This past weekend, I earned my sixth official PlayStation Platinum Trophy (technically my fifth, because Ghost of Tsushima may have been counted double for PS4 and PS5). After completing the Astro Bot story, I finally finished the Grand Master Challenge and a few silly tasks around the Crash Site to secure the Platinum Trophy! PlayStation even sent me an email congratulating me.

I had such a blast playing through Astro Bot. This game had me smiling the whole time, and it wasn’t due to nostalgia. The interactive levels had me searching every nook and cranny. Almost every small piece of this world reacts to Astro Bot. Team Asobi’s design of this beautiful world, or rather a bunch of tiny beautiful worlds in these little galaxies, made it easy to platinum this game. It drove me to explore more than I would in other 3D platformers.

I did not grow up on all of the classic PlayStation first-party titles and franchises referenced throughout Astro Bot. I never owned the original PlayStation or the PlayStation 3. My PlayStation 2 library was mostly made up of sports games and third-party titles. It wasn’t until my PlayStation 4 that I learned about Kratos, Joel and Ellie, and Nathan Drake (through Remasters of previous games), and there are still so many other big first-party PlayStation characters that I am not familiar with.

Many of the classic PlayStation references in Astro Bot flew right over my head. Instead of unlocking nostalgia, they got me interested in researching these characters. In today’s gaming landscape of remakes and remasters, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the resurrection of some of these dormant titles (bring back Ape Escape!). 

I continued to be surprised throughout Astro Bot. Every level felt new and different, even when using a familiar ability from a previous level. There was always some new way of using it. 

The homage levels (God of War, Uncharted, Horizon) were my favorite as I played them. The way Team Asobi borrowed familiar ideas and mechanics from those big franchises and implemented them into this 3D platformer was brilliant and silly. However, once I went back to playing an original level I was just as impressed with the gameplay. Those levels were special treats along the way, but didn’t take anything away from the original levels.

Astro Bot is full of secrets and surprises inside and out. Other than saving your bot buddies and finding hidden puzzle pieces, there were secret portals leading to levels in a whole other galaxy. Each galaxy also featured secret hidden levels to unlock — some quick and some longer. The Sacred Symbol Permadeath series of levels (Cross, Circle, Square, and Triangle) added another style of gameplay. No checkpoints. You have one shot to make it to the end and save your buddy.

BONUS CONTENT – GREAT MASTER CHALLENGE

Once I completed the story of Astro Bot there was one post-credits challenge — a very frustrating one at times, but still a blast.

The Sacred Symbol Permadeath levels were definitely a training ground for this post-game content. Now that you have mastered each symbol, it is time to defeat them all at once in one GREAT MASTER CHALLENGE!

Even the most unbearable sacred symbol levels took me about thirty minutes to beat. The GREAT MASTER CHALLENGE took me three attempts (each about an hour long) to finally make it to the end. The first two tries were post-midnight and I was very tired. You can tell it’s time to call it quits when you start dying at the “easy” parts — the parts you’ve already memorized and breeze through.

This weekend after sleeping in and having a nice breakfast, I grabbed my freshly brewed coffee and an hour later, I completed the GREAT MASTER CHALLENGE!

It’s funny that you become very familiar with each part of the level, except for that final part. That final part you may see just one time — when you beat it.

Since the release of Astro Bot, new content has been added. There are now a few speedrun levels (with more to come). These levels will keep me invested since I can compare my own score with my friends.

THANK YOU, TEAM ASOBI!

I know I could have beaten Astro Bot in about a week, but I’m very happy that I spaced it out and really enjoyed it. I wouldn’t beat more than one or two levels at a time. I’d save boss fights for the night time. If I didn’t collect every item in a level, I’d replay it at a later time — not back-to-back.

Thank you Team Asobi for making such a joyous game. Astro’s Playroom was such a delight and that was mostly a tech demo for the new PlayStation 5 features. It’s great to see this team show off their talent with a standalone game like Astro Bot and I cannot wait to see what they do next.