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GameClub - What did you think of Psychonauts? (Patreon)

Published:
2017-02-23 16:35:12
Imported:
2021-01

Content

Hey everyone! Hope you had a chance to play some Psychonauts - and enjoyed your time.

For me, it was great to go back to this game (I hadn't played it in about 10 years). While it hasn't aged amazingly well, there's still so much to love in there. I ended up completing the game, and even going back in to a few levels to get some of the bonus stuff.

But... actually, I don't want to start this off - I don't want to hog the limelight! This is your thing. So, the floor is yours.

Feel free to talk about whatever you want with the game, but if you're struggling to gather your thoughts, you might want to answer one or more of these questions:

- What did you like? What didn't you like? What was your favourite part, and which part did you hate?

- Does Psychonauts do anything that game designers today could still learn from?

- What do you think of the game's depiction of mental health?

- How do you think the game would be different, if it were made in 2017? And what do you hope to see in Psychonauts 2?

- If you could change one aspect of the game's design, what would you do?

Remember to reply to others, as well as writing your own posts. And if you like, come back in a bit to see what others have wrote.

I don't really know what I'm doing with all this, so if you have any suggestions for ways to make this more fun or useful, do shout. I'm all ears!

Before I go... you may enjoy this video where a speedrunner shows his tricks to the Double Fine team. It's pretty funny and eye-opening. 

Also, PS VR owners should look into Rhombus of Ruin, which is a cool Psychonauts adventure game thingy for VR. It's quite cool, has great graphics, and more than anything it's super WEIRD to see characters like Lili and Sasha Nein with real-life proportions. It freaks me out.

Anyway. Psychonauts... assemble! 

Files

Comments

Anonymous

Psychonauts is one of my favorite games of all time, so there isn't a whole lot I would change if I had the opportunity to. Except for one major gripe: Having to buy the Cobweb Duster about halfway through. One you reach the asylum, you get a warning saying that you need to have the Cobweb Duster (which was optional up to this point) to progress. This isn't a problem on its own, but the Cobweb Duster is stupidly expensive at the camp store. If you've been playing the game normally, you wouldn't have nearly enough arrowheads to buy it. So instead, you have to buy the Dowsing Rod and use that to grind for arrowheads much faster (In my experience, it takes about half an hour to get enough for the Cobweb Duster). The problematic thing about all of this is that its just completely unnecessary. It interrupts the game right when it's getting really good so that you can do some completely pointless grinding for a while when it could just give you the Cobweb Duster at that point and let you keep going. Of course, that's just a small blemish on an otherwise incredible game, so it's only fair that I talk a bit about what I loved in Psychonauts. I think you mentioned that you were going to do a video on this at some point, Mark, but I really like the way the level design represents different character's psyche. My favorite example of this is with Edgar (the painter guy in the asylum). As the mental safe slideshows show, Edgar's problems started when he couldn't recover from a bad highschool break-up. As a coping mechanism he re-imagined the whole ordeal as a romantic tale of the damsel being taken away by a champion bullfighter. When you enter his mind, it's all black velvet and wrestling/bull-fighting. But when you climb down into the sewers, it looks like a warped and twisted high school locker-room. I think it's ingenious how the level design takes the otherwise abstract idea of "Edgar buried his high school life underneath this fantasy" and makes it literal by showing the high school literally buried in the sewers of the Spanish city. Of course, nearly all the levels do this (did anybody else find that really dark secret in Mia's mind?) but Edgar is just my favorite example.

