Ohio-man reviews Psychonauts 2
The week before Psychonauts 2 released had me filled with excitement, remembering the simpler times from when I first entered the world of a psychic summer camp, conspiracies based on daddy issues, and delicious milk. Each day I would check google’s countdown and the pre-install on my xbox to see if the sequel to a teenage favorite had magically released early since I had waited so patiently.
Finally the day came, I clocked out of work for the evening and sprinted to my controller ready to immerse myself into Razputin’s next adventure. Then my controller died after 20 minutes so I had to wait for the next day to play it. The strong first impression lit a fire that drove me back to finish the game, though. A bait and switch intro full of interesting Unreal engine tricks and familiar platforming set up how even the most powerful psychonauts can make mistakes and have plans go sideways.
The mind of previous antagonist Dr. Loboto starts off as a sterile office building designed to have him rat out his employer, who hired him to kidnap the head of the psychonauts in the VR-exclusive Rhombus of Ruin. Once the cover is blown, however, the cubicles and water coolers devolve into a dentistry themed hellscape filled with Italian mobster tooth fairies, an angry uvula, and comical posters saying not to be a snitch.
A major change right off the bat was the departure from the first game’s adventure roots. The inventory management has been completely removed, replaced by key items that sit in your backpack until the specific moment arises. The exploration and collecting has remained exactly the same, for better and worse. Hunting down the last figment of imagination (the game’s equivalent of coins or rings) in Loboto’s mind replaced all the wonder of the carefully crafted opening scenes with rage as I combed it for the last flat 2D image that barely stands out.
The mental vaults and baggage also make a return, but were more of a casual find. The nuggets of Wisdom, which act as EXP boosts, and half minds, acting as the game’s pieces of heart, are much more cleverly hidden, requiring new abilities or problem solving skills to get Powers have been completely retooled from the previous outing, now sporting individual cooldowns and some different utilities from their mostly limitless forms, along with new upgrades based on psy rank. Most of your tool set returns from the original Psychonauts, with clairvoyance and levitation seeing the biggest changes.
Clairvoyance was originally used to get a new perspective in areas and solve puzzles, with the added benefit of sight gags based on the perception of who you see through. In Psychonauts 2, the ability has been heavily downgraded, now being used for a handful of puzzles and to find hidden stashes of psytanium, the game’s currency. Levitation has been converted to be a limited glide and a slippery speed boost, depending on if you are in the air or on the ground.
The new psy powers are where the gameplay really shines. Mental connection acts as a grappling hook and “rewiring tool” of sorts that can connect stray thoughts, which is used for most of the puzzles in the mind of agent Hollis’s distorted mind. Time bubble slows down certain objects and enemies, pretty box standard outside of the trippy rainbow effect. The last power unlocked in the game, projection, is comedic gold. Razputin creates a flat copy of himself, called an archetype, that can enter mail slots on doors, squeeze between bars, and draw aggression from enemies in combat.
He will also quip about how he is the real raz and doesn’t want to do lackey work. When you are far away from him, the archetype will turn into a paper plane and make little motor and gun noises. As mentioned above, psy ranks, now called intern ranks for story purposes, are nowused to gain upgrade points to spend on your abilities. Psytanium, formerly known as arrowheads, are used to buy consumables, psy cores for upgrading your rank,, and badges tomodify your abilities, but serve no other useful purpose.
I will be purposefully vague about the rest of the game as to convince you all to play it, but I highly recommend psychonauts 2. The story has many twists, the gameplay kept me engaged, and Jack black voices a gay singing viking man.
Authors note: The majority of my complaints have been fixed in the latest update!