The mind can be a dangerous place to wander in. A realm of twisting passages and unknown monstrosities ready to tear you from the inside out. A place that is easy to get lost in and hard to escape, so then why do we ourselves want to explore this place. Why do we want to explore the mess that is our own cognition building up grime and rusting each passing day? The answer is pretty obvious once you apply some decent thinking and human intelligence to this question. It’s that the mind can be brilliant once you find those beautiful colorful locations and settling down in them can be what is needed to ease yourselves. The huge burning pile of wood and coal that we call stress and the smoke produced by it is known as “the troubles of the real world and what we must face as we get older”. Sometimes all you need is to get loose, order a large pepperoni pizza, and kick back as we partake in the hobbies that make us truly happy. That may have been a weird way to start off the review, but buckle up kiddos because what we’re about to review today is a game that means quite a bit to me.
My first exposure to today’s topic was about seven years ago when I was walking over to my cousin’s house to spend the afternoon with her. My sister and I used to do that whenever we were bored and my cousin would usually play a game that was entertaining for all of us. She introduced us to Portal, BioShock, Skyrim, BioShock, and a couple of other titles that were available on the Steam store. However, one of her favorite games of all time, which is also one of the best games I watched her play, was a little 3D platformer that came out on the sixth generation of consoles. That game was known as Psychonauts, a funnily written adventure with memorable characters and moments produced by Double Fine Productions. For a game that came out in 2005 it blew my ten year old mind. The amount of creativity and bravery to be stupid but compelling was amazing, and I would often quote some of the jokes stated in the game. After that my cousin moved away to college so that she could become a psychologist, but I thought about Psychonauts and how it differed from other games.
Double Fine Productions was founded by Tim Schafer, who previously was one of the main game designers and writers for Lucasfilm Games. During that time they produced a lot of quirky click and point adventures. They had a unique artstyle, silly animation, well put together puzzle design although a bit confusing for some, and the writing was top notch. They still hold up well today and some of them are considered the best games to ever come out on home computers. Lucasart released The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of The Tentacle, Full Throttle, and their most notable one Grim Fandango. Around the early 2000s is when Tim Schafer left Lucasfilm Games and decided to form his own game studio which we now know as Double Fine. When he worked on Grim Fandango he had ideas for a segment in the story where the main character Manny would go into another individual’s mind and explore a conjured up world that represented their mental process and imagination. The idea was rejected as Lucasfilm Games was afraid that it would dive into some deep subject matters and that it was just too weird for gamers to understand. Schafer didn’t let the idea go though, and it soon became the foundation for his first big game. The mind trip that is Psychonauts.
Schafer had a team of about 42 developers to help make Psychonauts and the budget was reasonable at first. Psychonauts had a very rough development process and the team at Double Fine even had trouble getting the game out into the market. Direction had to change every once in a while, areas and ideas would have to be reworked, the budget was running low, and Schafer was trying to find a publisher willing to help out with Psychonauts. Luckily they did, a business deal was struck with Microsoft and they planned to make Psychonauts an Xbox exclusive for a few months. Let it be one of the few main selling points for the console besides Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and….. Well I can’t really think of anything else. Psychonauts reached a full release in 2005 after 4.5 years in development and Schafer was really hoping for the game to blow up like other 3D platformers like Super Mario Sunshine or Banjo-Kazooie. That didn’t happen sadly. Psychonauts was met with a fair amount of praise, but a lot of review outlets passed the game off and the sales numbers were tanking, selling close to only 100,000 physical copies. Schafer was bummed out that Psychonauts failed to perform, but failure wouldn’t drag him down. Actually, this led to the success of Psychonauts.
The game soon came out on Playstation 2 and had a PC release a few years later. More people were able to grab their hands on Psychonauts and see what mysteries it had to offer. They discovered that Psychonaut was way ahead of its time and that the elements it got right were done tremendously well. Those being the level design, storytelling, and how they combine those two elements to create places you wouldn’t see in other games. Players began to praise Psychonauts and tell others about the brilliance that was missed out back in 2005. The sales numbers began to pick up and soon Psychonauts sold around 1.5 million copies. Schafer took note of all this and the praise is what gave him and his team the determination to continue making quirky games that aimed towards this type of audience. The people who found deep compelling themes through childish immature humor.
