Astro Bot, Nostalgia, and...Uncharted. The first one.

Before I begin in earnest, I want to say that the act of discovery is important not just to a lot of games, but especially this one. To me, a lot of the joy of Astro Bot is in seeing what it has next in store, whether it's a fun gimmick in a level, a power up, or one of the many cameos. So, to write about this game without going into that stuff would be hard, and I also don't want to spoiler out half of this blog. Thus, I'm just putting this 'warning' up front. Which I'm sure a lot of people would find silly, since the game's narrative is (intentionally) very thin, but I'm glad I was able to experience it knowing very little about this stuff. If anyone else wants that experience, go play the game! It won't disappoint you.

Now, back to the 'proper' introduction.

Back in 2021, when I first got my PS5, and played Astro's Playroom, I wrote, among other things, the following paragraph:

“Obviously just about every Sony property gets its time at some point. Aside from Tokyo Jungle, which is the only bummer about the game. Listen, you might think I joke about that game, and it certainly started that way because Tokyo Jungle wasn't actually a great game, but it was definitely memorable. And I think more deserving of a little reference than the David Cage trilogy of nonsense, with each of those games getting a separate thing. Tokyo Jungle has certainly done more good for society than that toxic hack ever will!”

Now, in 2024, I've played Astro Bot, gotten the Platinum Trophy, and unless there is something super secret hidden in there, seen everything the game has in terms of cameos. In reference to that paragraph, I have both good, and bad news. The good news, is they remembered! Tokyo Jungle is in this game! The Pomeranian, so iconic, is in Astro Bot. There are also a pair of robot dogs, that according to one source I saw, were also from Tokyo Jungle, but upon looking up said robot dogs in that game, I think the real thing Astro Bot is pulling from are some actual robot dogs Sony used to sell. Tokyo Jungle probably also took some inspiration from the Sony Aibo, but I think it's unfair to say they're Tokyo Jungle references.

The “David Cage trilogy of nonsense,” however, gets two Bot cameos (Elliot Page from Beyond and handsome Android twink from Detroit), and a piece of origami I got from the gatcha machine, but could not find in the Crash Site to save my life. So, while I consider it a great victory that enough people at PlayStation remember Tokyo Jungle to make this happen, it is also a terrible defeat that there's still more David Cage representation.

Not that I hate those games, for as problematic and frequently bad as they are, I do have a weird fondness for them. Never mind that everyone else at Quantic Dream clearly put a lot of effort into making the best games they could. Those games were visually stunning in their day(s) (Detroit probably still is!), and they feature quite a few genuinely great actors doing the best they could with the material they were given (Willem Dafoe is in Beyond!). Detroit is almost good (the whole game should've been android twink and Clancy Brown solving future crimes), and “Beyond” is truly the best name for that game, because its nonsense is absolutely beyond anything I could have guessed. And I'll be honest, Jodie and Connor are probably the two best characters out of that “trilogy,” so I'm not mad they're in.

I just don't like David Cage.

The description on that piece of origami was something to the effect of, “you better hope you never meet the person who made this,” which I know logically is reference to the Origami Killer. But in my heart, it means David Cage.

I actually had a better, deeper, and more insightful introduction to this planned, then I decided to go back and read what I wrote previously, and couldn't help myself. I think I may be one of the people, out of all the billions on planet Earth, who thinks about Tokyo Jungle the most. Not the most, just one of. I'm sure people who actually spent time working on it, or people who went true sicko mode and 100%-ed it think about it more. But I'm close, I bet.

The original intro I had was about the march of time, how none of us are getting any younger, and the things we grew up with aren't getting any newer. Even as I'm feeling older and older every year, I'm still not old, not yet at least. Turning 34 next month, and (hopefully!) I still have quite a few decades ahead of me to go. Yet, even now, I find myself growing more and more susceptible to even fairly weak attempts at nostalgia.

