Psychonauts 2 (2021)

"I love this goddamn game. It's a charming experience that tackles some very heavy subjects with the exact same levity [as Psychonauts 1] and a newfound respect. It's as much a game about mental health, empathy, loss, and healing, as it is about pretty colors, brain funnels, hand puppets, and silly animal abuse. At its worst, it feels like a more streamlined, fleshed-out, better-playing Psychonauts 1. And at its best, it feels like watching an A-tier animated movie, one that I have the privilege of being allowed to take part in."

I wish gameplay could be stronger! I loved the ideas and storytelling of this game so much, but the controls were just off enough with some frustration in jumping and combat that was not very engaging that it just wasn't quite able to be a 5-star experience.

BUT...

The game is absolutely beautiful! The flexibility of the engine to be able to show such diverse ideas and be very bug-free is impressive. Wondering what the next brain world was going to be like is what kept me going throughout this experience. There were too many breaks in gameplay for short cutscenes that became a bit of an annoyance throughout the game. But the writing was sharp, and the characters were very memorable!

This is a great work of art that could not be completed in any other medium, and I am thankful that there are still games like this able to be made! I watched about half of the Psych Odyssey documentary that is found on YouTube before watching this, and to be honest I think the documentary is just as interesting as the game. My main complaint is that the game part of this game was a little...forgetful.

Roll Credits?: Yes!

Surprised/Let Down/As Expected: Surprised

Favorite Mechanic or Narrative Moment: The story was consistently surprising, and the worldbuilding is very charming and makes the whole game just fun to hang out and experience. The visual design for a lot of the areas (music festival stands out) was incredibly cool and unique.

Least Favorite Thing: Combat is pretty lackluster, but the game seems aware of this and tends toward platforming for most of the game with combat sprinkled to keep it from being too stale.

The DNA of this game is really the same as the original game. They've just poured all kinds of quality-of-life improvements into it, and made the platforming much more fun & responsive.

The story is intriguing, and the Tim Schafer humor is certainly there. While the original game was more about "psychic" stuff, Psychonauts 2 is solidly psychiatric. The level design is ingenious, and based upon things like anxiety, depression, alcoholism, panic attacks, etc, etc, etc... I feel like Internet dwellers under the age of 30 will absolutely adore the game's focus on what really is a staple of their identities.

I briefly got into "collect everything" mode on this, but the Cassie O'Peia shorefront level woke me up out of that trance. The difference between completing the game and getting everything seems to be about a dozen hours of monotony (or just boring step-by-step following a cheat guide).

Finally finished Psychonauts 2!

It's a game with so much creativity and inspiration on display that you can't help but keep playing it to know what crazy ideas this team has for the next stage. In terms of gameplay, it's not that amazing: things get a little bit too repetitive and the humor finally tired me out near the end.

Now that I've completed the main quest, I think I'll squeeze a few more hours out of the game with the photo mode. The landscapes and scenarios are frankly beautiful. I also fell in love with the photo filters available, I'll post a few captures below.

Recommended, probably one of the best games of 2021. If you liked the first game, you will love Psychonauts 2.

Gameplay is amazing. I loved the platforms and the puzzles that the game had in store for me. You just breeze your way with the well-thought game mechanics that the developers implemented.

I loved the story. It was compelling, dramatic, well-structured. After a while, I focused solely on main quests just to see where the story was headed.

In the game, when I was in someone's brain trying to find my way through, I found myself relating to them in some sense, it was a feeling galore. I especially loved traversing around the brain of PSI-King!

Only downside I can think of, is that sometimes I felt like the map of the game was not sufficient, and I had a difficulty in exploring some areas because of it.

5/5, definitely will play from time to time to explore some more in the endgame!

The first two or three hours were quite difficult for me. I mean, they were already full of great stuff but also too much walking around searching for the next boring cutscene. I literally fell asleep in front on the screen a couple of times, like in the good old days of walking toward the next dialogue in KOTOR and/or Mass Effect. After that, though, it's really great: lovely themes tackled with a very thoughtful touch, incredible visual style and level design, both so full of crazy inventions, and an overall great experience. And sure, the platforming is not as good as a Mario game, but what platformer is as good as a Mario game? Also, this really doesn't want to be a Mario game, it's much more based on contextual stuff and that makes it constantly fresh and surprising. Plus, it's sooo much more polished than the first game and it manages to avoid its more old school "trappings". I'm really glad I stuck with it after the bumpy beginning.