Psychonauts had a cult following and as the cult grew bigger Schafer made many ambitious projects. Soon he decided to make a sequel to Double Fine’s most well acclaimed game and it wasn’t until this that it finally came out. Psychonauts 2, which spent almost as much time as the original game. A lot of people have talked about the second game recently and from what I have heard it’s probably one of the best games of this year. I really want to play Psychonauts 2, but I don’t have the cash for it at the moment. To hype myself up I decided to play, for myself, the original game and get a quick catchup of what happened before. I watched my cousin play this game two times, so it’s about time I play Psychonauts for myself. Did the original Psychonauts age well? Yes, it did. Quite a few areas haven’t really aged that well, but the elements people loved about the original remained strong. Today we’ll be talking about why I love Psychonauts and why it deserves your attention. Let’s get psyched!
Story
The world of Psychonauts is a strange one, because it seems very simple when told out loud but when written down the background behind it is quite interesting. Years ago a strange meteorite struck the earth and it had the ability to give living creatures crazy psychic powers. Stuff like levitation, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, the ability to read another person’s inner thoughts, and more. Originally regional animals like bears and cougars were affected, but native americans soon discovered the place and began to settle down. They grew interested in the powers and capabilities the rock granted them and that’s why the area was named Whispering Rock. The natives obtained psychic powers, had children, and that’s how more psychic individuals were born across history.
Flash forward to what I predict the 1980s and a small little town had been formed near the Whispering Rock. The inhabitants lived peacefully at first, but the psychic meteorite started giving off negative effects to the citizens and slowly began to drive them crazy. A mental asylum created by the US government was built to house these mentally disturbed individuals created by the meteorite along with others who were just plain crazy. Unfortunately, the asylum soon had more patients than the actual town population and the government soon realized the asylum was too much to handle and something had to be done. Especially since the owner of the asylum went mad himself and committed suicide due to exposure to the meteorite. The government relocated almost every patient, dug a huge crater around the asylum, filled the crater with and claimed that it’s a lake and that nothing was located in the wide stretch of water, and turned the town into a park that didn’t have much to see. The asylum, known as Thorney Towers Home for the Disturbed, was abandoned and slowly rotted away.
You’d think that Whispering Rock was abandoned and that there was no other reason to go back to it, but remember those native americans from earlier and how for the next few centuries they created generations of psychics. Individuals who were able to wield their psychic powers for good were able to handle tasks that even the most advanced government agents could do, and soon an organization was formed containing specially trained psychic agents. This group was known as the Psychonauts, and their job was to handle any form of psychic threats or terrorism. Whispering Rock was soon transformed into a summer camp designed for children, but what it actually is was a government program made to gather children who possibly had psychic powers and see if any of them are capable of wielding them efficiently. Those who can’t use their powers diligently are sent home after a couple of weeks, but when the attending Psychonauts find a child who can wield their powers tremendously well they can recruit him as a Psychonaut. To protect the world from psychic disasters.
In the present day, three official Psychonaut agents are hosting a summer camp gathering yet again to hopefully find a child capable of being a Psychonaut. This includes the highly intelligent Sasha Nein, the caring and agile Milla Vodello, and the stern but determined Morceau Oleander. The main teacher at the camp is Oleander who is busy lecturing the children around a campfire about how they need to take things seriously. However, the children seem kind of out of it and some of them are obviously not capable of being Psychonauts due to how weak and feeble they are. The entire group then hears rustling in the bushes and when the Psychonauts analyze the creature in the area they find it has a strong psychic resistance. It’s a boy, and he seems to have more psychic willpower and strength than the other children. The boy is named Razputin Aquato, and he comes from a family of circus acrobatics.
Ever since he was little, Raz always dreamed of being a Psychonaut. He would spend days reading the famous Psychonaut comics, learning about the heroes of the past, and easily being distracted by his consciousness which would tempt him to be a Psychonaut. His father didn’t approve of his interests, because years ago Raz’s grandparents were cursed by fortune tellers. Psychics. The curse was that if any of them were to touch a deep body of water they would be dragged down by a mysterious entity. Forced to be submerged within that water and drown. Raz’s entire family has hated psychics due to that curse and his father especially hated the Psychonauts. One day after a notable performance, Raz was given a pamphlet by a mysterious hooded figure. It was a pamphlet marketing a summer camp designed to recruit psychic children and possibly become a Psychonaut. Raz’s eyes filled with gleem when he read the pamphlet during training. Maybe he could become a Psychonaut and fulfill his dreams. Raz’s father noticed the pamphlet and was filled with rage. Swiping it from Raz’s hand and tearing it before his eyes. This then filled Raz with frustration and luckily he remembered the coordinates written onto the pamphlet. He got his belongings, took one of the family pets, and ran away to the summer camp.