Anonymous

I haven't yet finished the game (I just went up the elevator in the insane asylum), but I can say that this game satisfies my needs in a game: A compelling story, characters with depth, great ways to interact and traverse the world (I happened to utilize some of the speedrunning tactics from the video you linked), and gratifying exploration. I've been in the mood for a good platforming/collect-a-thon waiting for Yooka-Laylee, so this game fit my expectations quite well. I love all the hidden collectibles that inspire the player to get off the beaten path. I also like that the game has optional "missions" that only serve to connect you to the characters or give you a small bonus, such as the one in the first level guiding Dogen through the landmines. The most dated aspect of the game that I ran into was probably the obtuse nature of figuring out what you were doing before. This is due to the sometimes vague way that the Mission screen is written in. While it only happened to me once, I circled the camp maybe twice before I got back on track. I had saved just before taking the submarine to fight Linda, and since I hadn't played for a day or two, I forgot where I was supposed to go, with my only clue of "Rescue Lili." Another thing that struck me as "dated" was the first time you were forced to use the Cobweb Duster. Before the Milkman mission, the Cobweb Duster was only referenced as something you *should* get, but in practice was only used to get locked away Emotional Baggage's or Figments. That is, until the Milkman Mission, when suddenly you can be walking up and down the level, only to finally figure out that you need to get the items by hitting the surveillance cars. And even after you figure out that "puzzle," nothing tells you that you MUST use the cobweb duster to enter the houses on the street. The game doesn't even tell you that you CAN enter the houses until you experiment and go for it. Until then, no "scenery" houses are interactive, so it's strange how the game changed the rules like that (Speaking of breaking the rules, why can you go in the water as a giant in Linda's mind, but not in real life or in the later part of that very mission?). It's amazing to play this game for the first time, being quite familiar myself with Double Fine's games, and their unique way of making games in this industry. Often they are held back by Lucas Arts-levels of frustration (when a certain object or power must be used, but isn't explicitly stated that it CAN be used to interact: i.e. the Napoleon Bonaparte level and Telekinesis). Often those old point-and-click games that Tim Schafer loves and grew up with were often obtuse or the answers to the riddles were puns or jokes, and Double Fine games sometimes can suffer from the same issues. I have this same issue with Broken Age and Stick It To The Man as well. Overall, I am very much enjoying the game (despite the many complaints I've illustrated). I still play and appreciate adventure games to this day, and this game is unique in it's humor and platforming that it earns a spot as one of my favorite 3D platforming games. It's inspired me to play more Double Fine games (Stacking will be my next one) and compare how they evolve in the adventure genre.

Lorenzo Hulzebos

I was going to join in the GameClub, but a day or two the start of February's game I started my Master's degree, and apparently that's quite a lot of effort. Hopefully I'll be able to join in for future games, playing along or having played them in the past, but so far... no dice.

Josh Foreman

Only just finished the Milkman level. Here's my notes. * Amazing AI for the time. I worked on two PS2 games and we could NOT get emeies to travel from one mesh/level to another. I have no idea how they got them to swarm over moving platforms and pathfind to you around the crazy navmesh they must have had. * Great writing and voice acting, uneven animation/timing * SO MANY collectables. Probably too many. * Very creative level art/design Pulling from adjectives that describe the minds you’re going into provides unique levels. Rather than leaning on the tired tropes we get from videogame versions of earth biomes like Forest, Desert, Mountain, etc. Instead we get “twisted” “party” “hyper organized” “militaristic” etc. * Great diegetic hint system. Thematically attaching hints to the characters who's mind you are in is a brilliant use of plot/mechanic overlap. * Interesting genre combo. I hate “adventure” games. But the elements from that genre in this platformer make it distinct and unique. Another example of this for me is Hand of Fate. I don’t like CCGs, but LOVE HoF. Example from another medium: I don’t care for classical or baroque music, but love it when elements are in heavy metal or rap. * I absolutely MUST sculpt a bust of Raz holding a tiny lungfish. This will happen in an upcoming art tutorial on my channel.

Josh Foreman
>>4034378

I had the most problems with the Milkman level as it seemed to suddenly shift from 90% Platform/10% puzzle to 20% Platform/80% Puzzle. And I hate that kind of game. Almost with a passion. But the art and characters kept me going.

Josh Foreman
>>4034307

You're issue with the price of the cobweb duster is, I think, an artifact of your experience with the game. Coming in fresh, I felt like the grinding was a good and interesting change of pace and forced me to become familiar with the campgrounds which I was otherwise lost in.

Anonymous

I struggled to get going - it's a game I'd been meaning to dive into for ages, I expected to enjoy it (I'm a big fan of earlier Schafer stuff and platformers) but it just didn't grab me, quite the opposite actually. My time with the game is incredibly limited then! That said, I feel like the designers needed to have the gaming equivalent of 'show, don't tell' ('play, don't tell'?) hammered into them before they made their game's opening. The first cinematic was too long, the camera work, pacing and editing was all quite janky and it didn't tickle my funny bone. I was just desperate to play, but I dutifully stuck through that. Then, the initial gameplay heaped on a load more talky bits and I tuned out. Plus that first rail grind down the tree was in no way sticky - I missed it the first time and it felt luck as much as anything the second time I got it. So that is my very brief and incredibly negative response to Psychonauts! I still feel that I should try it again, but that first impression's an important thing and it was, especially in the face of how hyped up the game was (and still is to some extent), a massively disappointing one.

