and in most cases, are even more precise. Despite this, there are no strict specifics that the player needs to adhere to when creating art (the closest things are the murals that you have to recreate), so the pressure to be extremely accurate doesn’t exist. This doesn't completely alleviate the occasional break in immersion due to the motion controls, but it does ameliorate it for the most part.

The story is a simple tale of bullying. It’s effective though not very unique. Not blaming oneself and forgiving others is a record that’s been played before. The use of the art to move the game forward is where the game’s charm comes in and brings in a different flavor. Though some of the world’s magic rules feel inconsistent or make no sense at times, it isn’t a game that’s meant to be thought on too much. It’s more a game of emotion than one of the mind, so suspending belief within its world was necessary at times to accept certain events.

An interesting change happens later in the game where we go from a puzzle platformer to a straight-up action game. The change is rather abrupt and takes much of what makes the game unique and turns it into a basic action game. It isn’t necessarily poor, but it doesn’t do anything so worthwhile that the shift is warranted. I think it would have been more impressive if the studio used the tools they had to solve the game’s problems without turning to a different genre. That said, getting the paint boots made getting around in the game significantly more enjoyable.

Though I didn’t run into any glitches on my playthrough of the main story, I did encounter a few in my cleanup run. I wanted to get all the collectibles and see Luna’s secret under the lighthouse, but a bug prevented me from doing so. Another bug prevented me from discovering all the genie moments in the game. So while there were no game breakers, there were a few completion ruining incidents, so keep it in mind if you don’t want to play through the game multiple times.

Being Pixelopus’s second game, Concrete Genie showed a lot of promise for future titles. Unfortunately, Sony closed the studio in the summer of 2023, ceasing any thoughts of possible projects from the studio. Despite some of my misgivings with the game, it does what it sets out to do and more; it shows that big publishers should take more small-time risks because they can pay off with quality content. Concrete Genie may only take a handful of hours to complete, but it’s flashy and memorable and shows that we don’t need every game to have a budget of one hundred million dollars to be enjoyable. Painting dazzling landscapes across Deska is an enjoyable experience. Concrete Genie isn’t perfect, but I found it to be endearing and worth a few hours of my time.

--

The Math

Objective Assessment: 7/10

Bonus: +1 for unique gameplay. +1 for visual splendor.

Penalties: -1 for end-game gameplay shift. -1 for genie glitches and bugs.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

Posted by: Joe DelFranco - Fiction writer and lover of most things video games. On most days you can find him writing at his favorite spot in the little state of Rhode Island.

Microreview [video game]: Odallus: The Dark Call by Joymasher

Retro Done Right

I'm a pretty big fan of the Castlevania series. They're generally a great blend of action, platforming, great music, and tons of weird monsters. The series has had far more hits than misses, and it's disappointing to me that Konami appears to be withdrawing from the video game market. Doing so will take Castlevania away from us forever, and we'll be left replaying those excellent classics and wishing we had something new. But the indie developers at Joymasher also apparently loved Castlevania, because Odallus: The Dark Call bears its influence proudly and it's magnificent.

Odallus is a neo-retro game; it's obviously a fully original game but its done in the style of games made 30 years ago. It's got the Ninja Gaiden style cutscenes, beautiful sprite based 2D graphics, and a chiptunes soundtrack. On my hard drive, it takes up 415MB so it's far beyond the storage capacity of an NES cartridge, but the look and feel is all there. It even occasionally has NES-style graphical glitches.

This still image doesn't convey how good this cutscene looks.

As Haggis, you find that your village is burning and your child is missing, so you strike out to fight demons and monsters and all sorts of nasty stuff and get him back. Haggis is armed with a sword, which isn't a chain whip, but it's perfectly satisfying when it comes to chopping up monsters. There are also subweapons that augment your fighting capacity. It mixes up the Castlevania formula by giving you a throwing axe that flies straight, a torch that burns like holy water, and a javelin that flies in an arc, and all three are readily available once you've found them. You'll often rely on those subweapons to do real damage, at least early in the game, because your starting sword is a little weak and slow.

Here you can see one of the mostly human enemies.

Odallus also takes some influence from the Metroid series in that you can find relics that enhance your movement abilities, such as being able to breathe underwater and double-jump. The game is also full of secret areas, some of which require these relics to find. It's not a fully open map like Metroid, but it's broken down into levels that can revisited from the world map. Stuff like secret areas and multiple level exits are things that I loved about old NES games and they're done well.

Difficulty in the game is almost perfectly balanced. It's falls just on the right side of almost infuriating but still encouraging you to try again. Every time I ragequit on a boss (which happened once or twice), I'd jump back in after 10 minutes because I wanted to beat it and I knew I could. The final boss is absolutely brutal and I beat it with barely a sliver of life left, but it was so rewarding when I did.

This is the first boss, and one of the least weird. Other bosses approach R-Type levels of body horror.