On a side note, Game Pass is great. I started playing on Xbox One, then I switched to PC because of loading times, then I had to leave for Christmas and so I streamed the final couple of missions on my clunky laptop. Wow.

Excellent game. Just as good as the original if not better. Only gripe is that the load times are kinda sucky for a game of this graphical quality. It should be much better than this. Game also had noticeable stability issues once I completed the main story. Upon quitting and reloading the game, all of the audio was echoing and a tad slowed down for some reason. Persisted until I quit the game completely and restarted my console (just to be safe).

The game also crashed earlier today when I was in one of Cassiopia's levels. Had an occasional pause when I turned the camera as it tried to load something too. Very odd.

Disappointing

Collecthoton or not the level design in psychonauts 2 does not offer a single challenge and Does not offer a good sense of exploration It Also does not feature genius or thought provoking platforming sections
It’s all simple platforming just the color and tone of stages change and sometimes Raz uses his abilities to solve puzzles but those instances are so obvious and inorganic to level design. basically platforming is not challenging or rewarding Combat is not challenging or rewarding, Puzzles are not challenging or rewarding & Raz’s movement is way worse than most modern platformers The game does not introduce any new gameplay element to platforming genre. It’s one of the most simple and lazy & boring platformers i have ever played in my entire life. (second only to the first psychonauts games i guess) This game heavily relies on cutscenes, dialogues and characters to compensate it’s weakness in gameplay and level design Which was obvious from the first game. Psychonauts is one of those games which gameplay is designed around the story and suffers from it. by “inorganic” puzzles i mean when i puzzle does not require platforming skill in a platformer For example: setting pictures on fire to reveal a hidden door in psychonauts is not organic to a platfomer And it gets worse since the game actually tells you what to do in most puzzles . As if psychonauts thinks the player is stupid or something Another example would be that clone ability that lets a paper clone of raz open unreachable doors Does opening those doors hence solving the puzzle require anything from the player? Nope Does opening those doors have anything to a platformer? Nope There are no reasons for those kind of puzzles in a game. The game has some metroidvania aspects to it but since most levels are so linear and require 0 exploration and does not offer any challenge, then exploring them again with your new powers to unlock some psy_core is completely useless And again since the combat is so easy then what is the point of visiting an area for the second time and go through all those effortless platforming sections? You don’t need to rank up anyway everything is easy to beat. In a game like Mario odyssey, most levels change after 1st time visit so another visit to them for completion actually makes sense. Cuz when you enter an area for the second time, those areas offer new challenges and some completely change About Raz’s controls… play any 3d mario game since mario 64 and you’ll get why Raz’s movement is so limited compared to even mario games from 25 years ago. Psychonauts is carried by it’s story and presentation like the previous game Some may say “psychonauts is not a pure platformer since it has combat and blah blah” Just play ori and the blind forest & ori and will of the wisps To see how those games give player genius platforming sections + combat which is more challenging than psychonauts ( specially ori and will of the wisps) and how those games use metroidvania elements way better than psychonauts 2 In ori and will of the wisps, bosses actually test both your platforming skills and combat skills at the same time Unlike psychonauts 2 bosses that usually don’t require anything from the player Ori is a masterclass even in story telling without taking control away from the player. psychonauts 1 & 2 specially the second one, the game takes the control away from the player with a tonne of cutscenes and exposition Ori maybe have like 10times less cutscenes and exposition yet it tells a great tale

"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:

1. 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.
2. 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:

1. Every Whale Power moment was gold.
2. The introduction of Raz's family was outrageous in the best possible way.
3. The rock music video, though I don't like how the scene plays out in the end.
4. 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.
5. 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.

