Of course I was going to love Psychonauts 2, the 20-years later miracle sequel to one of my all-time favorite games. Every level was fun to play at worst and stunning at best, and if there were no Milkman-level levels then at least there were no meat circuses in the entire bunch. Deeper characters? We got deeper characters, baby. We’re talking Jack Black as a gay hippie learning how to use his five senses again after spending years without a body, his alcoholic depressed husband finally learning to process his grief, dogen boole’s father battling a nasty case of co-dependency, and Raz learning about the importance of consent in a riff on the meat circus from the last game, this one being a casino-hospital. We have a great surprise twist villain late in the game with probably the most fun level out of all of them, and czarist Russian kitsch to boot. We have Lilli no longer just a stock tsundere character but a fun supporting character with motivations of her own. I mean the first game treated its mentally ill characters sympathetically, but it was still a Saturday morning cartoon tone, they never made me want to weep. Psychonauts 2, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fard and shid your pant.
Why did I only give it 4.5 stars instead of a perfect five? I’m so glad you asked. The one thing that cost the game an entire half star is the interns. The goddam interns. I hate the interns so much.
One of the small joys of the first game among many is interacting with the other children in the camp. It’s a microcosm of any typical middle-school age group of kids: some of them are kind of awkward and weird, some of them are pretty cool, some are annoying but you can’t help but like them anyway, some are irrationally mean and you just stay away from them, and a few of them are just straight-up bullies. It’s entirely optional to interact with the kids after a mission, and often rewarding if you do.
In Psychonauts 2, this diverse group of kids is replaced by about six or so insufferable little cunts. They start out mean to Raz for no reason, and they stay mean for the whole game. And not just mean, but mean in a way that is completely narratively flat. There’s no context in the intern program itself that motivates this behavior, competition or what have you, since no one’s like in danger of getting kicked out one by one, reality-tv show style or anything like that. Theres nothing that differentiates either of them also; one of them is mean but likes yo-yos, one is mean but can also control ice, one of them is mean but also likes indie rock music. One of them fools you by being somewhat nice at first before actually being meaner than all the others. And oh yeah, let’s not forget my favorite one, who is mean to you but ALSO mean to animals! Har de har har.
There is barely a whiff of an opportunity for them to change their attitude when Raz saves them from a tough spot, with Raz having absolutely no motivation to do so outside of “I’m a decent human being and I suppose even these dickheads don’t deserve an eternal I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream fate.” Would you be surprised if I told you they don’t? And after this moment, every single collectible side quest is given to you by these asshole kids. Worse still, the collectibles are all extensions of them being shitty to you. The scavenger quest given to you by Ford Cruller in the first game is like a fun camp activity, whereas here its obviously a waste of time given to you by the head bitchy character who is holding your clothes hostage. Another one involves turning off machines which surprise surprise, the mean intern forgot to tell you are dangerous.
Check out this scene, for example. First of all, it’s important to understand that I already do not like this character at all, and then this game insists that it’s hee-larious to see her treat animals like an emotionally abusive mother for like a minute and a half. It’s an ugly and honestly hard to watch scene, and for what? There’s no narratively-significant reason for this, it just automatically plays when you enter the diner. Look, I’m not that thin-skinned, it could have been funny if like there was a reason for Raz to be here, if like he had to put up with it to get the pancakes from her, or if she was unexpectedly nice before and he was like “sure, pancakes, Sam should be a pushover, how hard could it be,” just like, something, man.
When the bully in the first game, a far less interesting one by the way, first starts doing his bully shit, Raz immediately sticks up for himself. It’s baffling that such a huge chunk of this game, with so many wonderfully-realized supporting characters elsewhere, forces you to watch Raz just become a human punching bag for so long, and it’s exhausting every time you have to sit through it. And then your family shows up, and they’re mean to you too! Jesus!
All this, and then for the tiniest token gesture of support during the final boss where they all get no-scoped anyway, they become junior agents along with Raz! Why? Raz did all the work! I bet you, just like the people you went to high school with who were mean to you and then wonder why you don’t give them the time of day as adults, they’re all going to act like they have a shared experience or some shit that’s going to make them think they’ll be friends forever. Bitch, you stole my clothes on my first day of school, get out of my life!
A stupendous game otherwise, of course, and I guess to be fair, despite all the ink I spilled on it, it’s a small enough issue to just ignore if you really want to.
