"Astrobot: Rescue Mission" Review - Super Mario VR

VR, it seems, has become the new place to be for cute game mascots. Earlier this year we had Moss, mascotted by the adorable mouse, Quill. Now, we have Astrobot: Rescue Mission, mascotted by an adorable little robot. Unlike Moss, I hadn't heard anything about Astrobot until it came out. It was met with positive reviews, and I'm constantly scrambling to justify my purchase of the VR hardware, so I figured, "why not?" Judging from the reviews, I went into the experience expecting a third-person platformer in the same vein as Super Mario Sunshine, but in VR. Astrobot is exactly that, but it's also perhaps the game that makes more small innovations with the VR hardware than any other title to date.

The premise of Astrobot is simple: You are a robot wearing a VR helmet and holding a PS4 controller (10 points for realism). A ship full of the titular Astrobots shows up and gets destroyed by a big green alien, scattering all but one of the Astrobots to different planets. From there, you and the one remaining Astrobot venture through five stages in each of five worlds (a-la Super Mario), rescuing the other bots from their interstellar diaspora. As far as stories go, it's obviously nothing to write home about, but the bots are cute enough to make the simple premise of rescuing them at least somewhat compelling. I'll say this, though: the execution of the story leaves a lot to be desired. The worlds themselves have no consistency or common themes. They're all just amalgamations of five very different biomes and situations with little rhyme or reason as to why they're on the same planet. Same goes for the bosses at the end of each world: the fights themselves are terrific, but there's no sense of why we have to fight them. Each boss has a piece of the Astrobot ship, but why? What's their connection to the big green alien? Why do they want us to fail? These are small issues, but they're ones that I found myself returning to a couple of times. Anywho, gameplay is pretty much what you'd expect from the game's description. You use the controller to control the Astrobot while you, the big robot, look on. You can make the Astrobot jump, punch, and hover, and if you've ever played at 3D platformer, you'll know exactly what each of these actions is used for. Occasionally, however, you'll acquire an accessory for your controller (which is displayed on the screen at all times). This comes in the form of a grappling hook/shurikens/a water gun/etc. It's in these moments where the gameplay is switched up a bit in interesting ways. For instance, in levels where you get a grappling hook, you can use it to make tightropes for the bot to walk along or pull down another platform. In levels where you have a shuriken, you can create additional platforms by launching a shuriken into wood, which the bot can then stand on. The application of each gadget becomes pretty instantaneously clear, and it always makes the (already good) gameplay even better.

Now let's talk about those small VR innovations I mentioned in the introductory paragraph. While the Astrobot is capable enough, there are things that it cannot do. For instance, if there's a giant wooden plank blocking the entrance of a canyon, it can't destroy that. That's where you come in. There are times where an object will be in front of your face. In these instances, your purpose is to headbutt them. That's right, you pull your physical out-of-game head back and slam it in the direction of the object, and it destroys the object or pushes it away. I've personally never played a VR title that required you to headbutt something, so it was a welcome and joyful little gimmick. In addition, there are some enemies that try attacking you instead of the bot, and in those cases you have to physically dodge the attacks, then use a headbutt. In terms of gameplay, that's where the VR innovation ends, but there are plenty of small little details that make use of the hardware outside of gameplay. For instance, in one underwater level, I had the Astrobot swim above me, then just let go of the controller for a second. It fell through the water, and once it reached where my head was, there was a small *thump* and it looked like it was stuck to my headset. When I started laughing at that, bubbles appeared in front of me and the bot hung on to the headset but looked like it was being blown away. The game used the mic on the headset, picked up the sound of my laughter, and incorporated it into the game in a charming, easy-to-miss way. Then there are smaller things like emerging from the water with a clump of seaweed on your head in the shape of a Jamaican hairstyle and only being able to see through the center of your field of vision. The game is constantly using its VR format to charm in interesting ways.

As a technical package, Astrobot is decent, but there are some issues that need to be addressed. First and foremost is that this game did consistently give me motion sickness in extended play periods (and lest we forget, I've played a parkour game in VR). The striking thing about that is that it ties into another of the game's problems: you don't really move. The Astrobot does most of the movement, and as it makes progress, you're just pushed forward. This pushing forward consistently feels choppy, and when too much of it happens at once it's a little nauseating. What this also means is that there's no turning controls. If the Astrobot needs to get to something behind you, you physically have to turn your body around. For some this may help with immersion with VR as a platform, but the controller tends to freak out when it isn't facing the screen. Another implication of this is that once you start a level, you essentially have a one-way ticket to the end. If you reach the end, realize you're missing an astrobot, and want to scour the level again, you won't move, and your Astrobot will just disappear into the distance without you if you try to go back. So, you have to either find all the bots in the first try or replay the level from the beginning (possibly missing however many bots a second time). It's not a bad first try at this kind of VR game, but it is most definitely a first try. Aside from that, there's only one other problem to speak of: there are times where the Astrobot will have to walk on a platform above you, and it's just friggin' uncomfortable to have my head craned back, not be able to actually see where the bot is, and have to walk slowly to avoid falling off. That's really it in terms of technical flaws. The motion sickness thing is a big one, but everything else is relatively small. Otherwise, the framerate (when not being moved) is solid, the textures are clear and shiny, the sense of scale is perfect in boss fights, I never had to recalibrate the headset (though the game did occasionally lose the position of the controller), there were never any glitches, bugs, crashes, or pop-ins, and while the soundtrack was a bit repetitive, it wasn't offensive.

If this review has seemed short and simple, it's because Astrobot: Rescue Mission is short and simple (also I have friggin Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Red Dead Redemption 2 on my plate now, gimme a break). It's a tried-and-true gameplay premise peppered with innovations reliant on the VR hardware. It's a charming, cute, and mostly technically sound VR title that'll give you temporary justification for purchasing the hardware in the first place (if you play it in short bursts). The story and bosses aren't well tied-together and there are some technical issues, but all-in-all, if you own a Playstation VR headset, you won't regret picking up Astrobot: Rescue Mission.

Let us review:

No sense of world cohesion - 0.3
Technical Issues - 0.7

The final score for Astrobot: Rescue Mission is...



9.0/10 - Fantastic

Good work, Japan Studio, good work.