One major difference is that practically all adventure game-esque inventory puzzles are gone, save for a section or two that’ll require you to think outside of the box. While the levels here might not have the same high level of pointed originality of classics like Lungfishopolis, Waterloo World, or the Milkman Conspiracy (although, time will certainly tell on that front), level design overall is markedly better. Much as you’d expect, Psychonauts 2 sees Raz traveling into several brains, often to help folks overcome a trauma or mental block.
And unlike the first game, each mind Raz jumps into feels truly important to the overall narrative, as opposed to how the asylum felt like a series of fetch quests, despite that area featuring the game’s best levels. This leads to mysteries and revelations that make the story constantly engrossing. The basic premise, here, is that there’s a mole in the HQ working with individuals who wish to bring back a powerful foe from the Psychonauts’ past. The game is funny, charming, touching, and purely entertaining from start to finish. Although Psychonauts 2 repeats the original game’s mistake of having too much of the cast vanish while Raz jumps into some minds, the writing and voice work is all Pixar quality. I suppose the story direction pivoted in the last few years. Truman Zanotto, who was clearly awake and talking at the end of RoR, is now comatose due to said retcon. Raz has finally made it to the Psychonauts headquarters, only to be surprised by getting made a mere intern after he ended up stopping Oleander’s brain tank world domination plan. Psychonauts 2 picks up immediately after Rhombus of Ruin (although it gets part of its ending jarringly retconned), which itself picked up directly from the first game. This isn’t just one of the best games of the year, it’s one of the best 3D platformers in existence. Thankfully, Psychonauts 2 not only successfully captures all of the character and zany joy of the original, but improves upon nearly every aspect of its gameplay and narrative pacing. Psychonauts is truly beloved for many great reasons, so the odds of Double Fine being able to live up to all the hopes fans were pinning on the sequel seemed like quite the tall order. But a little over a decade after the original release, a Kickstarter popped up that thankfully proved me wrong. For a long time, I didn’t think we’d actually ever get a Psychonauts 2.
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