Why did I only give it 4.5 stars instead of a perfect five? I’m so glad you asked. The one thing that cost the game an entire half star is the interns. The goddam interns. I hate the interns so much.
One of the small joys of the first game among many is interacting with the other children in the camp. It’s a microcosm of any typical middle-school age group of kids: some of them are kind of awkward and weird, some of them are pretty cool, some are annoying but you can’t help but like them anyway, some are irrationally mean and you just stay away from them, and a few of them are just straight-up bullies. It’s entirely optional to interact with the kids after a mission, and often rewarding if you do.
In Psychonauts 2, this diverse group of kids is replaced by about six or so insufferable little cunts. They start out mean to Raz for no reason, and they stay mean for the whole game. And not just mean, but mean in a way that is completely narratively flat. There’s no context in the intern program itself that motivates this behavior, competition or what have you, since no one’s like in danger of getting kicked out one by one, reality-tv show style or anything like that. Theres nothing that differentiates either of them also; one of them is mean but likes yo-yos, one is mean but can also control ice, one of them is mean but also likes indie rock music. One of them fools you by being somewhat nice at first before actually being meaner than all the others. And oh yeah, let’s not forget my favorite one, who is mean to you but ALSO mean to animals! Har de har har.
There is barely a whiff of an opportunity for them to change their attitude when Raz saves them from a tough spot, with Raz having absolutely no motivation to do so outside of “I’m a decent human being and I suppose even these dickheads don’t deserve an eternal I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream fate.” Would you be surprised if I told you they don’t? And after this moment, every single collectible side quest is given to you by these asshole kids. Worse still, the collectibles are all extensions of them being shitty to you. The scavenger quest given to you by Ford Cruller in the first game is like a fun camp activity, whereas here its obviously a waste of time given to you by the head bitchy character who is holding your clothes hostage. Another one involves turning off machines which surprise surprise, the mean intern forgot to tell you are dangerous.
Check out this scene, for example. First of all, it’s important to understand that I already do not like this character at all, and then this game insists that it’s hee-larious to see her treat animals like an emotionally abusive mother for like a minute and a half. It’s an ugly and honestly hard to watch scene, and for what? There’s no narratively-significant reason for this, it just automatically plays when you enter the diner. Look, I’m not that thin-skinned, it could have been funny if like there was a reason for Raz to be here, if like he had to put up with it to get the pancakes from her, or if she was unexpectedly nice before and he was like “sure, pancakes, Sam should be a pushover, how hard could it be,” just like, something, man.
When the bully in the first game, a far less interesting one by the way, first starts doing his bully shit, Raz immediately sticks up for himself. It’s baffling that such a huge chunk of this game, with so many wonderfully-realized supporting characters elsewhere, forces you to watch Raz just become a human punching bag for so long, and it’s exhausting every time you have to sit through it. And then your family shows up, and they’re mean to you too! Jesus!
All this, and then for the tiniest token gesture of support during the final boss where they all get no-scoped anyway, they become junior agents along with Raz! Why? Raz did all the work! I bet you, just like the people you went to high school with who were mean to you and then wonder why you don’t give them the time of day as adults, they’re all going to act like they have a shared experience or some shit that’s going to make them think they’ll be friends forever. Bitch, you stole my clothes on my first day of school, get out of my life!
A stupendous game otherwise, of course, and I guess to be fair, despite all the ink I spilled on it, it’s a small enough issue to just ignore if you really want to.
5 Comments
@vancevalors I am making a DIFFERENCE in people’s LIVES on this websight
Okay, that's totally fair about the interns
But the sequences where they all use their powers together are just so good, and the green-skinned one is hilarious
But the sequences where they all use their powers together are just so good, and the green-skinned one is hilarious
@thealexmott the only one that sort of grew on me in the end was the indie rock dj in the levitating wheelchair
I took the interns as, essentially, worldbuilding around the Psychonauts organization which is depicted as bureaucratic (I couldn't even spell that word close enough for the spell check to know what I meant), inefficient and generally unfair. I agree with you that as story beats they don't go anywhere. But them being promoted alongside Raz at the end I thought was a hilarious commentary on "group work" and how institutions like work and school don't really care about individuals, just aggregated results. Anyway great review I'm glad you liked the game! I'm Day One for anything Double Fine makes.
VanceValors
4 months ago