Where oh where do I begin with Psychonauts? This is one of those cult favorites that managed to seep just enough into mainstream news to garner attention to the point where, many years later, a fan-funded sequel awaits release. Unfortunately, just like most cult classics shot into the public consciousness, there is only a niche appeal brought about by a singular facet. The rest of the title remains a slog with too many flaws present: flaws that prevent it from being recommendable.
The first thing that will immediately catch your attention are the character models- they are absolutely hideous. When I first saw Psychonauts, I genuinely thought it was about a group of aliens with psychic powers, but no, these are full-fledged human beings, and they are eyesores to say the least. I’ve always been an advocate for unique art styles, but the end result has to be palatable and aesthetically pleasing. Hey Arnold pushed the boundaries, for example, but at least it managed to fulfill the latter requirement. Take the kids from Hoodwinked and deform them even more and you have Psychonauts. Body/head proportions are messed-up, skin tones range from pale to diseased, and facial organs are downright demented. I don’t know how anyone could have possibly believed this to be a good idea.
To be kind of fair, the backstory of the game states that a new element from a fallen meteor caused the psychic mutations in the first place, and it is possible that these genetic alterations transgressed into physical manifestations; however, that aspect isn’t stated, and even if it was, it doesn’t diminish the fact that at least some of your characters should be okay to gaze at. Not helping things is the color palette choice for the camp hub: a cliché mix of browns and greens that convey discount-boot camp ala military camo at the expense of the visual splendor typically provided by video game worlds (thankfully, the worlds you travel to contrast this well, but more on that later).
Objectively speaking, the game is graphically solid. I was genuinely surprised to learn that this was a PS2/Xbox title as it truly is well-crafted. You have succinct shadow mapping, particle effects for powers, and models that avoid falling into that weird uncanny valley the PS2 era’s polygons were infamous for. Psychonauts’s characters may be ugly, but the art style they occupy is distinct- stylized, yet malleable to the point where it naturally adapts to the numerous unique worlds you venture into. While there are a lot of copy/pasted simulacra, these planes themselves are all well-detailed and showcase that real effort was put into the conceptual phase. Take a look at the Milkman’s dreamscape: roads bend and twist at odd angles against an uneasy suburbia atmosphere of whites and greys. This is completely at odds with Lungfishopolis, whose towering skyscrapers and darkly-lit metropolis evoke images of old-school Kaiju films. The campgrounds may have faltered aesthetically, but Double Fine more than made up for it with the mindtrips.
I wish I could say that the story impetus driving you to enter each of these places was strong or entertaining enough on its own merits, but this is the second area where Psychonauts just misses the mark. The premise is semi-interesting: children born with these cognitive mutations are groomed into soldiers called Psychonauts under the guise of going to summer camp. There were easily themes of child soldiering and deconditioning that could have been addressed here; however, I would have also been fine with a straight forward adventure to maintain the kid-friendly schematic. But one thing you’ll consistently find in Psychonauts is that it veers between the adult and child atmospheres without settling for one or even a balance: it’s this bizarre variation wherein you’ll get instances of child abuse, orphanages burned to the ground, and animal cruelty thrown haphazardly against teenage love, gross-out humor, and fart jokes. Personally, I’ve just never been a fan of this kind of seesawing in tone; it’s not that you can’t incorporate both, but they have to be on the same tonal wavelength. South Park frequently incorporates both, but it’s purely for humorous intentions. Likewise with the Farrelly Brothers’ older movies like Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary- it’s all for the sake of comedy, so it’s consistent.
Psychonauts, on the other hand, is serious when it’s serious and (pathetically) comedic when it’s throwing jokes into the mix. And because the transition between the two is too forced and out-of-place, I personally wasn’t able to get invested into the storyline. Main character Raz has the always appealing motivation of wanting to get out of his parents’ shadow and embrace his own destiny, but you never know when to take it as genuine adolescent drama or some tongue-in-cheek set-up for a joke that will 9 times out of 10 fall flat. It’s not just Raz- it’s every single instance of seriousness: a character may get kidnapped, tortured, or outright beaten, but you won’t ever figure out the intent until well after the fact. It truly is an example of good concept, very bad execution.
To add salt to the injuries, I found most of the cast flat-out annoying. Not enough to be irate, but more than adequate to be little more than shrilly caricatures. Most of the camp attendees have little personality to them beyond a singular trait, which was to be expected from a cast this big, but that didn’t mean it had to go into tiresome territory. They barely play a part in the story minus being victims, and the times where they are more prominent (usually on the side talking to each other) tend to see them at their most archetypal indulgent. This extends tenfold to the minions in each subconscious world, though at least those guys were often entertaining enough. There are some exceptions, like Dogen, Lili, and counselors Milli & Sasha, but they are too few and far between.
