For the game franchise of the same name, go here

Astro Bot is a 2024 3D Platform Game by Team Asobi for the PlayStation 5 released on September 6, 2024, and the sequel to The Playroom VR: Robots Rescue, Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Astro's Playroom. It is the fourth game in the Astro Bot series.

The game stars the returning Captain Astro, who gets separated from his crew (the "PlaySquadron") when the PS5 mothership gets wrecked by the returning Alien from Rescue Mission (here named Nebulax), scattering them across space in the process. Now Astro must traverse through various galaxies to rebuild the wrecked mothership and retrieve the missing members of his crew, all while facing new challenges and threats bigger than anything he has faced before.

The game can be best described as Astro's Playroom but much grander in scale, with a far larger amount of levels (80 across 6 galaxies to be exact), various abilities for Astro to use, and more varied platforming than what the previous games had offered before, all while making use of all of the PS5's capabilities like in Playroom. The bot rescue aspect also brings back the major gameplay element of Astro Bot Rescue Mission, which was absent in Astro's Playroom. The game also features an even greater emphasis on references to and cameos from PlayStation's wide range of franchises (and even some characters from third-party series), as a way of honoring the brand's 30th anniversary.

Post-launch the game has been supported by several levels through updates. During October 2024 a series of five levels were released on a weekly basis in the "Stellar Speedway" galaxy, which allowed players to set time records on short levels based around a specific power-up. For Christmas a single level named "Winter Wonder" was released, which throws Astro into a Christmas-themed level where he has to make use of (virtually) every single power-up in the game to complete it. In February-March 2025 another set of five levels were added in the "Vicious Void" galaxy, also releasing on a weekly schedule, with a similar time trial challenge to the "Stellar Speedway" levels, but with them being much more difficult and not having minimum time cutoffs needed in order to complete them. Each of the additional levels also include new bots to rescue and add to the crew at the crash site. Yet another set of "Vicious Void" levels dropped on July 10th, 2025, this time in a singular batch, with the the last level being a Spiritual Successor to the game's Brutal Bonus Level.

Previews: Announcement trailer.

Astro Bot provides examples of:

• Adorable Evil Minions: The main enemies you fight throughout the game tend towards being Waddling Heads, which is cute on its own, but they also tend to wear accessories that are themed to the level, like bowties in "Slo-Mo Casino", kabuki masks and sumo wrestler topknots in "Bathhouse Battle", samurai helmets in "Danger Dojo", and earmuffs and winter hats in "Frozen Meal".
• Air-Dashing: The dog powerup can be used to make Astro dash forward with a rocket both on the ground and in the air.
• Aliens Steal Cattle:
  • At one point in "High-Suction Hero", there is a photo stand. Standing there summons flying saucers that pull robotic cattle.
  • Midway through "Orbital Blitz", right after you climb up a platform you find a flying saucer enemy holding a cow in its tractor beam before flying away.
• All Deserts Have Cacti: "Hieroglitch Pyramid" has both pyramids and saguaro cacti.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: There are 5 specific levels, one for each galaxy where Astro transforms into VIP Bots versions of Spike, Kratos, Nathan Drake, Kulche, and Aloy with each level being directly inspired by and even including gameplay mechanics from their respective games.
• Antepiece:
  • Right before the very end of "Trunk of Funk", you have to use Astro's leg lasers to destroy the top of an eggshell. Immediately after this is the Tama Trio miniboss, three egg monsters who require you to use the same tactic to make them vulnerable.
  • The brief section before battling Lady Venomara has you smash bright cyan bands coiled around a snakelike stone pillar laid on the floor, then escape up a pillar by using the chicken rocket powerup to punch through diamonds blocking the path. The battle itself requires you to smash the same bands that are wrapped around her body when she dashes across the arena, then use the chicken to punch the same diamond on her chin.
  • In "Cannon Brawl", the second blue volcano you enter as iron ball Astro will vault him straight into the mouth of one of the new volcano enemies on another platform, which will then explode with Astro inside. This shows the player how to defeat these enemies, which are encountered frequently throughout the rest of the level.
  • Some of the secret levels are accessed by interacting with their core mechanic in the level whose secret exit leads to them, like the path to "Danger Dojo" requiring you to use a shuriken launcher to cut bamboo, or the path to "Turtles in Trash" having you use a vacuum mounted on a DualSense.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Missed a VIP Bot, puzzle piece, or secret exit in the first run of a level, but don't know where to turn? Returning to the level will allow you to summon a bird bot for a one-time payment of 200 coins to guide you to any leftover collectables.
  • Upon collecting a Bot or puzzle piece in a level, you can immediately leave the level and retain what you've grabbed, ensuring that a single missed collectible doesn't equate to having to run through the entire level again.
• Art Evolution: The VIP Bots are not only more numerous, but also much more detailed and developed. Compare these VIP Bots from Astro's Playroom to their counterparts from Astro Bot.
• Ascended Meme: Quite a few of the VIP bots names and descriptions are references to memes from their home games.
  • The Kratos and Atreus VIP Bots are named "Dad of Boy" and "Boy" respectively. On top of this, the background music for the "Bot of War" level features sampled audio of Kratos saying "boy".
  • The Persona 5 Joker VIP Bot has the description "You'll never see him coming."
  • The Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Raiden VIP Bot has the description "Nanomachines, son!"
  • The description for the Jill Valentine bot addresses her as "the master of unlocking."
• Astral Finale: The Final Boss battle against Nebulax occurs in the middle of outer space, where Astro fights on top of the PS5 mothership.
• Badass Adorable: Astro is this in spades, being a cute little intrepid explorer who can throw down with cybernetic monsters tens of times his size and win.
• Badass in Distress: Subverted with the Lara Croft bot; while most of the VIP Bots need to be rescued like the other bots, Lara is instead seen sneaking through a booby-trapped area before successfully reaching a treasure chest.
• Banana Peel: At the beginning of "Apes on the Loose", Astro leaps off his ship like normal, only to instantly slip on a banana peel that was left on the landing pad and fall on his back.
• Band Land: "Final Encore" is a music-themed level. Drums appear as enemies that can be knocked over, piano keys appear on some platforms and can be played, and pianos, accordions and tambourines show up as setpieces that respond to the level's powerup.
• Bedsheet Ghost: Phantos resemble green floating bedsheets with eye holes.
• Beehive Barrier:
  • In a few levels that have water, such as "Sky Garden" and "Bubbling Under", sphere-shaped barriers with a hexagonal design appear underwater and prevent water from passing through.
  • At the end of the first part of the final level, an enemy ship appears that uses a tall purple deflector shield with a hexagonal pattern on it.
• Becoming Part of the Image: Several stages have a little touristy billboard with a face hole somewhere on them. When Astro gets into position to show his screen face through the hole, several animals come out to pose or a scene plays out in the background for the camera to take a photo.
• Be the Ball: One of the power ups that Astro can use allows him to put himself into a ball-shaped shell that protects him from almost all harm and allows him to get launched from mini-volcanoes.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Lady Venomara has a spiked, drill-like point on the end of her tail, which she uses to saw off the outer part of the arena repeatedly as her fight goes on.
• Big Boo's Haunt: "Spooky Time", "Light Bulb Limbo" and "Ghouls & Bots" take place in haunted castle locales filled with ghosts and gargoyles. The VIP Bots found in these levels come from games with similar theming.
• Bilingual Bonus: The rapidly-shifting text that appears ingame will regularly display Japanese text with roughly the same meaning as the English text, including boss names.
