Have you been playing Astro Bot? Sony’s big PlayStation-celebrating platformer is out now on PlayStation 5 and despite some glaring omissions, it’s a delightful game worth playing. It’s especially rewarding if you’re a long-time PlayStation fan who has played a lot of the company’s games over the past 30 years.
If your experience with PlayStation is a little spotty, you might not recognize all the cameos and references scattered throughout its levels. So, if you’re looking to brush up on some of the lesser-known Sony games after seeing these characters in Astro Bot, here are a few recommendations that you can play on your PS5 right now.
Tearaway Unfolded
Back in 2015, Media Molecule completely retooled Tearaway, an incredible Vita-exclusive platformer based entirely around the handheld’s built-in tech, to make it work on a PlayStation 4 controller. Tearaway was an underappreciated gem, as it was on a handheld console that only a few million people bought, so it made sense for Sony to port it to the PS4. Media Molecule went the extra mile with Tearaway Unfolded and remade most of it to accommodate the DualShock 4, such as pressing the touchpad causing platforms to bounce and give you some extra air time or the light bar illuminating dark areas. Tearaway Unfolded is a wonderful, joyous game that feels almost like a precursor to Astro Bot. It has a lot of the same design philosophies that make them both fun platformers and a technical showcase for their respective controllers.
Gravity Rush
Speaking of games that deserved a bigger audience than the Vita could offer, Gravity Rush and its sequel Gravity Rush 2 are some of the most underrated games from that era. These open-world action games star Kat, a young woman who has the ability to shift gravity, allowing her to “fall” across long distances. She can use the momentum to unleash devastating kicks against her enemies. Gravity Rush can be a bit disorienting, but there’s nothing like using Kat’s powers to send yourself barreling through an environment. Traversal has always been one of the biggest barriers for me in open-world games, because if it’s not fun to move through a space, I don’t care how big it is. Gravity Rush has such a simple, exhilarating answer to this question that it remains an old favorite of mine.
Sly Cooper
You will not get me to write about older PlayStation gems without me writing about Sly Cooper. Sucker Punch’s heist platformers are still some of the breeziest, most innovative mascot platformers to grace a PlayStation console, and yet Sony cannot be bothered to greenlight a fifth one and resolve Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time’s cliffhanger. The original game is available as a PS2 classic, but the rest of the games are only playable through streaming and a PlayStation Plus subscription. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus game is still a lot of fun, but the sequels are where Sucker Punch got into the groove. Sly 2 and 3 added new playable characters with different skill sets that really made you feel like you were setting up a big heist. God, I miss the Cooper Gang every day. You, too, can be filled with the endless torment of knowing a fifth game isn’t in development right now.
Parappa the Rapper
I’m genuinely surprised Sony hasn’t greenlit a third Parappa the Rapper game. Both the original rhythm game and its sequel are available on modern platformers, but Sony hasn’t put out a new one since Parappa the Rapper 2 in 2001. The hip-hop rhythm games star the titular dog rapper as he lays down bars during the most mundane life events. Learning to drive a car? Rap about it. Get your first part-time job? Rap with a frog who sounds a lot like Shaggy. Parappa the Rapper 2 goes even more off the rails, but the charm is still there and the songs are all bangers.
MediEvil
I got a copy of Sony Cambridge’s MediEvil with my first PlayStation for Christmas 1998. I spent much of my kindergarten year thinking the game was terrifying, only to find out in adulthood the hack-and-slash game is goofy-as-hell and primed for a spooky season replay. It stars Sir Daniel Fortesque, a reanimated soldier who comes back from the dead to become a hero after actually being an embarrassing failure. In 2019, Sony and Other Ocean Interactive remade the game for PlayStation 4, and while the game still feels a little dated by modern standards, it’s still a really fun look into an era of PlayStation’s past that Sony doesn’t seem interested in recapturing anymore.
Team Ico’s games
Some of the most acclaimed games we’re talking about here are Team Ico’s. Astro Bot has references to Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian, but only the latter two are playable on PlayStation 5 right now. Shadow of the Colossus got a full-blown remake in 2018 and, after years of development hell, The Last Guardian made its way to PS4 in 2016. Team Ico’s work is often defined by slightly clunky gameplay, offset by immaculate, artful stories. The Last Guardian is a shining example of a game that frustrated me to play but absolutely won me over in the end because its final moments are incredible. Team Ico may be gone alongside the rest of Japan Studio, but much of the team still remains under director Fumito Ueda’s new studio genDESIGN. Here’s hoping whatever they put out next is just as magical.
The Order: 1886
Tragically, The Order: 1886 isn’t represented in Astro Bot, but it was in the previous game Astro’s Playroom. Developer Ready At Dawn was recently shut down by its corporate owners at Meta, and it was just another reminder of that studio’s potential. The Order: 1886 isn’t the best cover shooter to grace a PlayStation, but it had a really fascinating steampunk alt-history world that could have been the foundation for a great series. If things had gone a little differently, we could have seen sequels throughout the PlayStation 4 era. It’s a shame, but the game still has a lot of great moments worth checking out.
Patapon
Y’all want one more underrated handheld game that made its way to consoles for the road? Patapon spawned a trilogy of rhythm games for the PlayStation Portable that were so well-loved they ended up mashed together with God of War on a PlayStation All-Stars stage. Thankfully, they haven’t been entirely lost as Sony leaves handheld gaming behind, as the first game and its sequel were remastered for PlayStation 4 and 5. Real shame they stopped there and didn’t also bring Patapon 3 to consoles.
Ape Escape
Last on our list of PlayStation gems to go back to is the Ape Escape series. The first two games and the Academy and On the Loose spin-offs are all playable on your PS5. If you’re too young to have played the PlayStation classics and were wondering what the first tribute level in Astro Bot was all about, it was an elaborate reference to these platformers. The series has been on ice since 2010, so it’s nice to see Sony at least acknowledge it in Astro Bot.
Looking back at a lot of these games is bittersweet given the state of PlayStation’s first-party games right now. The PS5 has been mostly defined by carnage for PlayStation Studios between cancelations and studio closures, so looking back at some of the more experimental and original games the company used to bring out feels bad. You, too can get nostalgic about what once was by looking at all those characters in Astro Bot, I guess.
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