This feels like it emerged from an alternate timeline where 3D platformers never went away, but instead got to keep evolving and experimenting until they reached new heights. It's very impressive what Double Fine has pulled off here, making the best non-Nintendo case for a genre many had written off.
And yet, as good as this is, it's got the same problem that has plagued fellow platformers like Banjo-Tooie, and fellow massive sequels like Portal 2: It's too big and bloated of a follow-up. It's GOOD, and it's MORE Psychonauts...yet it never taps into the brilliant spark at the heart of the first game.
The best mental worlds occur in the first two levels (Loboto's Brain and the Casino Hospital), and from there nothing else really wows the way the triple threat of Milkman Conspiracy, Gloria's Theater, and Waterloo World did in the original. The graphics are astounding, the score and sound design superb, and the character designs delight. But they're all in service of a story that, while quite ambitious and well-written, is so heavy and so melancholy that it really made me miss the whimsical darkness of the first game, which managed to tap into plenty of its own insightful takes on mental health without getting as morose as this one does.
This is a great game, one of the best of the year. Yet it tries to pack in so much so unevenly that it's ultimately a sequel that I feel falls short of its predecessor.
And yet, as good as this is, it's got the same problem that has plagued fellow platformers like Banjo-Tooie, and fellow massive sequels like Portal 2: It's too big and bloated of a follow-up. It's GOOD, and it's MORE Psychonauts...yet it never taps into the brilliant spark at the heart of the first game.
The best mental worlds occur in the first two levels (Loboto's Brain and the Casino Hospital), and from there nothing else really wows the way the triple threat of Milkman Conspiracy, Gloria's Theater, and Waterloo World did in the original. The graphics are astounding, the score and sound design superb, and the character designs delight. But they're all in service of a story that, while quite ambitious and well-written, is so heavy and so melancholy that it really made me miss the whimsical darkness of the first game, which managed to tap into plenty of its own insightful takes on mental health without getting as morose as this one does.
This is a great game, one of the best of the year. Yet it tries to pack in so much so unevenly that it's ultimately a sequel that I feel falls short of its predecessor.