Developer: Double Fine Productions
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Rrp: £54.99 (Gog.com, Steam and Humblebundle)
Released: 25th August 2021
Available on: Gog.com, Steam and Humblebundle
Played Using: an Xbox One Control Pad
Approximate game length: 18 Hours
Sequels are a funny business, so often the sequel to a game or movie is just not as good as the original. Sure, we can all name exceptions to that statement but when taking into consideration the movie and game industry as a whole the truth of it really comes into focus. Psychonauts 2 doesn’t suffer from this problem thankfully. This a game that improves upon its predecessor not just in graphics and gameplay but also its awareness of mental health and consent, which is important for a game about hoping into peoples minds.
This game is set directly after the events of ‘Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin’, which is a VR game I sadly haven’t been able to play due to lacking any VR equipment.
Thankfully, this game gives a brief rundown of the events of both the first game and ‘Rhombus of Ruin’ for those who are new or may have forgotten (since it’s been about sixteen years since the first game and this one).
You reprise your role as Raz (short for Razputin), who has recently been inducted into the Psychonauts… well sort of, you quickly find out that you’re actually now an ‘Intern’ and not a true Psychonaut yet.
The game controls well and I never felt like the character didn’t move how I wanted them to.. Well except in a few cases where it was intentionally designed to work that way, for example at one point I had Raz balancing and rolling a very large bowling ball and the controls actually felt like I had to accommodate for the momentum of the bowling ball.
Just like in the original game there are a great deal of collectibles to find. However, unlike with most games finding these collectibles will net you a reward as you go. For example, for every one hundred figments you collect you gain a ‘Intern Rank’ (more on that later). Now, you may think that you’d have to go out of your way to collect that many during the course of the game but in this case the opposite is true. Sure, there are lots that are hidden away in nooks and crannies but a great many of them you will collect merely by following the story.
The ranks you attain are called ‘Intern Ranks’. These can be increased in a variety of ways such as finding and combining nine psi cards or a single challenge marker in the real world, or while in a mind collecting a hundred figments, collecting all emotional baggage or nuggets of wisdom. Gaining an Intern Rank gives you a psi point that you can use to improve the various powers you have.
On the subject of powers I wanted to make sure it was known that when you start this game you have all the powers that you had by the end of the first game. I specifically feel like that needed to be mentioned because many games would ‘reset’ you so that you’d have to earn all those powers again. I’m very glad that Double Fine didn’t do that.
This game was originally crowdfunded through the Fig platform before it gained a publisher. Many of these backers names appear within the game if you access the ‘Hall of Brains’.
For a while it looked like Psychonauts 2 was never going to happen as the original publisher fell into bankruptcy. Thankfully, Double Fine was one of many games studios that Microsoft bought and they allowed the game to be brought to fruition.
As I mentioned in the beginning preamble Psychonauts 2 is a lot more considerate of the subject of mental health and consent, in fact it plays a very important role.
The story overall is actually a fair bit darker than that of the first and deals with some heavier themes.
God this was such a joy to play, I won’t lie I was very happy when I saw it announced a long time ago (2015 I think). I’m just glad this game wasn’t a disappointment, if anything I got way more than I expected.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Psychonauts
Yooka Laylee
A Hat in Time
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