When Raz arrives he immediately amazes everyone along with the head Psychonauts. He was truly Psychonaut worthy material, but Sasha and Milla state that he couldn’t be there unless a parent approved of him being sent. They plan to call Raz’s father and have him picked up soon, but Oleander notices how willing Raz wants to become a Psychonaut so he decides to keep him around and let him partake in any activities and training they hold. This would be the greatest summer Raz would ever have in his entire damn life. Okay, so if you haven’t played the game then go do so because I’m to spoil a little more of the story before we move on. If not then skip to the gameplay section.
Raz succeeds in Oleander’s deadly obstacle course, Milla’s neon lit levitation course, and even passes Sasha’s secret shooting range designed for advanced psychadets. He even somehow befriends Lily Zonatto, who is said to be the daughter of the official head of the Psychonauts organization. During this training Raz discovers a hidden underground tunnel system and meets Ford Cruller, one of the first Psychonauts to ever live and still lives today. He’s been working around the camp, but his mind seems to be taking on different roles when he is outside of his den. In an underground lab, Ford has been analyzing the properties of the region and sending Milla and Sasha out on missions he would normally be able to take but isn’t able to since his mind was fractured in a battle that happened years ago. Ford decides to train Raz as well and give access to abilities a majority of psychadets would normally not be allowed to have. Soon Raz is thrown into the Brain Tumbler, a device made by Sasha to explore one’s own mind. Raz has a dream of a mysterious scream above and once he reaches the top he sees one of the campers have his brain sneezed out by a psychotic dentist. He believes it to be a dream, but when he meets the camper in real life he finds them brainless. Soon the rest of the kids begin to end up brainless, and Sasha and Milla have gone missing. Someone is stealing the brains of the psychic children and Raz has to figure out what is going on. He’ll take on dangerous missions, explore minds of incredibly disturbed individuals, and even go to a place abandoned years ago to locate the source of the problem. That is how he’ll earn his right to become a Psychonaut.
Gameplay
Well Psychonauts certainly succeeds with the writing and storytelling departments which we’ll explore more on later, but does the gameplay hold us as well? Not all of it aged that well, but Psychonauts is a fun game to play once you get the logistics down and start getting used to the psychics and how the game controls. It’s your basic 3D platformer with collectathon elements, imaginative levels, uniquely themed worlds, and progression that opens up the options you have to traverse the environments.
Raz is a highly skilled acrobatic, so it’s a nice explanation as to why he can flip around so easily and traverse difficult areas as compared to a lot of platformering heroes who just so happen to be able to jump around despite their weight and gear. Raz can jump, double jump thanks to his basic psychic powers, balance on type ropes, swing on bars along with dangling bars, climb on any form of fencing, grind on rails, and cart wheel if you really want to. If he needs to fight enemies he can lock onto them and cartwheel to dodge like I just stated. He has a punch which feels a little stiff and awkward to perform, but it does get the job done. He also has a ground slam which does aerial damage, but you aren’t going to use this ability often. Look, combat isn’t really that good in Psychonauts and it feels out of place in 3D platformers in general, but it’s 2005 so we can’t really complain about how the combat and basic fights feels since Double Fine probably didn’t know how to properly execute 3D platformer combat anyways.
Raz’s abilities do expand as the game goes on with Merit Badges being the main unlockables that give Raz more combat options and traversal methods. The PSI Blast is a projectile attack that can pick off foes from afar and has a limited amount of ammunition. It can even be upgraded to ricochet between groups of enemies. You have invisibility which turns you invincible for a short amount of time and is needed to bypass certain obstacles and segments to levels. A force field which makes you invulnerable to attacks, but has a recharge rate. Clairvoyance which allows you to see how other individuals see you, but to be honest it’s a joke ability. Levitation to pick enemies up and throw them across the room. Confusion Grenades which expose an enemy for a short period of time. Pyrokinesis which sets enemies and certain surfaces on fire. Most importantly is Levitation which is a major traversal power throughout the entire game. You can form a bouncy ball which allows you to quickly cross long distances and outmaneuver opponents. You can perform a charge attack while rolling around on it, and it is needed to perform a hover ability to cross long gaps or float upward using strong winds or forces. I suggest you get used to levitation.
