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Psychonauts 2 |OT| The Spy Who Lobed Me
- Thread starter GrrImAFridge
- Start date
- OT
I should be done with the game sometime after work tonight. Overall, it's everything I could have wanted from a sequel. I'm not disappointed at all, which is a tremendous feat for Double Fine to have accomplished.
I don't think the game's highs reach the highs of the first game, but they're close (PSI King level was excellent); also, the gameplay is great. Moreover, the game doesn't fall to the lows of the first game.
The visuals are great and modern while still maintaining the aesthetic of the original game. Music is great but nothing that gets stuck in my head for days.
I am excited to finish it soon. Great game.
I don't think the game's highs reach the highs of the first game, but they're close (PSI King level was excellent); also, the gameplay is great. Moreover, the game doesn't fall to the lows of the first game.
The visuals are great and modern while still maintaining the aesthetic of the original game. Music is great but nothing that gets stuck in my head for days.
I am excited to finish it soon. Great game.
the levitation ball over deadly terrain was only used in the first and last level of psychonauts 1 -- it was such a strange mechanic! in psychonauts 2 you actually get quite a few places where it comes in handy (definitely more than the first level, though I guess the other cases can technically be avoided by platforming skill instead if people are getting through the whole game without using it)
so the part I really love about this game is the same part I loved about Mario Odyssey - the game letting me soak in every environment and find little things hidden everywhere. Is there a name for this? Like, "adventure game" seems too general to describe it.
THIS. Someone should just straight up steal the concept for a puzzle game.
Finished it last night and had a blast the whole time.
Told my wife(well tried to explain) that it was nice to just a play a game like this again.
Told my wife(well tried to explain) that it was nice to just a play a game like this again.
Baba is definitely that idea in its most complex form. I would enjoy something less big brain though.
I'm glad Strike City doesn't overstay it's welcome, fun level design but better as a bite sized level for sure
Have you checked inside/behind the shrubs outside the hospital?
edit: nevermind, you figured it out.
Yeah I liked it a lot but I couldn't have played a longer version.
Story, no. Gameplay, psychic powers don't require cool downs.
Not gonna lie, I hate when games give you rewards like that for 100% completion. Like, I'm already done. Useless now. Could've used that 20% ago.
i did it
i found the last figment in the sensorium
i want to die now, pls fix the achievement bug double fine
i found the last figment in the sensorium
i want to die now, pls fix the achievement bug double fine
Yeah, it's a useless unlock. If they had some additional challenges then sure, but as it now, there isn't a point.
They did the same thing in the first game. The reward for maxing your rank is infinite ammo, which you will definitely have no use for at 100% completion.
Nah, this one's a winner. Double Fine are going to take a good number GOTYs home this year.
Honestly, I think it might have intentionally been done in both games as a joke about OP completion unlockables that players have no real use for. The game just needed to be a little more sarcastic about giving it to you.
That's a good way of looking at it. But if this was the case, their intended effect completely went over my head.
Yeah. Having seen them do it in both games now it kind of clicked for me, but the games don't TREAT it like a sarcastic, useless reward. I think that's what it needs - the game kind of poking fun at the fact you did all this work and your prize is something you can't even meaningfully use.
Third time lucky I guess. I hope DF comes across your interpretation and implements it next time around.
Oh, and I hope there's a threequel.
I would love a third game, and I hope Tim wants to do one, but I would be shocked if it happens any time soon. However, one thing I did notice...on the map screen, there's an empty space under the Gulch. The game doesn't really waste space like that anywhere else in the menus, so it feels like there should be a fifth hub area. DLC, maybe? I would buy it...
What do you think they're going to do next? I personally have a good feeling about Psychonauts 3 now that DF have Microsoft's financial backing, adequate technology and a good narrative structure to continue the story.
Green needle gulch? I just checked the map again, not sure what you're referring to.
The first game had the congratulations message in the collective unconsciousness for 100% completion
What do you think they're going to do next? I personally have a good feeling about Psychonauts 3 now that DF have Microsoft's financial backing, adequate technology and a good narrative structure to continue the story.
Green needle gulch? I just checked the map again, not sure what you're referring to.
