Psychonauts 2 review: a Freudian adventure with a flood of lighthearted ideas

Psychonauts 2 It begins with the camera scrolling through the textured contours of a giant brain. At this scale, the complex organ appears topographical: each curve is a hill in the landscape of the mind. The image reminded me of one of the most common editions of Sigmund Freud’s landmark. The interpretation of Dreams. The cover image showed a pastoral scene of rolling green hills. Or was it a lady lying with her back to us? Or a large bull dozing among the gentle slopes? I think the idea here is that dreams and the unconscious mind in general work metaphorically. Things are seldom what they seem, and one thing often takes the place of the other.

Of course, Freud and his psychoanalytic techniques have a troubled history. Turns out, when you search people’s minds and try to solve all their problems, you can sometimes end up making things worse. Psychonauts 2 seems well aware of this fact. He handles a litany of complex psychological problems, and some darker issues, with a lot of warmth and compassion to go with all the humor.

Picking up where the original game left off, you are immediately thrown into the mind of former dentist Dr. Loboto. Along with other members of the Psychonauts, an elite group of psychic secret agents, you help build an alternate reality for Loboto to attempt to manipulate into delivering information. These first levels are something like Christopher Nolan’s Start – a team of spies working together to infiltrate and overcome the defenses of the mind.

Loboto’s mindscape is a grayish realm of body horror. Fleshy pink walls line the level, while the teeth with teeth require you to unzip them using telekinesis. You will fight monsters of the mind (“Wailing” and “Doubt” in physical form) while collectibles like “Emotional Baggage” and “Repressed Memories” are hidden secrets, high up in dark corners or behind secret doors and false walls. .

Img: Double Fine Productions

Memories give you snippets of the backstory of the mind you’re in, but many of the other collectibles, including the bright neon “Figments of Imagination” littering the landscape, simply level up your psychonaut rank. I am not a completist, but I enjoyed the enthusiastic theme of Psychonauts 2collectibles, constantly taking you off the beaten track and into unknown nooks and crannies.

There is a kind of contagious energy to Psychonauts 2. The scenes are as exciting as the best Saturday morning cartoons, and the dialogue, in its true Double Fine form, is snappy and full of puns. After a mission where you head to a huge casino complex, Psychonauts 2 settles into a more interior-focused rhythm.

Most of the game takes place around the Psychonauts headquarters. A large part of the game involves investigating how the international group of psychics began. The six founders are all shattered men and women, minds filled with trauma and dark secrets related to a confrontation that occurred 20 years earlier. Much of playtime involves opening up these people and helping them deal with the problems they have suppressed.

Not to mention the physical world of Psychonauts It’s boring – it features an upward-flowing waterfall, a vast treetop playground, and a funicular to name just a few things, but it’s the ten mental worlds you enter the most vivid and unique.

Psychonaut 2The levels are some of the most inventive in the platformer genre. There’s an over-the-top cooking game show where you transport food through a giant platforming glove. There is also a huge sorting office in the mail room where you jump from flying envelope to flying envelope, while avoiding the letter vortex below. You’ll visit one dream landscape after another, highly imaginative and gravity bending.

Like a back and forth platformer Psychonauts 2 it also has its own. Along with her satisfying little jumps is her levitation ability, which allows her to float through landscapes and summon a ball of levitation to ride on, like a circus performer’s traveling balloon. There are some thick sections that focus on the mechanics of rolling the ball, and it’s a true testament that they were never frustrating. Not quite Marble madness or Monkey ball, but not many miles away.

Only a few new psychic powers are introduced in the sequel. There is an ability to stop time where you can slow things that spin too fast; and a projection power that lets you create a small paper version of yourself to distract enemies. You can often use these abilities in imaginative ways, such as using pyrokinesis to light a campfire, creating an upward gust of wind to match your levitation ability.

Img: Double Fine Productions

How you help the founders of Psychonaut struggling later in the game is a far cry from how protagonist Razputin handles things from the start. Gone is spy bravado, meddling, and memory overwriting. Instead, we have themes of empathy and responsibility. You are not entering the mind to fix people, but to support them and help them cope with the mistakes of the past. Weather Psychonauts 2 it treats many of these complex psychological problems admirably, it is a bit more unstable at some historical points.

Razputin is from a traveling family, and much of Psychonauts 2 broaden this background. Raz’s family is revealed to originate from the fictional and vaguely Russian nation of “Grulovia”. But there are some unfortunate stereotypes at play here. Grulovia is portrayed as a failed state, torn apart by war and oppression in a similar way to Arstotzka from Papers please. The game sympathizes with this place, and even criticizes the interference of ultra-American psychonauts there, but it still relies heavily on ideas of a tragic Eastern European state. Wrapped up in this is the weakest level in the game: an annoying tour of a museum filled with mechanical puppets and brimming with propaganda. It is reminiscent of the equally gruesome “Hall of Heroes” level. Bioshock Infinite.

Despite some awkward stereotypes, Psychonauts 2The heart is in the right place. It does justice to most of its characters, as it cleverly wields a complex web of dark themes. Raz is an incredible protagonist, and a lot of the recurring characters, especially the gang of new interns, are also a lot of fun. For fans of the original game, Psychonauts 2 is a fantastic follow-up that delivers a constant tide of twists and turns. Whether you’ve been waiting 15 years for the sequel or are interested in seeing the series. For the first time, rest assured, this is one of the most imaginative platformers out there, with an absolute flood of ideas and lighthearted visuals.

Psychonauts 2 It will be released on August 25 on Windows PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on Xbox using a pre-launch download code provided by Double Fine Productions. Vox Media has affiliate associations. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information on Polygon’s ethics policy here.