The design of the world and characters were admittedly a bit off-putting to start, but ended up quickly being one of my favourite parts of the game. I'm not normally big on platformers, and this one certainly has its really, really annoying sections (partially due to its age I expect) but overall it wasn't enough of a problem to complain about. With my attention being immediately grasped as soon as I overcame each hurdle.

Psychonauts definitely has much better concepts and ideas than it does levels and gameplay for the most part, but the balance is there enough that even when I wasn't having fun (per se) I wanted to continue because I knew I would be before too long.

The final level was immensely disappointing, with the platforming being so irritating that this review was almost just "Incoming! Just kidding, you can't catch that! What's the matter Raz?" bc I had to hear those lines so many times. And the final boss was about as underwhelming as it gets.

All that said, overall good time, I'll play the sequel for sure

I probably set myself up to fail for this game by expecting it to be a short, one-sitting 3-4 hour game (screw you HLTB you lying little-!) but here we are.

I didn't know what to expect going into this, but I really enjoyed Hatoful Boyfriend. It was a lil slow to start but was still pretty funny and had its charm.. The early chapters of this, however, were honestly just kinda dull. Chapter 3 was good, and Ch4 was really good, but given how the events unfold it felt as though the first 2 weren't even required as set up for them, so I'm really not sure why half the game was spent on what could've been a single chapter's worth of content, ah well.

Overall, this is saved/carried by its final chapter, the rest of the game has its moments but I didn't really settle in for a good time so much as I was just waiting for it to get good. When it did though, it was right back to what I'd been wanting all along. This game could've easily gotten a 4/5 were it not for the first half of it feeling like a slog for me, the last chapter is well worth playing and I'm really glad it stuck the landing. But unfortunately despite how strong it gets, the early game was honestly just boring, and it wouldn't feel right not to factor that into the score.

Side Note: The trailer on Steam is of the birds all single Jingle Birds.. idk if this is a side-story in the game but it does not happen in the main chapters, I was looking forward to it the whole time goddamnit 😭

Final verdict: If you can speedrun the early chapters paying just-enough attention to keep up, I would recommend this. Otherwise it may only be for you if you really liked the characters from the first game lol

Happy New Year everybody! 🎉

Pretty neat, the perspective gimmick makes for some really interesting puzzles and sorta forces you to think outside the box - which is the whole point, duh.

The ending message is nice but the game could've done with more than just chill BGM for the rest of it. Really missing GLaDOS these days :( Not sure why the finale was what it was either, I'd have just made it a bit shorter and cut that out but hey ho.

Overall had a good time, worth checking out for the couple of hours it takes to beat

Sadly this doesn't feel as built for co-op as the main game or the other DLC. Playing as Josh amounted to spending more time than I'd have liked waiting for Jill to open doors for me, and the times we were together the shotgun was so much slower than her SMG that it felt like she was killing everything before I had a chance to contribute.

The DLC also suffers a fault that the base game was able to avoid due to story and non-combat sections, which is that the BGM is not at all long or interesting enough to listen to for 40 mins straight :p

All that said, in the end we got an S rank first run, and both managed to kill 150 zombies - me getting the last one at the very last second - so it must not have been as imbalanced as it felt. (Oh and Josh/Jill both have sweet melee animations)

Overall, it was alright as like an extra level, not a great level, but shooting stuff with your partner is fun init :)