Original review title "Psychonaut going to ever play this game again", posted 23 June 2021: During the Milkman Conspiracy I was fairly confident that I was going to rate Psychonauts 4/5 stars for innovation and inventiveness. By the time I entered the tower and was contending with Napoleon and Matadors my rating had slipped to a 3/5. Having visited the Meat Circus, I’m firmly at 2/5. Seldom have I ever experienced a game abandon any semblance of good level design as rapidly as this game. Seldom have I ever experienced a game that utterly and actively disrespects the player to the degree that Psychonauts disrespects the player in its final moments. While it’s true that Psychonauts is an uneven platformer from the start, none of the wonkiness up front prepares you for just how atrociously they final level is designed and how utterly the Xbox era player camera controls are ill equipped to deal with such poor design.

For all Psychonauts merits, nothing can carry this game through what I would describe as a complete failure of execution of the Meat Circus. While early on I was willing to excuse rough platforming due to the age of the game there no excuse, in any era, for what transpires during the Meat Circus.

Edit, posted 24 June 2021: I think it's unfair that I settled on a 2/5 as my final score. I was particularly miffed about the Meat Circus yesterday, and I think that deeply affected my perspective on the game. The question is, do I mostly dislike this game? Let's break it down into sections available to the player:

• Campgrounds: largely a lot of fun with some nice little secrets here and there and enjoyable platforming. A good start to the game.
• Basic Braining: humourous and novel introduction, with some flaws. Most of the level is very enjoyable but there is one middle platforming section that reveals the shortcomings of Psychonauts' platforming in general. There are also a few areas where it is very unclear that you need to break a wall to proceed. In watching a walkthrough I discovered that a dialogue box with instructions on breaking the wall was supposed to pop up, but didn't in my play through.
• Brain Tumbler Experiment 1 through 3: Good gradual introduction to powers by forcing you to search for solutions in other unconscious minds. Perfectly adequate level that has very straightforward platforming.
• Sasha's Shooting Gallery: fantastic introduction to combat combined with platforming. Loved the fact that you are on a cube that rotates in space depending on where you walk. The first real introduction to some of the more creative design in the game. Absolutely love this level.
• Milla's Dance Party: great introduction to levitation ability, and overall a very low stakes yet high paced platforming course that borrows from pinball mechanics. Loved it.
• Lungfishopolis: the first real low point of the game. Although I adore the riff on Godzilla and Ultraman, I found the physics of Lungfishopolis tedious, and I am not a fan of the shield mechanic (something that is almost useless or goes unused for most of the rest of the game).
• The Milkman Conspiracy: Psychonauts' shining moment. A brilliantly designed maze of a level that eschews almost all combat in favour of puzzles. And even where there is a bit of combat (mini-bosses, final boss), it is expertly designed. The final boss in The Milkman Conspiracy is my favourite of the game by far.
• Gloria's Theatre: enjoyed the stage mechanics, but disliked the platforming in this section. The final boss was enjoyable. The fat jokes were tired.
• Waterloo Town: enjoyed the concept, really disliked the tedium of the platforming. More tired fat jokes and some not so great representation of DID.
• Black Velvetopia: quite possibly the prettiest world so far, and another winding maze with fun secrets to find. I didn't love that a minor mistake while platforming meant the bull would push you back to certain checkpoints (some more generous than others). I also didn't love that the paintings that unlock progression come at a cost, which seems like an unfair mechanic when your currency can go toward other useful items. Lastly the combat in this level is, perhaps, second only to The Milkman Conspiracy.
• Asylum tower: a mostly empty climb up to the game's finale. The rats are annoying, the terrible camera makes it very easy to fall and lose substantial progress, and there's really not much of interest other than the other camper's brains.
• The Meat Circus: a slap in the face of everyone who has made it this far. A horrendous level with inane checkpoints, broken camera angles and nonsensical mechanics. The Meat Circus betrays everything good about this game.

Other elements that I enjoyed: gadgets and powers, pacing, general variety of level design, character design, variety and creativity in aesthetic design, some well written jokes and the game's general sense of humour, some very satisfying platforming sections.

