Review: Psychonauts

Psychonauts

Psychonauts is a entertaining platformer/action game, along the lines of Banjo-Kazooie. It generally has a rather silly atmosphere – people’s brains get popped out by sneezing powder, the script is generally hilarious, and the worlds themselves are often whimsical. However, the game also has darker moments – people’s brains are getting stolen by the evil drill sergeant, and the final level – the “meat circus” – is very nightmarish.

The gameplay itself is quite good. You have all the basic abilities of most BK-ish games – jump, double-jump, and punch to start with, and over time, you gain new psychic abilities – levitation (which is really just super-jumping combined with gliding), pyrokinesis (nifty, but dangerous – you can set yourself on fire of you hit someone that’s too close), telekinesis (not handled as cool as in Psi-Ops or Destroy All Humans – here, you have to stand still to use telekinesis, and you can only move other objects by tossing them, not walking around with them), Invisibility (quite nifty, even if it isn’t greater invisibility), Clairvoyance (not particularly useful – lets you see through the eyes of others), Blast (basic mind laser), Shield (reflects projectiles, blocks attacks, makes you stand still – handy, but something of a game breaker if used correctly, especially against the final boss – but not too bad of one), and Stun Grenades (pretty handy, I assume – I didn’t use them much). All in all, a pretty decent arsenal for such a game, even if some of the powers are of questionable usability.

The worlds themselves are rather zany – the idea is, you go inside people’s minds and solve their mental problems or pass some sort of test. The worlds, thus, tend to be somewhat kooky – a spy who thinks she should be a TV star has a very bright, colorful party brain, a man with multiple personalities (one of them being Napoleon) is playing a board game in his mind with Napoleon, which you go into and win, and an insane mailman has a conspiracy-filled neighborhood in which you look for “the milkman.” The level design is usually quite good – the platforming is never too easy or too hard, and the bosses are a bit on the easy side, but not too bad – that’s really to be expected, given the genre.

Really, I don't see how this game got a reputation as being wildly original. I suppose its story premise is pretty unique - psychic camp, go inside people's minds as levels, but the gameplay is very little that Banjo-Kazooie didn't already cover. Don't get me wrong, I really liked Psychonauts, but the reputation it's gotten strikes me as odd.

Lessons to be learned:

Zany worlds are fun, if you can do it right. Never knowing exactly what’s going to happen in the next world is quite cool. Of course, the player should never worry about what’s coming next – the levels need to be good in zany ways, not lame in zany ways.

A good array of powers is key. Make people look forward to getting the next power.

Upgrading existing powers in fun ways is also quite nice, and is a good thing for collectibles to grant.