Not all of them, mind you. I still find some things like a certain brand of vinyl figures repellant because they are horrendously ugly. I'm getting weaker against nostalgia, but only if I think it actually does right by the thing I know and love. A lot of the time these days, the nostalgia is just remembering the old things, because they hit some arbitrary anniversary that we as humans have decided is important. Humans have ten fingers and ten toes by default, so we built our number system around the number ten, and thus ten years is an important anniversary.

Destiny hit its ten year anniversary last week, and even taking a simple jaunt around the Cosmodrome in Destiny 2 got me feeling nostalgic. All the time I've spent in that universe, the good, the bad, and everything in between... Of course it all crashed back down when trying to get the anniversary “Legend” title in game, and one of the things is a callback to the loot cave. Except it requires getting engrams to drop from enemies which...is beyond tedious when the loot cave doesn't actually work and the engrams take forever to drop now. Talk about missing the point, Bungie.

If anyone reading this is curious why I've taken so long to say anything about the actual playing of Astro Bot, it's because as excellent as the game is, it's basically just an expanded version of Astro's Playroom. It's more or less the thing we wanted, more of that, but across a full length game. It's beautiful, it's fun, it's funny, it's charming. The levels are creative, and a true joy to explore. For a game that isn't super long (twenty-ish hours for me to get the Platinum), there's a huge amount of variety in the levels, both in terms of how they're built, and also in what they're built out of. Which isn't to say every level is one hundred percent unique, but there are definitely plenty of unique things that the game uses once and only once.

The haptics and trigger use are still second to none, though after three years with a PS5 as my primary video game machine, the novelty isn't quite there the same way. I also am starting to think the triggers on mine have worn out a bit over time, so of course controller prices had to go up. The real reason I want a new controller is I have to regularly plug mine in to charge while I'm playing. I still get a few hours of use out of it, depending on how heavy the game is with the rumble and triggers, but having to plug in is annoying.

The game is great, my only “issue” being I still wish it was more challenging. Yes, there are optional/secret challenge levels that are hard, I just wish there was more of that. And that some of the puzzles were harder to solve. But not quite as hard as the ones added to Astro's Playroom to get those bonus bots, those were kind of absurd. At least the Gran Turismo one, the others I guess aren't too absurd to solve on your own.

As much as Astro Bot is a fantastic game, I really don't have much to say about it. There's new power ups, and the game is pretty selective with how it deploys them, so none of them overstay their welcome. That, and if a power up appears, the level is going to be built around using it, rather than being some optional thing. I'm sure people will find ways around some of that stuff without actually using the power ups, because people with time on their hands will find a way to do just about anything, but if they do, then that's cool unto itself.

Like I said, the game looks incredible too, not mind blowing by any stretch, but perfectly using its style along with the “Power of the PlayStation 5” to just look great. And have so, SO many physics objects at once. I think games as a whole would be better with less time spent chasing after total realism, and unrealistic resolutions (I still maintain 4K has caused far more harm than good), and spent more time doing cool stuff with physics! Yes, most of the time the physics in this game are just the screen being flooded with tiny doodads that don't do anything, but there's times when fluid dynamics are tilting platforms around. Which is awesome!

The soundtrack is fantastic too. Definitely returning songs (sometimes remixed) from Astro's Playroom (and possibly Rescue Mission, haven't played it), but tons of new songs too. None of them quite tickled my fancy in the same was as the GPU Jungle song, but there's a lot of great stuff in there too. Definitely a lot that got stuck in my head, in a positive way, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a lot of giggles out of the singing tree in Trunk of Funk.

It also does a lot of cool things like altering the songs based on what's going on in the level. My favorite example of this is the one with the mouse power up, and what happens to the music when you shrink down into Mouse Mode. I'm not even sure what words to use to describe it, other than it just sounds appropriate for shrinking down, and then back up again, and how seamlessly it switches between the two.

