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Team Asobi from Sony Japan deserve a mario or crash sized development budget after what they have pulled off with astros playroom and rescue mision
- Thread starter Toriko
- Start date
It has the Mario polish but it certainly isn't on par in terms of depth. They need to ramp up his move sets for the next game and introduce advanced techniques for seasoned players. As it currently stands movement is quite basic and more suited for casual play.
They literally took the FLUDD hover from Sunshine and the spin attack from Galaxy lol. Also the whole Playroom concept is Sony's Nintendo Land.
That being said Astro might be my favorite Sony platformer to date. The levels are great, loved the bosses and the game oozes with charm. Looking forward to how they push this franchise next.
I will lose all faith in Sony if they don't get ASOBI to work on a new Ape Escape with a proper budget. I mean, Ape Escape is all about silly gadgets and pure fun, ASOBI proved with PSVR and the Dualsense that they are masters at making gimmicks into something genuinely entertaining and innovative. What they did in Rescue Mission and now in the Playroom is something truly special.
Makes sense, as IIRC Shuhei Yoshida who works heavily with SIE is well-known for his love of Nintendo. It's not surprising that he's pushing the initiative for more Nintendo-like games.
Honestly split Team Asobi off as an own studio of SIE (Like Naughty Dog, Santa Monica etc), grow them and let them go crazy
Astro bot is to Sony PlayStation what Mario & Sonic have been for Nintendo & Sega. While there have been other character games before it on PlayStation, Sony never came close to matching Mario & Sonic till Astro bot came around. Sony finally has their mascot for the PlayStation.
I secretly want them to explore Sony electronics in the same way they created a love letter to PlayStation with Playroom. Imagine levels themed to the period as you explore and find a Betamax or Minidisc player, or a level featuring Aibo.
I secretly want them to explore Sony electronics in the same way they created a love letter to PlayStation with Playroom. Imagine levels themed to the period as you explore and find a Betamax or Minidisc player, or a level featuring Aibo.
Efficient relative to other cinematic AAA games with thousands of team members, but still fairly large. At least the 3D Mario games do
Considering the director of the Astrobot games was recently promoted to the head of Studio Japan I'd say they do care.
I agree. I'm enjoying this game SO much. The nostalgia at one point made me feel quite emotional.
Sony Japan in general needs more freedom to make what they want. Instead of collaborating most of the time. I think its one of Sony's best studios.
Agreed. It was a serviceable platformer, but especially coming off of playing Super Mario 3D All Stars the gameplay gets stale quickly. The settings are nice and the collectibles are cute, but that game was the perfect length. Any longer and it would become boring. I think it is heavily buoyed by the nostalgia factor and Dualsense novelty
100% agree, they have insane potential just waiting to be unleashed by a high budget. They have the talent to go toe to toe with the best.
I haven't played Rescue Mission yet (It will be one of the first VR games I play on PS5 when/if PSVR2 comes out) but I was blown away by Astro's Playroom. PlayStation needs to invest in that studio and let them grow, because they have something special there.
Maybe hyperbole/unpopular opinion, but Playroom is better than any Nintendo 3D platformer since Galaxy 2.
Maybe hyperbole/unpopular opinion, but Playroom is better than any Nintendo 3D platformer since Galaxy 2.
I want this but also don't want it to be too big of a thing. I feel as though part of why it works so well is because of its scale making it easier to manage the production of it and not have to go nuts trying to make it some super evolved thing people might want or expect. I remember really enjoying the one on PS4, then Rescue Mission is crazy good, and now Playroom may as well have been an indie title in scope given its length and content and polish.
That isn't to say they shouldn't try or that it cannot be done, but not going crazy keeps it focused on what made it great and making it more than what it is may end up being detrimental.
That isn't to say they shouldn't try or that it cannot be done, but not going crazy keeps it focused on what made it great and making it more than what it is may end up being detrimental.
Which is why they could use a juicier budget, like Odyssey and others got
I may be wrong, but wasn't there around the same quantity of people working on Astro bot comparing to Mario Odyssey?
