This review is x-posted from a previous blog ♥
I had never finished Psychonauts before, but I had played it before. Attempted it at least twice prior, bouncing off after Oleander or Sasha. It was actually my interest in the hype surrounding Psychonauts 2 that inspired me to finish it, which usually isn't the case for me. Unfortunately, I really didn't find much to like in that game! But I remembered the original as a kind of unfinished business for myself, so I wanted to try and see it through genuinely.
I dont have much of a history with Schafer or Double Fine/LucasArts. I like adventure games but they're not a natural fit for me unless they lean towards the esoteric. Point and clicks work fine for me but I am not the most well versed. And I've dabbled in Monkey Island and Grim Fandango but that's really about it. That is to say, I went in without any of that that "moon logic" puzzle bias.
Still, the more salacious of my stances is my aversion to platformers, especially collectathons. I tend towards preferring 3D platformers over 2D ones, I have my pet faves (Klonoa, the lovely fan-translated Napple Tale, Ape Escape as a franchise, the Sonic Adventure duology) but generally I am left a bit cold by the genre. Like, yeah, I grew up playing Super Mario 64 but I don't really have affection for Nintendo platformers like that. And while PS2-era mascot platformers certainly recall being huddled in front of a CRT trying to max out Ty the Tasmanian Tiger or whatever, that is a feeling I rarely play games for anymore. It's really more the collectathon stuff that gets to me, though. I don't feel satisfaction when number goes up, most of the time I feel dread. Deep, existential dread. It's not a them thing, it's a me thing.
Psychonauts then is not a game I have any baked in affection for. It's in a genre I tend against and by a development house I really don't think about. In spite of those odds, I found myself really charmed by Psychonauts and what it presents outwardly. I might go as far as to say I loved it but only in qualified terms.
A lot of games, to my tastes, are best when they are intricate, bespoke dioramas that give you a toolkit built to define and shepherd and express within your engagement with that space and the narrative those interactions produce (on top of whatever more direct narrative is impressed upon by developers over said intersections). A lot of my favorite games are all about this quality, the emphasis on space and player's relationships to it. I think this is the chief success of Psychonauts. Anyone with a modicum of familiarity with the title knows the primary pitch is within its psychic framing, how the levels are mind palaces and reflect on the psyches of characters within the fiction. It works. It really does! But I think more than that the primary hub location won me over. The summer camp setting that the front end of the game takes place in is teeming with its own idiosyncratic artifical life, so vividly drawn and presented, so typically a playground for mechanical expression and exploration, but in the best ways. It's a really memorable locale, filled with little Burton-esque demon children who snort and chortle and gossip and peek and make out. It remains all very elevated and solidly evokes mid-aughts Cartoon Network sensibilities with a healthy dash of Tim Burton/early Laika claymation. I wouldn't be surprised if this was in anyway reciprocatively influential; Camp Lazlo definitely came out after this and the aesthetic of the camp there definitely recalls Whispering Rock, and Paranorman's modeling of humans and ghouls isn't so different if we're being honest. Psychonauts is very sumptuous visually, and individual within the medium, remarkably accomplished for its age on top of being accomplished today, especially in those dioramas of the mind. My favorites visually were all late game, but really after the disappointing Oleander Fields they all basically work for me.
The other key thing is writing. Cards on the table, I don't think the writing is particularly side splitting. I laughed or giggled a bit, especially towards the end, but what I find more valuable is the tone. Psychonauts is very irreverent, very affable too, with a bit of meanness in its bones that actually makes it possible for it to be funny. I'm sorry but "nicecore" comedy like Tim Lasso or whatever the fuck will never be funny to me. Nor will Mike Schur-style character-centric positivity writing. Comedy is subjective (obviously) but I think you need a little embitterment or spite or maliciousness for capital-C Comedy. This is why that run of children friendly softcore outsider art Cartoon Network shows like Courage the Cowardly Dog or The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy worked at all. But that meanness is given levity and a generous spirit. There are tasteless things here but they remain more semantic; the never outright fatshaming, the use of an "Indian burial ground" setting for a government agency (this almost says something and never actually does), how romani caravans are used and described, things like that. the end result though isnt how thatd sound, because the game itself isnt really interested in punching down.