Anonymous

I think the thing that sticks with me the most is the semi-episodic structure of the game and how it's presented. The framing device of the camp for psychics allows for two things: A hub world that's a level in of itself and a contextually satisfying space for the characters and gameplay to exist in. The obstacle courses and telekinetic bears don't feel out of place because they reflect what summer camp means to kids. Zip Lines, monsters, and bear attacks are what dominate a ten year old's mind when they're in a cabin, and given Whispering Rock's campers have extra sensory abilities, supernatural threats like getting their brains stolen seem natural. This makes entering people's minds feel contextually appropriate. Each level is it's own self contained story with a beginning-middle-end that serves the overarching narrative. Not only do the different levels have the freedom to be unique with their setting and game plays, they allow for Psychonaughts to play like an entire season of a Nickelodeon show rather than your traditional video game. At least to me, I think this structure is best served for multiple short play sessions rather than burning through the 10-15 hour experience as fast as you can. If there's one complaint I have, binging this game is exhausting because the downtime between the levels usually involves meandering about on a fetch quests, and that's a bit of a wall if you are just trying to get to the next level. The cadence of exploring the world, playing a new level, and getting the set up for the next one feels like the right cadence for a play session.

Anonymous
>>4035197

I'd recommend (if you're really struggling to complete it) playing the first 3 levels, or maybe until the Milkman level, which is about halfway. The story starts to pick up speed and the platforming and movement get better once you get Levitation.

Anonymous
>>4034921

>I absolutely MUST sculpt a bust of Raz holding a tiny lungfish Just you wait till he gets Mr. Pokeylope in his hands.

Anonymous
>>4036662

I liked this game so much more the second time around, largely because the first time I was trying to plow through it

Anonymous

Same here, taking your time is a hard impulse to fight when you first get into a game. I tend to exhaust a game until I'm done with it because there's always the slight panic my backlog induces.

Rich Stoehr

Psychonauts has been an interesting ride so far. I haven't finished it yet, but I will...eventually. I find that it's a game I can pick up and put down quite easily - it hasn't "hooked" me but I enjoy it when I do play. No one play session has lasted longer than an hour or so. Tonally it reminds me a lot of why I used to watch Rocko's Modern Life and Courage the Cowardly Dog - kind of goofy, kind of juvenile, but with enough cleverness and originality to keep me interested. Brain candy, but for those with actual brains. I should probably mention that I tend to gravitate towards dark, heavy games - Silent Hill and The Last of Us are right up my alley. So to play something that's mostly just a bit of fun is relaxing and refreshing. In terms of level design, in the beginning it felt a little slapped together - lots of jumping mechanics and collecting stuff just because it's there. It takes 2 or 3 hours of play before you start to see the method behind the madness - right around Agent Nein's level (which I felt was particularly well made, thematically and for the challenge it presented) is where it started to sink in for me. Like Jimfamy, I think I would have preferred a little less Tell, and a little more Show. This game's strongest points are a sense of discovery and originality, and when it starts to shove story elements at you through dialogue it gets less interesting. So, I'll keep playing, when I've had a rough day and I need an hour or two of light hearted fun to bring me out of it. It's giving me a chance to soak it in bit by bit, which seems like a good way to play this one.