For all my negativity, the soundscape is solid. Granted, a lot of your psychic attacks have rehashed dins, and the reskinned enemies ensure that their cries and jeers contain a similar resonance. However, this was pretty atypical of the PS2 era, so it doesn’t feel out of place. And there’s enough visual variety in the worlds to prevent it from feeling like you’re redoing things.
The music isn’t as strong as I wanted it to be. I noted how the subworlds are diverse, with most of them paying clear homage to movies and period pieces, but the score didn’t accentuate things as much as I would have liked. It plays more like the kind of tunes you’d hear during the action beats of a flick- sure, it’s entertaining and fits the scene, but without a powerful leitmotif, it ends up being backgroundy to a fault. I can’t say I recall the tracks from anyplace except the paint world.
Voice acting, as seems to be atypical of Double Fine, is great. Unfortunately, unlike in Grim Fandango where the multi-faceted personalities of the characters gave the voice artists a basis to truly perform, Psychonauts aforementioned grating characterizations prevent the cast from reaching their potential. Let me put it this way- everyone hits the right intonations and volume, but they are ultimately filling in a square when a good script would’ve given them a pyramid, if that makes sense. The limitations imposed on them, combined with the hackneyed arcs, conflicts, and emotional shifts, prevent anyone from truly embracing their character. The one exception to this has to be Nika Futterman as Dogen. Gosh dang, did she do an excellent job hitting that balance between scared innocence and sociopathic insidiousness that could only come from a psychologically-transmogrified child.
Finally, we come to the gameplay. The first thing I need to criticize is the confusopoly in place here. The term confusopoly was coined to describe games whose economic systems relied on multiple forms of currency for the sake of consciously and subconsciously encouraging the purchasing of microtransactions (think Assassin’s Creed Unity with its Creed points, helix points, Livres, etc…). I’m using it slightly differently here in reference to collectables: the amount of collectables and their integral role in the gameplay system in-place. If I was conducting a professional review, I would definitely do extensive research to better explain everything, but as this is an informal critique, I reserve the right be slightly lazy. The reality is Psychonauts has a lot of items for you to find, whether it’s purple Indian leaves that serve as currency for the store, mind glyphs that apparently increase the power of your abilities, spiderwebs that disclose secrets, baggage tags that unlock baggage cases that apparently house more secrets, vaults that have reels with even more secrets, orbs that increase your psi-powers in different ways, and more that I am sure I am missing. These are thrown at you one after the other, and you kind of have to accept that they are worth finding despite their alleged importance being brushed over.
That aside, the actual gameplay is pretty standard. If you ever played games like Mario 64 or old RARE titles for the Nintendo 64, you’ll be familiar with the hub format wherein you’re presented with a main base to then launch off towards other prebuilt areas. Combat primarily involves doing simple strikes, with power boosts added to things like ground pounds and momentum bursts (should you choose to purchase the latter). “Magic” in the form of psychic energy plays a big part, coming in various forms from laser blasts to pyrokinesis to even invisibility amongst many others. While the majority of the non-attack powers are purely used for small puzzles or obstacles here and there, they were well-crafted, making it a shame that more wasn’t done with them. There is a bit of a Metroidvania aspect to the game in the form of being able to revisit worlds you beat, but I honestly can’t say I was motivated to do so due to the extras being little more than collectibles (it also doesn’t help that there’s no way to track collectibles missing from your log, making the whole system as bad as the tokens from DK64 or the flags from the first Assassin’s Creed).
I would also contend that the hub of Whispering Rock was wasted. Many hub centres in other releases tend to feature hidden secrets you can uncover as you gather more abilities (think Isle Delfino from Super Mario Sunshine or the lion's share of LEGO games). That isn’t the case here- outside of buried piles of arrowheads, there isn’t much to uncover: you won’t even need or want half the stuff that is purchasable in the general store. Sure, you can find characters engaging in unique conversations (or, in the case of Dogen, monologues), but, as Psychonauts isn’t a walking sim, that isn’t an incentive to wander around. It’s sad too because this is a big place that was well thought-out by the architects: Whispering Rock borders Batman: Arkham Asylum’s titular madhouse in terms of wide-ranging scope. That they give you a fast travel system and a psychic orb to dash about on indicates Double Fine wanted you to explore the area- it’s too bad they forgot to provide awards for doing so.
Not helping things is this stupid aversion to water that Raz has: it’s technically given a story reason (his family is predicted to drown), but I’m 90% sure it was only created b/c the developers were too lazy to program swimming mechanics, which would be fine if the game didn't have a, you know, GIANT LAKE next to its camp hub.