Other elements I didn't enjoy: clunky menus, digging for currency, the fact that the currency is an Arrowhead, self-reflexive humor that is poorly executed ("Indian" burial ground, fat jokes, mental health jokes), gadgets and weapons selection is poor with a hot swap menu that doesn't really allow for hot swapping, the very presence of lives in a game like this, poor checkpoint distribution, some very poor platforming sections.

So that brings us back to the rating. Let's start with Grouvee's rating system:

• 1 star = didn't like at all
• 2 star = mostly didn't like it
• 3 star = liked it
• 4 star = really liked it
• 5 star = loved it

So, based on that, and based on the fact that out of the twelve areas I listed above I only consider three of them to be ones I actively disliked, is it fair for me to say I mostly didn't like Psychonauts? Probably not. I downright loved some parts of it. If the parts I liked or loved or loved outweigh the parts I deeply disliked, maybe I need to revisit my score. I was particularly salty about the Meat Circus yesterday, so I let that drive my judgement. But if I really consider my full experience of the game, I think it is fairer if I say that I liked it. I think that's fair because I realize that if you took the Meat Circus out of the game, I would probably have to say I really liked Psychonauts, because I did really like a lot of it. Maybe I'm somewhere between like and really like, with enough good and enough bad that It's not my favourite game ever, but I can respect and acknowledge that I did have a great time for a percentage of my play through. And it did get me excited for a sequel.

So, despite my initial gut reaction to the Meat Circus, it's probably more accurate to say I liked Psychonauts well enough to give it 3/5 stars.

I am not the biggest fan of how psychonauts play. It is a bit clunky and platforming itself can be a bit annoying. Luckily the game gives you a double jump and slow falling option which makes the controls a bit more forgivable. By itself it is really not a hard game. Platofrming rarely presents a challenge, which in my opinion is good, since thee game is all about walking you through a story while enabling you to explore and collect some fun stuff.

A story focused platformer without the best platforming is not something that would usually get a pass, since the game needs to do something extraordinarily to compensate for the mediocre core mechanics. But Psychonauts manages to do something extraordinary. And I really didn't expect that.

What makes Psychonauts that great is art direction, character design, great voice acting and brilliant idea that is quite well executed. For the most part it felt like i was watching an interactable cartoon from the old Cartoon Network. Which felt amazing.

Every level is a new adventure with completely different vibe. And I got more surprised and intrigued the more I played. Character design is also amazing. I don't remember seeing so much variety and personality in main and side characters in a videogame.

Even If I didn't like playing some of the levels, I can't praise enough how well the authors managed to convert mental problems into a visual and interactive experience. It is very hard to draw abstract concepts like love, paranoia, anger and fear. However, Psychonauts manages to create entire mental worlds with graet visual hints and allegories.

My favorite levels are Milkman Conspiracy, Black Velvetopia and Waterloo World The levels that I didn't like that much were Lungfishopolis, Brain Tumbler Experiment, Gloria’s Theater and Meat Circus

The game, of course, had to simplify some of the mental problem concepts in order to make the experience understandable and digestible. I personally don't have a problem with that. But it would definitely be cool to see these mental worlds paint more multidimensional perspective on given troubles or circumstances that led character into such mental state.

With that said I recommend playing Psychonauts. Although the 3D platforming standards from 2005 should be noted. But if you can get past the clunky controls, a great adventure awaits you.

Well, after hearing everyone sing this game’s praises and finding it on the PS Store for $2, I decided to give Psychonauts a try. I was curious about it when one YouTuber described it as playing very similar to Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom, a game I have some nostalgia for. Being this is an old PS2 title, you’ve probably played it already, unless you’re like me, but here’s my take on it anyways.

So, how does it play? Well, I can see the Spongebob similarities. It’s a platformer with special abilities that unlock over time to help you traverse to new areas. You spend a good 90% of the game doing platforming challenges, unfortunately I didn’t find the controls to be the best. Admittedly, I could just be spoiled by new platformers and the tighter controls of modern games. It wasn’t too bad when you had a large area to land on, but with smaller platforms or tightropes I seemed to miss a lot of jumps. This was the worst during the final level. You’re having to climb up a tent using tiny platforms and well timed jumps while under a time limit. It was controller throwing levels of frustrating. You have a lives system, because this is an older game, but it seems kinda pointless. If you lose all your lives and restart, you still restart at the last checkpoint, if I’m remembering right.

