a surprisingly difficult game to talk about, almost entirely because it is filled to bursting with passion, creativity, and a genuinely warm overflowing love for the medium of video games and their history that is completely unreflective of Sony itself or, indeed, the console this serves as an elaborate marketing tool for. a console that, with titles like Bluepoint's Demon's Souls, seems content to paper over the history Astro has such fondness for. a console on the cutting edge of graphical tech, an edge so sharp that the kind of experimental, innovative, remarkable games that are paid homage here are unfeasible to produce apace with the graphics gamers demand of their hideous new box. and, of course, a console that no one can fucking buy because Sony rushed a toy for rich people out in the middle of a global pandemic. astro's playroom presents a hugely likeable vision for playstation that is completely out of step with reality. maybe it was inevitable that this would be Japan Studio's last hurrah. RIP.

mostly the game itself manages to sidestep direct cynicism like that but the one area where astro's playroom failed to is the gacha minigame. gacha mechanics are completely exploitative dogshit and you only need a cursory google of "fifa ultimate team" to find examples where the marketing of these mechanics towards young children has caused very real harm. putting something like that in something so geared to ignite kids' imaginations seems irresponsible at best and downright insidious at worst.

all! that! being! said! there's a reason this is still sitting pretty with those number of stars and that's because this game is a delight. as a platformer it's breezy, satisfying, and varied enough to constantly keep you rolling through the endlessly charming the endlessly charming spaces that are the real highlight of the experience. this is such a wonderful kids' game, so perfectly in tune with a childlike sense of imagination and wonder. pitching this as the story of what goes on inside your PS5 is an incredible home run, and I can't imagine how exciting it would be to unwrap a PS5 on christmas day as a kid and get to play a game about how cool the thing santa brought you is!!! one about exploring the world and seeing how the games you love come to life, from the obvious yet always delightful concept of in-game characters "filming" the games, to genuine info about GPUs through the game's catchy-as-hell background music. an inner world filled with secrets that explores a vast hidden past to the medium, a past that I guarantee will ignite a passion for Games and their history that will create a whole new generation of people commenting on how fucking cool the PS2 startup noise is, how Vagrant Story is prettier than any game on the PS5, and, of course, of backloggd users talking about how good Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse or whatever is.

i have all these issues with the PS5 and AAA gaming and Sony but it's hard to be cynical about it when I see astro bots excitedly crowding around a recreation of FF7's title screen, recreating the same myth and aura that game had for me ever since Cloud strode onto the screen in Kingdom Hearts up until I finally got a chance to play his game many years later. contrary to the increasing fixation of obliterating the past in favour of the new and shiny, Astro knows that for so many of us, our favourite games were waiting for us to find them, on dusty old consoles and dumped ROMs and stories told on forums and playgrounds.

and if sony won't provide a means to explore that history, kids will find a way. we always have.