• Bittersweet Ending: Subverted. After the final blow is dealt to Nebulax, he starts getting sucked into a black hole and grabs Astro to try and take him with him. The other Bots grab on to try and save Astro, but the latter lets go of them, ensuring Nebulax's defeat, and seemingly also Astro's demise. As the remaining Bots mourn, the credits start rolling to sad music... only to stop dead as Astro's damaged body is spat back out. This allows the Bots to repair him and turn the Bittersweet Ending into a happy one.
• Black Dot Pupils: PlayStation symbols in the challenge levels, unlike most other characters, have white eyeballs, black pupils and no irises.
• Blob Monster: Gloopy is an enemy that resembles a simple red-eyed amorphous blob.
• Body Bridge:
  • In Crash Site, unlocking certain areas requires bots to form a bridge. At one point, there are several dozen bots holding onto another to form a bridge Astro can cross. Astro can also break the bridge for an achievement.
  • In the final segment of "Machine Learning", Astro defeats the robot dinosaur Blunderjaw and then walks over its back to reach the end.
• Boss Arena Urgency: Lady Venomara uses her drill-like tail to destroy the outermost part of the circular battle arena twice as you successfully damage her.
• Boss Subtitles: Both mini- and main bosses have their name appear on-screen at the end of their introduction cutscene.
• Bottomless Pits: Falling off the level results in death.
• Bowdlerization: Downplayed. VIP Bots of characters who prominently use firearms, such as the Helghast soldier units, use either a PlayStation Move light-gun attachment or, in Naked Snake's case, a banana.
• Bowled Over: The landing plane knocks out a pyramid of robotic bunnies with the bowling pin sound.
• Breath Weapon: The Mini-Leon enemies attack by breathing fire.
• Brutal Bonus Level:
  • There are 16 challenge levels in the game that can be unlocked by flying around clouds of button symbols on the planet selection maps. These are far more difficult than normal levels, and they have no checkpoints so the player will need to start from the beginning if they die.
  • Collecting all 120 Puzzle Pieces as well as all 300 Bots unlocks the "Great Master Challenge", the final challenge level in the game with higher difficulty than previous challenge stages and, like them, you have no checkpoints. Clearing this challenge unlocks the final VIP Bot: Chop Chop Master Onion.
  • The post launch, "Stellar Speedway" and "Vicious Void" galaxies contain new bonus speedrun levels that are similar in difficulty to the challenge levels in the base game.
  • The second batch of "Vicious Void" levels adds one final level after completing the remaining stages, "Megamix Mastery", a sequel of sorts to the "Great Master Challenge", which utilizes several of the game's power-ups in comparison to their lack thereof in the "Great Master Challenge".
• Bubblegloop Swamp: "Dude Raiding" takes place in a wet swampy area with trees.
• Bullfight Boss: Nidhog attacks mainly by charging at the player.
• The Bully: Nebulax, the game's Big Bad, is described as such (even by his Boss Subtitles!), and every interlude that plays when entering a new galaxy has him bullying the mothership's processor in some way.
• The Burlesque of Venus: The last Bot rescued in "Free Big Brother!" is found posing in a clamshell in the style of The Birth of Venus, with seaweed acting as the hair.
• By Wall That Is Holey: In "Boxel Bust-Up", there is a side area where a wall falls down and the player has to stand in a specific spot to be aligned with a hole in it to prevent getting crushed.
• Cactus Person: Caca-boom is a cactus that attacks the player by bowling pieces of itself at them.
• Call-Back
  • The Trophy for recovering the GPU is titled "Doing It For You", which is a lyric from the GPU Jungle song in Astro's Playroom.
  • The portal to the Great Master Challenge is the same kind of portal seen in Astro's Playroom that takes the player to the four realms of the PS5 mothership. In particular, it resembles the final portal that's unlocked after beating the four realms which takes you to that game's Final Boss.
• Calling Your Attacks: The VIP Bots dressed as Sol Badguy, along with Ryu and Ken perform and say (very high pitched) versions some of their most iconic moves when punched by Astro. Sol does his Volcanic Viper, Ryu fires off a Hadoken, and Ken does a Shoryuken.
• Can't You Read the Sign?: The Ratchet and Rivet VIP Bots have a sign next to them with a picture telling you not to hit the bots. You're very much expected to hit them and all of the other VIPs, as doing so causes them to perform unique and silly animations.
• Cap: Coins have a cap of 99999.
• Cartoon Juggling: When equipped with the monkey powerup, Astro's idle animation has him juggle three bananas in the cascade style, alternating hands with each throw, before individually throwing each one up in the air for the monkey to eat.
• Cartoon Throbbing: While repairing the Mothership's Memory, the robot arms accidently hit their fingers while hammering the last nail. This causes their fingers to briefly swell red as they shake their hand in pain.
• Casino Park: "Slo-Mo Casino" is a large Las Vegas-esque casino level, with floating chips, giant dice, and darts that Astro can slow down to jump on.
• Caught with Your Pants Down: Obviously a downplayed example to remain kid-friendly, but one possible animation when hitting the Solid Snake VIP Bot is to knock his cardboard box away to reveal him looking with hearts in his eyes at a magazine containing images of a Bot in a swimsuit and another dressed like a Playboy Bunny. He panics, frantically covers up the magazine and retreats back under his cardboard box, reaching out to grab the magazine soon after.
• Cave Behind the Falls: In "Trapped In Time", there are several sand waterfalls that hide caves and alcoves for secrets.
• Checkpoint: Astro Bot head holograms activate when being near them. These serve as respawn points, should the player die.
• Chest Monster: One enemy pretends to be one of the big PlayStation coins you can collect to receive three coins, but it can be seen bouncing as it spins, and if you touch it it leaps into the air and tries to crush you. Humorously, it awards even more coins upon its defeat than the pickup it's pretending to be.
• Christmas Town: "Winter Wonder" is a standalone level introduced for free in the December 2024 update. On top of having a giant Christmas tree and Christmas-themed decorations all over the level, the level itself is a non-linear scavenger hunt for golden presents, each containing costumes, new coatings for Astro's ship, and several new VIP bots.
• Circling Birdies:
  • Stunned enemies and defeated bosses have holographic stars orbiting around their head.
  • Hitting the Cloud VIP Bot enough times will cause him to use Omnislash, where Astro cannot move, before Cloud goes for what appears to be a final slash, but hits Astro on the head with the Buster Sword's flat, causing Astro to see Chocobos orbiting around his head. Also, hitting the Sephiroth VIP Bot may result in him doing a multi-slash attack with his sword on Astro, which also causes Astro to see circling Chocobos.
• Cock-a-Doodle Dawn: In Luna Sola, pressing a daylight switch causes a rooster crow to sound.
• Colossus Climb:
  • In "Go-Go Archipelago!", Astro fights Captain Pincher, a giant robot pirate that he has to clamber up with the monkey arms so that he can yank off his head.
  • A friendly variant happens in "Free Big Brother!", where the eponymous robot allows Astro to walk on his hands, arms, shoulders and upper body to get through the level. Fittingly, the Mono and Wander VIP Bots are both found in this level (along with the Last Guardian's protagonist Bot); Wander is even found on the back of Big Brother's neck, where many of the Colossi's Weak Points are found.
  • Downplayed in Lady Venomara's boss battle, which ends with Astro landing on her body and attempting to reach her head... but since she's a snake and has her body outstretched, you're simply running along the length of her body rather than climbing her specifically.
