"More is always better."
-Raz
I Don't agree with this sentiment. Too much alcohol can have dire consequences. While Psychonauts 2 makes significant improvements across the board, the extra run time I would argue is not one of them.
What improved? Schafer expunged any elements from the first game that could be misconstrued to be reductive of mental illness. There's a clear sensitive focus on empathy and healing with how the characters and narrative interact with mental health. It's a good change to reflect growing acceptance and understanding of human psychology. Besides narrative and themes, the game play is significantly improved and less clunky.
There wasn't a sequence, like the final level of the first game, that compelled me to throw my controlled out a window. This reflects a better understanding of game design and building a game around the strengths of the control schema. Including an additional key binding also helps to encourage the player to use a broader variety of Psi powers in combat. Not all are useful (the archetype was useless and slowed by the time power making it even more terrible), but the game notably improves this by including more enemies with explicit weakness to different powers. You can still get by with spamming 'X,' psi blast and slow time (honestly that's all I did), but it's nice to have the game encourage experimentation. While the combat and platforming feel more refined, there is still no depth to them like it's predecessor. The only exception is the final boss, which felt like a steep increase in difficulty. Mario has better platforming and level design across the board. Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe or the Wonderful 101 have far superior, engaging and varied combat.
What prevents the game from feeling mediocre is the wildly creative art direction that returns in glory. The updated graphics look awesome while still feeling true to the original. I do have some issues with it. For one, there are less Picasso-esque asymmetrical characters than the original. I thought this artistic choice did a ton to create unique and memorable characters that convey to the audience that they are flawed (perhaps that wasn't the intent, but it worked in this way for me) and quirky. Instead, most characters feel straight out of a Pixar movie. Some new characters adhere to the original design, but it's far fewer. The levels are creative, but they seem to lack the same degree of consistent wit as the original game. Still a fun Dali-esque dreamscape. A few of my favorites would be the bowling alley, hippie rock concert, cooking show and It's a small world ride (the later was kind of hit or miss for me, but overall I liked the concept).
What did I think wasn't an improvement? The writing, both in terms of plot and characters, and the map. The later I thought was particularly egregious. It's highly stylized while also being completely incomprehensible. Fortunately the game is linear so while looking at the map made me more confused, I never felt lost.
While I'm glad they expunged any jokes that could be misconstrued to be reductive towards mental illness, it felt like a subtractive rather than replacement design. The jokes per minute were radically lower and the plot (while having a similar stake as the original) felt too somber given how generic it was and how over the top the setting was. It felt like a Marvel/Disney movie (which won't be a turn off for most people), where it's a serious game with funny moments, rather than a funny game with serious moments. The later is what drew me into the first game. It had it's missteps and problems with it's humor, but it's tone was consistent.
There were plenty of opportunities for jokes. Here are some examples:
- When they discover Nick doesn't have a brain, Coach could have made a joke about "Who would steal a brain?" Instead, he has a pretty generic response. They still make a callback to this in the end of the game, but a missed opportunity.
- In the Hippie Rock Concert, there's a comment about the members being high. While I think this was intended as a joke, the delivery was bad and made it feel like a more literal statement.
There was still clever comedy in the game. Here are some highlights for me:
- Every Whale Power moment was gold.
- The introduction of Raz's family was outrageous in the best possible way.
- The rock music video, though I don't like how the scene plays out in the end.
- The coach, excluding the Nick scene, was still legitimately funny in every interaction with him with the peak being in the post-credit scene with him shoving himself into a mermaid suit.
- All Hail Guy The Prophet!
Overall, I found myself less interested in the characters due to the more somber tone of the game. I don't think the writing was bad, it just felt generic to me and had far less humor in it. The first game I went through every dialogue option because I found it entertaining and charming. This game I forced myself to in case there was a good joke hidden away. Sometimes there was, most of the time there wasn't.
The pacing of the plot is sluggish and contrived, though the game play is not. It might sound like an oxymoron, but often times there is narrative and game play with ludonarrative as the intersection between the two. Not much happens plotwise and there is a ton of padding and trite video game motifs. To elaborate, you need to piece Cruller's mind back together, so you need to collect 3 pieces to go to the next phase of the game. You know, like every Zelda game... Another example is with Cruller and Nona. You're told to be careful around her, because you don't want her to remember who she is... but here you are having this long and loud conversation about her identity while standing literally next to her... Finally, we're led to believe time is of the essence in the third act, but we need to go on a wild goose chase to remove vines and bees (both end up being different quests) from the games Deus ex machina. What's baffling about this padding is that you have pyrokinesis. That seems like a pretty good option against plants and bees. There's even a predictable Darth Vader moment with the main villain. The third act does throw in a legitimate good twist that I won't spoil, it's just attenuated for me with all the padding building to it. The first game had it's narrative problems, but it didn't take itself remotely seriously and was tongue-in-cheek the whole time, so I didn't mind.
Fortunately, the game play itself doesn't feel superfluous. They throw a bunch of ideas at you with plenty of variety. None of the gimmicks of the levels felt as clever as the original, but they worked and were fun to experience. I would have preferred a shorter run time and more refinement on a smaller set of ideas.
Overall, I liked it and had fun. I still prefer the first game, but it's a good sequel that will appeal to both the fans and critics of the original.