There are several collectibles throughout the world and each level, and some of them serve specific purposes. One collectible that shows up in a huge number are the Figments, transparent drawings that can be picked up and when enough are collected you rank up. There are PSI Ranks and every time your PSI Rank reaches a factor of five you unlock new perks and traits. From increased health, increased PSI Blast ammunition, and special perks for your powers. There are other ways besides collecting Figments to rank up, because some Figments can be easily missed and backtracking for them can be a pain in the ass. There is Emotional Baggage which must be treated by finding their tags and bringing the correct tag to the right bag. Several PSI Cards and PSI Cores which allow you to rank up faster without collecting Figments. Mental Cobwebs which can be collected using the Mental Cobweb Duster and plugged into a machine to be transformed into PSI Cards. Memory Vaults which can be smashed open to reveal a person’s memories and why they are the way they are. Scavenger Hunt items which when found can rank you up as well. Arrowheads which can be spent on goodies, upgrades, and specific gear. Many many more. Psychonauts have a lot of collecting, but collecting isn’t the main goal though. Only major powers and equipment are needed to progress in every level. You don’t need every Figment, Emotional Baggage, Memory Vault, and perk to beat the main story. So that’s good.
Now the best feature about Psychonauts’ gameplay aren’t the powers and the way you traverse the environments. It’s surprising to hear at first, but bear with me for a moment. It’s the level design, idea for these levels, and how they interweave with the story and characters. They are made in such a way to match up with a person’s personality, traits, and the thought processes they have. For example, Sasha Nein is an intelligent individual and he cares about keeping things under control and arranged as neatly as possible. When you go inside his mind you walk around a huge isometric cube colored black and white, and overtime it carefully arranges set pieces related to specific parts of Sasha’s life. Meanwhile Milla Vodello is a cheerful individual who wants to have fun, so her level is this energetic party with vertical sections made to test the new levitation ability and a race near the end to test the player’s speed as well. Bosses in levels are usually made to fit the theme and they work more like puzzles than actual fights. One specific ability is used to get through the fight and when they are exposed you have to hit them with all you got. Not every level has a boss though, so at least you don’t have to engage with the already mediocre combat and jank.
That’s all I really have to say about the gameplay. It’s fun when it wants to be, is mostly functional, and the level design is some of the best I've seen from a 3D platformer. Hopefully you can save the day and earn your right to become….. a PSYCHONAUT!
Thoughts
Psychonauts is still an excellent game today and the things I loved about it back then are still the elements I love about it now. It is a masterpiece in storytelling and writing, but is it a perfect video game? No. It is far from a ten out of ten score. What we have here is a flawed masterpiece and while that phrase may be offensive to some die hard fans I do want to point out my criticisms to this game, because the points I have to make involve the elements that did not age well and may be the reason why some players found the first game so hard to pick up to today's standards.
In the meantime why don’t I explain the things I love about Psychonauts, because it’s going to help justify the high review I’m going to give at the end. The art design is what I want to touch on first, because it’s going to turn a lot of people off to see how some of the characters are designed and look like snot shot right out of your own nostrils. I really like the art style and design of the characters in Psychonauts. I love the art design of Double Fine games in general, because if it’s one thing that differentiates Psychonauts from a majority of other Triple A games it’s this. Having an artstyle with a personality. Ever since games have tried to look as realistic as possible, which isn’t a problem to remind you, video games have begun to adopt a similar look. Psychonauts have these goofy looking characters with odd body proportions and it looks silly but fun. Like we’re watching an early 2000s children cartoon where the designers were more focused on designs that could attract the watcher’s eyes. Also cartoons recently have begun to adapt a similar artstyle as well. Whether it’s children cartoon characters with round faces, or what I like to call “The Rick and Morty Quality”. The world of Psychonauts is colorful, energetic, and nothing is boring to look at. It has personality.