• Colour-Coded Timestop: When using the stopwatch powerup or a thrown hourglass to slow time, a large blue pulse emits from the relevant item that briefly colors the entire screen blue. For the rest of the time-slow's duration, all of the game's colors are more vivid than usual.
• The Comically Serious: The Kratos VIP Bot keeps a mostly serious and stoic demeanor throughout the game, which provides an amusing contrast to the lighthearted setting.
• Company Cameo: Like its predecessor, Astro Bot is more than happy to reference both Sony and Team Asobi, whether with direct namedrops or otherwise (such as the "A5081" air conditioner in "Downsize Surprise").
• Company Cross-References:
  • Just like Astro's Playroom, the game is filled with nods to PlayStation's history and its wide array of characters and hardware, with the first trailer alone featuring robots dressed as Nathan Drake, the protagonist from Journey, ICO, PaRappa, Wander, Kratos, Aloy, and Spike. Find the full list here.
  • In a cross-reference going outside of Sony Interactive Entertainment and into the greater Sony corporation, two VIP bots are an AIBO ERS-110 and ERS-1000 (incidentally the first and latest in the real-life line at the time of the game's release).
  • The "Dude Raiding" level has secret collectibles in the form of Precursor Orbs. Both games being referenced were created by Naughty Dog.
• Composite Character: Unlike many VIP Bots, who are based on a specific game in their home series (if applicable), the WipEout bots and their machines are new designs that incorporate aspects of their teams' machines from across the series.
• Console Cameo: The PlayStation hardware is heavily featured in the game like in Playroom. For some core examples, Astro uses a DualSense controller as his transport across the world map and into and out of levels, while a large PS5 serves as the mothership for all the bots. In the final level, all of the current and previous PlayStation consoles and peripherals are used as battleships in the fight against Nebulax's forces.
• Conspicuous Electric Obstacle:
  • The game features glowing yellow electric plates, marked with a lightning bolt. Touching these causes instant death. These are more common in challenge stages and late game.
  • One obstacle takes the form of floating yellow mine-like objects that visibly crackle with electricity and can connect an electric beam to each other.
  • In a few occasions, sparks travel across rails.
  • In "Machine Learning", there are purple glowing electric tripwires based on the Tripcaster from the Horizon games. These can be cut with the laser jet.
• Construction Zone Calamity: "Construction Derby" takes place in a precarious construction site. A few challenge stages also take place in a construction-themed arena where the player has to fight enemies on a crumbling platform.
• Covered in Gunge: Upon defeating Lady Venomara, she spits up a treasure chest and a bunch of green gunk. Opening the chest reveals the Nathan Drake VIP Bot, who is also covered in the green goop before he shakes it off.
• Cranial Eruption: Falcon McFly has a large bump on his head that's covered by the helmet he wears. Once you shatter the helmet, all you need to do is attack the bump a few times and he goes down for good.
• Creative Closing Credits: When the credits start, the player has to go through a linear stage while the major creator names are displayed (and can be destroyed). The full names appear when the player steps on labelled PS1 memory cards.
• Credits Gag: A false credits roll scrolls up when it seems like Astro Bot sacrificed himself to stop Nebulax. Even the face on Team Asobi's logo turns sad!
• Cue the Sun:
  • It's nighttime every time you bring a Mothership part back to the Crash Site to repair it, while the sun immediately rises once you pull the lever to complete the repair sequence, setting the stage for Crash Site's usual midday appearance when you return to gameplay.
  • In "Free Big Brother!", it's initially dark and rainy, but once Astro does as the level's name says and gets the chains off of Big Brother, it quickly becomes bright and sunny.
• Cute Machines: Special mention goes to "Going Loco", which is a LocoRoco-themed stage. Take the already-adorable Astro and turn him into a giant LocoRoco, with his expressive blue eyes now enlarged to fit on his big blob form. Every time he hops he has his happy expression on and he can split up like the LocoRoco. It's cuteness critical mass.
• Dash Attack: One recurring powerup is a dog robot that allows Astro to propel himself forward toward enemies, sending them flying.
• Death Dealer: Deckstart is a floating playing card that attacks the player by floating high in the air and throwing even more playing cards from its vantage point. With the time-slow powerup, Astro can jump along Deckstart's own projectiles to reach and defeat it.
• Defacement Insult:
  • When first visiting the Tentacle System, there's a scene of Nebulax using crayons to doodle a silly face on the Mothership's CPU, before mocking Astro with it and flying away.
  • When Astro finds the casing for the Mothership, it's covered in graffiti depicting Nebulax and the bosses that you have to scrub off with the robot arms.
• Defeat Means Friendship: The Specter VIP Bot serves as a mini-boss, but rejoins Astro Bot's crew when captured.
• Developer's Foresight: The first bot in Luna Sol is behind a breakable wall. If you go around the wall and collect it from behind, the wall will get broken for you.
• Disney Death: Astro Bot experiences a brief one during the end of the game, but is put back together by the player with the help of the other bots and the mothership's CPU.
• Do-Anything Robot: The robot arms manipulated by the player during the Mothership repair segments can extend a large variety of tools for the job: hammers, cutters, a scrubbing brush, a chainsaw...
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Some fans noted that the repair process for the SSD has some implications thanks to it getting heart eyes as the player inserts slabs into its slots.
• Double Jump: As in Playroom, Astro can do a double jump that also functions as an attack via lasers shot from his legs.
• Double-Meaning Title: The "trunk" in "Trunk of Funk" can refer to two different things: the massive singing tree that you spend the stage climbing, or the elephant powerup that uses its trunk to suck in fluid, then spit it out to create platforms.
• Ear Worm: The bouncy, rhythmic caves theme from Rescue Mission returns in this game, dancing mushrooms included. And like Rescue Mission it also comes in two flavors but in this case the second version, in addition to upping the ante with the instruments, adds musical themes from Uncharted to the original melody as it's used as the second theme of the "Dude Raiding" Uncharted homage level.
• Eating Machine:
  • Although the bots are mouthless, several of them have an upgrade with edible food, like Spike and his bowl of cookies.
  • The robot monkey powerup eats bananas thrown by Astro as part of their paired-up Idle Animation.
• Egopolis: Each of the main galaxies are named after and vaguely shaped like their respective boss on the world map. Mighty Chewy's boss level seemingly doubles down on this trope by being a gorilla-themed metropolis set inside the also gorilla-shaped nebula.
• Electric Jellyfish: Jellycool is an enemy that is a robotic jellyfish that attacks with electricity.
• The End: A text "The End" at the end of the credits deals the final blow to Nebulax and the major bosses.
• Empathic Environment: During "Free Big Brother!" the weather is rainy and dark while Big Brother is chained down. But once you break him free, the environment turns bright and sunny to reflect things becoming much happier.
• Enemy Roll Call: The names of the enemies and bosses are displayed while the credits roll.
• Enfant Terrible: The Tama Trio are three evil chicks sent by Falcon McFly to torment Papa Tree.
• Ennio Morricone Pastiche: The Crash Site theme is an electronic version of typical Ennio Morricone western music, complete with whistling, jaw harp, chanting and guitars.
• Epic Flail: Round Bones is an enemy that constantly swings a large flail around. Said flail also doubles as its helmet, so while it's swinging it around, it's vulnerable to Astro getting in close and whacking it.
• Escape Sequence: In Lady Venomara's boss level, there's a brief section before the battle proper where Astro platforms up a pillar as she destroys it.
• Excuse Plot: Astro has to find the missing mothership pieces and crew members scattered on various worlds across the cosmos because of an alien attack. That's basically all there is story-wise, which the game shows you in the opening cutscene.
