How to beat the 'Grand Master Challenge' in Astro Bot

Astro Bot may look cute and cosy on the surface, but some challenge levels hit hard! Throughout the game, you’ll come across and need to rescue lost PlayStation symbols, which unlock four challenges each.

The final challenge is the toughest out of the lot: Grand Master Challenge.

After collecting all 300 bots and puzzle pieces, head to the Crash Site and approach the golden statue. Activate the mega bot wall and climb up toward the moon. At the top, you’ll find a portal to the final challenge level in the game.

The secret to this one is to take your time and take advantage of rest spots, which I’ve highlighted below. There’s no clock counting down!

How to beat the Grand Master Challenge in Astro Bot:

Make your way across the moving symbol platforms, hit the bounce pad and carefully land on the platform above, making sure to avoid any rings of fire by the bell baddies.

Move to the bounce pad ahead and launch onto the next platform. While in the air, you’ll be faced with a spiked spinning ball bad guy (official name, I’m sure). You can simply leap over it and use Astro’s laser feet to destroy it.

On this next platform, again, bell baddies will be spreading rings of fire across the zone. Ahead, you’ll see a spring chicken — you need to beat it to move forward.

Get just close enough to the spring chicken to trigger its attack, watching out for its electrical field. Grab the top of its head and run backward – keep in mind you can still jump over the rings of fire while holding on to the cable. Once the spring chicken is defeated, it reveals a bounce pad to the next platform.

The Glass Tower

The next zone is a tower made of glass that will fall beneath you, so move fast; the first level thankfully has no enemies. Use the bounce pad to move up to the next glass level, making sure to avoid the spiked baddies. Here you’ll also find mine bots set on sticking to and blowing up poor little Astro. If you move closely and quickly across the middle, you have a good chance to avoid being touched by them. If you do get some stuck to you, simply hold down the square button and spin them away, you can also do this mid run, as the top level is also invested with mine bots.

Launching on the next bounce pad will bring you to the top of the glass tower. The best strategy here is to head around the rim to the left, curving around before jumping onto the Triangle platform. Ignore the electrical bad guy here, just jump and laser the purple slime on the X platform, moving forward again to the bounce pad and onto the ice.

This next bit requires quick thinking, there’s not much respite going forward. Run up the wall to the left, collecting the coins, jump across to the right and collect three more coins and then jump and laser boost across the flames.

Verticle Incline

Now you’ll need to head verticle, noting that you can not jump while climbing this next wall – you can only punch. Start heading up and b-line it straight for the purple slime. When you’re close enough, give it a whack, continuing up and then whacking the next lot – either go through the middle or just take at one either side.

At the top, there’s a short glass platform, so move fast and get ready to jump onto the next lot of floating PlayStation symbol platforms. A fire chameleon is shooting fireballs at you from the furthest platform, stick to the right, skip the Triangle platform and jump straight to the Circle. Next, quickly leap across to the Square platform, making sure to use Astro’s laser feet to take out the chameleon.

It’s here, on this Square platform, that you can take a quick second to breathe (if you need it).

Flipping Blocks and Spinning Foes

The next area looks intimidating, but there’s little danger here. There’s no need to go near the electrical balls and it’s close to impossible to be hit by the large, spinning, electrical Square. Just be careful not to linger too long on the ice, as it’ll break away beneath you. Simply make your way along the path, jump the first gap, and then cut the corner of the platform to safety.

In this next area, you’re more likely to be killed by a slime spitting on you than being crushed by the blocks, so keep that in mind.

The first block is flipping side to side and has one purple slime on it, which can be defeated with a quickly timed laser jump. Use the jump pad to get on top of the block, then jump across to the next platform. Take out the slime in a similar fashion to before, the bounce pad can give you a great height advantage over the slime here. Then get ready to jump across to another icy platform.

Again, the electrical balls and large, spinning, electrical Square aren’t any danger to Astro, here you just need to focus on taking out the enemy swinging the spiked ball. Timing your jump just right will allow you to get Astro to the center and above the enemy, lasering him until he explodes. After he’s defeated, quickly move through the electrical square and onto the next platform area.

If you wanted to, you could stop and pause on the triangle to gather your thoughts ahead of another challenging path ahead. But we’re almost there!

Explosive Chicken Formations

Jump across each spinning symbol, be sure to move fast, and aim for a flat surface with each leap forward. Once you make it to the next icy platform, get ready to be bombarded by explosive chickens in symbol formations.

First up is X, which shouldn’t pose too big of a problem. You can move underneath these formations, or go to the side and jump around them. Once you reach the end of this first stretch, you’ll use a bounce pad to jump up to the next icy platform: The Triangle.

The Triangle formations are a little tougher to navigate, only offering a small space to jump through them and minimal to jump around. But as you get to the end of the ice, you’re able to jump around to the side and land on the bounce pad.

Square is the easiest, as Astro fits through the centre of each bird formation with ease. Jump through the squares, making sure not to touch any of the explosive birds and keeping in mind the ice is breaking beneath you.

Reaching the end of this platform will put you on the final obstacle of the level, the Circle bird formation.

The circles get smaller the closer you get to the end and the window between each one is shorter than the other formations. Aim for the middle of each Circle.