The other 10% of the game is combat. You can tell this game was made by an old LucasArt developer, because the combat is light and pointless. You have some minions that show up, but pose little threat. The main time you use combat is in the boss battles, which are fun and usually have some type of puzzle element. The most useless combat power in your arsenal is the pyrokinesis, least in my opinion. It takes a little charge up for you to set an enemy on fire, the problem is they attack quicker than you can start the fire. It would be okay if you had some range to start the fire, but you usually have to be within their swinging range to activate the skill.

But when people talk highly of this game, it’s not to praise the combat, but the story. The general premise is you’re a kid with psychic power at a summer camp for psychic kids, sort of a discount X-Men I suppose. There’s also a very Tim Burton-esque vibe to the whole thing. It’s a fun premise, and the camp counselors are fun caricatures; you got a 70s flower child, the gun-ho general, and the mod German expressionist. The big hook is you can use your psychic powers to enter the mind of other people. This is where the “levels” of this game come into play. The levels are you walking around the psyche of people and see the world how they see it. Again, this is another neat concept; the military man’s head is a battlefield, the actress’ head is a stage. The best level, that most everyone seems to bring up, is the conspiracy theorist. It’s a suburb that is under constant surveillance from G-Men, who have the best jokes in the game.

This all is really the theme of the game, but the actual story is a lot less impressive, still spoilers ahead. You are Rasputin, a special chosen child, who is training to be a Psychonaut. You ran AWAY from the circus, which is kinda funny. During your training, some of the other kids start turning up with missing brains & you’re having weird nightmares. And this game, I couldn’t figure it out. At some points, it feels like it’s meant to be a kid game, like Spongebob; the story is simple and uses a lot of kid movie tropes, but on the other hand, the game has some more adult humor and swear words. Since I wasn’t sure where the target audience was, I didn’t know how “tricky” the story was going to get. There’s some things set up in the background going on & I was expecting some twists. Your mentor, the old man, has some scenes where he’s sort of vague. Halfway through it’s revealed that the general is actually the bad guy. Now, I figured the twist was going to be that the general was being set up and the old man was actually the villain, but no the story wasn’t that complex. The general’s the camp hardass, so of course he’s the bad guy. The story pacing felt a little off to me as well. The first half of the game is training Rasputin to be a psychic and most of the time feels like it’s spent in the real world doing puzzles around the camp, then you end up in an island insane asylum and this is when most of the brain levels take place. After you cure the patients of their mental illnesses, you confront the secondary villain, the doctor who runs the asylum and meet his extremely annoying assistant. This does have one of the funniest jokes set up in the game though. The assistant insists you get her turtle who will have all the answers. You think she’s just crazy and obsessed with this dumb turtle, but it turns out it actually can talk and it sounds like Barry White.

Once you kill the doctor via a puzzle, you fight the general’s tank, then go into the brain. Here’s where the story takes another left turn. You suddenly learn the general, I can’t remember his name, had a father who was a mean butcher. His thoughts mix with your mind and you run through this rather disturbing meat circus. You also face a mental vision of your father, who has been established as not liking psychics. So, you end up fighting your father & the general’s. It’s a metaphorical thing of living up to expectations or Tim Schaffer working through some issues, either way I’m sure it’s been analyzed to death by some college philosophy students. Once you beat them, out of nowhere, your father shows up and there’s a sappy “son, I’ll always love you” moment and they team up to take out the a terrifying mash-up of the two evil fathers. The story ends with the general turning good again and Rasputin becoming an official psychonaut.

All in all, there’s a lot of good ideas in this game, but I think the age of this game holds it back. The writing does have some charm & smart moments. The fact they made Rasputin a circus performer to explain why he can do all this platforming and that his family is cursed and can’t enter water to explain the early 2000s protagonist problem of not being able to swim. Being this is the first time I’ve played this, I don’t have that nostalgia for it and it didn’t live up to the Godlike praise it gets to me. As a kiddie game its fine and introduces kids to newer complex ideas. If it’s geared towards a teen or older audience, I would’ve preferred a little more intrigue in the story. I’ll keep an eye on the sequel.