• Exploding Barrels: In "Machine Learning", there are green barrels that explode upon being damaged, killing nearby enemies.
• Expressive Mask: Some of the VIP Bots wear these, such as the Crash Bandicoot Bot, whose mask has eyebrows that move, and the Pipo Monkey Bots, whose masks have fully expressive eyes and mouths. Hitting them knocks the masks off, showing that they are still Bots underneath.
• Eye Scream: For some of the bosses like Mighty Chewy and Wako Tako, Astro punches them in their eyes during their vulnerable Attack Its Weak Point sections.
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: After Astro seemingly does a Heroic Sacrifice to save his friends from Nebulax's Taking You with Me gambit, all his friends sob for him and the credits start to roll… Until the Atreus Bot looks up and sees Astro, and the credits rewind.
• Fantastic Fireworks: All the main bosses (sans the Final Boss) and a few of the mini-bosses have fireworks go off upon their defeat depicting the defeated boss.
• Fighter-Launching Sequence: The final level, "PlaySquadron Go!", features one such sequence where Astro's buddies all launch from the PS5 Mothership piloting various PlayStation consoles and peripherals from the past.
• Final-Exam Boss: The last boss features gimmicks from every other level and/or boss fight, picking which one you have to use from a roulette wheel.
• Flame Spewer Obstacle: Furnace Fever introduces flame emitters that become more common in the later game. Some flame emitters are stationary and emit flames periodically, others move and rotate.
• Floating Platforms: Some platforms float or even move mid-air.
• Flunky Boss: Most of the bosses and some of the minibosses have regular enemies fighting alongside it, sometimes summoned by them, sometimes just popping up.
• Flying Saucer:
  • Red-eyed flying saucers act as enemies and tend to cause trouble, most commonly by kidnapping bots and stealing various objects. They have a King Mook in the form of the Uber-Foe, who steals the Level Goal of "Orbital Blitz" and is fought as a miniboss at the end of the stage.
  • The alien enemies (including Nebulax) all use flying saucers to move around.
• Follow the Money: Placement of coins often show the player where to go.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • When you hit the Rivet VIP bot after getting her hammer, she gets sucked into a rift, then falls from another rift. Looking closely at the rifts (easy with Photo Mode) reveals that what's on the other side is the PlayStation Labo from Astro's Playroom.
  • The text popups in the game (like when landing at a new level or rescuing a Bot) rapidly shift between several messages before settling on the final message. Messages include things like "Rescue me!", "Let's go!", and Asobi's name in English and Japanese.
• Frigid Water Is Harmless: Averted in most levels; water in ice-themed levels like "Rocket Pull Power" and "Frozen Meal" will instantly freeze Astro in a block of ice, prompting him to respawn at the last checkpoint. It's played straight in "Winter Wonder", however, where swimming in water is fine.
• Fungus Humongous: Some areas feature glowing large mushrooms with eyes.
• Funnel Cloud Journey: The latter half of "Djinni Of The Lamp" has the player and parts of the level flying around a sandy funnel cloud caused by the Djinni's magic.
• Gangplank Galleon: "Go-Go Archipelago!" features wrecks of various pirate ships on a tropical mountainous island.
• Gelatinous Trampoline: The player can bounce on honey platforms created by the elephant power-up.
• Getting Eaten Is Harmless:
  • "Wormy Passage" and "Bubbling Under" both include sections where Astro gets eaten. In the latter's case, it's an optional section.
  • Lady Venomara apparently swallowed the chest with the Nathan Drake VIP bot in it, as she spits it up after her defeat. The chest and Nate, for their part, are completely intact.
• Given Name Reveal: Several bosses from Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Astro's Playroom were given names for this game:
  • The Gorilla boss is named Mighty Chewy
  • The Octopus boss is Wako Tako
  • The Bird boss is Falcon McFly
  • The T-rex boss from Playroom is Blunderjaw
  • The Alien Final Boss is named Nebulax
• Glowing Flora: Mushrooms and plants growing in underground tend to glow. Touching plants anywhere also makes them glow, even during the daylight.
• The Goomba: Boopee is the first enemy in the game. It is dispatched rather easily and has hard time attacking the player.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: Astro has 300 different bots he needs to save on his new adventure, with 168 of them designated as special "VIP Bots"; the kind of bots seen in Astro's Playroom that dress up as licensed video game characters associated with the PlayStation brand's history (and compared to Astro's Playroom the bots are more extensively represented here, featuring more elaborate outfits as well as props that can be won from the Gatcha Lab and unique animations that help flesh out their connection to the franchises they represent). The Old Save Bonus for finding the super-secret VIP Bots in Astro's Playroom increases this by four — representing Gran Turismo, Returnal, Ape Escape, and The Old Hunters DLC for Bloodborne — and additional 27 more VIP Bots available through the game's post-launch updates (released across four waves — ten bots released in the "Stellar Speedway" galaxy, seven in the "Winter Wonder" bonus level, and two sets of five for each half of the "Vicious Void" galaxy's releases). One final VIP Bot is found inside the game's Brutal Bonus Level awarded for rescuing the previous 300 bots in the base game, which brings the final total to 332 bots — with 200 of them being VIP Bots. All the bots you rescue can be seen at the Crash Site (the generic bots are found helping rebuild the PS5 mothership in the center of the map and the VIP Bots spread around the perimeter of the area acting out their respective franchises — with the exception of the Spider-Man bots, who are found at the top of the mothership) and by whistling you can summon every bot to surround Astro, which can either be used to explore the Crash Site area further (with the bots helping Astro cross gaps or scale heights he can't by himself) or just to get them to follow Astro and dance with him.
• Green Aesop: "Turtles in Trash" sees Astro sucking up garbage that's polluting the waters around a turtle habitat with a DualSense-driven mounted vacuum device and restoring greenery wherever the sludge monsters have been mucking it up. The miniboss at the end of the stage is a combination of both.
• Green Hill Zone: Sky Garden, the first proper stage, takes place in a grassy area with pink trees.
• Grimy Water: While most levels justify water being deadly to its freezing temperature or because robotic fish are ready to gulp Astro, in some levels, touching water is deadly without any justification.
• Grind Boots: Some levels have rails for Astro to grind on. Though "boots" is a bit of a stretch since he's literally just sliding on the tips of his feet.
• Hailfire Peaks: Some levels combine two common level themes.
  • "Creamy Canyon" is a mixture of Level Ate and Slippy-Slidey Ice World.
  • "Rocket Pull Power" combines Lethal Lava Land and Slippy-Slidey Ice World.
  • "Cannon Brawl" combines Lethal Lava Land with Gangplank Galleon.
• Hammerspace: Normally played for laughs.
  • Astro pulls out various objects during idle animations, including a fan or video game consoles.
  • The final phase of the fight with Nebulax has him desperately throwing whatever random objects he can pull out of his saucer at you. The climax of this phase escalates to him pulling out a wrecked pirate ship even bigger than his saucer, which you simply shoot enough that it launches back and smashes into his face.
  • Attacking the Kiryu VIP Bot will cause a bunch of items to drop out, including bowling balls, slot cars and golf clubs. There's even a Trophy attached to making him spill his stuff, entitled "Deep-Pocket Dragon".
• Heart of Happiness: Happy robots and objects display hearts in their eyes.
• Hearts Are Health: During boss battles, two hearts follow Astro around and represent his hit points during the battle.