Anonymous

I did enjoy this game for a lot of reasons but I also feel like it's one of those "Lots of likable elements with a shaky foundation" mixed experiences. I think a lot of my complaints boil down to the fact that the game was clearly being conceptualized like an adventure game experience, but the core gameplay is a collectathon platformer. The parts that could have easily translated to an adventure game (the writing, the visual design, the scenario, the logic, the GOD DAMNED WRITING) are really really excellent. This game is damn hilarious. The things that they were trying for the first time aren't as good, though sometimes they do manage to support the things that the game is good at. I think the core platforming is downright boring. Even the parts that are well designed are held back by the fact Raz isn't super duper fun to control, and the game never decides what the core mechanics are. Chaining swinging around and jumping like a circus acrobat can be fun but is ultimately not developed enough to be more than shallow, and the psychic powerups are usually only focused on in their respective tutorial levels. And I think almost all of the levels are designed like Point-and-click interactions. Waterloo World and Gloria's Theater are the two biggest examples that come to mind. Linear "Take this item to this person to change the state of the level" chains, where you might have to do a little silly platforming to obtain or use the item. Those levels I think really show the game's true colors. And I think if the game had just been point and click, it wouldn't have had to contend with the platforming in that way. Also, a thing that I don't like and I DO think matters but isn't worth harping on about is that the portrayal of mental illness is noooooottt super. Not as bad as I remembered but still unnecessary. Every character is just troubled and portrayed as otherwise healthy (Sasha, Milla, and Edgar don't appear to have any real sickness in their brain but are dealing with various demons) or they ARE crazy and they're total cartoons that take advantage of existing tropes, enforcing a warped public perspective of mental illness. Not to mention enforcing the idea that mentally ill people are hilllaarrrrious. Though I found that there were actually few jokes at the expensive of the ill, boyd is the one who gets the most shit slung at him. People with DID don't have another person hijacking their body, people with schizophrenia are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators, don't have other identities living in their head, and don't go crazy because they get fired. Gloria had a very sympathetic story but Bi-Polar is so much more complicated than "happy and sad"

Anonymous

My earlier comment seems to have disappeared. I don't feel like writing a long-ish text again, but here are some points I would like to address. — I believe that the game was rushed on the later stages of its development and on paper it was more ambitious in terms of level design that what we got; — Figments are okay as a guiding mechanic that also rewards the player with xp-points, but collecting all of them is way too stressful, because of how they are placed, how it's hard to find them in larger levels and how movement isn't really that great (overall, platforming is slow and clunky). — Vaults are great, but it seems like you must find them to fully understand the backstory of the character whose mind you're in. That's especially apparent to me in Black Velvetopia, which does not really explain the basis of Edgar's story outside of the vaults. — Cobwebs don't seem to make much sense, and I agree that the cobweb duster integration is really poor. The entirety of the store is rather useless really and seems like an afterthought. — The difficulty curve is rather strange. The game's first half is a tutorial, where each level you're introduced to a new power and then encouraged to explore the camp with it. That's fine. By the time you reach Lungfishopolis you expect the training wheels to come off, though. Still, that level and the Milkman Conspiracy are based around new powers, and later Asylum levels are all gimmick-levels. They are all fun, and enemies hit much harder now I guess, but there's no real challenge, no test of your learned abilities. Until Meat Circus, that is, but no one likes Meat Circus. — It has been mentioned already, but I agree that this game should be approached as a Lucasarts adventure game, where you explore the environment, talk to quirky characters and read funny signs. Writing is really good, and a huge amount of it is missable. Every kid in the camp has their own character ark that comes to a satisfying conclusion if you save them all.

Anonymous

For me, Psychonauts is an okay to good game with a brilliant, wonderful personality, and I tend to go for game worlds, characters and atmospheres over game mechanisms, so I'm a big fan. Of course there are wonderful levels and characters, but I think what I like almost best is the summer camp, its look and feel, and the music that supports it, even before the Milkman Conspiracy and Goggalor. Conversely, there's nothing I downright hate; even bits like the Meat Circus are tolerable because the personality always shines through. Some levels resonated more with me, some less, but I wouldn't want to miss anything. I'm not sure I'd want game designers to learn from Psychonauts, because I'm not sure they'd learn the right lessons. As I wrote earlier, I think the game mainly succeeds through sheer personality, which IMO is true for a lot of Tim Shafer's and DoubleFine's work. I don't know if that is something that can easily be 'learnt' from the game. On the topic of mental health: that's difficult. It works with clichés and cartoony humour, so in that respect it's not like the depiction is realistic. At the same time, I think there's quite a lot of empathy in the game for the inmates, even if that isn't its main focus. Edit: Quick addendum: For me, DoubleFine games to some extent are hang-out games - I love hanging out in these worlds, with these characters, so the rest is almost secondary. In a way, a more involved game would almost detract from that, unless the gameplay could somehow reinforce the hang-out aspect.

