Man, I fucking love Psychonauts.
I've intended to write this for several days now and have been struggling with how to start it when I realized I was almost certainly overthinking it; I love Psychonauts, and it feels extremely correct to christen this new site with all of my thoughts and feelings about that. So there we go. Done and dusted.
If you're not familiar, Psychonauts is a 3D platformer that came out in 2005, originally for the PC, and then eventually for the Playstation 2 where I played it some time in 2007. You play a boy named Raz who runs away from the circus to go to summer camp for psychics. It's one of the funniest, most charming games I've ever played, and there's really nothing else quite like it -- at least, there wasn't until 2021, when Psychonauts 2 came out 16 whole years later. I'll never forget the announcement trailer and the instant punch of emotion it was right to the ol' kokoro.
It takes me about 13-15 hours to play Psychonauts 2 from start to finish (including 100% of the collectibles), and according to Steam I've got 85 hours clocked, which works out to about 5 times. But I actually played it on PS4 first and finished it multiple times there as well, so I'm going to take a wild stab and guess I have a good 12 completed playthroughs under my belt. It and its predecessor also have the distinction of being some of the few games I've ever bothered to platinum. I say this not to flex my Gamer Bona Fides™, but to illustrate the simple fact that these games are fun as hell and you should play them. It's a blast every time, and I'm so happy that they exist.
what works for me
The mental landscapes have always been a standout of the first game, and I was so stoked to see that hadn't changed. The levels are all stunning and unique, as mental worlds ought to be, and seeing that distinctive Psychonauts aesthetic in higher fidelity was surprisingly emotional for me.
This might surprise you to learn, but I'm a bit of a slut for neon, so Hollis' hospital-cum-casino being the first full psychoscape to traverse made me feel extremely catered to. Something about Double Fine's penchant for combining two totally unexpected things into something cohesive appeals deeply to my lizard brain.
Really, though, all the levels are gorgeous and ridiculously stylish, and it was a thrill to see what would come next. My favorite in particular is Compton's Cookoff for being a video game version of Chopped that is also a fantastic allegory for imposter syndrome. Incredible stuff. God, I love these games.
Exploring and card collecting (both in the Motherlobe and outside it) was also a lot of fun. I used to really hate the kind of aesthetic that's even remotely adjacent to anything 1960's, but at this point I associate it so strongly with Psychonauts that I've looped around to being fond of it. I loved getting to see Sasha and Milla's offices, and just hearing their voices again after 16 years between games. They both look so good here. The writing is still incredibly strong and still tickles my funny bone. Raz is every bit as charming as he was in the first game; I'm not sure how, but he manages to be even more lovable in this one than he already was. He so badly wants to help and be a good Psychonaut, and he is also extremely ten years old. He fumbles, badly, but he gets up and keeps trying and saves the world a second time. Richard Horvitz absolutely killed it. Also, finally meeting the rest of Raz's family was amazing. Mostly. Dion can go suck on a bee.
I absolutely adored seeing Raz's parents together onscreen. I love that they are so unapologetically horny for each other. One can understand why they ended up with five children. 'A Tumble in the Net' will forever live in my mind rent free.
But most of all, I love the attention to detail. Love oozes out of every pore of this game. It really feels like it was made by people who treasured the first game and were committed to making something that could live up to its legacy. As I was replaying it most recently, I was struck by a cutscene where one of the Censors in Compton's Cookout drags its fingers along the edge of a cereal box prop. The way its fingers actually moved up and down with the corrugated edge of the cardboard was such a small thing that I wouldn't have even thought twice about if they hadn't animated it, but they did. And it was beautiful.
what doesn't work for me
Truth be told, what complaints I do have about Psychonauts 2 are pretty minimal.
I completely understand the impetus behind them, but the pins didn't do much for me. I use the same three pins every playthrough (Mental Magnet, Censory Overload, and eventually VIP Discount if you were wondering -- when I'm done with the VIP Discount I usually swap it out with Rainblows just for funsies). I don't think I've ever used any of the ability-specific pins outside the psi blast. Since you can upgrade your abilities with your rank, the pins feel a little superfluous. Maybe if you could equip more than three or if there was slightly less friction to change them out, I'd have used them more, but I never felt like I needed them enough for it to matter.
On a similar, and extremely petty, note I was a bit disappointed that levitation got nerfed so hard. Levitation was my absolute favorite ability in the first game. Bouncing on your lev ball felt really good, and in this one, not so much. I adjusted pretty quickly and got used to it, so this one barely feels worth mentioning -- I just loved OG levitation a lot.
The only thing in Psychonauts 2 I actually take any real umbrage with is that way too many people are mean to my boy Raz.
I caught some dev commentary on this that said they were going for a tonal shift in this one where Raz isn't the 'big man on campus' anymore, but I struggle to buy that that was something in need of correcting. The Whispering Rock campers in Psychonauts hardly seemed dazzled by Raz outside of Lili. They were largely uninterested in or antagonistic towards him in the same way the interns are in 2, but in 2 it feels worse for the interns being significantly older than him. The interns also weren't as interesting to me as the campers, so I didn't feel as compelled to seek them out as I did in the first game, which probably didn't help improve my impressions of them past the establishing hazing ritual.
If it had been limited to just the interns, or even the interns plus Dion and Frazie (both of whom suck severely, don't get me wrong), I don't think it would have fazed me too much, but since it very much was not, the interactions you get with other characters felt too heavily weighted towards unearned antagonism for my tastes.
tl;dr
Psychonauts is a true gem of a game, and Psychonauts 2 is an extremely worthy successor. It's both fun and funny, its combat is satisfying, and it took me on an emotional roller coaster with an ending that still manages to make me tear up even twelve experiences later. If you're at all interested in playing, I hope that you'll give it a go! It truly is one of my favorites of all time and I'm happy to sing its praises.
