ACAB doesn’t exist in The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero.
January 16, 2026
If you’re a PlayStation 5 owner, then you probably know that Astro’s Playroom was a solid (and free!) adventure. One of the more special parts about it was how it referenced and paid homage to Sony’s massive video game legacy with its trophies, followed by its special bots. It made sense that Sony banked on this and developed Astro Bot: a full-length adventure that took the building blocks of Playroom, gave them extra pizzazz, and topped things off with a cornucopia of special references and appearances. Astro Bot is a great game but seeing how much care was put into developing it and how many deep cuts Team Asobi included to give nods to previous PlayStation classics puts it at a near perfect score. No matter what type of gamer you are, you owe it to yourself to play Astro Bot.
The story of Astro Bot is classic and adorable; something tantamount to your favorite Pixar movie or Saturday morning cartoon. It begins with Astro Bot and his 300+ Bot companions flying on their PlayStation 5 Mothership through the galaxy. A green, slimy alien named Space Bully doesn’t like this and, true to his name, destroys the ship. The ship’s parts and all of Astro Bots’ friends scatter across the galaxy. But, all hope is not lost. After Astro Bot lands, a beacon points him towards the location of the missing parts and his missing friends. He hops aboard a PlayStation 5 Controller and zooms back to the galaxy to get everything that was destroyed by the Space Bully. It’s a blueprint that’s reminiscent of collectathons from the early aughts, and it works wonderfully here.
That’s because every stage is different. Each stage highlights how well-crafted the game as a whole is. In other words, each stage is plays great, looks great, sounds great, and just overall feels great. The creativity shown in each stage is excellent. You’ll be moving through a giant, singing tree in one stage, and then hopping across an oriental inspired pagoda in the next. A lot of the stages feature enhancements for Astro Bot. There are frog gloves that let Astro Bot fling across stages and perform lightning-fast punches. There’s a stopwatch that slows down time. While they’re only specific to that stage, they add to the above-mentioned creativity. Astro Bot is one of the most addictive games out there because there’s a palpable level of anticipation that comes with entering a new stage. Of course, part of that anticipation is seeing which Bot you rescue. I can’t emphasize enough the number of pleasant surprises I saw when I saw a Bot that I recognized from an obscure PlayStation title. Along with Bots, there are coins and puzzle pieces that can be collected throughout the stages.
The coins are used to purchase Bot specific items from a vending machine located on Astro’s homebase. His homebase will showcase all his rescued friends hanging out, doing their thing, and enjoying the good life. It’s adorable to see the screen get filled with hundreds of them. Puzzle pieces unlock new features once enough are gathered. Like the lost Bots, many of the puzzle pieces are cleverly hidden throughout each stage. Some require special actions to unlock. All told, the variety is creative and endless in Astro Bot and it keeps players coming back.
That variety pours into and overflows with the presentation. Astro Bot is a gorgeous, shiny game that utilizes everything the PlayStation 5 has. For those that don’t care for some of those features, there are ways to disable them. For example, I disabled motion controls. Watching Astro move and interact with his surroundings is a sight. The detail is sublime. Even better? The physics. I don’t think gamers appreciate just how much work must go into making everything move appropriately if interacted with. Yeah, the game is beautiful and shiny, but actually exploring and interacting with everything that you come across shows that the developers cared. In terms of sound, the bots sound adorable. In terms of music, the stages are filled with groovy and poppy tracks. Remember that stage I mentioned earlier about the singing tree? Well, the song that accompanies that stage whips.
If I had to complain about one thing, it’d be the length. I finished all of Astro Bot (DLC, trophies, etc.) in 15 hours. They were a fun 15 hours, and I understand that games like this tend to have less of a play time than what I’m used to, but still. I could have played more stages and discovered more hidden bots. Short playtime aside? Astro Bot is excellent. It’s a game I recommend to everyone that owns a PlayStation 5. But the gamers that have been with Sony since their video game debut will eat it up the most. It was a great game for me to close out the year (I got the last vending machine item at the start of 2026) and a great game for me to reminisce on Sony’s massive, quality library.
Overall, 9.5/10: Astro Bot does it all and it has it all. PlayStation 5 owners will gobble this right up as they go on a short yet sweet adventure down memory lane.