The bigger concern I suppose is the depiction of mental health and, at least to me, I find it simultaneously irreverent and empathetic. Psychonauts absolutely derives lots of jokes from pop psychology and the lack of stability of its cast, but because the most otherwise clear targets of this are given some earnest psychological depth, albeit still in cartoons and cereal terms, it really doesn't feel aggressive. Raz himself is a subtly accepting avatar; your dialogue choices can be reductive in the way pep talks are, but especially in the asylum section he's pretty genuine and well intentioned and non-judgemental. Its not deep but it isn't tasteless or reactionary or interested in low hanging fruit. Also Raz can be outright funny, his little quips kind of go hard, I especially love how he tells seagulls hes psy-blasted "see you in hell!" Like what the hell kid!!
I think Psychonauts, within its chosen temperament, is more comfortable being a weird little era contemporary nasty kids cartoon than it is a statement, but even with that said, occasionally a more gentle hand shows itself. The counsellors, specifically Sasha but also Milla, do frame their lessons in consent, asking students if they are ready, considering how much they can or cannot handle, trying to like teach and be paternal. Raz, as a kid, doesn't think about those things as much, so his use of the psy-portal often neglects any permission, even if his intentions are good. One thing I ended up appreciating to some degree in the sequel is that it doubles back on this point and makes it a thematic sticking point. There is a real sense of camaraderie and belonging developed, as well: all the kids develop their own little relationships; Oleander is accepted back into the fold and forgiven (for some reason!); the psych ward patients end the game torching the asylum that so abused them; the camp, even though its a training ground, functions explicitly to help psychics, often ostracized by their communities, find belonging. This is the sort of genuine kindness I see in the game, its intentions a little more good in nature than its irreverence suggests, and that's really the interesting thing here.
I think the funniest thing in the game aside is definitely the way common game verbs are completely reconsidered in these pop psychology terms. Your collectibles include mental baggage and figments of the imagination, your health becomes mental energy, your lives are layers of astral projection, your bullets are manifested anger composed and then released, level select is collective consciousness, stuff like that. The puzzles aren't as funny per say but I also found them generally intuitive, the only thing I recall looking up was the first stage of the final boss (also Meat Circus Daddy Issue dimension... amazing pitch!). On the movement set, Raz is very dexterous and agile, and while the early game feels a little off, I think the jank makes navigating and circumventing puzzles and platforms really fun and expressive, especially once you get the ball, which has a Marble Blast kind of rolling and momentum physics. The combat is painless, mostly, but especially early on the bosses just feel bad. Boss challenges are all Zelda-style puzzles but they're are typically a bit finnicky and tedious. Platforming never felt bad to me per say but there are some ledges or routes that are more fine tuned than the game comfortably handles. Maybe the most outright ridiculous part of gameplay is that maximum completion necessitates grabbing all figments, and man, a level like Waterloo (remarkably sophisticated and sizeable for the age of the game!) makes that absolutely a maddening proposition. A few psi-cards felt a bit absurd in placement. Collectathons do nothing for me, so I tried to make that stuff negligible for me, and that mostly worked, but I get why someone wouldn't have affection for the gameplay. After Milla's dance party it just feels right to me, though, the lil levitation circus ball is so much fun and so busted, a device that would be the greatest casuality in the hyperpolished transition to the sequel.
My last real complaint is the fucking escort mission navigated through platforming in the early stretches of the final level. Unnecessarily cruel and tedious. Horrible decision for a gimmick in the final level.
So, yeah. All said... really good video game. I get the hype broadly, even though a lot of my friends are more lukewarm/negative on it. It is really kind of singular in a lot of ways, absolutely written in a way it couldn't have been today, designed in a way that only made sense then. But in spite of what faults it had, the charms worked on me, especially in terms of its world and level designs and general aesthetic principles. I had a good time, and I actually felt compelled to finish it after two aborted attempts. Better than I can say for most games like it.