I mean on the map select screen, where you can pick between the little hub maps. There's a fifth space at the bottom.
Nitpicking: In Psychonauts 1 "Infinite ammo" is unlocked at rank 95 out of 101, which I think happens before the last level (but yes, very late into the game). Rank 100 unlocks an extra cut-scene.
I finished it last night. Overall it's very impressive how much the game feels like a natural sequel despite the nearly 20-year (or 2 in-universe day) gap after the first one. I can't think of any other long-awaited 3D platformer follow-ups that feel this effortless (Odyssey wasn't trying to have the same structure as SM64/Sunshine.)
Definitely the levels were way more focused on platforming this time around, it certainly seems like they were aware of the complaints over the puzzle-levels in 1. Though on the other hand, that left only the cooking show as a differently-paced level. There aren't stages with as memorable conceits as Lungfishopolis, Milkman Conspiracy or Waterlooworld, but that's not to take away from the great visuals in the minds of Mailroom-Ford, Cassie and Bob.
I was glad that the overworld pacing wasn't as abrupt as 1's, where most NPCs stop having (non-hackysack) dialogue after the tutorials. Though it's hard to balance all the characters in the mix, I wish the other Aquatos got more than one dialogue chain each. I had thought Lili would be a bigger part of the game too, but at least she's present in the final level. Also having GIR as your archetype was a surprise that had me laughing quite a bit, definitely my kind of VA reference.
Overall, it was a very fun time.
Definitely the levels were way more focused on platforming this time around, it certainly seems like they were aware of the complaints over the puzzle-levels in 1. Though on the other hand, that left only the cooking show as a differently-paced level. There aren't stages with as memorable conceits as Lungfishopolis, Milkman Conspiracy or Waterlooworld, but that's not to take away from the great visuals in the minds of Mailroom-Ford, Cassie and Bob.
I was glad that the overworld pacing wasn't as abrupt as 1's, where most NPCs stop having (non-hackysack) dialogue after the tutorials. Though it's hard to balance all the characters in the mix, I wish the other Aquatos got more than one dialogue chain each. I had thought Lili would be a bigger part of the game too, but at least she's present in the final level. Also having GIR as your archetype was a surprise that had me laughing quite a bit, definitely my kind of VA reference.
Overall, it was a very fun time.
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Question: If you leave a brain and go back, does it restart the level from the beginning? I'm playing what I feel is the only stressful and tedious level of the game so far, the cooking show, and I've run out of health replenishment items for the final boss and just died at the very last part of the last cycle. Can I quit out, stock up and go back or do I have to do the whole level over again? If the latter, I'd rather take my chances and try again.
Alright, here are my (entirely spoiler filled) thoughts on Psychonauts 2. If you need any idea of the kind of thing I'm about to write, understand it's coming from someone who not only has a diehard love for Psychonauts, it's one that existed since launch and where I got to go "I was there before it was cool" for all eternity.
I didn't like it as much as I wanted to, but I'm not sure what that means considering I wanted to like a game called Psychonauts 2 more than I would my future children.
Psychonauts was art in its purest form, something that was felt, something driven entirely by emotion, and consequently the big revival of a beloved cult classic is always going to lead to nerdlingers like me having Opinions. I am slightly mature enough to understand when I'm being unfair in this regard, the reality is that anything I could come up with for a hypothetical Psychonauts 2 wouldn't deserve to exist because fans don't have a say in where a story goes, let alone one told 16 years later.
So right out of the gate, which I went into mercifully short detail when I started, the very beginning of Psychonauts 2 felt really wrong to me. It was really sterile, kinda twee, it didn't sound like Psychonauts. I knew about the plot points of Rhombus of Ruin so starting out with Loboto captured by the Psychonauts wasn't really a problem (and also I was stupid enough to think the shitty office setting was actual Psychonauts HQ until Loboto showed up), but the vibe I was getting didn't feel like Psychonauts, I just felt like I was watching some really blunt and direct cartoon. This was not at all helped by the constant, intrusive tutorial dialogue that would make Ratchet & Clank 2016 blush, and R&C ended up being kind of a point of comparison for me in this period: the characters were softer, the writing more into making the characters chipper and the new ones felt pretty stock, and it lacked the pointed edge of Psychonauts' writing.