Funnily, there's two different segues I could make from that, and both actually lead ultimately to the same thing. Astro Bot is a great game, and I think it would still be a great game without all the references and homages, but it wouldn't hit quite as hard. At least not for me, and not for many other people out there who have been playing games for a long time. Though, I did see some quote from someone who worked on the game saying the cameos are there mostly to inspire younger gamers to go and play the classics, which I hadn't thought of. But for every youngster out there that seeks out an older game because of Astro Bot, and loves it, then that's wonderful. I don't think it's right to try to force kids to have the same experiences we had, but the stuff we loved and grew up with can be just as impactful for them as for us, so... I dunno where I'm going with this, but hopefully it helps some kids discover old stuff they come to love.

For the actual cameos themselves, those are mostly in the form of bots that need to be rescued throughout the levels. In true platformer fashion, the bosses at the end of each galaxy of levels require saving X number of bots, and me being me, since I finished most levels having found all the bots and puzzle pieces (which unlock various features in the Crash Site hub), I never had to back track to find more. The requirements are low enough that unless you're just running through levels ignoring everything, I doubt many people will need to. Some are hidden in the Crash Site, and require gathering a certain number of bots to work together Pikmin style to link together to build a bridge or rope (out of themselves), or lift something up. My only issue with the bots is that if you replay a level, all rescued bots are replaced with a generic coin, so you can't see the fun animations again. I'd rather they be replaced with a ghostly/holographic bot you can still see doing whatever they were doing.

None of these cameos explicitly say what they're referencing, even the ones wholly owned by PlayStation. The name “Kratos” appears nowhere in this game, nor does “God of War.” We do get “Dad of Boy” as the name of a specific bot. These silly names are charming, and funny, and they do add a bit of a guessing game at times. Some, like the aforementioned Dad of Boy, will be obvious to basically everyone outside of little kids.

Outside of those, how obvious or obscure they are will vary from person to person. I, for example, got incredibly excited when I saw the Tokyo Jungle Pomeranian, but I bet a lot of people were left scratching their heads. On the other hand, I have no idea who the Legacy of Kain cameo bots are (Kain?), while I'm sure the remaining Kain-heads out there were overjoyed at their inclusion. Personally, I left that level wishing they had a couple other Devil May Cry characters to go along with Dante, but alas. Trish, Vergil, Nero, and Lady will have to wait for the next game, I suppose. Yes, if it was up to me, DMC would get five bots. Metal Gear got five! Which, I think is the most a non-PlayStation franchise got in this game? I'm thrilled about that, as much as I wish Otacon was one of them.

Most of the cameo bots have two parts to them. The bot themself, and a special doodad from the gatcha machine that gives them something to do in the Crash Site, and a special animation when “interacted” with (punched). Possibly my favorite bot in the game, is Kazuma Kiryu from Yakuza. His doodad is the iconic Kamurocho archway, but his interaction has nothing to do with the archway. Every time you punch him, he shrugs it off because he's the Dragon of Dojima, but he drops something. Street signs, baseball bats, ramen bowls, slot cars, mahjong tiles, all objects from the games. Every single one, I recognized. Toys from the crane games! Specific ones, like that plump bird that a sub story revolves around in Yakuza 0. Even those dang plates that exist just to be sold to pawn shops, those are in here!

But my favorite: the giant traffic cone. The stupid, ridiculous traffic cones that my friend Ajay and I obsess over, are in this game. Yes, I know, the bots are small (very small if we assume the PS5 and controllers in this game are the same size as real life ones), but that cone in this game is about as tall as Kiryu-bot. Meaning it's, relatively, a giant cone.

And its inclusion makes me so, so very happy. What makes me even happier is that there's a Trophy for seeing every item Kiryu-bot can drop, and since I didn't check the Trophies until after I saw credits, this one I just got naturally. Of course I was going to see every last thing he can drop. Why wouldn't I?

I've seen some people online complain, and say the cameos are just cheap nostalgia grabs, or whatever, but I really couldn't disagree more. Sure, maybe some of them are just included because of some business deal, but on the whole these feel like they're here because the people who made this game have a deep love and respect for video games. Things like all that stuff falling out of Kiryu-bot, every item of which I recognized, feels like it's there because someone working on this game understands why people love those games.