• Heart Symbol: At the end of the credits, Astro uses his leg lasers to draw a heart in the sand at the Crash Site before waving at the player.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Subverted. After defeating the Final Boss, Nebulax pulls a Taking You with Me by pulling Astro into the black hole formed by his exploding ship alongside him. The other bots grab onto Astro to try and pull him to safety, but Astro just lets go to spare them all, getting blown up in the black hole with Nebulax. However, Astro's body makes it out, badly damaged. The other bots fling pieces to you to repair Astro, and he ultimately survives.
• High-Pressure Emotion: Some bosses, when angry, let out jets of steam.
• Hollywood Chameleons: Mecha Leon can turn himself invisible.
• Homage: The special levels played at the end of each nebula are gameplay recreations of different games corresponding to each of the PlayStation systems, including Ape Escape, God of War, Uncharted, LocoRoco, and Horizon.
• Hub Level: Crash Site acts as a starting area and a hub. The player needs to visit Crash Site after defeating every post-boss stage to unlock new worlds.
• Human Ladder: Well, Robot-Ladder in this case; some areas in the Crash Site can only be reached by a sufficient number of bots stacking on top of each other to form a ladder that Astro can climb up, a Chain of People that Astro can climb down, or a wall that he can Wall Run up.
• Interactive Start Up: The main menu depicts Astro flying on the Dual Speeder with bots that you've previously rescued, and the speeder can steered by tilting your controller.
• I Surrender, Suckers!: When Nebulax gets cornered by Astro Bot and his crew, he quickly waves a white flag... before using it to swat everyone else aside and attempting to crush Astro Bot.
• Idle Animation: Astro has a wide selection of idle animations ranging from waving at the player to dancing. There are also environmental-specific idle animations (e.g. hot or cold stages, scary stages, etc.) and unique idle animations if Astro is equipped with a powerup (e.g. the time slow powerup will see Astro fall asleep only for the alarm clock on the backpack portion to force him awake).
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: A handful of stages feature conveyor belts acting as an obstacle. These are mostly reserved for challenge stages.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: The mouse powerup allows Astro to shrink smaller than a mouse himself, and can be triggered at will to enter areas he would otherwise be too big to get into.
• Inflating Body Gag:
  • Astro's default death animation has his body inflate in a similar manner to Rayman before popping.
  • Astro can use a robotic octopus to inflate himself like a balloon to float up to high places.
• Instant Bandages: Nebulax receives bandages over his head after being damaged enough.
• Instant Flight: Just Add Spinning!: Astro can pick up flowers. Spinning the flower allows him to jump higher.
• Instant Ice: Just Add Cold!: If Astro is hit by an ice missle, Kratos' Leviathan axe, or falls into the water on ice levels, he will suddenly be frozen into a block of ice. Hitting Kratos and jumping out of the way will make his thrown axe hit whoever was behind you, freezing them. Making him freeze Thor gets you a trophy.
• Interface Spoiler: The Bots and puzzle pieces fill their slots in the menu based on the order they're placed in the level. If you pick up a collectible and it leaves a gap in between it and the last collectible you got, you know you missed one in between.
• Invisible Block: Some levels have Floating Platforms that are not visible unless illuminated by a light bulb or coated in liquid.
• Iris Out: A classic enclosing circle happens when entering sub-areas of the stage.
• Jump Jet Pack:
  • In lieu of a Double Jump, Astro's feet are equipped with jets that are used for hovering for a limited time.
  • The chicken power-up lets you launch upwards like a rocket once per airtime.
• Jungle Japes: "Az-Tech Trail" has Astro explore a jungle and its ruins.
• King Kong Copy: Mighty Chewy is very much inspired by King Kong. He's a giant ape that scales buildings.
• Lava Pit: Some levels have lava in them as an obstacle, including some challenge stages.
• Lethal Lava Land: "Furnace Fever" takes place around a volcano. "Rising Heat" also takes place in a lava-themed area.
• Letting the Air out of the Band:
  • If you die during a boss battle, the music slows to a stop.
  • When the Kratos VIP Bot throws his axe to Astro in "Bot of War", a triumphant music cue plays as it flies towards the latter... only to slow down and stop when it proves too heavy for Astro and ends up sending his arms to the floor.
• Level Ate: The early level "Creamy Canyon" is a cold-themed level with an ice cream focus; the snow is designed to resemble ice cream and is often topped with sprinkles, while the floor and tree trunks resemble waffle cones. The room the secret exit is in also has several large scoops of ice cream covered in fudge and sprinkles.
• Level Goal: The end of the level is marked with a black and white platform with a flag. Some of these are subject to fakeouts, like the rope bridge that leads to it at the start of "Hieroglitch Pyramid" breaking, or Frigid Frosty and Uber-Foe stealing it in "Frozen Meal" and "Orbital Blitz" respectively.
• Level in the Clouds: "Balloon Breeze" takes place high in the sky in the midst of clouds. The platforms consist of floating flower pots with flowers and balloons.
• Lightning Reveal: "Spooky Time" has a side room where it's pitch-black, but lightning will periodically strike and light up the room you're in. Since you have a powerup that slows time, this is your cue to use it to lengthen how long you can see the platforms ahead.
• Literal Ass-Kicking: Sometimes, Bots that Astro can rescue will shake their butt at him. When they do, Astro's normal punch is instead replaced with him delivering a boot to the Bot's rear, kicking them into the controller.
• Logo Joke: In the Credits Gag at the end of the game, Astro is believed to be dead and the bots stand on the Mothership crying as the credits scroll. When Team Asobi's logo scrolls by, it's been altered to have sad eyes rather than its normal neutral ones to fit the mood.
• Matryoshka Object: The Mastro-Squash enemy is a robot based on Russian nesting dolls. Destroying it releases the smaller version of itself until the smallest one is released. The smallest version tries to run away and explodes on its own after some time.
• Money Spider: Most enemies drop coins upon being destroyed.
• Mood Whiplash: Most of "Furnace Fever" is spent in a magma inferno surrounding a sick volcano that is spewing lava rocks everywhere whenever it coughs. The level is a constant tightrope walk not to get Astro scorched by any of the fire hazards and the rubber ducky sections where you spray water to cool magma long enough to walk on the ground underneath can be tense since you have to keep moving so the ground doesn't revert under your feet (the duck itself can also be problematic because it sprays in a rather erratic way, meaning you might not be spraying exactly where you want to go — this becomes considerably more troublesome the next time you see the squirt ducky in a notorious Brutal Bonus Level). The music for the stage is a pounding rock track to keep you on edge as well while the sky is a grim darkness accentuated by the red glow emanating from the ground. Then you get to the end where you relieve the volcano's fever with a gigantic rubber duck thrown into its mouth upon which...the scene instantly changes to a serene spring with copious rubber ducks and a relaxing background track under a sunny sky.
• Motivation on a Stick: One of the Gatcha Lab items is "Irresistible Bait" ("Guaranteed to get a bite!"), which takes the form of a banana on a stick. Naturally, it's the item for one of the Ape Escape apes, and once you get it it's attached to their helmet.
• Musical Nod:
  • The little jingle at the start of "Astro" (the theme for the first level, "Sky Garden", and reappears throughout the game) originates from the beginning of "I Am ASTRO BOT", the credits theme for Astro Bot Rescue Mission (and subsequent Bootstrapped Leitmotif for the whole series).
  • The theme for "Bathhouse Battle" and "Danger Dojo" is from the "Ninja Bots" minigame from The Playroom pack-in game for the PS4 (the very first game featuring the Bots) while the two themes for "Luna Sola" (which are also used separately for the two "Rolling Star" mini-levels) are from the "Cat and Mouse" minigame in The Playroom VR — the games that served as the forerunners for the Astro Bot series (with Astro himself debuting in VR's "Robots Rescue" minigame).