Those feelings got exacerbated with the interns and their stock high school hazing, but then come Hollis' Hot Streak I came to a bit of an epiphany: this still isn't Psychonauts, but that's okay because it was going in a new and interesting direction by having Raz screw Hollis' mind up and face the consequences of that, and that's something I never really considered because of course I didn't, I am a fan, not a professional writer.
Suddenly this new avenue of Psychonauts has opened up: the reality of having the power to alter minds, on the job action in a psychic spy thriller, Raz just not being able to shape up for it and doing something of grave consequence, and that's really cool! Raz was a bit of a wunderkind in Psychonauts, complex and interesting still, but he did make kind of a pisstake of the entire scenario by solving a world conquest plot in a day, so this idea that he bullrushes into a scenario like a kid and uses powers with gross irresponsibility on his first day on the job, I was really happy. It was the moment that the game kind of crystalized for me as Psychonauts 2, and not the sequel to Psychonauts I've been dreaming of over a decade.
And then that shifted real hard which was super weird.
Once Hollis' mind is over that part about the professional aspects of being a Psychonaut is just gone from the plot, and it becomes focused on the Psychic Six. Compton and Helmut's worlds feel more in line with the bombastic and more animated aesthetic from Hollis and Loboto's worlds (another thing I will get into) but once you're piecing Ford back together the game starts shifting back towards the moody colour palette and visual storytelling of Psychonauts with a story driven entirely by really sad, broken people finding healing and redemption. I need to be clear that I adore the Psychic Six, Bob's Bottles is maybe the singular peak of Psychonauts as a series because the visual and character storytelling are so phenomenal (I absolutely wigged out when I realized all the water drowning the area was booze) and on the whole they've proven to be the most compelling characters in the Psychonauts universe, I just don't know if I really wanted this story to be about them at the expense of Raz. He doesn't really feel like a mover and driver of the plot, he's just getting the band of oldies back together and then that ties into the overarching villain plot since it's also about redeeming her as one of the gang.
I don't know how to word that, I suppose. I loved every second of it while, simultaneously, disliking how they ate the plot? I didn't feel like it really mattered to Raz as a character the way his desperate drive to earn all his merit badges and solve a world-threatening crisis before his dad shows up to pick him up was the whole point of the first game. Not that he, personally, would not care about a Psychonauts crisis involving his not-grandma, I mean that it didn't really feel like it mattered that Raz was the protagonist.
That segues into my biggest problem with Psychonauts 2 (other than the fucking tutorial dialogue); there are way too many characters in here. Orbiting around Raz are the interns, the adults and Lili, the Aquatos, and the Psychic Six. That is over 20 major characters, or at least characters I want to spend time with, competing with each other, and the Psychic Six eat so much of the screen time that everyone else falls to the wayside. The interns are just there for one world and that's it. There's this big triumphant return in the finale for them but I don't care because I don't know them, they don't matter, which is more than can be said for Lili, Sasha, Milla, Oleander and Loboto, who might as well not even exist.
The campers were numerous too, but they didn't really matter. You don't actually have to care about Elton to beat the game, but Elton's life is going on with or without your input. Meanwhile Raz's entire family is right there and it's rife for character drama that just never happens. Meeting the Aquatos, characters who were born out of an in-game poster, is completely secondary. Raz's brother is a dick and for the payoff you need to have a single conversation with him in the postgame.
That's a bit of a bummer, even if what we've got are six really interesting, really complex characters who carry the whole game themselves, but it's not really the Psychic Six's game, it's Raz's where he finally gets to go to Psychonauts HQ, and I never really felt that like I should.
I need to stress in writing this that all of this is coming from a fan, which is to say a dumpster full of drugs and rotten food and maybe a dead body. I'm not gonna say there was no way I was gonna like it, because I like NieR way more than I do Psychonauts and NieR's remake that came out this year took a game that was in my Top 3 favourite games and rocketed it to the top, but I don't think there was any way I was going to approach it on its own merits, nor am I really interested in doing so. Psychonauts is art, it's driven by emotion, and consequently the emotions it made me feel are its legacy for me. It's not really about the game itself, it's about what it makes me feel.