Maybe Kiryu is in here because of a deal with Sega, a new Like a Dragon did release earlier this year, after all (though this Kiryu is his classic design, and I feel like it would be Ichi-bot if that was the case (that'd be cool too!)). But more likely, I'd say it's because Yakuza is a long running, historically PlayStation focused series. Yes, it's multi-platform now, and most of the older games have been ported elsewhere (which is good!), but the first one of them released in 2005. Next year is the twentieth anniversary, which again, is only arbitrarily important because we humans built our number system around ourselves, but that part is irrelevant.

That's a long time, and I think Kiryu has earned his place as an iconic video game character. So he deserves a place in this game as much as anyone else. It'd be nice if Majima was here too, but I'll take what I can get.

Something I really love about the cameos though, is while they may be dominated with more obvious and iconic picks, there's plenty of obscure nonsense in there too. The sort of picks that no sane person would think are just to promote something, or part of a business deal. The dad from Incredible Crisis is in there, for crying out loud. Mr. Mosquito is not in Astro Bot to promote the long running and lucrative Mr. Mosquito franchise. He's there because some sicko at Team Asobi thought he should be, and convinced enough other people to get it approved, and animated. The thing that appears in the Crash Site is a bathtub that the player needs to get in to even see Mr. Mosquito! Sickos made this, and I'm thrilled they did!

There's also some cameos from much newer games that I wasn't really expecting. Both because of the newness, but also because they're not really the highest profile of games. I guess Stray was popular enough that its cat being in here isn't surprising, but Octodad? Nothing against him, or the game (haven't played it), but I was pretty surprised to see him. In a good way, that's part of the fun of Astro Bot, is looking forward to who's going to pop up next, and frequently being pleasantly surprised.

There's some odd absences, though. Just about every noteworthy PlayStation franchise is in, as are more than a few obscure or long defunct ones, but not Twisted Metal. I know it's been over a decade since the last game, but that TV series was only last year, and surprisingly decent, from what I've heard. I'm just surprised there isn't at least a Sweet Tooth bot somewhere.

The absence that's somehow both the most surprising, but also the least, is anything Square Enix related. With how important Final Fantasy has been to PlayStation over the decades, and clearly still is given the VII Remake trilogy and XVI are all console exclusives, it's baffling to see none of that here. Other Square Enix stuff would be nice to see too, like I know my queer little heart would explode if Max and Chloe from Life is Strange got bots, but no luck.

The thing that makes it not surprising, is if you think about it, of course Square Enix would be the one company way too precious and weird to want bot versions of their characters included. I can't really think of any other reason why the whole cast of FF VII wouldn't be in here. Or any of the (non-Disney) Kingdom Hearts characters. Knowing what Astro Bot does, they'd even include (Jan Ochoa voice) THE BOUNCER for a laugh, but still make it charming.

Imagine if The Quiet Man was in Astro Bot. Then David Cage's nonsense would have a competitor for most problematic source material!

At least, even if I'm not entirely sure who owns Tomb Raider now (I think it's Amazon, which sucks if that's true), that one is free from Square's grip, so Lara Croft got to be included. Say what you will about those games on the whole, but they're certainly iconic, and especially so for PlayStation (even if the best one was a timed Xbox One exclusive). Her animation at the Crash Site (perpetually chased by a velociraptor, who just wants to hug and nuzzle against her) is very funny, and one of my favorites.

There are also, in my growing age and weakness to nostalgia, a trio of bots that legitimately made me so emotional I almost cried. Two of them make sense, and have as much to do with their in game description, but the third really took me by surprise. That third is Kena, from Bridge of Spirits. I really liked that game, but had forgotten how emotional its story was, and clearly didn't realize what a large impact it had on me. But hey, never a bad thing to realize how much a game meant to you. Also cute to see her in bot form interacting with the Rot, which are just as cute here as they were in her game (adorable, don't let the name fool you if you haven't played it (also play it, it's super great (and sad (in a good way)))).

