astro bot is goated actually

well you see initially i scoffed at playing pre-installed astro's playroom because i thought that it wasn't much of a game and more of a level-making tool for a 2d platformer with online share. and i wasn't that enticed by the idea of a 2d platformer. but i once was so worn out after playing just persona so i decided to give it a try

turnes out it was a stupid fun 3d platformer. with a ton of collectibles. idk what exactly hooked me in - the fun of jumping around and having the complete freedom of movement (compared to the more closed-off locations i am used to) or filling out the collection or just looking at all those models and going "wooooah i have that" or "woooooah i want to have that"

ganious promotion of other ps products. and an incredible homage too, but i guess that was the first and main point of the excessive ps branding across the game. idk it didn't even feel weird to me at least, but maybe because i was conscious of that duality

all's good but i wANTED MOAR so i got the full game

the pricing felt a bit weird to mecause wow this long-ass jrpg cost 5 thousand rubles and this platformer that is considerably much shorter cost 6 thousand which is also 3/4 of what i paid for my ps vita. but whatever. many factors i forgot to take into account and my perception of platformers in general. anyways! to the full game!

adorable. astro is so damn adorable. and the collectibles are fun. i really appreciate that they included that helpful bird for ppl returning to locations for 100%

challenge runs are fun and wow surprise actually challenging. i completed all of the smaller challenges but i am stumped at the final master's challenge. dunno, the birds flying in triangles, dude

also master's challenge? is that how it's called in english? i played in russian (default system language for me). and actually the only "problem" i have had with this game is that a few things in the last galaxy are untranslated. djinny stages, mecha-leon and something else was in english, though a sensible russian translation isn't that hard to come up (or transliteration. меха-леон works perfectly fine as russian uses a loan word that is basically the same)

i didn't really touch the dlc stages, but damn it is nice those are free and automatically downloaded. i mean, yeah, waiting for a bit while the game installs isn't nice, but a freebie is a freebie. and not like it's a day1 update situation, the game is incredibly good even without them

the ps characters collection was cool. i think i would've chosen a slightly different selection or represented some franchises differently, but for the most part they made sense to me

the gachapon lab is... an eh decision. i think the cosmetics would've been fine as a separate shop, and some trinkets for characters seemed a bit underwhelming. but i appreciate that the devs made the gacha have a limited pool of items where you will get everything after a while. and it doesn't take that long too.

idk i could tell more about the platforming part but i am not a platformer guy so idk where even to start talking? okay i have an idea

my fave part was ice. yup. the gliding is extremely satisfying AND paired with the slight rumble in the controller (don't we dare it's a promotion of dual sense!). holy that was good. speeding up and slowing down felt natural and the sfx was very neat too

i really expected some of those costumes from playroom to appear in the main game, but it's alright

the monkey ledge grabbing sections still kinda hurt my wrists a bit tho

some of the sfx kinda reminded me of miitopia actually (the cute stand-in for speech sounds, in particular)

sound design is cool too. the challenge stage theme gets repetetive a bit too quickly, especially when you try to gring it over and over again, but the genral vibe of it is nice and it doesn't put itself on your mind too much, if you get what i'm saying. i love when bgm is actually bgm (looking at you persona)

well in general i think i have found the game to play with my younger sister (or rather have her play in case she comes over and has time for a bit of gaming). i think i would pick playroom for that but that's circumstantional

overall i am glad that i have picked astro bot and i don't regret it even a tiny bit. but i think that's enough platformers for me lolol