Next is the writing and storytelling which I said we were going to touch upon. Psychonauts has some of my most favorite humor in a video game and each joke lands really well for me. Other people might not like the humor and would rather go for something really edgy which I don't understand to be honest with you, but Ilike Psychonauts humor because it lands well and fits the theme. All the characters are goofy in their own way and there are highlights every so often. Raz himself is a very likable main character and his drive to become a Psychonaut is what makes you play to see him become one. The story is well paced, but the real stars are the adventures within a person’s mind. These side stories you must uncover to get closer to your personal goal. For another thing that Psychonauts gets right it’s this phrase I learned from Razbuten, a game design youtuber I follow. The phrase is, “Maturity from Immaturity”. Psychonauts dives into some realistic topics and themes later on, and some of these involve real world issues a person can actually have. It acknowledges that a person who could have these conditions would be troubled and that treating these illnesses atakes time and care. However, Psychonauts still tries to humor this mental trauma without getting too dark. It still tries to keep entertained while handling stuff that should be sad to look at. The next paragraph I do want you to skip because I’ll be using late game areas to explain the mental illnesses and themes. So spoilers.
Around the time you reach the asylum you have to venture through the brains of four mentally traumatized patients. This includes Boyd Cooper, who inside his mind thinks he has to remain in hiding or keep his mouth shut since he is worried of people watching him from the outside willing to stab him in the back. Gloria Von Gouton, an was once famous actress who has been pushed beyond her limit her entire life. Fred Bonaparte, one of the doctors of the asylum who went mad when he started losing against a crazy patient and started to envision himself as his ancestor Napoleon Bonaparte. (No jokes. That’s actually in the game.) Finally Edgar Teglee, a struggling artist who is being dragged down by his terrible high school memories. These four are very special, because the conditions they have are represented or demonstrated in their levels. Boyd’s popular level, The Milkman Conspiracy, follows you going around a twisting neighborhood that goes against the laws of physics and is full of patrolling FBI agents. They will capture you if you walk into an area filled with them, but you can disguise yourself by picking up items that fit the area you are walking into. The level is supposed to show how afraid Boyd is of the outside world and that everyone is out to get him. Especially since years ago he lost the security job he extremely loved and felt like the world was betraying him for his hard work. Then there is Edgar’s level, Black Velvetopia, which is personally my favorite. You travel through a linear corridor trying to collect the cards needed to build a tower. In the middle of the level is a rampaging bull, who if he hits you will knock you back to earlier sections. You must hide in the alleyways, stay on higher ground, or find other ways to proceed. You enter paintings and fight against wrestlers to earn the card, and certain sections need placeable paintings to proceed. The real specialty of Black Velvetopia though are the visuals and how the story of Edgar is presented. You enter a sewer later on and when down there you find it styled after a high school. There you find the memory vault which shows how Edgar lost his girlfriend and that he lost a wrestling match due to his sadness. Which then caused his coach and entire team to hate him. I think the reason why the high school is located in the sewers is to show how sh*tty this point in Edgar’s life was. He doesn’t want to remember it, but somehow the strong points of his high school life are on the surface. The wrestlers you fight are supposed to resemble his team mates and the fourth one you fight makes it obvious how much they revered him after he lost the big game. The rampaging bull is then revealed to be Edgar who can let go of his rage. The rage created by his girlfriend who fell in love with the best football player. This level works. It works really f*cking well and that’s why I think it’s the best level in the game.
What else does Psychonauts handle well? The pacing is good. Some levels like The Milkman Conspiracy and Sasha’s Shooting Gallery were ahead of their time and came out way before Super Mario Galaxy showed how levels could twist and bend. There’s a good amount of content to be found. The game lasts around ten to eleven hours long which is a good run time for a game like this. The ending is well executed and the cliff hanger leaves for what was the desired sequel which fulfills all the mysteries created by the first game. The original game goes for an extremely affordable price which makes it all worth it. What are all the good things I have to say about Psychonauts? What about the bad stuff? Oh boy, the bad stuff. It’s not terrible and some of these things are easy to ignore, but if you were a game designer then you would take note of some of these things because to today’s standards you would receive a lot of flak.
