Weirdly enough, Psychonauts 2 is a wholesome game at heart. Of course, this is all sprinkled with platforming, a little combat, and maybe a puzzle or two. For the most part, Raz goes into certain people’s minds, talks to their psyche, and finds out a deep-seated issue, upon which Raz helps them deal with their demons and talks it through with them. The boss fights in Psychonauts 2 are a great mix of hilarity and pattern learning, the stand-out here being a Chef.Ī level outline in Psychonauts 2 follows a pretty established rhythm. Some fan-favorite enemies return such as Censors but the stand out when it comes to enemies is the Anxiety enemy which is sporadic, next to impossible to predict, and tough to defeat. Speaking of enemies, Psychonauts 2 features a varied cast and all of them are based on unpleasant things that can happen in and to someone’s mind. That only takes a brief moment to do so but it is a point of friction, especially when dealing with enemies. Not only that but these powers are mapped to the shoulder buttons, resulting in a lot of switching around. These all feel good to use but an issue arises with there being so many. Whenever you acquire a new one (which is often and the abilities keep coming well into the late game) there is always a short tutorial to show the many uses of these powers. All the tools at the player’s disposal have these multiple layers of use. Plus, this move acts as almost a zipline ability. For example, the Mind Link ability gives Raz the power to not only pull enemies towards him but also change thoughts in the minds of characters. The gameplay in Psychonauts 2 is reminiscent of the first Psychonauts just with different psychic abilities. To speak to the other side of that, there is a moment where a certain character is dealing with loss and the way that the masterminds over at Double Fine have led up to this big crescendoing moment only to have it immediately ripped from Raz as he has to watch that character deal with it had me sobbing for minutes on end. As one of the most heartfelt reunions in games, this scene had me cackling and almost in tears. Where the story really starts to ramp up (without spoiling anything) is in this moment where Raz finds his friends, who he had thought left him eons ago on purpose, and ends with one of my favorite moments in recent gaming. Watching these supposedly seasoned psychics battle with depression, guilt, and in particular anxiety is dead on. The way the characters grow in Psychonauts 2 is absolutely astonishing. The second style of storytelling found in Psychonauts 2 is on the other extreme of the scale, playing into thought-provoking and deep character stories that are ever-evolving. That being said, comedy, especially in video games, varies wildly from person to person. Humor is incredibly hard to nail in a game but the minds over at Double Fine have nailed this time and time again with Psychonauts and Brutal Legend just to name a few, but they have sailed it out of the park again with almost all their jokes hitting home. If anything, Psychonauts 2 has two storytelling styles. There was no point during the game that felt like a slowdown. Psychonauts 2 does a fantastic job of playing out the story through the viewpoint of whoever’s mind the player is inside of through half-thoughts in the brain of the character to Raz directly dealing with the twisted view the characters have of themselves in their own mind. At the outset of the game, the player is thrust into the mind of Loboto which is stunningly disgusting and crafted almost entirely out of teeth, but it gives Raz and the game a good introduction to the basics of the gameplay while teasing bits of the story that slowly gets its hook into the player.
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