Everything I haven't brought up is something where you can just put a big stamp labeled "glowing praise" over it so: the more dynamic and action-oriented combat is fun but I think the punches have too little impact, otherwise it's great. The visual splendor of every single inch of Psychonauts is just joyous to behold that I can't really think of a way to convey that other than pointing at every individual chunk of level and go "THIS IS SO GOOD OMG." Compton's level is kind of bland I guess, it doesn't pop the way the others do, but the sea of alcohol and broken dreams? The tutorial level where Loboto destroys the office setting with his own dental obsession? Cassie's papercraft city? Ford's splintered levels representing his most tragic memories? The visual storytelling of the final level being a pastiche of It's A Small World to sell to the player the rampant entitlement and immaturity of the true villain? It's fucking bellissimo, no other way to put it.
This isn't really praise or criticism, just an observation: I found Psychonauts to be driven by character writing, whereas I feel Psychonauts 2 was more into thematic writing. Compton's story is about crippling anxiety and Helmut's is about his sensory issues, whereas I found, say, Gloria or Edgar's levels to about them specifically, how they as people have been impacted by their mental illnesses as opposed to how Compton's is about how we, the audience, can be more informed and supportive of those with crippling anxiety, and I think this filtered into the aesthetic design of their worlds. Sasha's world is how he perceives it; compact, tightly organized, in control, and while on paper that's the same with Bob, a fractured mess of islands drowned in alcohol where all his memories are hidden at the bottom of another bottle, I think Psychonauts 2 capitalized more on the visual metaphor as a piece of fantasy instead of how these people, specifically, view their reality. Neither is better or worse than the other, that's just the impression I got.
And... that's it, I guess. Psychonauts 2 happened and now it's done. Never thought I'd see the day so I don't know how to process that ending.
Psychonauts was art in its purest form, something that was felt, something driven entirely by emotion, and consequently the big revival of a beloved cult classic is always going to lead to nerdlingers like me having Opinions. I am slightly mature enough to understand when I'm being unfair in this regard, the reality is that anything I could come up with for a hypothetical Psychonauts 2 wouldn't deserve to exist because fans don't have a say in where a story goes, let alone one told 16 years later.
So right out of the gate, which I went into mercifully short detail when I started, the very beginning of Psychonauts 2 felt really wrong to me. It was really sterile, kinda twee, it didn't sound like Psychonauts. I knew about the plot points of Rhombus of Ruin so starting out with Loboto captured by the Psychonauts wasn't really a problem (and also I was stupid enough to think the shitty office setting was actual Psychonauts HQ until Loboto showed up), but the vibe I was getting didn't feel like Psychonauts, I just felt like I was watching some really blunt and direct cartoon. This was not at all helped by the constant, intrusive tutorial dialogue that would make Ratchet & Clank 2016 blush, and R&C ended up being kind of a point of comparison for me in this period: the characters were softer, the writing more into making the characters chipper and the new ones felt pretty stock, and it lacked the pointed edge of Psychonauts' writing.
Those feelings got exacerbated with the interns and their stock high school hazing, but then come Hollis' Hot Streak I came to a bit of an epiphany: this still isn't Psychonauts, but that's okay because it was going in a new and interesting direction by having Raz screw Hollis' mind up and face the consequences of that, and that's something I never really considered because of course I didn't, I am a fan, not a professional writer.
Suddenly this new avenue of Psychonauts has opened up: the reality of having the power to alter minds, on the job action in a psychic spy thriller, Raz just not being able to shape up for it and doing something of grave consequence, and that's really cool! Raz was a bit of a wunderkind in Psychonauts, complex and interesting still, but he did make kind of a pisstake of the entire scenario by solving a world conquest plot in a day, so this idea that he bullrushes into a scenario like a kid and uses powers with gross irresponsibility on his first day on the job, I was really happy. It was the moment that the game kind of crystalized for me as Psychonauts 2, and not the sequel to Psychonauts I've been dreaming of over a decade.
And then that shifted real hard which was super weird.