After more than a decade and a half since the release of Psychonauts we finally got the long awaited sequel aptly named Psychonauts 2. Improving on nearly everything the first game offered, Psychonauts 2 is a gorgeous, hilarious and wildly enjoyable adventure that never loses its charm throughout its entire 15-20 hour campaign.

Like in the first game, you play as Respitin Aquato, a young Psychonauts in training and former acrobat who ran away from his family and their circus to Pursue his dreams. When I first started the game it felt immediately familiar. The gameplay mechanics are very similar, albeit noticeably smoother. Initially I was hoping for a bigger leap to the gameplay, but the deeper into Psychonauts 2 I got, the more new abilities I unlocked, the more I realized that this game had made massive improvements to the gameplay without losing the core feel of the game. It feels like an old game without feeling old. And once I unlocked the Psyball to roll around on it sped up the pace massively and put all of my worries about the gameplay being slow to bed. It’s not the greatest on a mechanical front, the combat is good but not great, the traversal is solid, but not awesome, and the progression system is rewarding but a little sparse.

Where the game really shines is in its visuals and in its story. I won’t go too deep into the story, but I thought it was endlessly charming, funny, full of lovable characters and it kept me invested all the way through to the end. But visually Psychonauts 2 is on another level, every kind that you enter is a wholly unique and stunning experience. From psychedelic wonderlands, to disgusting teeth dungeons, I was thrilled to explore every world and always excited to see what was going to be next. And with thousands of collectibles scattered across every map that are tied to the progression system is was doubly rewarding to explore every inch of what these minds had to show.

The world outside of the different character’s minds was pretty interesting as well. There are several large areas to explore, each with their own different aesthetics, optional side quests and secrets to uncover. The visual variety this game offers is truly up there with the greatest of all time. The side quests are fairly simple, and there aren’t very many of them, but they do add a little extra freedom to the game, and push you to explore the maps even more.

I have absolutely no qualms with recommending Psychonauts 2 to anyone. It’s a gem and I feel lucky to get to play a sequel that surpasses the original in every way. It was worth waiting 16 years for. This may be, and I don’t say this lightly, the greatest game Doublefine has ever made. Tim Schaffer and the peeps at Doublefine have been making unique, creative, fun quality games for a long long time and Psychonauts 2 feels like the culmination of everything they’ve learned over the years.

I think the story is good, the think the visuals are amazing, but for me, this was just too much!

There are SO many diverse art assets and everything is so interesting but I feel like to make up for that design every stage of this game feels like it takes too long. Ultimately it made the game feel boring even though everything about it is interesting.

I feel like Microsoft giving them the budget did allow them to spread their wings but it could have used some more editing. A blessing yes, but for me, a bit of a curse as well.

I feel like there are people thirsting for modern AAA N64-style platformers of old, for those people I think this is a gift like mana from heaven. Unless you are longing for that sort of game, this might be a harder sell.

Either I'm a dummy and didn't get the story, or there were a couple of plot points left unexplained.

First, by the end when you are putting Nona/Maligula on the machine thing and Truman Zanotto takes you out of her mind, Lilli comes right behind him and tells you that her dad has been acting weird. But IIRC when you left the Motherlode Truman was acting as if in a coma and Lilli was buying his act. Did we miss a scene in which he wakes up and explains something to her?

More importantly, in the first chunk of the game Sasha makes a big deal about how some powerful psychic must've modified the dentist mind so he simply cannot tell who is he working with. Is that ever explained? The mastermind behind all that was Gristol Malik, who is non-psychic. Are we to assume that there he worked with some unnamed accomplice?

I'm wondering whether playing the second game immediately after the first was a not good idea. After finishing the second game I'm left with a few mixed feelings about the entire experience. Right off the bat I want to say as a game this is one of the best platformers I've played with some of the best visuals, presentations, and level design I've experienced in the genre. Which is why I feel a little mixed and disappointed when I say that this, in my opinion, came at the cost of some of the character and story presentation that the first game really nailed in its first half.