Of the other two bots, one is from a game I only played a few months ago. A bot, appropriately based on Aigis from Persona 3. Perfect fit, given she's already a robot, and one whose aesthetic is similar enough to Astro that she fits right in. But her description, “Will stay with you to the very end,” just hit me like a truck. It made me realize I'm not quite emotionally ready to actually go back, and play the Episode Aigis expansion. I will eventually, probably in a few weeks even (holding off is as much for money reasons, as I bought both Astro and Space Marine II within a week), but I'm not kidding when I say even just reading that and seeing her bot, I almost cried. Again, I cried a lot during Reload.

And that third bot, is one of the reasons why I thought so much about nostalgia with this game. Most of the bots are just one offs, or part of a collection in an otherwise not themed level. They're often grouped together, like the three Metal Gear characters specifically from MGS1 are in the same level (and it is a cold/snowy level, kinda like Shadow Moses Island), but even that isn't universal. Two of the Persona characters (Aigis and Teddie) are in optional challenge levels, but Joker is in a casino themed level (which makes sense, given there's a casino heist in P5).

But, the end of each “galaxy” of levels is a themed level based off a specific franchise. Three of them are from games I've actually played (not counting a demo or something for one of the others), and four of them I think are great levels. Sadly, the one that felt phoned in to me is the last one (Horizon), but at least it did give us a “cherished” Lance Reddick bot, so that made me smile. Maybe if it had been Zavala from Destiny, the tears would've flowed.

Anyway, the third one, which is not only my favorite of the themed levels, but maybe my favorite level in the whole game, is “Dude Raiding.” Based on everyone's favorite PS3 era franchise, Dude Raider, er, Uncharted. Very specifically Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, which is especially endearing to me specifically. As much as they clearly had room to grow from that game, I still love it, as will become even more evident shortly.

The cameos in this level aren't just from Drake's Fortune, because Chloe, Nadine, and Sam appear as well, but the level is clearly based on the first game. The U-Boat is there, so is the plane stuck in the tree, and just the general vibe and setting feels like the first game. Sure, that vibe is “jungle and ancient ruins,” which Uncharted certainly didn't invent, but it feels like that first game. Even the music, a remix of the Uncharted main theme, was a great mix of hitting my nostalgia while still sounding new (even if it wasn't as funny as the “Boy” remix of the God of War theme). So of course, in addition to the corpse of Sir Francis Drake (which I had forgotten they find in that first game), and “God Damn” Sully himself, the bot that hit me hardest in this level, was Elena.

“More valuable than any treasure,” is all her description says, and maybe this is just me getting older, and more nostalgic for all the stuff I've loved over my life, but it got me. It feels silly to type out, and I didn't full on cry, but it brought back everything I love about that series, and how much those characters mean to me. How much, for as rocky and up and down as their relationship was, Elena and Nate meant, and still mean to me. One simple sentence, just cutting right to the emotional core of the series, and hitting me exactly where it needed to.

I ended up playing through that level three times, because there's a Trophy for finding all three of the Precursor Egg collectibles, and there was one I kept missing. It's not even that well hidden, I just overlooked it the first two times. Point being, by my third time through, I was so full up on Uncharted nostalgia that I felt like it was time for me to play through all the Uncharted games. Again.

For context, I've beaten Uncharted: Drake's Fortune...bare minimum, five times. I'm certain I played it at least thrice on PS3, and now twice on the PS4 remaster. Yes, before I managed to even write this blog, I went and played through Drake's Fortune. It's not a long game!

And, it's still the same game it always was. The closest thing to a new thought I have, is how almost quaint it feels now. How “small” it is, since it was a flagship title for PS3, a big budget $60 game in its day. It's short, with nothing outside the story to play. No big world to explore, no other modes to inflate the playtime. If you finish it and want more, just play it through again. Maybe try to find all the collectibles? I never actually found all of the collectibles, in any of these games, despite replaying them all.

Yet, I loved it at the time, and I still love it now. It has all the same flaws it always did, and all the same charms. The main trio of Nate, Elena, and Sully are as lovable as they ever were, and still a testament to how perfectly cast each of them was. The game is as combat heavy as ever, and Normal is still harder than most games are on hard these days (it also defaults to Easy), though it wouldn't be the same to me without that challenge (I beat the first three games on Hard back in the day too). There's stuff about it that's still clunky, but honestly I sincerely miss the balance the controller to walk over the log stuff they cut from the remaster. The motion controls are better than on PS3, it'd work better! (They should have done that in Astro Bot.)