Даже учитывая мою нелюбовь к платформерам, в целом, игра мне понравилась. Но это ни в коем случае не безоговорочный шедевр, как пишут ностальгирующие бумеры в интернетах.

Здесь откровенно слабая боёвка: удар и способности. Большая часть способностей применяется только в определенных ситуациях. А пси-выстрел, которым мы будем пользоваться от начала и до конца, — не очень удобен. Автоприцел наводится относительно медленно, а без него выстрелы почти всегда уходят «в молоко». Телекинезом пользоваться очень неудобно: предметы хватаются только с близкого расстояния и кинуть предмет туда, куда надо, почти никогда не получается с первого раза.

Примерно половина игры — обычный, нормальный платформинг. Ничего плохого сказать не получится. Потом уровень в голове у рыбы Линды. Вот он мне не очень понравился. Несмотря на клёвый концепт — Раз предстает огромным чудовищем, разрушающим город — сам по себе он скучноват и затянут. Здесь выдают способность «Щит», и приходится этим щитом пользоваться, периодически останавливаясь в ожидании перезарядки.

А потом случается уровень Молочника. Вот это безоговорочный шедевр, ради которого стоит играть. Практически весь уровень состоит из простеньких загадок в стиле «найди нужный предмет, чтобы пройти дальше»: в голове у Молочника господствуют правительственные агенты. Великолепный стёб над теориями заговора. Даже учитывая слегка всратого босса — лучший уровень игры.

С боссом у меня была такая проблема. Он швыряется в Раза динамитом, который надо ловить в полёте телекинезом и швырять в него обратно, а иногда — просто стреляет. Телекинез неудобный, и поймать взрывчатку получается хорошо, если через раз, а увернуться от выстрела в это время и вовсе нереально. Оказалось, что проще вместо телекинеза использовать пси-выстрел. Но пока я до этого додумался жопка подгорала.

И после этого игра идёт на спад. Концептуально и визуально уровни остаются крутыми, но геймплейно становятся если не хуже, то ощутимо душнее.

В театре Глории крутая механика со сценой (но я тупил и загуглил), но кривоватая секция с платформингом и унылый босс, где нужно трижды повторить простую последовательность.

Настолка в голове Наполеона раздражает местами кривым платформингом, а еще трудно ориентироваться (возможно только мне) между общим видом стола и игровым.

Мир в голове Тореадора офигенно выглядит, но бык, отбрасывающий Раза назад безумно раздражает. На уровне нужно собрать четыре карты. Чтобы получить карту нужно победить босса. Три из них убиваются абсолютно одинаково: уворачивайся и поджигай пирокинезом. Четвертого заставляют убивать новоприобретенной на этом же уровне способностью — какими-то ошеломляющими гранатами — и пользоваться этой способностью ты больше никогда (кроме как на финальном боссе уровня) не будешь, она бесполезна. В финале придётся убивать Тореадора и быка. Тут придется пользоваться и гранатами и телекинезом. Босс простой, но занудный, потому что неудобный телекинез.

Башня психушки это просто долгий подъём наверх. Иногда прыгаешь не туда, но это не страшно. А вот крысы бесят по-настоящему: их много, они быстро бегают и очень больно взрываются, когда добегают до Раза. Автонаведение намного медленнее крыс, а без него стреляешь мимо. Вот тут у меня опять подгорело.

Но вершина пиздеца — Мясной Цирк. Этот уровень уёбищен. В комментах к прохождениям я читал, что многие в детстве забросили игру на этом уровне и неудивительно. Сложность внезапно возрастает в разы. Платформинг становится максимально кривым и при этом не прощает ошибок, а Раз при этом прыгает дальше, чем нужно или не хватается там, где должен. Господи, да они даже сегмент с сопровождением сюда запихнули! А финального босса нужно опять бить при помощи телекинеза. Такое ощущение, что этот уровень делали с похмелья, ненавидя весь мир.

И вот поэтому — «Психонавты» никак нельзя назвать потрясающей игрой. Геймплейно в ней всё не слишком хорошо. Хотя и не так, чтобы ужасно (кроме Цирка). В целом игра не сложная, а сценарий, стиль, окружение, озвучка и концептуальные уровни перевешивают недостатки.