• Music Is Eighth Notes: Singing characters display eighth notes from their eyes. This is best observed by seeing the Mothership's parts singing to Crash Site's theme.
• My Name Is ???: Each boss stage has its name listed as "???" when you first gain access to them. Once you actually play them, they'll instead be named after the boss battled there.
• Mythology Gag: This game is loaded with tons of little nods to the home games of the VIP Bots. They can be seen here.
• Named in the Sequel: The main bosses returning from Astro Bot Rescue Mission now have names instead of being just named by their species. For instance, the Gorilla is now Mighty Chewy and the Alien is now Nebulax.
• No One Could Survive That!: Unlike Astro Bot, who requires a few repairs before being able to function again, Nebulax manages to make it out of the black hole explosion relatively unscathed (albeit certainly worn down), as shown in the post-credits scene.
• No Fourth Wall: Continuing from Rescue Mission and Playroom, one of Astro's Idle Animations is to wave out to the player controlling him with his happy eyes.
• Non-Standard Character Design: As far as the VIP Bots go, most of them look relatively similar — although sometimes varying in height. However, in keeping with the designs of the characters they're based on, a select number of Bots are just a body-less head: Mimir, Polygon Man, and all the LocoRoco Bots you collect from "Going Loco".
• Nothing but Skulls: The first room in the temple in "Dude Raiding" is filled with robot skulls.
• Old Save Bonus: From Astro's Playroom; if you have unlocked all four Hidden VIP Bots from that game, Lady Maria, Selene, a GT Racer, and a Pipo Ape, they'll appear in the Crash Site of this game and can be rescued to increase the total number of Bots above what's in the basegame.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Astro is rather fragile, being destroyed upon being hit once.
• One-Wheeled Wonder: One enemy takes the form of a robot in a bladed wheel that charges at you. It has to be stunned by hitting it with another enemy of its type or Astro's leg lasers in order to make it vulnerable.
• Overly Nervous Flop Sweat: Sometimes, characters in panic will cause many sweat drops to appear. For an example, shooting one of the bots in "Machine Learning" into water causes it to emit lots of sweat drops.
• Painful Pointy Pufferfish: Foo-Goo is a floating pufferfish robot that attacks by rapidly spewing sharp projectiles in a spread for a short period of time.
• Palmtree Panic:
  • "Go-Go Archipelago!" is a mountainous tropical island with pirates, palm trees, a monkey as a powerup, and a Surf Rock theme.
  • "Free Big Brother!" is set on a tropical island that's initially rainy. Once you free Big Brother, the rain stops and the sun starts shining.
  • "Turtles In Trash" is set on a series of polluted, beach-themed turtle islands in tropical waters, which Astro cleans up as he progresses.
• Parting the Sea: The second boss Wako Tako eventually causes the ocean it fights from to part. This leads to a small platforming challenge in the ruins it reveals.
• Percussive Maintenance: Astro's technology seems to be based entirely on this. Find a downed, malfunctioning satellite? Smack it and it'll fix itself. Find a bot? Smack it and it'll jump right into his flyer. In a variant, after the Final Boss where Astro pulled a Heroic Sacrifice, the ship's robotic arms try to shake Astro's insensate body awake (which doesn't work until replacement parts are provided).
• Pick-up Hierarchy:
  • Primary: The ship parts, and the "Main Crew" needed to access them, certain VIP bots that are rescued by defeating the bosses of each galaxy.
  • Secondary: The bots scattered through the cosmos, of which 300 are required to unlock the very final level.
  • Tertiary: Puzzle pieces, which award extras in the Crash Site like the Gatcha Lab, Dual Speeder Garage, and Changing Room.
  • Quaternary: PlayStation coins, found in levels in large quantities, required to unlock all the Gatcha Lab items.
• Planar Shockwave: When a few bosses like Nebulax get defeated, a ring-shaped shockwave is produced.
• Poisonous Person: Lady Venomara can spit poison as an attack. In the first and second phase she spews a constant torrent that can dissolve the platforms standing in it, while in her last phase she spits poison balls that roll down her body.
• Post-End Game Content: Completing the game gives access to the Vicious Void that contains challenging levels.
• Power-Up Magnet: Coins from defeated enemies and smashed containers are automatically drawn to Astro Bot.
• Pre-Explosion Glow: A few enemy spaceships during the final boss level glow and emit beams before exploding. Some ship parts before being freed also glow.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Nebulax is an alien conquerer who acts like an obnoxious, mean little kid. It's especially apparent in the way he torments the kidnapped CPU, such as drawing on its face and scaring it with a dangerous flower bouquet as part of a childish prank.
• Pun-Based Title: Some level names are pun-based, such as "Az-Tech Trail", a hybrid Temple of Doom with the game's normal technological motif.
• Quicksand Sucks: "Trapped In Time" level features purple quicksand that sinks Astro when landing on it.
• Randomized Title Screen: The title screen/file select features Astro and four VIP Bots flying on his Dual Speeder, with the latter randomly selected from whatever bots have been rescued on the file that's currently hovered over.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": Played for Laughs with "Drake's BOTune", the theme of "Dude Raiding", which samples a rapid-fire "no" from Nathan Drake as part of the song.
• Recursive Canon: One idle animation has Astro playing Astro Bot on a PSP.
• Red Boxing Gloves:
  • Not particularly 'Red', but in some levels, Astro uses a pair of stretchy frog gloves that can hit stuff from long distances, and can latch onto sticky objects.
  • In World 2, Wako Tako uses giant yellow boxing gloves in its first boss phase.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In addition to how hostile robots are shown with red eyes, the first boss's eyes get progressively redder as you damage him, and he gets more dangerous as well.
• Replay Mode: Upon beating the Final Boss, a new area is added to the world map that lets you replay the sequence. "PlaySquadron Go!", "Space Bully Nebulax", and "Credits Clash" can all be accessed individually from there.
• Retraux: The "8-bit Rampage" levels and "Boxel Bust-Up" take place in pseudo-retro-voxel style areas. The music uses chiptune arrangements. Furthermore the last outfit unlocked is the early 3D-looking version of Astro that could be seen on the "Astro Bot" PS1 disc in Astro's Playroom.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Smashing containers to pieces gives money. Later, some other objects like urns also drop money when destroyed.
• Rise to the Challenge: At the end of "Wormy Passage", the player has to outrun rising stomach acid after being swallowed by a giant worm.
• Roar Before Beating: Bosses let out a roar before fighting starts.
• Robot Dog: Two of the VIP bots featured are based on AIBO, Sony's series of robot dogs, rather than video game characters. That said, there's also VIP bots based on video game characters who are dogs.
• Robotic Reveal: At first it's easy to assume the Pipo Monkey VIP Bots are just Pipo Monkeys, given they're shaped just like the monkeys are in Ape Escape and they wear Expressive Masks that cover their whole head, but hitting some of them will knock said masks off revealing their robot heads. Likewise bop the Patapon soldiers and their big Patapon costumes will come off to reveal normal bots underneath.
• Rope Bridge: At the beginning of "Hieroglitch Pyramid", there's a rope bridge leading to the Level Goal. If you try to walk across it, it breaks, though with clever jumping you can go around the trigger that causes it.
• Rule of Three: In full effect during boss battles, which typically have three phases to them and where Astro has three hit points to fight them.