So yeah, overall, I cannot recommend Psychonauts. Its impressive graphical output is countered by an unappeasing art-style, its OST lacks the oomph factor necessitated by a diverse world, and all the different collectibles and their associated incomes will confuse you over entertain you.
The first thing that will immediately catch your attention are the character models- they are absolutely hideous. When I first saw Psychonauts, I genuinely thought it was about a group of aliens with psychic powers, but no, these are full-fledged human beings, and they are eyesores to say the least. I’ve always been an advocate for unique art styles, but the end result has to be palatable and aesthetically pleasing. Hey Arnold pushed the boundaries, for example, but at least it managed to fulfill the latter requirement. Take the kids from Hoodwinked and deform them even more and you have Psychonauts. Body/head proportions are messed-up, skin tones range from pale to diseased, and facial organs are downright demented. I don’t know how anyone could have possibly believed this to be a good idea.
To be kind of fair, the backstory of the game states that a new element from a fallen meteor caused the psychic mutations in the first place, and it is possible that these genetic alterations transgressed into physical manifestations; however, that aspect isn’t stated, and even if it was, it doesn’t diminish the fact that at least some of your characters should be okay to gaze at. Not helping things is the color palette choice for the camp hub: a cliché mix of browns and greens that convey discount-boot camp ala military camo at the expense of the visual splendor typically provided by video game worlds (thankfully, the worlds you travel to contrast this well, but more on that later).
Objectively speaking, the game is graphically solid. I was genuinely surprised to learn that this was a PS2/Xbox title as it truly is well-crafted. You have succinct shadow mapping, particle effects for powers, and models that avoid falling into that weird uncanny valley the PS2 era’s polygons were infamous for. Psychonauts’s characters may be ugly, but the art style they occupy is distinct- stylized, yet malleable to the point where it naturally adapts to the numerous unique worlds you venture into. While there are a lot of copy/pasted simulacra, these planes themselves are all well-detailed and showcase that real effort was put into the conceptual phase. Take a look at the Milkman’s dreamscape: roads bend and twist at odd angles against an uneasy suburbia atmosphere of whites and greys. This is completely at odds with Lungfishopolis, whose towering skyscrapers and darkly-lit metropolis evoke images of old-school Kaiju films. The campgrounds may have faltered aesthetically, but Double Fine more than made up for it with the mindtrips.
I wish I could say that the story impetus driving you to enter each of these places was strong or entertaining enough on its own merits, but this is the second area where Psychonauts just misses the mark. The premise is semi-interesting: children born with these cognitive mutations are groomed into soldiers called Psychonauts under the guise of going to summer camp. There were easily themes of child soldiering and deconditioning that could have been addressed here; however, I would have also been fine with a straight forward adventure to maintain the kid-friendly schematic. But one thing you’ll consistently find in Psychonauts is that it veers between the adult and child atmospheres without settling for one or even a balance: it’s this bizarre variation wherein you’ll get instances of child abuse, orphanages burned to the ground, and animal cruelty thrown haphazardly against teenage love, gross-out humor, and fart jokes. Personally, I’ve just never been a fan of this kind of seesawing in tone; it’s not that you can’t incorporate both, but they have to be on the same tonal wavelength. South Park frequently incorporates both, but it’s purely for humorous intentions. Likewise with the Farrelly Brothers’ older movies like Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary- it’s all for the sake of comedy, so it’s consistent.
Psychonauts, on the other hand, is serious when it’s serious and (pathetically) comedic when it’s throwing jokes into the mix. And because the transition between the two is too forced and out-of-place, I personally wasn’t able to get invested into the storyline. Main character Raz has the always appealing motivation of wanting to get out of his parents’ shadow and embrace his own destiny, but you never know when to take it as genuine adolescent drama or some tongue-in-cheek set-up for a joke that will 9 times out of 10 fall flat. It’s not just Raz- it’s every single instance of seriousness: a character may get kidnapped, tortured, or outright beaten, but you won’t ever figure out the intent until well after the fact. It truly is an example of good concept, very bad execution.
To add salt to the injuries, I found most of the cast flat-out annoying. Not enough to be irate, but more than adequate to be little more than shrilly caricatures. Most of the camp attendees have little personality to them beyond a singular trait, which was to be expected from a cast this big, but that didn’t mean it had to go into tiresome territory. They barely play a part in the story minus being victims, and the times where they are more prominent (usually on the side talking to each other) tend to see them at their most archetypal indulgent. This extends tenfold to the minions in each subconscious world, though at least those guys were often entertaining enough. There are some exceptions, like Dogen, Lili, and counselors Milli & Sasha, but they are too few and far between.