Anonymous
>>4042448

I did the 100%ing and ooohhhh my god figments are THE WORST. I wrote down a bullet point every time a figment made me angry -They do good signposting and they add fun visuals to the environments. That's the positive stuff out of the way -Many figments travel into walls or to places that make them largely invisible, sometimes for extended periods of time -the average movement speed for a floating figment tends to be higher than Raz's so you're forced to wait for them to come around and head them off rather than chase them which is wild and ridiculous and makes you stand still for way too long -2D SPRITES IN 3D SPACE Even if the platforming in this game controlled really tight and nice 2D sprites are really hard to judge depth and distance and the collision hitboxes are totally unforgiving, especially aerial figments. They don't even have the courtesy to be billboarding sprites (the game USES billboarding sprites when you look at yourself with clairvoyance, just not in this instance where it's basically necessary) -Why tf do they flash. They don't even just get dimmer and brighter, they go all the way to 0% opacity so it's actually technically possible to be looking at where a figment is and not see it. Other things that hurt their visibility: -Figments are cute and they're just lineart but with all that transparency and only one color per figment it's easy to be looking right at one and "see past it" especially if the color contrast is bad -And there are TWO levels in the game that are use neon color schemes, so the figments blend right in to the background. Getting all the figments on Milla's race was sooooo hard without being engaging or challenging, it was just a matter of not being able to see the neon figments on a neon background while you zoom past them at 30 mph -Fred's world has a bunch of figments that are floating in the air that you're supposed to levitate through but a lot of them aren't properly lined up and they're just about the most tedious figments in the game, except for the infamous fairy in the woods This is all nitpicky but I want justice

Anonymous
>>4040312

I think there's a lot ot be said on "tell don't show" for psychonauts. I think Lungfishopolis was one of the worst offenders, the Breaking News cutscenes happened so frequently and you walk so slowly that I was actually starting to feel anxious about progressing, cause I didn't want to trigger another cutscene. Those voice clips could have so easily played in the background without activating a cutscene? Or better yet, show the news broadcast on a television but don't take control away from the player, let them see what they look like jumping around on tv

Anonymous

I've only been able to play during the occasional lunch break, so have only played about 3 hours, I might keep playing but it hasn't grabbed me so far. That said, here I my early thoughts, or as I call them, my Psychothoughts: - I like the theme, and how it is cemented in things like figments and emotional baggage within the levels. - It made me laugh, which is pretty uncommon in games - Figment collecting sucks, they blend in too much with the other level assets/design and bore the hell out of me. There is also a different amount in every level. At least in Banjo-Kazooie you knew there were always 100 notes and 5 jinjos - Inside Sasha Nein's mind there was no indication of how many targets needed to be hit, so you could easily miss some collectibles and not have any warning before triggering the next stage of the level - In the big censor battle, I felt that I needed to 'fail' before getting any clues or feedback as to what to do. This is the kind of crap that puts me off Shafer's adventure games - Item drops that jump about and avoid me can get in the sea. I feel that they did this deliberately just to have a use for the Mental Magnet item The absolute worst bit of design that I encountered in my short time with the game was the sodding cobwebs. DO NOT introduce a feature in the tutorial that you cannot interact with until you are RANK 20! Who wants to replay a tutorial? Finally, some questions that I hope those who have played more of the game can answer: - Am I going to have to redo the start of 'my brain' level 100 times only to hit another wall and need to go back again and again? - Do characters brains ever become more than one-dimensional? Army guy likes tanks but nothing else for example - Do I get to track down characters and enter their minds or is it always a case of going in via the thing in Sasha Nein's lab?

Anonymous
>>4044115

The game really encourages a lot of going back to get the things you missed. -No, just twice -The levels generally stick to one theme but the themes get more interesting. Sasha and Milla are just "art deco" and "disco world" but they're actually, essentially, about how logical introverts and emotional extroverts deal with their issues differently. Then you get stuff like "you are a giant monster terrorizing a city undergoing a propaganda dystopia freedom fighter thing" -The Brain Tumblr is just used to go back to brains you have been before, every level is entered by interacting with the person whose brain you're entering.

