When Astro Bot was launched in September, critics agreed on rather a lot: Astro Bot guidelines, and it’s Sony’s first actual reply to Nintendo’s iconic platformers. Nintendo’s entries to the style come up rather a lot when speaking about Astro Bot; it’s close to inconceivable to disregard the writer’s clear affect on the Sony platformer. Sure, Astro Bot is an homage to Sony’s PlayStation legacy, but it surely additionally honors and iterates on the greatest platformers to create one thing really spectacular and wholly its personal.
The phrase “good artists copy, great artists steal” has been attributed to each Pablo Picasso and Steve Jobs, and it’s a variation on T.S. Eliot’s “immature poets imitate, mature poets steal” quote, however regardless of who mentioned it, it’s one thing I’ve been fascinated by rather a lot whereas taking part in Astro Bot. There might not be many extra completely new concepts left in life, however there are a lot of methods to place heaps of completely different, recycled concepts collectively to make one thing distinctive — and that’s the context by which I’m seeing Astro Bot’s existence.
Round the web, I’ve seen a lot of compilations comparing Astro Bot to Nintendo’s (and different publishers’) platformers: Astro Bot’s increase leap is reminiscent of Tremendous Mario Sunshine’s FLUDD; its crash website bots function like Pikmin; Astro Bot’s ride-on armadillo ball looks like Glover; and his frog power-up acts rather a lot like springy boxing gloves in Arms. Typically, these compilations are put collectively in a approach that looks like a gotcha!, however I don’t see it that approach. It’s a superb factor that Astro Bot developer Group Asobi was influenced by all the greatest bits of different platformers. It’s simply how artwork and play work. Actually, rather a lot of these different video games aren’t the first instance of these concepts and mechanics, and should not even be the direct affect for Group Asobi; identical to Astro Bot, these video games are merchandise of a long time of good concepts which were twisted, tweaked, and repurposed into one thing new.
One of my favourite examples of this in Astro Bot is the sponge power-up, as seen in the Bathhouse Battle degree. Right here, Astro actually turns right into a sponge. On dry land, he’s simply variety of flat; it’s not essentially clear that he’s porous. However when Astro hops into a bath of water, he soaks all of it as much as flip right into a bloated model of himself — perhaps quadruple his unique dimension — with the skill to smash by issues and spray water like a firehose. Each skills come into play in intelligent methods all through the degree, be it utilizing the water saved in your outsized physique to inflate different sponges and attain larger floor or utilizing it to water slightly sapling and discover a hidden secret. After all, there’s at all times the satisfaction of completely blasting your approach by bamboo partitions or, merely, your enemies.
Astro’s sponge power-up jogs my memory of Kirby’s water balloon kind in Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the place Kirby sucks up water from a spout to literally become a water balloon. Kirby’s water is equally used to clear mud, water vegetation for secrets and techniques, and battle enemies. However the approach the skill feels in these two video games couldn’t be extra completely different. Each Group Asobi and Kirby and the Forgotten Land developer HAL Laboratory used an identical idea — a trope that’s been utilized in video games for years — to create experiences that really feel new and thrilling.
That is the place that lesson — “good artists copy and great artists steal” — is available in. Copying one other means making an attempt on one other artist or developer’s model and trying to recreate it intently; stealing, in the spirit of the unique phrase, refers to pulling an idea and really making it your personal.
