Casi 20 años después es fascinante ver como un gran estilo artístico hace que un juego se vea genial tanto en su momento como ahora. Sí, es cierto que se nota la baja resolución de las texturas y la compresión del audio pero es algo lógico cuando piensas en que este juego tenía que entrar en un DVD. Psychonauts mezcla géneros en lo que es una aventura gráfica disfrazada de plataformas collectathon. La historia es el núcleo y de ahí parten el resto de sus mecánicas, crea mundos coloridos e imaginativos con diálogos entre lo desternillante y lo impactante. Puede que su trato de ciertos trastornos mentales no sea el mejor pero en mi opinión es mejor arriesgarse a tratar ciertas cosas que a dejar que el medio se estanque sin posibilidad de cambio o de maduración, podría ser más sensible en lo que toca pero al menos lo intenta. Mecánicamente a veces es un caos precioso que le da ese punto de no saber si de verdad puedes llegar a un sitio o no. Como maratón de coleccionables es algo desesperante con cosas que no paran de menearse y casi recomendaría no obsesionarse con conseguirlo todo porque te puede dar un parraque. Si te planteas jugar a Psychonauts 2 y no has jugado a este que no te eche para atrás, es muy buen juego y aunque algunos niveles sean un poco desesperantes su carisma y su humor hace que todo ruede fluido, haciéndolo un clásico necesario y casi único que existe gracias a un milagro, como la propia Double Fine.

An enjoyable game overall, but not without its flaws.

It tackles the topic of mental health in an indirect way through a science fiction setting. The main character is literally training to go inside people's minds and battle their personal demons. It's a sensitive subject matter, but it is handled well here. I imagine this is the main reason why the game became so popular. It's probably not something people expected to see in a video game in 2005.

I'd describe the art style as acquired taste. I didn't fall in love with it right away. In fact, it seemed rather odd at first, verging on unappealing. However, it grew on me over time and I found some of the later levels to be particularly beautiful. As is often the case with heavily stylized games, the visuals have aged better than expected. As long as the art style agrees with you, of course.

As far as gameplay is concerned, I particularly enjoyed exploring the world for secrets and collectables. You have a large hub world as well as multiple somewhat open levels that get unlocked as you progress. The environments are large enough to be interesting to explore, but are kept manageable. You should be able to find most collectables by yourself if you are thorough and pay attention, which is something I really appreciate.

The platforming can be fun when it works, but sometimes it does't. For example, you can get stuck in geometry, or fall through holes that are difficult to see, or auto-attach to a rail when you don't want that to happen. In a few cases it was hard to judge depth too. In one of the levels in particular, it felt like I had to break the game to get certain collectables. The jumps the game was expecting me to perform seemed simply impossible and I had to look for ways to jump off nearby geometry to somehow get where I needed to. I found similar complaints online when I looked for help. Overall, it feels somewhat janky, but you may not notice it so much if you're not set on collecting everything.

The combat is not particularly challenging, but it's fun enough and you'll have plenty of options to dispose of enemies by the end of the game. Most of the bosses have some kind of a light puzzle element to them. That's not a bad thing, but a lot of the times I found it difficult to figure out what the game wanted me to do. Sometimes the thing would actually occur to me, but I wasn't doing it exactly how I was supposed to, so I would think it wasn't the solution after all. The game has a neat and seamless help feature where you can contact a character at any time and ask for tips. I like the way it's implemented, but I had to resort to it more often than expected.

A note on the technical side of things. The developers updated the game in 2011, so it supports modern resolutions, works with Xinput controllers and has achievements. I did experience some weird stuttering as if the game was having issues with loading assets, but it went away after I reinstalled on an SSD, rather than a mechanical drive. Could have been something on my end. In any case, the out-of-the box experience is better than you'd expect for a game of this vintage.

So, overall I had a good time with the game and I recommend it. It has some issues, some of them probably age-related, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. I'll be checking out the sequel at some point.

A very interesting experience throughout that rides that line between a point and click adventure game and a platformer. I say it resembles a point and click game because often it has obtuse and strange solutions to its puzzles and combat encounters that can frustrate or be satisfying depending on your tastes. The platforming still feels good despite how old this game is, something many platformers from that generation or earlier struggle with. I think the true strength of Psychonauts is in its aesthetics which evoke that Tim Burton style of dark and cartoony elements blended together. Would recommend to anyone interested in an early showing from Double Fine from years past.

An endlessly creative collectathon platformer from the talented folks over at Double Fine. It's got some OG xbox game jank and the pc port is honestly not good but the game itself stands tall even among games almost 20 years later.

I can't quite overstate how creative it is in it's gameplay elements and presentation. All the brains feel unique and the game has a consistant fun tone with some great jokes sprinkled in. They aren't all hits, but it's enough i can call the game funny. The gameplay is a bit simple, it's a 2005 xbox platformer game, but the mind powers are all pretty well thought out and you can find some fun interactions with pretty much every part of the game. Game falls a bit flat on its face at the end, but honestly it's forgivable, since the game is such a joy up until that part. What a lovely little game this was.