Megabyte01

So far I'm a little over halfway through the game (just finished The Milkman Conspiracy). If I had to summarize my opinion of the game now, I would say that while it has aged a bit, it was still ahead of the class in terms of polish, worldbuilding, and level design. Some more thoughts: - The first few levels with Oleander, Sasha, and Milo are good examples of how to introduce mechanics without making the tutorials so obvious. - Though the plot urges you to keep moving forward (Raz only has a few days to become a Psychonaut, Oleander has gone rouge and plans to take over the world), There are tons of secrets to find around camp that you might miss on your first playthrough if you do, such as all those interludes with the other campers. - The writing for the campers is sharper than I remember. It reminds me of what it was like to be a kid, to see the world in black and white, and how much bullies occupied your mind with nonsense that adults (usually) don't put up with. - Speaking of kids, I can't help feeling a little strange about Lilly's character and getting pulled out of the story. For me, she feels somewhere between a background character and a secondary character like the people whose minds you enter. It feels like she's just starting to become interesting when she gets kidnapped! I know she's got a little more going on towards the end of the game, but my memory's a little fuzzy. I'll come back to this point. - The sidequest where you use the douser to collect enough arrowheads to purchase the cobweb duster is the kind of filler that most designers would have to fight to keep or they would just cut it without thinking these days, and that's a shame. It pads the game for a bit, but it encourages you to explore. - At least for the first half of the game, the levels are shorter and more linear than I remember, but they also have much better pacing than I remember. - I don't know if they are easier or if playing Dark Souls has given me reason to 'git gud', but haven't died much. - Jumping, floating, and rolling is a lot for one power, but the designers pulled it off. - double jumping at the beginning of the game feels like a game design crutch, but it makes it much more fun! I could do this all day, but I ought to complete the game. I loved it over ten years ago and I still love it today!

SpeckObst

I was most surprised by the sudden shift in genre. The first half in the camp is pretty much a normal platformer and a really good one at that (a lot of ways to traverse the environments). Then you get to the asylum and the pacing nearly stops in order to present genuine adventure levels. I mean, yeah, there is still a little bit of platforming, but the main focus are the item based puzzles. Trying to figure out how one object changes the world and looking for the right combination is the core gameplay loop up until the meat circus. Psychonauts kinda feels like two games, split right down the middle. I love the characters and the how the worlds represent their mental health problems, but the asylum is quite small and not that interesting. Getting any further requires the player to beat 4 similar structured levels until they can get to a new area of the main hub. The plot also changes at that point and gets a bit darker. I like it, though think that it all could've been handled better with a smoother transition. Kinda reminded me of Brutal Legend and how that game changed from an action brawler to a strategy game.

OSW Review

Really enjoyed the video Mark! I have two small suggestions - can u introduce yourself at the start of the video? I find it really comforting hearing your "I'm Mark Brown and this is Game Maker's Tool Kit, a video series on games design". It's weird to not hear it! Also maybe when moving from big point to point in your video essay, to let a couple of seconds of footage play on, as a small rest/mental breathing space. Anywoo great vid and enjoy BotW! Hope the dungeons don't disappoint!

GameMakersToolkit
>>4062540

Hey - I think that's a great point. I reckon I'm going to try and edit in a bit more breathing room before the final upload.

Anonymous
>>4046368

Regarding the levitation power, I did actually feel like it broke some of the intended platforming in the camp area. When I went back to find the collectibles I found myself being able to jump up to areas that were clearly meant to be accessed via different means - I could see the branches behind me that I was supposed to be swinging from etc. Having said that, I never had this feeling within the levels themselves which must have been tough to pull off.

Anonymous

I missed Psychonauts back in the day, and have used this GameClub as an excuse to go back and see what all the fuss was about. It's taken my lunchtime slot so I'm not too far through it, but from the moment the game begins, the charm slaps you about the face and sucks you in. I only wish my lunch hour was longer... So I've only played through the opening and finished the first level so far, but I'm impressed. The opening hub is just... "nice". It's colourful, warm, and amusing, without getting too cynical (any scene containing Dogan is excellent). There's a darker edge to the comedy that hits that sweet spot working for children and adults alike. I like the grim warfare setting for the first level (a perfect constrast to the colourful hub players witness in the intro), although the aesthetics are looking a little rough in the darker spots. The pace was a little bit off. It's a platform game - sure, but I found there were too few breathers between long platforming segments. I'd have liked a few safer areas to test new mechanics and character actions. Perhaps my criticisms surrounding the platforming sections come as a result of the camera, which I found myself battling. In my opinion, third person camera systems didn't really come into their own until gen 7, with shooters pushing the need for reactive camera and control systems to allow for competitive play. I would like to see Psychonauts 2 feature a better camera (read: one that better follows the player while falling, etc.). Last point, I really like that the title screen features an in engine menu - it acts as a light tutorial before dropping in game. It's the little things. I look forward to playing more!

