PurpleMoustache
Member
Psychonauts is on sale for $4 during this PSN Flash Sale, the PS2 to PS4 port, and I figured I'd pick it up and play through it again for the first time in a few years (last played it about 5 years ago on PC), and thought it would be a fun platinum trophy (or near platinum, getting all those figments would kill me). I knew the PS2 version had it's issues (and there's certainly some frame rate drops and lighting issues here and there), but I've noticed a lot of things that didn't age well, or at all.
1. Physics and hitboxes and movement.
Jesus, this game has a lot of hitbox and physics problems. Or it doesn't have hitboxes at all. The game takes place largely outdoors in a summer camp filled with hills and rocky formations, that have curved surfaces, and level designers put collectibles on top of rocks or hills. The problem is that Raz freaks the FUCK out whenever a surface he's standing on isn't perfectly flat. The game will put you into the skating animation and drag you down towards the flattest surface, constantly having you wrestle with the controls when trying to reach a collectible that is on top of a rock that's constantly pushing you off. This problem isn't just in the overworld, I found multiple sections of the Mia's Mind/Levitation training where I was whipped out of levitation, or being on foot to start grinding, or slip away. Other times bouncy pads would "delete" my levitation orb, causing me to fall all the way to the bottom of the section and try again. Platforms are also incredibly thin, and slightly curved towards the edges, meaning that walking in a straight line becomes the greatest challenge I've ever seen. Luckily, even Tim Schafer is quick to admit that Psychonauts 1 isn't the best "playing" game, and has hired someone specifically to make movement feel good in Psychonauts 2, as detailed in this update video.
2. That opening.
While the writing in this game is great, and probably the best thing about it, it feels like someone lost a bet or they ran out of time structuring the opening. It's cutscene after cutscene and it goes from one idea to the next with little through line. Here's the opening, and then here's a save file selection. Here's another cutscene that turns into a "look over here so we can set your camera look settings" idea. Then you wake up and it's another cutscene telling you to go to the first level. You walk up to the first level and there's another cutscene. You go through the first level, and exit in to the main overworld to have Ford Cruller tell you "You can't go on a scavenger hunt without a list" (Wait, there's a scavenger hunt? Since when? When was I told this before now?). It feels like the game has so many systems and collectibles in it, that they had to think of some way to tell you all about it, and instead of teaching you organically, like putting and item in your way and having Raz comment on it, they just front load that shit with cutscenes that have little to any relevance to each other.
3. Cutscenes.
This kind of goes along with the point above, but with my 3.5-ish hours playing Psychonauts, I feel like 2 of those hours are cutscenes. It's probably not, and probably closer to 40 minutes, but it's still a lot. It makes me think that it may have worked better as a movie or TV show, as they clearly wanted to tell this crazy story and set up these crazy situations. Hell, I'd bet a Psychonauts movie would do well, or at the very least become a big cult hit.
4. That section just before Lungfishopolis.
I just finished this and it drove me to write this: who thought that was fun? The game dumps you underwater to have a 1/3rd of a boss fight that equates to "punch the big yellow boxes" and then forces you into a section where the bubble you can live in is constantly moving, and you have to move with it. An autoscroller of sorts, which is nothing wrong, but the camera angle is constantly fighting you. You control yourself from Linda the Lungfish's point of view, which is presented to you like a pair of binoculars on screen, but then the camera swings around so dramatically you lose track of where you are. Not to mention that the pathing for this section isn't well lit or telegraphed, so you end up getting lost, and dying because by the way, if you touch the edge of this level you die. I believe Super Mario 3D World had a level like this, but the camera was locked to sidescrolling perspective, which works so much better. Then you have another "punch the yellow box" section and repeat the autoscroller, until you have a fairly bog-standard boss fight... that doesn't work.
The idea is to have Linda swing her lure into a clam and then punch while you have a window, but Linda's lure and the clam hitboxes are so finicky, I found it worked about 40% of the time. You stand near a clam, and hope for the best, and end up getting hit. Or end up getting hit by the 20 fish and crabs that deal damage that are nearly unavoidable, because you're trying to avoid getting combo'd by Linda. I ended up losing my last life due to not being able to get the lure stuck in a clam and having to repeat the whole section again, which was infuriating.
