Another Tim Schaffer game on the list and only so long after I just talked about Brutal Legend. I am aware that Schaffer games have a really weird style of creativity and humor to them and are always meant for a more niche demographic. And I am in that demographic. That said, this is Psychonauts, a game to kinda break the mold of the niche… maybe. Probably. Not really.
Psychonauts follows the character Rasputin, or Raz for short, who is a Psychonaut in training, special agents who use the power of their mind to do incredible powers. With these powers, Raz has to stop a conspiracy in the camp of other Psychonauts in training while entering the minds of all sorts of characters. And let me just say that this game is so creative that it is hard not to love it. The hubworld, the camp, is interesting enough with levitating bears and all sorts of items for you to collect, but the levels where you explore the minds of people is where the game is really at. Some of my favorite levels in the game are, well hell, it’s hard to say. A majority of them are a lot of fun. My favorites are the minds of the asylum residents, like Boyd, Edgar, Gloria, and Fred. My favorite levels would be Lungfishopolis, where you are a giant walking around and destroying the city, Waterloo World where you play a boardgame in order to beat Fred’s rival, Gloria’s Theater which is just one big puzzle for you to solve while ignoring the words of a rude critic. Black Velvetopia, which has so much visual style that I love it. I just like that Mexican art style a lot. And my favorite level, The Milkman Conspiracy. You wanna get a damn good laugh from this game, play the Milkman Conspiracy level. Brutal Legend was a pretty funny game, but all I ever got out of it was like a chuckle. In Psychonauts, I was laughing real damn hard the whole time. The characters are also a ton of fun. You will not be able to predict what these characters’ personalities are. It’s so insane. It’s like this game was written by a madman who binged a whole lot of cartoons in the early 2000s. I will say some of the character models look disgusting, but I like how over-exaggerated they are. And the amount of stuff for you to collect. Mental Cobwebs, Emotional Baggage, backstories for characters, a metric fuck ton of Mental Projections, and a bunch of other techniques for you to learn like Pyrokinesis, Third Eye, and more.
Psychonauts is just an all around charming game and one that I love to play over and over again just for the amount of insanity and humor. I didn’t know what to say when I heard that Psychonauts 2 was finally getting made, but after being able to enjoy the first game, yeah, I think it’s safe to say I’m more than excited.