• Sampling: Some of the songs have samples in them, like "I Am Astro Bot" and "12-Bar BOT"'s "what did you say your name was?" line. In particular, "Bot of War" and "Drake's BOTune" sample audio from the associated characters; Kratos saying "BOY"invoked in the former, and a Rapid-Fire "No!" from Nate in the latter.
• Secret Level: Hidden levels can be found upon reaching hidden portals in the main stages, or exploring the map screen. Those found on a map screen are bite-sized challenges while levels found through portals are almost full-sized levels. Find every secret exit and complete all the associated levels in the Lost Galaxy and a final secret level will open up in the middle of the ring.
• Selective Gravity: Coins, unlike many other objects, float in mid-air.
• Sequel Hook: The Platinum Trophy "Astro-nomical!" reads: "Earned all Trophies. Well done and see you in Astro's next adventure!". Given both the critical and commercial success of the game, it seems that a sequel is all but confirmed at this point.
• Shifting Sand Land: "Hieroglitch Pyramid", "Djinni Of The Lamp", and "Trapped In Time" take place in a desert.
• Shockwave Stomp: Ring-ring and a few bosses emit circular shockwaves when stomping the ground.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the VIP Bots is just supposed to be a generic skateboarder, but its name being "Pro Skater" brings to mind Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.
  • The Resogun VIP Bot is upfront about its source game's inspiration by being named "Defender Ship".
  • Some dances that the bots can do include the Floss and the "Staying Alive" Dance Pose.
  • The description for the red and white Striking Scarlet Dual Speeder controller skin reads "It's just ultra, man."
• Significant Anagram: The robotic chameleon boss is named "Mecha Leon"; rearrange his name just a bit and you get "chameleon".
• Sizeshifter:
  • Upon picking up the mouse power-up, Astro can shrink to a very small size and back at will, allowing him to enter small openings and navigate miniaturized platforming segments.
  • The sponge power-up allows Astro to grow to a giant size by jumping into a pool and absorbing water into himself. He can also return to regular size by expelling all the water, which has its own uses.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: A few levels, such as "Frozen Meal" and "Bot of War", are snow- and ice-themed.
• Slow Laser: In "Playsquadron", some of the enemy ships fire visibly moving lasers.
• Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: Crushers can be found in the game as an occasional hazard. The ball power-up allows the player to resist being crushed by these hazards.
• Snot Bubble: A few blocks in "Hieroglitch Pyramid", when idle, display sleeping bubbles.
• Snowlems: Frigid Frosty is a giant hostile snowman, serving as a midboss in "Frozen Meal".
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: Unrescued bots will frequently shout for help when you're near them, which helps to narrow down their location.
• Space Zone: "High-Suction Hero" takes place around a space station. "Orbital Blitz" is also around the space station but with floating islands.
• Speedrun Reward: Completing Stellar Speedway levels quickly unlocks additional bots.
• Spike Balls of Doom: One of the hazards present in the game are spiky robotic spheres with eyes.
• Spikes of Doom: Metallic spikes, being a hazard in the game, are deadly on touch. Spikes are most commonly found in challenge stages. With the help of the armadillo and metal ball powerups, the player can safely roll over them.
• Spin Attack:
  • In midair, Astro's normal punch is replaced with a spinning two-handed punch that hits around him and stalls him in the air a bit. Used in tandem with the Double Jump can allow Astro to stay airborne longer than the double jump alone and makes it possible to cover more distance in the air, which can be helpful in the Stellar Speedway time trial levels to set better records.
  • Astro can charge a spinning punch on the ground, which can take out lots of enemies quickly and spin certain objects. With the frog gloves powerup, Astro can extend the gloves out to increase the range of the attack significantly.
  • When underwater, Astro's normal attack has him doing a corkscrew with his fists out.
  • After you rescue the "Heavenly Warrior" VIP Bot (which is Nariko from Heavenly Sword) from the "Helium Heights" time trial level and get her gatcha item (the Heavenly Sword), when she's punched she'll execute a spinning attack but since she does it in Range Mode she gets herself tied up with the chains that connect the blades before unraveling and resuming her idle position.
• Spitty Speaker: Nebulax regularly spews out a ton of spit whenever he's babbling, adding to his rude personality.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere: The levels have plenty of bounce pads taking multiple forms.
  • The most common ones are trampolines with Astro Bot eyes which come in two varieties: blue ones simply bounce the player, while yellow ones launch the player to a predestined location.
  • Other things that act as trampolines include the underbellies of robot beetles, beach umbrellas, drums and even honey.
• Springy Spores: Some mushrooms have coiled stalks. Jumping on them makes Astro bounce upwards.
• Squashed Flat: Astro is completely flattened when hit by attacks from above, such as from fake coins, rotating cubes, and normal enemies, when shrunken.
• Stalactite Spite: Icicles in "Creamy Canyon" start to fall when Astro gets near them.
• Stepping-Stone Sword: In "Danger Dojo", there are turrets that let you shoot shurikens, which can be used as platforms when embedded in walls with a shuriken icon.
• The Stinger: After the credits roll, there's a brief scene with Nebulax and all the major bosses riding on his ship. After a moment they look out at the screen and start yelling at you, only to get launched in different directions by the "The End" text slamming into them.
• Strapped to a Rocket: The "Speedrun and Special Bots Add-On Trailer" shows that the newly-added VIP Bots in the Speedrun levels are tied to a firework with a button in front of them. If Astro does not get to the goal quickly enough, a bird will land on the button and launch the VIP Bot into space, preventing Astro from rescuing them.
• Submersible Snorkeling: When Astro has activated the bird and is underwater, the bird has a snorkel mask while it is submerged.
• Sugar Bowl: "Going Loco" is a very bright and colorful level, akin to the series it is based on. You also get to bring some of this home with you as the LocoRoco bots you rescue from the level all sit together on a decorative pad at the Crash Site that's designed like the level they came from.
• Super Spit:
  • Gloopys spit singular goop projectiles in an arc as an attack.
  • Each bird of the Tama Trio spits a stream of purple liquid in a straight line.
  • Lady Venomara spits poison as both a straight stream and as rolling balls.
• Tail Slap: Lady Venomara can attack by slamming her tail onto the arena Astro is standing on, then sweeping it across to try and knock him off. Fortunately for Astro, his chicken powerup lets him rocket over her attack.
• Talkative Loon: In comparison to Rescue Mission, Nebulax constantly babbles a lot of alien gibberish during cutscenes and his boss battle.
• Tantrum Throwing: If you fail to beat either time cutoff in a Stellar Speedway level, Astro will throw a hissy fit on the goal pad, complete with fist pounding and feet kicking before suddenly snapping back and going into his usual victory dance.
• Technicolor Wind: Sometimes strong wind is depicted as white lines.
• Temporary Platform:
  • Levels frequently feature floors that crumble when walked on. They take many forms such as glass or crumbly stone. The way they break tends to vary; some fall apart just from walking on them, while others break when you use Astro's laser double jump on them. "Crumble Rumble" challenges are entirely based on fighting enemies while the floor is crumbling.
  • The elephant powerup allows Astro to create up to three temporary platforms based on the color of the goop the elephant sucks up. Green or gray lets him make leafy or concrete platforms respectively that can be blown by wind, yellow creates bouncy honey trampolines, and blue spawns icy ramps.
• Thanking the Viewer:
  • The first part of the credits ends with "And you! Thank you for playing", before scrolling through the back half of the credits.
  • The second part of the credits ends with "And that is it ! Thank you for sticking around and for playing this game. We hope to see you again soon!"
