One of the few standout titles from the June State of Play for me was the 3D platformer Astro Bot.

Astro Bot came out a few days ago (on September 6, the same day as the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection!), but while waiting for it, I decided to play Astro’s Playroom, which came pre-installed on the PS5.

Astro’s Playroom part tech demo, part 3D platformer, and part PlayStation celebration.

It shows off various aspects of the PS5 controller while you explore 3D platforming stages as a cute little robot and collect coins and collectibles related to PlayStation’s history. There’s a room in the central hub where all these collectibles go on display.

Stages are mission-based rather than the more open collect-a-thon style I prefer (with one exception), but they’re still a lot of fun, with a lot of little secrets to find. My only complaint is that I didn’t enjoy the parts that were heavy on motion controls very much.

In addition to finding collectibles, there’s an additional set of collectibles you get through a gacha machine by spending coins found in the levels. Unlike real gacha, this is fun. For one thing, there are no duplicates. For another thing, coins are pretty readily available.

And the collectibles made me so nostalgic. Seeing an old PlayStation console or a PS2 controller made me think back to the days when I used to play those all the time. It was a nice trip through PlayStation history.

Astro’s Playroom is a short game and only took me a few hours to play. But those were a fun few hours, and it left me excited to see what they’ve done with a full game in Astro Bot.