I think we tend to overestimate a lot the size of Nintendo teams
https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Mario_Odyssey/credits
https://www.igdb.com/games/astro-bot-rescue-mission/credits
The difference seems to be more about the freedom given to the Mario team
I think we tend to overestimate a lot the size of Nintendo teams
https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Mario_Odyssey/credits
https://www.igdb.com/games/astro-bot-rescue-mission/credits
The difference seems to be more about the freedom given to the Mario team
I went down a rabbit hole of trying to find out how many core staff worked on Mario Odyssey and Astro's Rescue Mission respectively. However, the way Sony do credits makes it hard to determine who actually worked substantially on the game or was just being thanked (more power to them, better to credit someone than not). Mario seemed like it had around 160 people who played a major role in development or QA.
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Rescue mission was done by a team of less than 25 ppl in 18 months in comparison. Way way smaller.
Sony credits a much broader pool of people than Nintendo (like tons of management and the entire QA teams of every region) so I do think Mario had a bigger core team. How much bigger though is a bit hard to say.
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Not even close. 25 people worked on Rescue Mission for 18 months. Mario team has more manpower and time.
A bigger budget wouldn't automatically make their next game into something on that level. Again, having not played Rescue Mission I can't say for sure, but they would need to prove they can create gameplay beyond what I experienced in Playroom for me to believe they could take on a huge game.
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Astrobot rescue mission is a better game than Odyssey so they have more than proven they can take on a huge game imo. It is packed with ideas.
They list 40 something people from Sony Japan alone on their credits, so unless there is an interview I missed, that doesn't seem right? Since there was outside help too according to the credits. Regardless, it was an impressive game.
Then you're missing out on the most innovative 3D platformer since Mario 64
I've heard great things but I'm not going to invest in a PSVR at this point so it looks like unfortunately I won't ever get to play it.
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I believe it was mentioned in one of the video interviews. Right now I can only see it mentioned in wiki that it is 25 people who worked on it. Need to find the youtube video
I tried looking for core job like animators (3 on Odyssey vs 7 on Astro), level design (9 on Odyssey 3? on Astro -and a bunch of design stuff i don't understand) but it doesn't strike me as a case where Mario Odyssey has a LOT more staff than Astro
Unleash the power of the DualSense wireless controller with Astro’s Playroom
Team Asobi’s platformer comes pre-installed on every PS5 and is packed full of PlayStation Easter eggs.
blog.playstation.com
^^^ Really hoping that tease is for a full-fledged Astro platformer for PS5.
32 staff but close. A real tiny team tbh.
Mario Odyssey had significantly more staff on it (just under 200) and a much longer cycle (roughly 3 years) but is still incredibly lean for a AAA game. Something like Captain Toad is closer (around 70 staff) with a shorter timetable (less than 12 months).
Absolutely untrue unless you're talking about purely 1st party characters.
Regardless of one's personal opinion of the IP, PlayStation absolutely matched Mario and Sonic with Crash critically and commercially back in the PS1 days. Heck, Crash was certainly a hell of a lot relevant for most of the 5th gen than Sonic was; CB actually had 4 high-quality multi-million selling classics come out every year while the best thing Sonic had on Saturn was a collection of old games. CB was the face of PlayStation for millions of people, kids and adults alike. Sony was so keen on the character/IP that they actually helped Naughty Dog secure the rights for it for CTR back in the late 90s. Why they didn't just outright buy it at that point is baffling but I'm sure they had their reasons
The enthusiasm surrounding Astro on the forum lately has been great to see, but this is an example of Era being a bubble, and I personally don't think Astro is or will ever be synonymous with PlayStation in the way that Mario is for Nintendo, in the way that Sonic is for SEGA, or in the the way Crash was for PS1. The days of stuff like that happening seem to be long gone.
The complete staff roll of Odyssey, including the localization, QA, etc is 200 staff,
no way the core staf is that (the 32 people on Astro seems to be only the core devs)
Yeah, core prod/dev staff (so no admin, QA, marketing, testing, regional staff, etc) would likely be closer to 120-150 but I haven't done an exact count. Either way it's miniscule for a AAA game.