I was, however, genuinely struck by how good it still looks. Again, this was the remaster, and I dunno how much of this was BluePoint's work on it, and how much was just the original art still being good, but hey! It looks good! The faces...are weird because on the one hand their semi-stylized look means they probably hold up better than if they had just attempted straight realism in 2007, but they also still look a little funky. Charming though, of course.

Maybe there's something to what people keep saying about modern AAA games having diminishing returns if this nine year old remaster of a game from 2007 still looks so good. Of course, it was a big budget AAA game in 2007, from a studio now infamous for overworking themselves to achieve these sorts of graphics, so I dunno.

Anyway, I will continue replaying these games, and still have fun with them. Between my finishing a draft of this blog and publishing it, I managed to...also finish Uncharted 2! Also still a great game, though I still kinda like a lot about 1 more (mostly story/character development stuff), and still think 3 was the best of that initial trilogy. They're all great games, I wouldn't be replaying them yet again if I didn't think so.

For anyone wondering why I didn't also write paragraphs about Uncharted 2, if I kept delaying this blog to add/proof read more about each game, before I know it I'd have replayed all of them. Then I'd split that off into its own Uncharted retrospective, which if I'm going to do THAT, I'll wait until Drake's Fortune hits its arbitrary twenty year anniversary in three years. Gonna be a lot of twenty year anniversaries in 2027, be prepared to feel old.

Anyway, I've yet to play the PS5 versions of 4 and Lost Legacy (my two favorites of the franchise), so I'm sure those manage to look even more stunning than they did on PS4. Even just doubling that framerate will be rad. Too bad there's no way to achieve both the frame rate of performance mode, and visuals of fidelity mode at once. If only I could spend six hundred and ninety nine US dollars to achieve a slightly higher quantity of pixels that I probably wouldn't notice in the first place!

That's my takeaway from Astro Bot. It's a great, super fun game on its own, but it managed to make me so emotional about something I know and love that I decided to go back and replay five games. All of which I've played at least twice, and at least thrice for the PS3 games. Hey, they're fun games! And because they're all fairly short (Uncharted 4 is the only one well above ten hours (but still under twenty!)), they're good for replaying. I got through Drake's Fortune in two afternoons, with plenty of time to spare on the second.

Sure, going after people's nostalgia can be lazy, and tired, but Astro Bot is anything but. I cannot stress enough that love and care oozes out of every pore on this game, and it is a true delight from start to finish. Anyone who has spent any serious time with games will find themself delighted by something, and any younger gamer out there might find themself intrigued to seek out an old classic they wouldn't have played otherwise.

Video games, as an art form, deserve love and respect as much as any other, and I think it's great that this game does what it does. Whether we realize it or not, the games we play help shape us just as much as any other art can. It could be for goofy things, or more serious. I've said it before, but the freaking nanomachine vampire in Metal Gear helped me realize I was bi, for one stupid example of how these things impact us, haha.

But in all seriousness, games are important, which I probably don't need to tell anyone taking the time to read a blog about Astro Bot. Playing Astro Bot is an experience of pure joy, and plain simple fun. Including all these cameos is its way of celebrating games, all those who love games, and the act of play itself. I can't really think of a better way to show respect to all the classics that came before than to include them in such a pure and joyous thing.

All that said, do I think they can keep leaning so heavily on nostalgia going forward? Probably not, but they were smart enough to not lean as heavily on hardware nostalgia (though there's still some of it), and clearly Team Asobi knows what they're doing. Even if all the cameos were stripped out of Astro Bot, it would still be a great platformer. Just not one with the same emotional impact for people like me. So, whatever is next for them, and probably Astro themself, I can't wait to see it.

Thank you for reading, and I can only hope that we can all continue to find joy in games, whether it's from revisiting the classics, or discovering something new. Have a great day! <3