The gameplay of Psychonauts is the weakest part, because while it’s not poorly designed some parts of the game certainly could have worked better. The levels are all quite unique and have distinct features that make them stand out from other 3D platformer levels, but some of them feel kind of underdeveloped. Not as in they are buggy as hell and they don’t properly work, but as in it feels like the play testers couldn’t spot out certain sections that didn’t work or are flimsy to move around. Curves and slopes that Raz probably shouldn’t be sliding off of or falling down so easily. Rail grinding sections where somehow you come to a halt or don’t pick up enough speed to make across a gap. The Milkman Conspiracy, a level with a Super Mario Galaxy like structure that is somewhat inconsistent with what areas you can jump to before you plummet to your doom. Some gaps are too far to reach and that’s why you fail to make certain jumps. The collision and detection are also very off at times. Sometimes I would jump towards a monkey bar or rope hoping to grab, but instead Raz just flies on by and fails to even detect that there is a grabbable object.
Raz doesn’t feel terrible to control, but at the same time he still feels finicky to maneuver. Combat was definitely not well realized as it feels stiff and clunky to attack enemies, but it’s a 3D platformer so of course it wasn’t made for combat. Even when there is combat it can often be cheesed by spamming PSI Blast and it’s especially overpowered once you unlock the ricochet perk. The several powers you have are cool, but it doesn’t feel like all of them are being used to their fullest potential. The force field is only good against bosses that have attacks that are unavoidable. Telekinesis may be used during the bosses and puzzles that require it. Pyrokinesis is quite the same thing as telekinesis as it will probably only be used during puzzles or objects that require it. Clairvoyance is fun to use, but it’s a joke ability and it doesn’t really serve any mechanical purposes to be honest. The confusion grenade is only useful against the bosses it was designed for as well. So that leaves you with your two starting abilities. PSI Blast which is already good for combat, and levitation which you’ll be using way more than you think you would. The things you can do with your levitation ball is stunning. It increases your jump height by a lot, you can dart across long distances, and hover for as long as you want. I heard the second game had to nerf how long you could hover, so that players wouldn’t rely so heavily on levitation so that’s good.
I got a few more complaints, but don’t worry we’re almost out of the park with this long list. The Mental Cobweb Duster should have been given to you, or placed at least half the price than it is in the main lodge store. You’ll actually need it to progress in later levels in the game and if not you won’t be able to progress down vital passages. So you don’t have it up until a specific point then you’ll have to spend some time farming arrowheads which is kind of a chore.You can speed up the process by using the arrowhead detector which can be bought for a reasonable price, but it is still tedious to find the location of arrowhead deposits. Speaking of collecting, almost every item in Psychonauts is fun to collect besides the figments. If you are a completionist then I feel really bad for you and what you have to do to find every figment in this game. Some of them fly around and can’t be reached through reasonable ways. Some of them blend in with the background and just look like stage props. Some of them are put in sections where they shouldn’t be, like a race track area in Milla’s dance party. My final complaint deals with the version of the game I played which is the Playstation 4 version, a rendered up port of the Playstation 2 version. The lighting can be wonky at times, because I remember when watching my cousin play this game back on PC the lighting matched up. Here certain characters are brighter than they should be or their faces gleaned more than they should. Certain cutscenes with light shining in Raz’s face made it glow with a bright flashlight yellow, so there was definitely a problem.
Those all sound like really big problems that should have dragged down my enjoyment with Psychonauts tremendously and give it a mediocre score, but I still love the game because even though the gameplay department wasn’t strong the other areas Psychonauts succeeds in makes up. Story, writing, characters, humor, artstyle, animation, and how they try to handle mental illnesses and realistic topics in a mature but immature way. Those are what make Psychonauts worth playing all alone, and we don’t see games this charming anymore that appeal to the audience who just want to sit back and have some fun. Remember when video game stories could be fun? Before we Mr. Grizzled Bear, his three copy pasted companions, going hurrah and blasting every other soldier or monster they see. Remember when games had personality and didn’t feel like lifeless cash grabs being thrown into a meat grinder? Yeah? Yeah. Psychonauts is still pretty amazing and I can’t wait to one day pick up the sequel. From what I have heard it fixes a lot of the things wrong with the gameplay from the original, helps answer the questions created by the first game, dives more into mental health, and is the perfect example of how to do a video game sequel. Psychonauts is back. In the end I am going to give Psychonauts a 9/10 for excellence at best.
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