EVO 2024 is home to the biggest fighting games in the world. Many of the heavy hitters have something to show off, as do some aspiring indie developers looking to carve their way into the space. However, this year, an unexpected game found its way onto the EVO show floor and that's Astro Bot. Given that EVO is under the PlayStation umbrella, the folks at Sony are taking the opportunity to show off its upcoming platformer to the show-going audience. Never one to pass up an opportunity, Shacknews moseyed on over to the Astro Bot booth to try the game out.
The first thing to note is that several of the game's stages were available to play. It would have been easy to get a taste of Astro Bot's charming level design, its colorful worlds, and its adorable main character. In the spirit of EVO, however, we went in looking for a challenge. Fortunately, the booth worker pointed me in the right direction and sent me to a stage called Swinging Sentries.
Source: PlayStation
For those who aren't used to Astro Bot's mechanics, Swinging Sentries is an exercise in masochism. The title character has a few moves at his disposal. He can throw a punch, unleash a swinging spin attack, and briefly hover over the ground. Even if you are well-versed in Astro Bot's abilities, this is a brutal stage.
For Swinging Sentries, there are mechanical foes swinging a ball and chain at a rapid speed. Astro Bot can only take one hit before he pops like a balloon and gets sent back to the start of the level, so perfection is demanded. It's possible to jump over the ball and chain, but players must also be wary of the ground collapsing underneath their feet. They can't stay on the ground for long, or they'll fall into the deep abyss of space. It's essential to keep moving, but that can lead to some careless leaps straight into a swinging spiked ball.
After getting past three sentries, the objective becomes to land safely on a series of bounce pads to launch Astro Bot skyward. The pads are barely bigger than he is and they're surrounded by killer electric orbs. Mistime the jump and it leads to quite a shock. Again, the idea is to keep moving because the stage is collapsing, but the bounce pad sequence is brutal because now there are sentries swinging their balls and chains at the apex of Astro Bot's last jump. If I had a quarter for every time I leaped right into a swinging spiked ball, I could fund an arcade.
After getting through a few more sentries with extremely small chains on tiny platforms (meaning less margin for error), it was time for the final sequence. There's a vast planetary ring and there's one last sentry swinging a giant chain that extends all the way across its radius. Players must jump the chain like a hurdle before reaching one final set of platforms to reach the sentry. The idea is to dispatch the sentry with Astro Bot's punch, but the swings get faster the closer the player gets. Connecting with that last punch was a tough task, but eventually, I was able to land it and bring this stage to a merciful end.
After trying it out at EVO 2024, I came away with the impression that Astro Bot has the potential to be deceptively tough. It's a game that has drawn comparisons to Nintendo's Mario series and the Swinging Sentries stage certainly felt like something on par with Mario's toughest levels, like the ones from Super Mario Bros. Wonder's Special World. With a better idea of what awaits, it should be exciting to see what other challenges await in the universe of Astro Bot. Look for Astro Bot to release exclusively on the PlayStation 5 on Friday, September 6.
This preview is based on a public hands-on preview from the EVO 2024 show floor in Las Vegas, NV. It is available for anybody on-site to play through Sunday, July 21. The final product is subject to change.
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replyOzzie Mejia posted a new article, How Astro Bot gave us an unexpected EVO 2024 challenge
