The original Psychonauts is an interesting game with a plethora of issues that mar it from being a much better experience. You would think with how accalimed this game is that its problems as a 3D platformer from 2005 would be lightened, however they are extremely antagonistic to the user experience and make for an overall bad time playing.
What's good about Psychonauts is its take on tackling mental health and the stigma around such. Dr. Loboto as a villain is completely overblown and quick to lobotomize patients and the cast who Raz helps are all victims of some serious trauma that is portrayed as comedic. This is a great way to ease players into some realistically serious topics, as I assume a majority of people playing are not familiar with. The quickness of society at large to stigmatize and alienate those who suffer from mental illness, often due to environmental trauma or triggers, is staggering and defeating. Psychonauts does a great job at putting this in front of the player, and from a thematic standpoint this game is amazing.
My problems with Psychonauts almost entierly come from a mechanic standpoint, though I am very much NOT a fan of the Tim-Burton esque art style that Tim Schafer seems to love. That really rubs me the wrong way, but I tried not to let it bias my review.
Where it goes awry for me is the abhorrent quest/mission direction and poor platforming. An issue I have with games from the late 90's and early 2000's is that they often struggle with giving and certain point of direction to the players to complete the next task. That is a genuinely antagonistic approach to game design and infuriates me like none other, why not lend your player a hand so that they are best equipped to complete the story? Psychonauts is a criminal offender at this, rarely giving you any hint as to what to do next and I often found myself running in circles trying everything I could. I get that the perfect player is able to do this, but in some points where you need to couple items, psychic powers, and converse with the right NPC there should be some sort of indication to do so. Then you have the platforming which rarely feels rewarding. 3D platformers as a genre are some of the worst aging for this reason, relying on archaic camera angles and poorly placed jumps. That's Psychonauts in a nutshell (especially on the Windows version via gamepass,) if you are not sticking the exact landing on the exact jumps at certain points, you either have a level reset or a series of annoying attempts to redo. This was evident very early on in the game and continued to manifest into something extremely annoying later on. Mario 64 came out 9 years prior and controls 10x better.
Not relevant to that point but the Milkman level, while the most funny in the game, had some of the worst mission design I've experienced in some time. It's an artificially lengthy level that simply boils down to grabbing item a to find item b to find item c to find item d to find item etc... That gameplay loop was simply insufferable.
In summation, Psychonauts is a great game thematically, a not so great game in practice.
What's good about Psychonauts is its take on tackling mental health and the stigma around such. Dr. Loboto as a villain is completely overblown and quick to lobotomize patients and the cast who Raz helps are all victims of some serious trauma that is portrayed as comedic. This is a great way to ease players into some realistically serious topics, as I assume a majority of people playing are not familiar with. The quickness of society at large to stigmatize and alienate those who suffer from mental illness, often due to environmental trauma or triggers, is staggering and defeating. Psychonauts does a great job at putting this in front of the player, and from a thematic standpoint this game is amazing.
My problems with Psychonauts almost entierly come from a mechanic standpoint, though I am very much NOT a fan of the Tim-Burton esque art style that Tim Schafer seems to love. That really rubs me the wrong way, but I tried not to let it bias my review.
Where it goes awry for me is the abhorrent quest/mission direction and poor platforming. An issue I have with games from the late 90's and early 2000's is that they often struggle with giving and certain point of direction to the players to complete the next task. That is a genuinely antagonistic approach to game design and infuriates me like none other, why not lend your player a hand so that they are best equipped to complete the story? Psychonauts is a criminal offender at this, rarely giving you any hint as to what to do next and I often found myself running in circles trying everything I could. I get that the perfect player is able to do this, but in some points where you need to couple items, psychic powers, and converse with the right NPC there should be some sort of indication to do so. Then you have the platforming which rarely feels rewarding. 3D platformers as a genre are some of the worst aging for this reason, relying on archaic camera angles and poorly placed jumps. That's Psychonauts in a nutshell (especially on the Windows version via gamepass,) if you are not sticking the exact landing on the exact jumps at certain points, you either have a level reset or a series of annoying attempts to redo. This was evident very early on in the game and continued to manifest into something extremely annoying later on. Mario 64 came out 9 years prior and controls 10x better.
Not relevant to that point but the Milkman level, while the most funny in the game, had some of the worst mission design I've experienced in some time. It's an artificially lengthy level that simply boils down to grabbing item a to find item b to find item c to find item d to find item etc... That gameplay loop was simply insufferable.
In summation, Psychonauts is a great game thematically, a not so great game in practice.