Summary
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Astro Bot is chock-full of little homages and tributes, and fans have discovered a neat homage to a Japanese legend.
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As it turns out, the Baseball Bot in Astro Bot is more than just a bot wearing a Sony-themed uniform.
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The bot is a near 1:1 homage to Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most revered Japanese baseball players.
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Standing next to the bot will have it go into Ichiro’s iconic stance.
Astro Bot, Team Asobi’s first full-length Astro-centric adventure, may have released in September, but fans are still discovering new things each chance they get. The 2024 Game of the Year also received several batches of free DLC, helping ensure the platformer continues to stay in the minds of gamers.
That said, Monday’s discovery might be the coolest yet.
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Astro Meet Ichiro
As first discovered on Reddit’s r/baseball, the Baseball Bot in Astro Bot is more than just a bot wearing a Sony-themed uniform. As it turns out, it’s a 1:1 homage to Ichiro Suzuki, one of the greatest Japanese baseball players of all time. The bot will do Ichiro’s entire warm-up routine before taking a stance, making the tribute quite the homage.
As you can see, it’s a 1:1 recreation.
For his career, Ichiro amassed over 3,000 hits in the United States’ Major League Baseball after tallying over 1,200 hits in Japan. He played for several MLB teams, including, most famously, for the Seattle Mariners, where he quickly became an icon for his unique stance and ability to hit literally anything. Having retired in 2019, Ichiro is on the Hall of Fame ballot, where he is anticipated to be inducted as a first-time candidate.
But that’s not the only time that a game has ever paid homage to Ichiro, either. Because as one user mentioned, Kiryu will emulate Ichiro when countering a bat-wielding enemy in Yakuza 6.
“There’s a reason it’s (the) Game of the Year,” one user remarked on Reddit. And they’re not wrong, either. It’s the little touches like this that have made Astro Bot so beloved by gamers. The homages in the game run deeper than surface level, helping establish a celebration of all things gaming, as well as the figures that people look up to.
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