PlayStation reviving this PS1 classic wasn't on my 2024 bingo card
Astro Bot is an Aladdin’s cave of wonders that evokes a wonderful sense of nostalgia, particularly if you’ve been on the PlayStation train since the very beginning. Some of the game’s cameos come from Sony’s best-selling games, while others are deep-cuts, and I don’t want to ruin the surprise of these.
As GAMINGbible’s Kate said in her great review of this masterpiece, Astro Bot has “levels that allow you to truly step into the shoes of some of PlayStation’s most iconic characters.” and she was “loath to spoil anything.”
That tracks with what I’m going to write about. If you want to go into Astro Bot fresh and not know who will appear, then go and play the game instead of reading my words. Go on, off you go. If you have finished the game, or simply don’t care about spoilers, then read on.
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There’s a point, quite late into the fourth galaxy, where a character cameo is revealed that made me gasp so loudly and deeply that I thought I’d disturb my neighbours. There, on the screen, rendered in glorious 4K resolution was a piece of my teenage years, and contained within that piece, memories swirled of reasons as to why I fell in love with gaming in the first place. I sat there marvelling at Robbit from the Jumping Flash! games. I never thought I’d see this character again, even if it’s just a fancy 3D model.
Let’s rewind a little. I’ll take you back many years to 1996 when I was 14 years old. I’d been saving money from the previous Christmas and I had just sold my SEGA Mega Drive for £50, just what I needed to buy a Sony PlayStation. I went along to Woolworths with my mum and paid for my new console - the first I’d ever owned brand-new - along with a copy of DOOM.
After many days with the hardware, DOOM wasn’t the most important software I owned, it was the demo disc that came with the console. It was called Demo One.
This disc contained, among some amazing demos of upcoming games, a trailer for Jumping Flash! That was how we saw trailers back then, we had to wait for demo discs to stoke the hype train. If you aren’t aware of Jumping Flash!, first of all, how dare you? Second of all, it’s a 3D platformer played in a first-person perspective. You controlled Robbit, a giant robot rabbit with rockets in its feet, who could jump insanely high and move quickly, to collect items within levels and thwart bad guys. It was a revelation. I never expected platformers to be so different with this new hardware, and when I finally got my hands on the game later down the line, I was in love.
It was games like Jumping Flash! that sparked a passion in me. I already loved games. I grew up playing Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario Bros 2 and The Simpsons: Bart Versus The World, but now everything was 3D. Those games planted seeds that would be nurtured by PlayStation - and to a lesser extent the SEGA Saturn.
While seeing Robbit elicited the biggest gasp of wonder, there were so many cameos that transported me back to those heady days when little mattered except getting to the next level or unlocking a new character. While I knew that Astro Bot would dig into the past of PlayStation to celebrate 30 years of the brand, I still wasn’t quite expecting the characters that would eventually make me grin from ear to ear.
I remember visiting my local video rental shop - it wasn’t a Blockbuster - and going back to renew my rental of Suikoden over and over, for as long as I could, in order to unlock as many of the 108 heroes available. So, when the main hero of that game appeared, I was taken aback, it’s probably an insignificant addition for the majority of the audience, but the addition meant so much, as did the obvious choices of characters like PaRappa the Rapper, who appeared in only a few games but captured the hearts of so many.
Astro Bot is, like many have already said on social media, or written in articles, a potential Game of the Year, if not THE Game of the Year. It’s not just a celebration of all things PlayStation, but a damn good platforming adventure. So good, I doubt I’ve played anything this wonderful since Super Mario Odyssey for the Nintendo Switch. My hope is that many younger players or teenagers will play this and then look back in 30 years with the same warm nostalgia that game has inspired in me.
Topics: PlayStation, PlayStation 5, Sony, Retro Gaming