Psychonauts is a fun game filled with inventive level design, likable characters and memorable music but its held back by early 2000's quirks, that is to say, wonky platforming, imprecise controls, glitchy powers and an unreliable camera among other level-specific quirks.

The game is defined by its levels, each is distinct and memorable and warrants individual discussion. My thoughts on each level are as follows:

1. Basic Braining - A solid tutorial, teaching all the movement mechanics of the game, but there are some tutorials which did not show up and I was left to figure out what to do. That isn't helped by the drab WWII aesthetic which doesn't highlight my next step nor does it actually fit with the artstyle. This level went on way too long for what is just a tutorial.
2. Sasha's Shooting Gallery - This level was a lot of fun and I really liked walking along the cube that shifted position as I went on each side. While it is just another tutorial, the level does not outstay its welcome and Sasha is such a unique character that his presence keeps it interesting.
3. Milla's Dance Party - Another tutorial level teaching us the Levitate mechanic, the physics takes a while to get used to. It does go on a bit too long, but it gives us time to explore Milla's personality. Once we reach the room where we learn about her past, the character gets considerably more depth and that was enough to carry the level.
4. Underwater - I did not like this boss fight at all. The camera was too wonky for the chase scenes, the imprecise platforming made me fail the chase numerous times and too often the boss would not get trapped by the clams, which indicates that the clams are either buggy or imprecise. As this is the only way to defeat the boss, this fight got really frustrating.
5. Lungfishopolis - I loved the concept of this level, being a Kaiju destroying the city, helping freedom fighters overthrow a 1984-style government and said government using a barrage of propaganda to drum up support against you. Its held back by the inability to use levitate, making a level a lot longer than it needed to be. The boss for this level was solid. Overall a good level.
6. The Milkman Conspiracy - This is considered the best level of the game by many, and to their credit it is definitely one of the most inventive levels, but like the rest of the game, comes with its quirks. I didn't like that the Cobweb Duster was mandatory to complete this level, so when I did eventually reach that point I needed to leave and return to camp to use the Dowsing Machine which is not only imprecise but gives too much Arrowheads, which should've been obtainable in greater quantities through regular pick ups. There is the issue of clunky platforming, which lead to me falling to my death numerous times. Then there's the mini-bosses, where I need to use Telekinesis to throw the bombs into the boss' mouth but sometimes it just won't pick up the bomb which lead to me taking more hits than I should. Aside from the quirks, I loved the windy streets and the G-men with their unconvincing disguises and even more unconvincing yet hilarious dialogue. Its a great level in a clunky game.
7. Gloria's Theater - I lot of people don't like this level, but I loved it. I found Gloria's backstory to be tragic and her fixation on her youth as the time in her life when she was happy is something a lot of people can relate to nowadays. I even liked the adjusting of the stages to reach the hot air balloon. Once I got to the top of the stage, I had to deal with the platforming again where I did fall to my death a few times. The boss itself wasn't bad but the reliance on the floating mechanic and the small box for the updraft made me fail that boss more often than I should. Otherwise, the rest of the level was solid.
8. Waterloo World - So after entering the other minds, it was clear that everyone had a tragic backstory and was dealing with some level of mental illness. Milla was the death of her foster children, Gloria was her mother's suicide, Edgar was his girlfriend leaving him, what was Fred's backstory? Turns out it was his inability to git gud, which I found hilarious. The level itself is a board game where you have to shrink down to recruit your pieces and then grow back in size to control them. The recruitment part is somewhat tedious as there are a lot of specific jumps and the camera does not help at all. Its made worse by the absence of a catch mechanic (where the character would catch themselves if they walk off a ledge) and a brace mechanic (where they would brace themselves if they're about to walk off a ledge) that made me fall off numerous times and I had to make the climb all over again. Once all the pieces are recruited, that's where the pay off comes and seeing all the pieces you gathered working in unison was really satisfying.
9. Black Velvetopia - I loved the design of this level with its narrow alleyways and bright colours, and the mini-bosses were all fun to play. Edgar's backstory was tragic and it was compelling to help him with his troubles. It won't be a Psychonauts level without issues, and the only one for this level was the boss fight where I once again had to fiddle around with the unreliable telekinesis power which had a tendency to miss its targets. The fight isn't very long so it doesn't take away much from the level.
10. The Asylum - This is where the game begins to get tedious. Almost every level had its issues, but they were always compensated by fun level design (The Milkman Conspiracy), novel ideas (Lungfishopolis) or compelling characters (Gloria's Theater). This level has none of that and its just a climb up an empty, derelict tower, with nothing of note except for a few collectables. The upward platforming combined with the general wonkiness of the game's mechanics meant I fell off numerous times, usually all the way to the bottom. During my climb I'm ambushed by exploding rats that do way too much damage and impair my movement for 5 seconds longer than they should. I only got through this level by save scumming, only then did it get bearable. The boss at the end of the level was alright, I didn't have any issues with it.
11. Meat Circus - I thought the previous level was awful, but I was not ready for Meat Circus. The upward platforming is back, but now its combined with a timer and an escort mission. This design choice was baffling. If you tolerated the platforming before, you'll hate it here. There came a point after a hour of trying over and over just to get past the first escort segment that I realized I was going to get really angry and it would cause me to dislike a game that I otherwise liked. After The Asylum I was ready to quit, and that's exactly what I did. I watched a Let's Play to finish the story.

