Astro Bears

Genre: Party Game

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local), 2 Co-Op (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Astro Bears is a family-friendly Party game that acts as a replacement and update for the older game Astro Bears Party, so much that after the release of Astro Bears, Astro Bears Party was outright removed from the Nintendo Switch eShop. This version adds an extra game mode and extra playable characters, but the core premise is the same – this is a modern equivalent to Snake and Tron Bikes played on a spherical 3D planet, where players are trying to avoid each others’ trails while entrapping enemies in their own trail.

The gameplay of Astro Bears is pretty easy to get a grasp on as soon as you pick it up. As you move, you leave a trail. You lose if you touch yours’ or other players’ trails. To avoid them, you have a jump button that can temporarily allow you to fly (leaving your trail in the air instead of the ground), and you have a dash button to get a boost of speed.

The game takes place from a top-down view and the planet you’re walking on is partly translucent to better see both what’s coming up beyond the horizon as well as keep track of opponents. It’s a clever way to make sure players have all the information they need without requiring any sort of HUD.

One of the things that I really liked about this game was how fast-paced it is – there’s little bogging players down in win screens or anything like that, nor is there much time wasted in loading screens. This is a game that knows it’s a party game, and a party needs to keep moving.

The presentation here is superb, but simple. You and other players are color-coded so you can keep track of each other and their trails easily, and trails nicely get lighter in color where a player jumped, making the delineation between low and high easy to see. And everything has an appealing, rounded look to it that suits the family-friendly theme of the game. Add in a bouncy soundtrack to fit the energetic nature of the action on-screen, and this game’s presentation is pretty perfectly suited to the sort of game it is.

This game has eight different characters, each with different stats. There are also three different game modes. There’s the standard multiplayer mode that allows players to select a size of planet, select whether or not their tails are infinite, and a few other details. There’s a “competitive” mode that challenges players to win three matches with different characters. And there’s “Jetfish Hunting”, the game’s only single-player mode, which acts like this game’s version of Snake, with players hunting down fish to increase the size of their tail, and try to survive as long as they can without crashing. This mode also features co-op, but… well, suffice it to say, the gameplay in this game is better when you’re trying to get other players to crash.

I absolutely love the core gameplay here, and I feel like this is a fantastic party game for all ages, but it’s not one you’ll be likely to play for hours at a time. That’s because there simply isn’t much variety here. The different playable characters all have different stats, but there are no special abilities to distinguish them (save for a single character who can take two hits instead of one). And aside from the single player-focused Jetfish mode, all of the other game modes play pretty much the same.

It would have been nice to have players racing around on even bigger and perhaps more complex worlds, or a mode where players are trying to chase each other down rather than avoid one another, or something to break up the repetition in the game. Also, the fact that the Jetfish mode is the only single-player mode here seems like another area the game’s designers could have expanded on.

I really, really like Astro Bears. I think it’s a fantastic Party game that’s easy for anyone to pick up and play. At the same time, it’s disappointing that the core game concept here wasn’t expanded on. I wanted there to be more game modes, more playable characters, and just overall more variety. What’s actually here is very good, and should be a welcome addition to any party lineup. I just wish Astro Bears was expanded on into something that truly delivered on all the potential this game has.

tl;dr – Astro Bears is a family-friendly Party game that expands on the earlier game Astro Bears Party, with the same core gameplay – it plays like a 3D version of Snake and Tron Bikes, with players leaving trails to try to snag others while avoiding trails themselves. It’s a fast-paced, fun, accessible Party game, but even with additional content over its predecessor, the game feels a bit… well, bare. Still loads of fun in short bursts, but not likely to be a game you play for hours.

Grade: B+

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