Once Hollis' mind is over that part about the professional aspects of being a Psychonaut is just gone from the plot, and it becomes focused on the Psychic Six. Compton and Helmut's worlds feel more in line with the bombastic and more animated aesthetic from Hollis and Loboto's worlds (another thing I will get into) but once you're piecing Ford back together the game starts shifting back towards the moody colour palette and visual storytelling of Psychonauts with a story driven entirely by really sad, broken people finding healing and redemption. I need to be clear that I adore the Psychic Six, Bob's Bottles is maybe the singular peak of Psychonauts as a series because the visual and character storytelling are so phenomenal (I absolutely wigged out when I realized all the water drowning the area was booze) and on the whole they've proven to be the most compelling characters in the Psychonauts universe, I just don't know if I really wanted this story to be about them at the expense of Raz. He doesn't really feel like a mover and driver of the plot, he's just getting the band of oldies back together and then that ties into the overarching villain plot since it's also about redeeming her as one of the gang.
I don't know how to word that, I suppose. I loved every second of it while, simultaneously, disliking how they ate the plot? I didn't feel like it really mattered to Raz as a character the way his desperate drive to earn all his merit badges and solve a world-threatening crisis before his dad shows up to pick him up was the whole point of the first game. Not that he, personally, would not care about a Psychonauts crisis involving his not-grandma, I mean that it didn't really feel like it mattered that Raz was the protagonist.
That segues into my biggest problem with Psychonauts 2 (other than the fucking tutorial dialogue); there are way too many characters in here. Orbiting around Raz are the interns, the adults and Lili, the Aquatos, and the Psychic Six. That is over 20 major characters, or at least characters I want to spend time with, competing with each other, and the Psychic Six eat so much of the screen time that everyone else falls to the wayside. The interns are just there for one world and that's it. There's this big triumphant return in the finale for them but I don't care because I don't know them, they don't matter, which is more than can be said for Lili, Sasha, Milla, Oleander and Loboto, who might as well not even exist.
The campers were numerous too, but they didn't really matter. You don't actually have to care about Elton to beat the game, but Elton's life is going on with or without your input. Meanwhile Raz's entire family is right there and it's rife for character drama that just never happens. Meeting the Aquatos, characters who were born out of an in-game poster, is completely secondary. Raz's brother is a dick and for the payoff you need to have a single conversation with him in the postgame.
That's a bit of a bummer, even if what we've got are six really interesting, really complex characters who carry the whole game themselves, but it's not really the Psychic Six's game, it's Raz's where he finally gets to go to Psychonauts HQ, and I never really felt that like I should.
I need to stress in writing this that all of this is coming from a fan, which is to say a dumpster full of drugs and rotten food and maybe a dead body. I'm not gonna say there was no way I was gonna like it, because I like NieR way more than I do Psychonauts and NieR's remake that came out this year took a game that was in my Top 3 favourite games and rocketed it to the top, but I don't think there was any way I was going to approach it on its own merits, nor am I really interested in doing so. Psychonauts is art, it's driven by emotion, and consequently the emotions it made me feel are its legacy for me. It's not really about the game itself, it's about what it makes me feel.
Everything I haven't brought up is something where you can just put a big stamp labeled "glowing praise" over it so: the more dynamic and action-oriented combat is fun but I think the punches have too little impact, otherwise it's great. The visual splendor of every single inch of Psychonauts is just joyous to behold that I can't really think of a way to convey that other than pointing at every individual chunk of level and go "THIS IS SO GOOD OMG." Compton's level is kind of bland I guess, it doesn't pop the way the others do, but the sea of alcohol and broken dreams? The tutorial level where Loboto destroys the office setting with his own dental obsession? Cassie's papercraft city? Ford's splintered levels representing his most tragic memories? The visual storytelling of the final level being a pastiche of It's A Small World to sell to the player the rampant entitlement and immaturity of the true villain? It's fucking bellissimo, no other way to put it.
