I got drunk one night and was kind of pissed off that I didn't have anything casual that I wanted to play. I think this happened after I yet again got one-shotted by a boss on Path of Exile 2 and was like "fuck this game."
Astro Bot had just won game of the year and I have been hearing wonderful things about it so even though it was $60 I went ahead and pulled the trigger on getting it. I almost never pay full price for games so this was a very rare instance for me.
So here I am 15 hours after first playing the game and I competed the main story - if you can even call it that since there are no words spoken ever - and it was a pretty enjoyable experience. I have no beefs with this game.
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As the pictures and perhaps videos of this game that you have seen strongly suggest, this is a silly and quite casual game. There are very few instances anywhere in the game that actually gave me a lot of trouble although some of the optional boards I did decide to leave and return to later because I wasn't in the mood for needing to do things pinpoint right to complete them at the time.
Everything about this game is whimsically awesome including and especially the HUGE bosses that even though they look intimidating as hell are something that you can overcome once you understand their often very-easy-to-determine attack patterns.
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Take this guy for example. I don't remember his name but it's an octopus that is wearing boxing gloves and a snorkel. The fight is just hilarious and I think for most people it will only take 3 or fewer tries before you defeat it. Even the final boss of the entire game was something that I accomplished on the 3rd try and while that might seem boring to some people out there this is just the right kind of game to have in your arsenal for a wind-down compared to other games that are far more complicated and difficult.
The navigation from one system to the next as well as recovering all of your bots that were on your PS5 mothership that got lost is a very fun part of the game. You actually can defeat the main campaign without rescuing almost all of the bots, but there are some fun things that are opened up if you do save them. I managed to collect around 220 out of the 300 bots and there are other collectibles such as puzzle pieces that open up various shops on your crash-landed planet that is in the center of the main map.
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it's simple to navigate, the various stages are quite different from one another and all of it is really cute and fun for adults and kids. The fact that for the most part you only ever use 2-3 buttons really appeals to me as well. I get lost in games that use all the buttons unless I play them every day and manage to remain relatively sober in my real life, which isn't always very likely.
So yeah, I thought this was an excellent game and I am happy that I acquired it.
However, and if you know me you know that I am always going to find something to complain about, this doesn't mean that I am 100% satisfied with this particular purchase.
I do not think that a game that can be finished in 10-15 hours is worth the full price of $60-$70 that is the norm for new releases these days. I think the only games that should ever be that much are the epic open-world games that you can play for a hundred hours and still have some things left to do. While Astro Bot is a wonderful throwback to simpler times in gaming and is a beautiful and engaging game that is bound to appeal to almost everyone, I do not think that is should be in this high-price category.
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I guarantee that this boss will give you some trouble
So for those of you out there that might be eyeing this one up, I would say that it probably wouldn't be a terrible idea to wait for it to go on special to a price point of around say, $25. It will probably be a while before that is the case because a ton of people are still interested in buying this, but once those numbers start to dwindle the price will drop as has almost always been the case with games.
No matter how much you pay for this game though, I am certain you are going to have fun with it. It has been a while since I have gotten a game that I truly think would appeal to everyone both hardcore gamers as well as total noobs.