Psychonauts 2 isn't just a follow-up to an old video game, it feels like the Psychonauts game Double Fine always wanted to make, but they had to make the first game in order to be able to tell this story.

Psychonauts 2's story is the star of the show and everything you do in the game works in favor of the narrative. The story is so good, in fact, that it makes the previous Psychonauts games feel like origin stories to the true story of The Psychonauts they tell in this game. Psychonauts 2 is not the sequel to Psychonauts 1. Psychonauts 1 is the prequel to Psychonauts 2.

The writing in the game is wonderful. The major story beats hit hard, the small character moments made me smile, and almost all of the jokes got a good chuckle out of me. But while 95% of the humor is solid, there’s that last 5% that involves a weird amount of barfing jokes that I could’ve done without. There’s one level where the bad jokes paired with a recurring problem where background NPCs trigger dialogue too frequently. I had to actually mute the game in one section to stop hearing an NPC repeat the same barfing noise every few seconds.

Psychonauts 2 not only delivers an incredibly meaningful story continuation to the first game, it also builds on the gameplay foundations Psychonauts established in ways that make Psychonauts 2 feel simultaneously like an old-school 3D platformer from the PS2 era while still managing to go toe-to-toe against modern platformers. I had a blast wandering around the world and collecting everything, so much so that I didn’t mind the little bit of cleanup I had to do at the end of the game. While some of the collectibles were occasionally annoying as they were on non-repeatable sliding sections, or they were designed to blend into the environment, for the most part the game does a good job of making it easy to find what you’re missing during cleanup.

The presentation of the game is also spectacular. They managed to take the goofy style from the original PS2 game and modernize the graphics while remaining faithful to the art design of the Psychonauts world. The visuals and sound design fit the story and game so perfectly, I cannot imagine one without the other.

Weirdly, I did not love the first Psychonauts game. I enjoyed the characters and the story but I didn’t love actually playing it. So, I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the sequel. I certainly did not expect a game that not only feels great to play, but also has one of my favorite video game stories of all time. Psychonauts 2 is one of those video games where you can feel every ounce of love put into it. Tim Schafer and Double Fine really made something special with Psychonauts 2.

+ Phenomenal writing that shines not only in the big moments, but the small moments as well
+ Excellent visuals and art design
+ Great world and level design that are fun to explore
+ Feels great to play
+ Mostly fun collectible hunting

- Stray Thoughts collectibles occasionally annoying to find
- Environmental NPCs trigger dialogue way too frequently