For all my negativity, the soundscape is solid. Granted, a lot of your psychic attacks have rehashed dins, and the reskinned enemies ensure that their cries and jeers contain a similar resonance. However, this was pretty atypical of the PS2 era, so it doesn’t feel out of place. And there’s enough visual variety in the worlds to prevent it from feeling like you’re redoing things.
The music isn’t as strong as I wanted it to be. I noted how the subworlds are diverse, with most of them paying clear homage to movies and period pieces, but the score didn’t accentuate things as much as I would have liked. It plays more like the kind of tunes you’d hear during the action beats of a flick- sure, it’s entertaining and fits the scene, but without a powerful leitmotif, it ends up being backgroundy to a fault. I can’t say I recall the tracks from anyplace except the paint world.
Voice acting, as seems to be atypical of Double Fine, is great. Unfortunately, unlike in Grim Fandango where the multi-faceted personalities of the characters gave the voice artists a basis to truly perform, Psychonauts aforementioned grating characterizations prevent the cast from reaching their potential. Let me put it this way- everyone hits the right intonations and volume, but they are ultimately filling in a square when a good script would’ve given them a pyramid, if that makes sense. The limitations imposed on them, combined with the hackneyed arcs, conflicts, and emotional shifts, prevent anyone from truly embracing their character. The one exception to this has to be Nika Futterman as Dogen. Gosh dang, did she do an excellent job hitting that balance between scared innocence and sociopathic insidiousness that could only come from a psychologically-transmogrified child.
Finally, we come to the gameplay. The first thing I need to criticize is the confusopoly in place here. The term confusopoly was coined to describe games whose economic systems relied on multiple forms of currency for the sake of consciously and subconsciously encouraging the purchasing of microtransactions (think Assassin’s Creed Unity with its Creed points, helix points, Livres, etc…). I’m using it slightly differently here in reference to collectables: the amount of collectables and their integral role in the gameplay system in-place. If I was conducting a professional review, I would definitely do extensive research to better explain everything, but as this is an informal critique, I reserve the right be slightly lazy. The reality is Psychonauts has a lot of items for you to find, whether it’s purple Indian leaves that serve as currency for the store, mind glyphs that apparently increase the power of your abilities, spiderwebs that disclose secrets, baggage tags that unlock baggage cases that apparently house more secrets, vaults that have reels with even more secrets, orbs that increase your psi-powers in different ways, and more that I am sure I am missing. These are thrown at you one after the other, and you kind of have to accept that they are worth finding despite their alleged importance being brushed over.
That aside, the actual gameplay is pretty standard. If you ever played games like Mario 64 or old RARE titles for the Nintendo 64, you’ll be familiar with the hub format wherein you’re presented with a main base to then launch off towards other prebuilt areas. Combat primarily involves doing simple strikes, with power boosts added to things like ground pounds and momentum bursts (should you choose to purchase the latter). “Magic” in the form of psychic energy plays a big part, coming in various forms from laser blasts to pyrokinesis to even invisibility amongst many others. While the majority of the non-attack powers are purely used for small puzzles or obstacles here and there, they were well-crafted, making it a shame that more wasn’t done with them. There is a bit of a Metroidvania aspect to the game in the form of being able to revisit worlds you beat, but I honestly can’t say I was motivated to do so due to the extras being little more than collectibles (it also doesn’t help that there’s no way to track collectibles missing from your log, making the whole system as bad as the tokens from DK64 or the flags from the first Assassin’s Creed).
I would also contend that the hub of Whispering Rock was wasted. Many hub centres in other releases tend to feature hidden secrets you can uncover as you gather more abilities (think Isle Delfino from Super Mario Sunshine or the lion's share of LEGO games). That isn’t the case here- outside of buried piles of arrowheads, there isn’t much to uncover: you won’t even need or want half the stuff that is purchasable in the general store. Sure, you can find characters engaging in unique conversations (or, in the case of Dogen, monologues), but, as Psychonauts isn’t a walking sim, that isn’t an incentive to wander around. It’s sad too because this is a big place that was well thought-out by the architects: Whispering Rock borders Batman: Arkham Asylum’s titular madhouse in terms of wide-ranging scope. That they give you a fast travel system and a psychic orb to dash about on indicates Double Fine wanted you to explore the area- it’s too bad they forgot to provide awards for doing so.
Not helping things is this stupid aversion to water that Raz has: it’s technically given a story reason (his family is predicted to drown), but I’m 90% sure it was only created b/c the developers were too lazy to program swimming mechanics, which would be fine if the game didn't have a, you know, GIANT LAKE next to its camp hub.
So yeah, overall, I cannot recommend Psychonauts. Its impressive graphical output is countered by an unappeasing art-style, its OST lacks the oomph factor necessitated by a diverse world, and all the different collectibles and their associated incomes will confuse you over entertain you.