1. Astro Bot (2024)
Shortly before Astro Bot, I played through The Plucky Squire. I thought that one was a game that excelled at charm and got by because of it, even if it lacked in other departments. Well, Astro Bot is what happens when you have an ultra charming game that succeeds in every way. It'd be hard to list all the little touches that make it more charming. When you attack a friendly animal bot in the environment, it spins around and jumps with joy. There are little cutouts you can put your face into for a picture, and when you do, a bunch of other random bots join in - putting your face into the mouse cutout makes a bunch of cats come and glare down on you, for example. The Crash Site, your home base, is where all the bots you've rescued hang out. They do little animations reminiscent of their game of origin, and react uniquely when you interrupt them (Kratos freezes you with his axe, for example). You can summon them to follow you around, too. It's always adorable, and even when it doesn't contribute to the gameplay, it contributes to the joy I feel when playing.
The gameplay is excellent too. Astro's movement isn't necessarily anything special on its own, but it's very finely tuned, and it's very rare that you do something you don't want to. More importantly, the level design is sublime. Every level does a great job packing itself full of fun little treats that make you engage with your abilities in new ways. There are a good number of power ups in the game, and rather than have them be universal like Mario often does, they're restricted to certain levels. This allows the designers to construct meaningful ways to use those power ups that are super engaging to deal with. There's less freedom than in some platformers - most of the levels are fairly linear, where you go from the beginning to the end. There are a few more open levels where you explore a big area, which make for a nice spice, but I think the focused level design works to make the game better, for the most part. Sadly, the best power up is only used in one level, but that level's maybe the best in the game, so maybe showing restraint was good in this case. After world 2, power ups start getting reused, and they're less joyful on repeat uses, but thankfully there's still a lot of creativity in there. On top of that, there are crossover levels with other classic PS franchises, all of which give you unique powers and are full of excellent fanservice. They're spectacular.
The one part where I'm not sure if the game shines is when it gets more difficult. Each galaxy after has a few special hard levels where you don't get checkpoints and have to clear a gauntlet of challenging obstacles. These are fun, and similar to the sort of challenges you encounter in, say Super Mario Galaxy 2, but they lack the perfection that the rest of Astro Bot delivers, and they can get a bit frustrating at times.
The game's bosses ended up a bit of a mixed bag for me because of this. Overall, the big bosses of each galaxy are some of the best bosses in any game, and are certainly the best in any platformer. The scale is spectacular, with each boss basically being one big setpiece. I've always loved huge bosses, and all of these are gigantic. Sadly, we all know the problem with setpiece design: it loses its magic when you die and have to redo it. I died a few times against the third and fourth bosses, so they weren't quite the ecstatic experiences that the first two were for me. The fifth and final bosses were still excellent, though, with the final boss in particular being one of the best sequences of the game.
Lastly, I think this might be the prettiest game ever made. Everything about it is smooth, even when there are hundreds of bots on screens. You'll frequently run into objects that explode into many small, interactable objects, and they're perfectly joyously rendered every time. Stuff's always moving in the background even when nothing's going on. It has that Nintendo feel, combined with maximum fidelity.
I thought Astro's Playroom was an all-around great experience when I got my PS5. I was expecting more of the same here - more levels, but mostly gimmicky stuff, resulting in a fun game that wasn't quite special. Instead, this is more like Super Mario Galaxy 3. Full of creativity, way bigger levels, less gimmicky. Absolutely magical all around, and one of the best platformers ever made. I don't know how they'll follow this up, but I'm definitely hyped as hell to be getting more of this series.
All the stars in the sky are waiting for you.