Let me go into a little more detail of what I didn't agree with in the first game. The characters and presentation of the first half were straight out of a late 90s early 2000s cartoon and I had a blast with the dialogues and little details added throughout the camp. Raz being the new kid did wonders for the development of the more central characters such as Sasha and Milla, who by teaching and helping Raz learn what it means to be psychic, also became a means for us to be interested in them as characters and learn about their pasts. To add on to that, Raz and Lili made a really good comedic duo and the game made it seem as if this sort of silly but cute contrast between their characters would persist throughout the game. What threw me off was how not only they put every single character out of commission, they also put Lili out of commission right when it seemed she would join Raz' adventure. I can only chalk this up to the classic damsel in distress trope or they really couldn't figure out a way to make her work as a partner without making her playable. Ultimately, my complaints only amount to me expecting a Zig, but getting a Zag instead. None of this really detracts from the experience and it was just things I wish they would have done a little differently because the main thing about all this is that it still was Raz's adventure the entire way through and despite playing it very recently it has become one of my favorite games.

The second game unfortunately also has this exact same problem but.. more. If you haven't played the game you definitely don't want to read this. The beginning of the game up until the end of the Casino mission set up what I thought was going to be the central themes and aspects of the game. You had Raz suddenly become the new kid again and another cast of characters who were complete jerks and Raz kinda mess up real bad by using his powers to alter a person's way of thinking through mental connections. At the end, everyone works together to overcome the mission and Raz learns a lesson from it all, realizing how great his power is and the consequences of misusing it. All this results in the uncovering of a potential greater threat and that Lili might be linked to this. Unfortunately that's pretty much the end of the interns as characters alongside Sasha, Milla, Hollis, and Lili. Considering they also had Lili being distraught over her father and her own feelings about how she saw herself as a terrible daughter and internal conflict about following in his footsteps, I thought they'd do a bit more with at least that. Raz' family showing up was neat and I thought they'd have a more central part to the story... but they didn't. The wildest thing to me though was how mental connections ended up just not being a thing at all whatsoever. The game introduces all these set pieces and individually they're great, but nothing really ever gets done with them. At most the interns give you a sidequest or maybe you run into them for a small scene at some point but it just feels like there's alot missing as far as characters go. The thing that really disappointed me the most though was how this kinda stopped being about Raz and instead became about Ford, his friends, and the events from their past that haunt them. And again, individually, it was great. Learning about Ford, his friends, and Maligula was neat and all but none of it is really about Raz save for him just conveniently having a connection to Maligula. I felt there were also some parallels that were going to happen in regards to the mistakes Ford made and the mistakes Raz made regarding their psychic powers but again nothing really... connects. Having Lili, Raz' family, and the interns all show up at the end for the big climax felt really flat and a little wasted. At that point why wasn't it Ford and his friends that came to the aid of Raz in fighting Maligula? I felt like everyone was going to have a bit where they get over their past by once again confronting Maligula but succeeding this time. It feels like none of these set pieces ever connect with each and it ultimately all feels like one big sidequest.

Despite everything I said, I really liked this game and it's definitely one of the best platformers I've ever played and I really hope this isn't the end of the series but it wouldn't be surprising if it was.

The original Psychonauts is my favorite game. It still feels odd saying that, because from the years 1999 well into the 2010s I would have given a different answer. But sometime during my fourth or fifth playthrough, I realized it had taken the crown. It's a 3D platformer with that Disneyland-esque "hub and spoke" design I adore, with astonishingly varied levels, an incredibly stylized look that caters to my love of cartooning and animation, and a memorable cast of characters and overall concept that is, in my opinion, Tim Schafer's finest. It's the sort of game I miss playing every time I complete it.

Playing its sequel, I found myself overwhelmed by disbelief. Psychonauts 2 not only captures the spirit of what I loved in the original, but expands upon it in almost every regard. Its scope, ambition, animation, story... they're not just intact, they're elevated. I find the original Psychonauts healing to play in a broad sense, but this game tackles sophisticated subject matter (without sacrificing any of the fun) that makes that feeling a lot more literal than it was before. And it does so with beauty and polish and a lack of self-consciousness that I find intensely inspiring.

There are plenty of mechanical improvements, character moments and story beats to discuss and dissect. I'll leave those details for others to elaborate: I'm simply too floored to objectively critique. Let's just say I'm truly honored that my brain shares permanent residence in this world.