Psychonauts is a game that benefits from its level design, story, characters and music but suffers from dated mechanics. The mechanics are tolerable but those last two levels put the issues front and center and offer nothing to compensate. Despite the dated mechanics, the rest of the game, from the characters, story, level design, and music have not aged a day and its clear that the game would benefit from a remake that encompasses all the quality of life improvements of the last 16 years while keeping everything else intact.

and beautiful and insane and crazy and is a perfect reminder of what makes games special as an art form in the first place. There are levels in this game that are so ridiculously clever and unique as concepts themselves, I have a hard time understanding how DoubleFine came up with them in the first place because there are levels that really just make you go: woah.

This game is so creative and well designed from the graphics to the story to the world itself that it is hard not to love the game. And love the game I definitely did.

That is to say I walked away loving the game. But there were definitely moments I did not love and some I actually hated, and what's more, there are parts of the game I more than loved and was blown away by. Let me start with the part I was completely blown away by, and the moment I realised this game is something special. That part is the lungfishopolis level.

Lungfishopolis might be the best level of any game I can think of in recent memory, as soon as it started I thought to myself, there's no way they're actually going to-- Oh my. THIS IS AWESOME. THIS IS HILARIOUS. HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE. It is just such a good level and to say anything else about it would be to say too much, but it really made concrete for me how genuinely original this game is, and is almost certainly my favorite thing about it. My mind was truly blown.

Almost the exact same can be said for the milkman conspiracy level, just a beautiful world I was happy to be in, similarly it was inspiring and clever to an astonishing degree. I kept thinking while playing the level that it was awesome as a concept. And how tf did Double Fine even think of this as a possibility.

Then there are the gameplay mechanics of the game, which on the whole I would say fall into the like/love category. Although there is one element in particular I have to point out as hating. This is the arrowheads. Yes if it were not for remappable buttons on steam, I think I may have stopped playing the game because of this mechanic. You basically have to repeatedly hit a single button extremely fast and all over the map to advance the story. It's terrible and I hated it, but I did manage to get around it, still it was an annoying experience.

The 2nd thing I can say that I truly hated about the game is the ending level, and this is purely level design, the story was great but the level, it sucked, it was annoying, it made me want to not play the game, and I actually stopped playing it for a month after I took a couple tries at the catching mr bun bun. And catching mr bun bun was about the most annoying part of the most annoying part of the game. It took me an insane amount of retries to keep the coach safe while I was making tiny acrobatic errors and having to restart the level from the beginning over and over again.

It just felt poorly designed and annoying, and way too hard, and this goes for everything in meat circus. In fact I'm pretty sure Double Fine was aware of how hard this level is because you get an achievement called "I Thought That Was Unbeatable!" when you finish the game, but still my question is why does it have to be this hard. It is hard to the point where it is not fun anymore and it feels like failure is more due to not getting enough things right in a row than a lack of skill, although I guess that is technically a lack of skill, but - let me put it another way. It feels like you're failing a lot because of things out of your control.

Anyway that's meat circus, the game as a whole is worth enduring this last level for, but it is impossible but you should still play and buy the game.