I really don't have much to complain about here. The mine cart level kind of sucks a little, but it's nowhere near as frustrating as some classic counterparts. Odallus: The Dark Call is a must-play for Castlevania fans, or retro gaming enthusiasts. I've seen a lot of retro-ish games, but this is easily one of my favorites and one that gets it right.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 9/10

Bonuses: +1 it's basically a new Castlevania

Penalties: -1 limited appeal if you're not into Castlevania or old NES games

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10 (very high quality/standout in its category)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Joymasher. Odallus: The Dark Call [Joymasher, 2015] 

Valiant Hearts - The Great War

Valiant Hearts - The Great War [Ubisoft Montpellier, Ubisoft, 2014]

Valiant Hearts - The Great Game

This game was a truly unique experience. At what is usually a down time for games as developers and distributors gear up for Christmas, Ubisoft dropped this wonderful gaming experience in our laps. Available on Xbox Live, the Xbox One, and the Playstation Network, it is downloadable only at a well-worth-it cost of $14.99. On its face, this is an old-school platformer with puzzle elements. However, it turned out to be much more than that when played. Set during World War I, it is a heartwarming story about four characters from different backgrounds whose paths are wholly intertwined. 

The Actors

Karl

Karl is a German living in France. He is married to Emily and they have just had a son, Victor, when the war breaks out after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand. As Germany and France declare war against one another, many German citizens are deported from France, including Karl. Like so many others, he is drafted into the German army against his will. Throughout the game, his greatest wish is to return home to his wife and young child. 

Emile

Emile is Karl's father-in-law. More importantly, he's a Frenchman. Even though he is fairly old, he is also drafted into the army, but on the French side. During the war, he sharers Karl's worries about Emily and Victor. Both he and Karl are able to share their experiences with their daughter/wife through letters. It was one of the only ways to communicate during the Great War. 

Freddie

Freddie is an American soldier that has enlisted in the French army. He is out to kill the infamous German military commander, Baron Von Dorf. Von Dorf led a bombing campaign that killed Freddie's wife and he is out for revenge, no matter the cost. He befriends Emile in the process as they both share the same target, since Karl has become Baron Von Dorf's zeppelin pilot. They are both joined by a dog who is used to solve many of the game's puzzles. 

Anna

From Belgium, Anna joins the war effort as a nurse in the Red Cross. Her starry-eyed optimism is soon dashed as the horrors of war take their toll on her dreams of healing and helpfulness. Even though the massive death toll is overwhelming, Anna does her best to help all the soldiers she can, one injury at a time. In her travels, she saves Karl, Emile, and Freddie at various points throughout the game. 

Historical Facts

Not only does the game have a heartwarming story, it is full of facts about World War I. For example:

The Debacle of 1914

In the early fighting the German army made swift progress. After invading Belgium, they marched on Paris in late August. French troops retreated en masse and units were outflanked and repelled, taken prisoner, or killed. The months of August to September 1914 marked the bloodiest period of the war with over 180,000 French casualties alone. The French authorities described the debacle as an organized retreat; the war to win over public opinion had begun. 

These facts were paired with real pictures from the period, giving them particular depth of meaning. The "War to End All Wars" was one of, if not the most, pointless and bloody protracted stalemates in modern times. Trench warfare paired with technology to kill more humans for less ground than at any other time in recorded human history. 

Music

The soundtrack is by a group of composers that were unknown to me. Most of it is classical with the majority being played on a piano, although a few contained full orchestration. All of it was amazing. I've never played a game and immediately gone to iTunes to buy they soundtrack before, but I'm listening to it as I type this even now. I've never played a game before in which the music was so good as to almost be another character. Even if you don't buy the game, take a listen to the soundtrack. 

While this game isn't as long or as graphically stunning as many of the RPGs available today, it is just as touching. Experientially, it was like playing a graphic novel with the depth of feeling of Maus. I cannot recommend this game enough. You won't be disappointed. As many of our regular readers will know, I like a story-driven game more than one with mind-blowing graphics, which is probably the reason this game hit me so hard. Not only is it fun to play without being overly difficult, as some platformers can be, the plot is second-to-none. If you give this game a chance, I suspect you will be as taken in by it as I was, falling for the character development and enjoying a quality history lesson at the same time. If you're just sitting around playing another round of Titanfall, give yourself a break and try Valiant Hearts. It may not be in the same league graphically, but what it lacks in pixels per square inch, it more than makes up for in emotion.

Baseline Assessment: 9/10

Penalties: -1 for being slightly repetitive in the puzzles. It never became truly annoying, but some of the puzzles were a bit overused, particularly Anna's.

Bonuses: +1 for the best story line I've played on the Xbox One, bar none.

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10. Very high quality/Standout in its category.

POSTED BY: Brad Epperley--Video game addict who recognizes that the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem, Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.