But I'm still really enjoying it. It's a deeply deeply flawed game, but it's writing is so so good, and the situations are great, and the levels, even if flawed, are consistently creative. I'm interested in seeing how the sequel plans on improving the first, because it needs a lot of improving
1. Physics and hitboxes and movement.
Jesus, this game has a lot of hitbox and physics problems. Or it doesn't have hitboxes at all. The game takes place largely outdoors in a summer camp filled with hills and rocky formations, that have curved surfaces, and level designers put collectibles on top of rocks or hills. The problem is that Raz freaks the FUCK out whenever a surface he's standing on isn't perfectly flat. The game will put you into the skating animation and drag you down towards the flattest surface, constantly having you wrestle with the controls when trying to reach a collectible that is on top of a rock that's constantly pushing you off. This problem isn't just in the overworld, I found multiple sections of the Mia's Mind/Levitation training where I was whipped out of levitation, or being on foot to start grinding, or slip away. Other times bouncy pads would "delete" my levitation orb, causing me to fall all the way to the bottom of the section and try again. Platforms are also incredibly thin, and slightly curved towards the edges, meaning that walking in a straight line becomes the greatest challenge I've ever seen. Luckily, even Tim Schafer is quick to admit that Psychonauts 1 isn't the best "playing" game, and has hired someone specifically to make movement feel good in Psychonauts 2, as detailed in this update video.
2. That opening.
While the writing in this game is great, and probably the best thing about it, it feels like someone lost a bet or they ran out of time structuring the opening. It's cutscene after cutscene and it goes from one idea to the next with little through line. Here's the opening, and then here's a save file selection. Here's another cutscene that turns into a "look over here so we can set your camera look settings" idea. Then you wake up and it's another cutscene telling you to go to the first level. You walk up to the first level and there's another cutscene. You go through the first level, and exit in to the main overworld to have Ford Cruller tell you "You can't go on a scavenger hunt without a list" (Wait, there's a scavenger hunt? Since when? When was I told this before now?). It feels like the game has so many systems and collectibles in it, that they had to think of some way to tell you all about it, and instead of teaching you organically, like putting and item in your way and having Raz comment on it, they just front load that shit with cutscenes that have little to any relevance to each other.
3. Cutscenes.
This kind of goes along with the point above, but with my 3.5-ish hours playing Psychonauts, I feel like 2 of those hours are cutscenes. It's probably not, and probably closer to 40 minutes, but it's still a lot. It makes me think that it may have worked better as a movie or TV show, as they clearly wanted to tell this crazy story and set up these crazy situations. Hell, I'd bet a Psychonauts movie would do well, or at the very least become a big cult hit.
4. That section just before Lungfishopolis.
I just finished this and it drove me to write this: who thought that was fun? The game dumps you underwater to have a 1/3rd of a boss fight that equates to "punch the big yellow boxes" and then forces you into a section where the bubble you can live in is constantly moving, and you have to move with it. An autoscroller of sorts, which is nothing wrong, but the camera angle is constantly fighting you. You control yourself from Linda the Lungfish's point of view, which is presented to you like a pair of binoculars on screen, but then the camera swings around so dramatically you lose track of where you are. Not to mention that the pathing for this section isn't well lit or telegraphed, so you end up getting lost, and dying because by the way, if you touch the edge of this level you die. I believe Super Mario 3D World had a level like this, but the camera was locked to sidescrolling perspective, which works so much better. Then you have another "punch the yellow box" section and repeat the autoscroller, until you have a fairly bog-standard boss fight... that doesn't work.
The idea is to have Linda swing her lure into a clam and then punch while you have a window, but Linda's lure and the clam hitboxes are so finicky, I found it worked about 40% of the time. You stand near a clam, and hope for the best, and end up getting hit. Or end up getting hit by the 20 fish and crabs that deal damage that are nearly unavoidable, because you're trying to avoid getting combo'd by Linda. I ended up losing my last life due to not being able to get the lure stuck in a clam and having to repeat the whole section again, which was infuriating.
But I'm still really enjoying it. It's a deeply deeply flawed game, but it's writing is so so good, and the situations are great, and the levels, even if flawed, are consistently creative. I'm interested in seeing how the sequel plans on improving the first, because it needs a lot of improving