YMMV / Astro's Playroom

• Awesome Music: The SSD theme, which sounds like it came from the synth-heavy '80s.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The game is filled with a plethora of robots serving as one massive Shout-Out for various PlayStation franchises across the ages, which quickly endeared themselves to players. In particular, the ones based on Kratos and Atreus became instantly recognizable among players.
• Friendly Fandoms: Formed one with Sackboy: A Big Adventure and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, particularly with the former for being another 3D platformer launch title for the PlayStation 5.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A common criticism of the game, even by its most glowing reviews, is that while it's an excellent platformer, it can be completed in one sitting. Being a free pack-in with every PS5 does alleviate this for some though.
• Narm: The game’s send off line to the PS4, “Promised greatness, delivered more”, to many comes across less like a heartfelt send-off and more like Sony patting themselves on the back.
• Spiritual Successor: One to Nintendo Land, of all things, being pack-in tech demos for their consoles while also paying tribute to the many franchises owned by their respective companies.
• That One Level: Generally speaking, the game is very easy and doesn't put up much resistance, but these levels do spice things up to a greater degree than the rest. Still not enough to warrant a lot of frustration for the most part, but it is noticeable.
  • SSD Speedway is usually considered the most difficult level in the game because of its two rocket pod sections, which feature instant-kill wall hazards that you need to avoid, with the second round having reflective walls and launchers that bounce Astro around a lot, again into electrical enemies that wall hazards. Getting past them is not super difficult, but trying to get the puzzle pieces will usually take several tries.
  • The Network Speed Run level, Rolling Run, is difficult largely because of the somewhat unintuitive way the ball handles with the touch pad. It's difficult to get the ball going in the direction you want while maintaining swiping speed. While it is manageable with practice, get ready to slip off of the ice a lot when first attempting runs.
• Unexpected Character: The game features a monstrous amount of callbacks to various Sony franchises, even obscure or forgotten ones like Doko Demo Issyo.
  • It features the giant T-rex from the original PS1 tech demo as the game's Final Boss, of all things.
  • While the game also features some third-party cameos closely-associated with Sony, like Solid Snake, Heihachi and Kazuya, Lara Croft, and Crash, the appearance of Raziel was unexpected for many, as Legacy of Kain hadn't been acknowledged by Eidos Interactive for years, not even outside of video games.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Astro's Playroom is a thoroughly gorgeous game with beautifully varied environments and attractive character designs.

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