(Above image taken from PCGamer)
[MINOR-ISH (?) SPOILERS BELOW]
I just finished up my playthrough of Psychonauts, a cult classic developed by the acclaimed Double Fine Productions, and my feelings on it are a complicated concoction. On one hand, the game's strongest asset is its creativity and writing. Outlandish and bizarre level design are at a fever pitch here, with every level (or rather, brain) you travel into utilising your newly-developed psychonautic powers, finding figments and mental cobwebs among numerous other collectibles that allow you to increase your psychic ability. One of my favourite examples of the game's eclectic design was using clairvoyance on one of the guards in 'The Milkman Conspiracy' to see what code he was punching into the keypad, which then allowed me to access the room he was protecting. There was almost always an "a-ha!" moment in figuring out puzzles like these (even if the game leaned too heavily on using telekinesis more often than not). There were also times where the game seemed to rely more on moon logic in order to progress, like the gate in the same 'Milkman' level where you have to use clairvoyance and know to jump over a gate in order to make another gate open or stay open...? Although, how much of that is me being stupid and the game being flawed in its design, I have no idea. That aside, each nonetheless provides something different in how they're designed and stylised, from the more militaristic 'Basic Braining' all the way to the jagged neon-coated streets of 'Black Velvetopia', which juxtapose quite nicely with the real world of the psychic summer camp (though the real world of Psychonauts is weird in its own way). On top of that, The music of the game shapes itself around these locations and further builds upon each level's unique appearance, feel and atmosphere.
But many of the levels also hide some pretty dark themes that I could imagine would be very confronting for the game's 'young teen' target audience. This is not a problem, mind you; instead it shows me the game has the where-with-all to understand the intelligence of its own audience to not dumb down deeper and darker concepts. Plus the writing, as you'd expect from a Double Fine game, is charmingly presented with a Saturday morning cartoon vibe and a dash of dark sardonic humour to top it all off. Even the romance between Razputin and Lili, though a bit forced, plays into this vibe quite well. Still, some plot elements are resolved rather strangely like where, in only one or two lines, Razputin's dad tells him that he doesn't actually hate psychics - he just wanted to protect his family. It's wrapped up so abruptly, I wonder why they included it as a plot element in the first place and makes me question whether or not I've missed some important detail. And yet, despite its contrivances, the game's story was still so suffused with charm, I couldn't help but love it regardless.
It's just a shame then that the game can be rather janky. Well, at least, the PC port is. To start off with something less egregious, the game doesn't seem to be able to use more modern controllers like the PlayStation 4's DualShock - this isn't too annoying and, to an extent, is understandable considering the age of the port. It's just a shame that the keyboard and mouse controls can be a bit finicky to deal with. Next, you have the camera which can make it difficult to perceive the 'depth' of certain jumps, causing you to fall to your death. Again, not too bad, just a bit annoying. But one of the most frustrating things about this game is how seemingly broken its hitboxes can be. This is particularly apparent in the boss fights, like the one in 'The Milkman Conspiracy' or 'Meat Circus', where the game doesn't seem to register attacks. I would regularly find myself throwing objects with telekinesis that visibly come into contact with the boss and yet see no effect. In combination with the poor keyboard controls, it's a match made in hell and led to me, not too unjustifiably, getting increasingly frustrated a number of times. There's a few other smaller technical issues as well. Upon loading the 'Point of No Return' autosave, the game had a habit of crashing when loading into some of the camp areas. I also noticed that one of the fellow campers, Crystal, would have a gigantic copy of her eye appear in her mouth when she talked. Ugh.
Overall: Endlessly charming but also mildly frustrating, Psychonauts manages to mostly cleanly walk a tightrope of innovative and original game design, highly varied locations, a memorable score and clever writing (even though its technical flaws can cause it to stumble frequently).
Comments
Post a Comment