Daniel Haas

I played Psychonauts and loved it when I was younger and have played several times since - in fact, I had just finished beating it ~2 weeks before this game club announcement. What follows is some assorted thoughts that aren't represented already in the comments above and assume you're already familiar with the typical praise and criticism. There is a type of game that I describe to people as archaeology. These are the games that you *need* to have played to understand the impact on the genre, but which make choices that...we have better solutions for now. A good example is the movement controls and menus in System Shock 2. A fine game, but those aspects certainly date it. I describe Psychonauts' controls and structure in this way. They'll always bug people, but it's important to play despite. I think the key question is "would Psychonauts have been better as an adventure game?" Its key strength is obviously in dialogue and art design, both of which lend themselves to that genre, so why a platformer/collectables game? Does that add or detract? I think that it absolutely adds. While the movement and control mechanics don't necessarily tie directly to the theme and story, the level design absolutely knocks it out of the park. Most of the "a-ha" of truly engaging with the representation of psychosis comes through literally wandering through the worlds and the ways they force you to behave. It's obviously done with a comedic tone, but my point is that you would not get this same engagement just by seeing these levels as you do by living them. As for the collectibles, that serves the different purpose of (when I play now) making it *feel* like being a kid at a summer camp, which is such a nebulous and hard to capture emotion. Wandering around, talking to kids, collecting random junk is all part of that experience. When you do the same things in the mind-worlds it lends that same childlike experience, which makes it an interesting commentary on how a child might view an adult's psychosis. My biggest complaints about this game are not the controls or camera, but the fact that pacing-wise you'll miss out on a lot of content if you go through in a typical gamer fashion. On this play through I took the time to go through the entire camp in between each major story beat and found that there was a massive amount of content and dialogue I'd missed. While that's really cool, I think design-wise I'd rather have seen the game encourage the random wandering exploration to have you stumble on that, rather than the focused point-to-point story encouraging you to "hurry up". In all, it's a fantastic game if you can give it the slack for its mechanical flaws, and I'm glad it didn't just seek to be a set of funny lines but instead tied them to the gameplay.

Anonymous

I had not played Psychonauts until this GameClub, and it's one of the few games in a long while that really grabbed me. I'm always a fan of those games that like to mess with the player's mind, literally or otherwise. It's been a while since a set of collectibles had really gotten to a core of the game like the ones in Psychonauts did. I love the theme behind the game's collectables. The emotional baggage really strikes a cord thinking of psychology of the game. As a psychonaut, they are tasked with "Protecting Free thought", but it seems a bit deeper than that. The emotional baggage that you're "cleaning up" and the little slide shows that you can get for getting all of the collectibles showing an inner demon of each character really knocked it out of the park. The level design is right behind it. While I hated the level in terms of length and how annoying it was for me to play it, I will never forget "The Milkman" level. Everything being out of sync with the rest of the game and being so completely over the top and weird will stick in my mind forever. And it's a nice touch with the game. The world is Topsy Turvy and oddball because of how disturbed that character was. Reading the other comments, it does make me a bit sad. Exactly like Daniel said below me, there's a lot that you'll miss if you don't go explore the camp between major story events. I saw a few unique little scenes between the other campers, but not really a lot of them. I'm not sure if that's a slight because the game is so gripping that I wanted to get through the story to reach the ending, or if it's a 'tip-of-my-hat' to a very clever way to give those gamers who take their time a little extra content that not everyone will obtain. Collectibles are fine as far as emotional baggage, but the figments really are tough for that game. Being the 2d flat items really have them blend into the environment, especially in the Milla levels. Not to mention that it also makes it difficult to judge distance between Raz and the items in the world. There are some places that I had to run through a couple of times because distance was so tough to judge between the character and the 2D image that you have to touch. As like everyone else as well, the camera could of been much better. There was not a lot of camera control, and there are more places than I would like to admit that you just fight the camera all day long. Additionally, I'm not sure if I'm the only one who played on Steam, but the Steam version is rather buggy. There were a few times where I had to stop playing the game all together and walk away because I had fought with the game for 30+ mins and realized that the game was just bugged for that section until you closed the game and restarted. I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I had that right at the beginning with the stupid Flag Poles in Basic Braining, but that's another story. Great game to start the Game Club off with, and can't wait to see what everyone else thought about it who hasn't commented already!