  • "Thank you for playing" message also appears when completing Vicious Void galaxy.
• Theatrics of Pain: If you hit the Star Striker bot, he'll start rolling around clutching his knee, only for him to get right up like nothing happened and angrily explain why he deserved a penalty, in line with the stereotype of soccer players flopping in real life.
• Time Stands Still: The stopwatch powerup makes time move slow enough that it effectively is stopped for a few seconds, allowing Astro to interact with objects that would otherwise be going way too fast to keep up with. There's also a throwable hourglass that serves as a one-use version of the ability and only appears in a side level.
• Toggling Setpiece Puzzle:
  • The main gimmick in "Luna Sola" is that there are buttons all around the toy-block-esque map that flip the environment from day to night or vice versa, and also rotate the set pieces 90 degrees.
  • The cymbal-clapping bear powerup used in "Final Encore" and "Hard to Bear" allows Astro to shift walls and flip platforms, extend accordions to form bridges, and rotate walls that are found inside of tambourines.
• Token Evil Teammate: Played with. Albino Antagonist, the VIP Bot dressed as Specter from Ape Escape is the only one who is fought as a boss but, befitting the level's gimmick, is captured rather than beaten up. Once back at base, they're as friendly and helpful as any of the other bots.
• Trampled Underfoot: If Astro gets too close to an enemy while shrunken, they'll obliviously flatten him underfoot, causing him to respawn at the last checkpoint.
• Treasure Is Bigger in Fiction:
  • Small PlayStation coins are almost as big as the bots themselves, while the large coins are slightly bigger than the bots.
  • A few levels feature piles of gems of various colors, some as big as Astro's body.
• Tree Trunk Tour: "Trunk of Funk" has Astro climb up the insides and outsides of a massive tree with the help of an elephant that can create platforms for him.
• Triumphant Reprise: The theme for "Credits Clash" (the credits level) is a sped up, more enthusaistic take on the opening theme of the game. As this comes after what is probably most emotional moment in the entire game it's fitting.
• Turns Red: The bosses get more difficult as the fight progresses.
• Turtle Island: "Turtles in Trash" is set on and around a series of turtles with beach-like environments hosted atop their shells.
• A Twinkle in the Sky: Happens frequently.
  • Whenever Astro takes to the sky, his Dual Speeder disappears with a twinkle, including when leaving the Crash Site (on his own or with satellites) and at the end of stages.
  • Wako Tako is defeated by having Astro launch himself into their head at high speed, which shoots them into the sky. The boss disappears with a twinkle, then explodes, followed by fireworks going off in the shape of a defeated Wako Tako.
  • Alluded to but ultimately defied with Mecha Leon. For the finisher, Captain Astro grabs its nosering, pulls it way far back, and releases it, causing it to shoot toward the Moon in silhouette... before rapidly losing speed, falling down and plowing through the cloud deck, followed by fireworks implying its death.
  • Inverted during the few instances. When Astro flies back to Crash site with a ship part, a Twinkle is seen before the ship appears. Also during the final boss, A twinkle is seen and Astro flies back to the scene.
• Underground Level: "Wormy Passage" and "Funki Fungi" largely take place inside a cave.
• Under the Sea: "Bubbling Under" is largely a relatively open-ended underwater level.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: The run-up to the Final Boss is "PlaySquadron Go!", a behind-the-back shmup where each previous generation of PlayStation console and handheld and their peripherals fight alongside Astro and the DualSense like starfighters, set to "Rising Blue Lightning" from Thunder Force V.
• Variable Mix: In "Megamix Mastery", in the the second section, bells are added to the background music. The final section adds Ominous Latin Chanting.
• Vent Physics: There are a few ways fans can lift the player.
  • When the player is small, the vents provide a lift naturally.
  • In "Fan Club", the player can manually make some of the platforms lift the player.
• Victory Fakeout: After beating Nebulax and rescuing the mothership's CPU, all of the bots celebrate their success only for an infuriated Nebulax to reemerge and angrily throw stuff at Astro Bot with the intent to kill everyone, forcing him to use the ship's guns to fend him off and defeat him.
• Video Game Caring Potential: In the God of War level, one of the VIP Bots is found underneath a giant turtle; you have to flip it over to get to her. Afterwards, you have the option to re-right the turtle.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Just like the prequel, nothing's stopping you from smacking any friendly machine life.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: However, just like the CPU in the previous title, some VIP bots will retaliate and try to hit Astro back if they're struck. Spyro, a prime example, will breathe fire at the player, roasting Astro if they're too close.
• Villainous Breakdown: Throughout the Final Boss, Nebulax gets angrier with every hit he and his ship get. Even when he's attacking, his eyes also show visible veins the more damage he takes. His Victory Fakeout finally has him go off his rocker with him furiously throwing stuff at Astro Bot and his crew, intending to kill them all. After getting defeated for real, he attempts a Taking You with Me on Astro Bot.
• Wall Run: Blue glowing quarter pipes indicate the locations where the player can run up walls. In Crash Site, Astro can do this with his fellow bots forming a Human (well...robot) Ladder.
• Watch for Rolling Objects: At the beginning of "Furnace Fever", Astro needs to dodge hot rolling boulders.
• Water-Geyser Volley: Standing on water outbursts is one of the methods to reach higher places. Additionally, a few water jets hold up what would otherwise be floating platforms in "Frozen Meal".
• Weaponized Exhaust: In lieu of a Ground Pound move, while Astro is hovering on his feet jets, he can use the jets to blast and damage enemies directly below him. This is sometimes necessary to destroy enemies that either cannot be touched or to crumble the ground beneath them instead of engaging them directly (which is required in some of the secret bonus levels).
• Weaponized Offspring: Almost all of the bosses utilize weaker Mooks of the same species; Mighty Chewy spews Mini-Mons from his mouth, Wako Tako drops Squirties when leaping over the arena, Lady Venomara spits eggs that hatch Koblings, Mecha Leon shakes trees to drop Mini Leons, and Falcon McFly deploys Peepers onto his back.
• Weapons That Suck: Sukup is an enemy that uses a vacuum cleaner as a weapon. It can be jammed using the metal ball powerup.
• Whack-a-Monster: There are robotic meerkats that hold containers and frequently pop into the ground to appear elsewhere.
• White Flag: In the final stage of the game, once the PlaySquadron corners Nebulax, he pulls out a white flag in fear... then evilly grins and smacks the squadron away with it.
• Wingding Eyes:
  • Many of the characters exhibit some eye pupil shapes such as an "X" for being stunned or a heart shape for happiness.
  • Lady Venomara has X-eyes when taking damage, and spirals in her eyes when you stun her for the final time and after being defeated (including on the world map).
• Worm Sign: Wormies move under the surface but the flying dirt shows where they are.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: Some levels have you come across absolutely massive amounts of gold and gemstones, but they're nothing more than physics objects to smack around. The final section of Slow-Mo Casino has you hit the jackpot on a building-size slot machine, making it spit out coins four times larger than Astro, but all you can do with them is platform off them to the goal.
• Wreaking Havok: The game's physics engine is often demonstrated by numerous small physics-based objects (such as balls, fruit, and confetti) being released at some points of the level.
• Wutai: "Danger Dojo" and "Bathhouse Battle" both have a traditional Japanese theme.
• Your Size May Vary: Some of the VIP Bots are larger than normal, such as Kratos or Kazuma Kiryu, but will shrink down to the size of the other Bots when helping out in the Crash Site.

And that is it! Thank you for sticking around and for reading this page.
We hope to see you again soon!