This isn't really praise or criticism, just an observation: I found Psychonauts to be driven by character writing, whereas I feel Psychonauts 2 was more into thematic writing. Compton's story is about crippling anxiety and Helmut's is about his sensory issues, whereas I found, say, Gloria or Edgar's levels to about them specifically, how they as people have been impacted by their mental illnesses as opposed to how Compton's is about how we, the audience, can be more informed and supportive of those with crippling anxiety, and I think this filtered into the aesthetic design of their worlds. Sasha's world is how he perceives it; compact, tightly organized, in control, and while on paper that's the same with Bob, a fractured mess of islands drowned in alcohol where all his memories are hidden at the bottom of another bottle, I think Psychonauts 2 capitalized more on the visual metaphor as a piece of fantasy instead of how these people, specifically, view their reality. Neither is better or worse than the other, that's just the impression I got.
And... that's it, I guess. Psychonauts 2 happened and now it's done. Never thought I'd see the day so I don't know how to process that ending.
I'm getting terrible tearing with g-sync. vsync on/off doesn't seem to make a difference.
I'm confused. You just respawn if you die. It's not like you can miss any collectables or figments in this game (although none are available during that boss fight AFAIK).
I finally beat Psychonauts 2 and it is by far the BEST game of the year - and actually, the best game in the past few years, as no AAA game comes close to what this strives to achieve.
Never mind the quality of the work, which is consistently great and polished throughout the entirety of the game - from beginning to end. Never mind the top-notch musical scores, which are perfect compliments to each and every moment being played. Never mind the well written humor and performance, in which its comedy and charm never failed to make me smile.
What makes this transcendent is its execution with the theme of mental health. This game teachers you that everybody cannot be defined with one label. We are both good and evil. Each one of us has to deal with our own demons and insecurities. And more importantly, that we can more easily overcome the hardships of life if we surround ourselves with people who care for and love us. You do not have to - nor should you - go through life alone.
Grief never gets any smaller, so you have to make yourself bigger around it. The best way to do that is to open up.
It is the single-most important message in modern AAA video games. It affects us personally, and every single individual we know. The theme is way more reflective and poignant than anything the daddening effect a lot of games have conjured for the past decade.
This is one of the most important examples of video games as an art form. Up there with Shadow of the Colossus.
Never mind the quality of the work, which is consistently great and polished throughout the entirety of the game - from beginning to end. Never mind the top-notch musical scores, which are perfect compliments to each and every moment being played. Never mind the well written humor and performance, in which its comedy and charm never failed to make me smile.
What makes this transcendent is its execution with the theme of mental health. This game teachers you that everybody cannot be defined with one label. We are both good and evil. Each one of us has to deal with our own demons and insecurities. And more importantly, that we can more easily overcome the hardships of life if we surround ourselves with people who care for and love us. You do not have to - nor should you - go through life alone.
Grief never gets any smaller, so you have to make yourself bigger around it. The best way to do that is to open up.
It is the single-most important message in modern AAA video games. It affects us personally, and every single individual we know. The theme is way more reflective and poignant than anything the daddening effect a lot of games have conjured for the past decade.
This is one of the most important examples of video games as an art form. Up there with Shadow of the Colossus.
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Actually, the reward for reaching rank 101 in the first Psychonauts is a bonus cutscene that is viewable in the Memory Vault menu.
Oh yeah, there is room for a fifth area on the list but they'd be cutting it real close.
I spent most of the latter half of the game WAITING for that fifth area to show up and it never did. I was a little sad, but if it means we COULD get a DLC hub I'd be game...
I know that feeling, hopefully they've something cooking in thr oven. I would like to revisit the whispering rock psychic summer camp and go a mission or two with the original gang.
I mean we got a pretty blatant tease with Loboto having a kid, who attends Whispering Rock!?!?!?
With Nvidia make sure you have G-sync set to on and V-sync set to on at driver level using Nvidia control panel.
Yeah, and Sasha and Milla's postgame conversation is all about how they're about to go back for the next group of campers. It feels pretty un-Double Fine to do a DLC campaign, but I'd definitely welcome it.
If I set v-sync to on at the driver level, what do you set it to when in a game menu? I was always confused about that.
I am avoiding looking at any walkthroughs as I always stumble upon spoilers when I do, so just curious how far along I am.
And I'm pretty sure the game gave me a message about to do other stuff now, but I also know thanks to another thread that was started there's for sure a level I have not seen yet, so thinking I still have quite a way to go despite the message I saw?
The Mail Room Ford Sequence.