Astro-Bot: Stellar Speedway Takes Fast to Another Level

With a game as good as Astro-Bot, any new content is a cause for excitement. And thankfully, Stellar-Speedway lives up to the hype, more or less, with a set of five speed-running maps that will test your platforming skills and tactical choices. Astro-Bot’s core mechanics may be very simple, but they still allow you to make smarter and riskier choices than you other ways would and the speed-run is the perfect context for you to experiment.

Stellar Speedway also lets you get even more familiar with some of the games awesome power-ups. Bulldog Dash, Elephant Suck, Frog Punch, Squid Balloon and (unfortunately) Monkey Arms all return from the main game and they each get their own level to let you take advantage of all the cool things you can do with them. There are 10 bots in Stellar Speedway and you get one for completing the map in the certain time frame (between 45 seconds and 80 seconds) and then another for completing in even shorter time. These bots include four Helldivers, which is a pretty awesome addition and feel right at home amongst other PlayStation classic bots.

But how are these missions themselves? Well, they’re all pretty high quality from a design perspective and are just the right amount of strict and cheese-able to make some really excellent speed-running opportunities. It’s always clear what path you’re supposed to be on, but as with any good speed-running map, there’s plenty of corners to cut to shave off those seconds. Even as someone who kind of hates speed runs, I enjoyed these.

But there’s always more to say, so let’s take this level by level:

Building Speed

Power-up: Bulldog Dash

This is the entry level, and so naturally it’s the easiest. The Bulldog is the most straight forward powerup in the game and this level doesn’t require a tremendous amount of skill to put up a good time once you play through it a time or too. It’s really fun though and is a great introductory level to the pace and style of these speed challenges. The construction area is re-used here and it fits really well, utilizing steel beams and glass platforms that require precision and speed to make it through. It’s the perfect warmup.

Bulldog Dash is a simple but excellent power-up overall and I find that it’s also the least intrusive of all them, while also being one of the most versatile. You can be inventive here and come up with your little strategies to shave off those seconds, which you will need to do, as rewards are tied to your time. Too long and you won’t get anything.

Let It Slide

Power-up: Elephant Suck

This map is where you really figure out the catch of speedrunning. You may get done pretty quickly and handle yourself well, but one or two seconds here or there can be the difference between getting one bot, two bots or none at all. One sloppily times jump or misplaced platform and it’s all over. This level isn’t a drastic step up in difficulty, but it is more punishing from a time perspective. Luckily there’s plenty ways to shave significant amounts of time off if you’re creative or bold. The Elephant Suck is a powerup that does allow a certain amount of creativity in your platforming and you can really zip around this map if you know when and where to make the correct jumps. This map really taught me the full of extend of Astro’s range and changed the way I viewed my jumps.

The Polar Ice area returns and it’s a fitting choice. The combination of skating and pirouetting on delicate ice and then hovering in the air precariously, only to dispense an ice platform at the last minute, keeps you on your toes. Of all the levels, this one is probably the best mix of fun and challenging. The Elephant Suck is a one function power-up and “Let It Slide” is the perfect arena for this. The Elephant Suck gives you the freedom to make your own path and be as economical with motion as you want.

Spring-Loaded Run

Power-up: Frog Punch

The Frog Punch is a weird power-up in that it doesn’t really have any issues, it’s just strangely not that awesome. It should be- but it’s not. It’s problems actually spring (goddamnit) from it being overpowered. You’re basically in the main game if you have the Frog Punch and it removes all tension from combat. You can punch things from an absurd distance away. It’s other function is that it can operate as a sort of sticky glove and and create a slingshot effect to help you traverse, which is what you’re doing here.

This isn’t a bad level at all. It’s reasonably fun and expects a fair pace. I liked the tropical design. But the Frog Punch in pure platforming, where you’re swinging around, feels good but you’ll probably prefer hovering. Honestly this brought into focus my biggest criticism of the Stellar Speedway levels, which is that there’s no pure platforming challenge. Everything involves a power-up and as such, each level lives and dies on the strength of that power-up. This level is fun, but it’s enjoyment is limited by the fact you have to rely on the weakest parts of the Frog Punch.

Helium Heights

Power-up:  Squid Balloon

Of all the levels, Helium Heights probably charts highest on pure unpredictability, Because of the nature of a floating power-up, you’ll never have the same level of control and that can make it both fun and frustrating depending on the situation. Overall, this level isn’t too hard, but you definitely need to have a few runs to get a handle on how to best leverage the floating mechanic. But I actually enjoyed it once I got into it more because the vertical layout and flotation abilities do allow you to be quite creative. I found myself shaving off seconds a couple different ways.

That being said, Helium Heights is hard. It lets you be creative, but unlike some of the earlier levels, which give you “good path” and “great path”, the choices you face in Helium Heights are the fraction of a second type that somehow still feel worth it. And you’re gonna have to make a lot of these choices to get everything from this level and it will likely be a bit of a battle until you really start taking some risks with the Squid Balloon.

Rising Heat

Power-up: Monkey Climb

“Rising Heat” is kind of terrible. I mean, it’s well designed and generally doable but the Monkey Climb power-up is not built for a speed running context. A controller motion tilt system on my Playstation game? Sure. But for a speed run? I don’t know chief. And frankly, this level is exactly why Wii-esque controller tilt systems with your traditional DualShocks need to be balanced carefully. “Rising Heat” is challenging, but unlike “Helium Heights”, the challenge here feels less enjoyable and more like the fault of unfamiliar and perhaps not ideal mechanisms for this situation.

For a happy go-lucky platformer, there are a surprising amount of genuinely tough levels in this game and you spend a of time learning levels stage by stage. Only once you’ve more or less mastered most of the stages will be able to really complete the level. But once you know a part, you can beat it 9/10 times on the following runs. Not with this level. That’s where the Monkey Climb is a problem.

See, most of us actually only use controller tilt like 6 times a year maybe. And having to do it high speed, across the most challenging course presented in the game makes for a very annoying time. The Monkey Climb requires way more precision for a map like this, skills that you will not have gained from using this skill for maybe 5 minutes across the main game. You will die a lot and at any time. Because you might be frantically swinging your controller around, perfectly timing each swing, mashing buttons to grab on to footholds and then- POOF! You fall. Because it’s actually pretty hard to hard to tilt a controller a certain way and hit a sequence of buttons simultaneously with a strict time limit and no checkpoints. To be honest, I think it’s too hard.

But when I did finally beat it, I was very happy. So there’s that. But I did not love it by any means.

But…for all my complains about “Rising Heat”, I think Stellar Speedway is a really cool addition to Astro Bot and that these speed run challenges do expand the game in a meaningful way. They are challenging and sometimes frustrating…but they do add to what is already a deep platforming experience and once you get the hang of things, they’re damn fun.

Do I want more? Probably not. But that doesn’t change the fact that I must bury the hatchet and admit that…these are pretty good, except for the last one, which, at least misses with a big swing. These levels provide both a new way of approaching gameplay and a strong challenge if you’re up for it. If you enjoyed the base game and want more Astro Bot, Stellar Speedway does the job, whether you approve of the method or not.