Roderick

Psychonauts

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OK, two things that I just discovered.

1. By Jove, there were a ton of Psychonauts topics back in the day! Nowadays a game is lucky to get a single one, Psychonauts got dozens. Do a quick search and you'll be amazed at such gems as "Psychonauts online?" and "Why didn't Psychonauts sell well?". Also; a surprising outpouring of love for Ed Fries.

2. For all the topics present, there was no the Psychonauts topic for me to explain the following in, so I had to make the definitive one myself.

The more time passes, the more I realize that Psychonauts is probably the best game ever made. Nothing compares. It used to be Morrowind was my go-to favorite, but Psychonauts has taken the throne much like how Vertigo ousted Citizen Kane in the Sights & Sounds list last week. Its quirky perfection ages incredibly well. I've often remarked this, it really gets better ever time you play it. And I believe I also recently professed to being singularly impressed with its ending, a rare treat across any medium.

Just thinking about it makes me want to play it again. The whole thing is a perfect storm of the best possible choices made and the most scrumptious ideas.

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Specially now that they "fixed" Meat Circus.

The creativity of the levels alone still stands out now, we need more levels in black velvet.

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Screw black velvet, give me more Milkman Conspiracy. No correction, I mean more Waterloo World.

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Something bugged me about waterloo world... I'm not sure what it was. Milkman Conspiracy was a high light and was really remember falling in love right around black velvet, might have been the music and the crazy neon lights.

I just loved the summer camp, the brilliance of the PA announcements, the feel of being at summer camp with a cast of characters. One of my favorite rooms as the game progresses is in the lodge where everyone was watching TV... I just wanted to live in that world.

We've discussed this before, but the sequel in my head is about a Psychonaughts Academy that is Bully-esq with art direction inspired from Coraline (there was that one Theatre scene in the movie where I thought "holy shit this was from psychonaughts!"). I'm sure whatever they have planned will be far more original and very cool.

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Something bugged me about waterloo world... I'm not sure what it was.

It's the most annoying one to get all the figments in it? (At least it is for me every time.)

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Waterloo made my goddamn jaw drop and it still does. Napoleon on stilts. Anyway, this goes to show every level has so much to offer in different ways that it's impossible to point at 'the' best one.

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Psychonauts is not probably even in my Top 5 games, but the level design surely is one of the best.

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The level design is super-amazing, particularly Black Velvetopia, but Gloria's Theatre is kind of a low point. I feel that that the game relies on adventure game tropes a little too much, particularly in places where you could probably come up with an equivalent that felt a little more platformer-native. You equip and use items in lots of places, but platformers are about traversing a world and that's rarely the basis of puzzles in the game.

But the game is just so charming! And there's no goddamn ice world, either.

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The game did fight between adventure game and platformer, but honestly the platformer bits were the least interesting to me.

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The level design is super-amazing, particularly Black Velvetopia, but Gloria's Theatre is kind of a low point.

I feel like that one's a really underrated level. It features I think the most ambitious and dark character work of any of the asylum patients presented in a really unique way that is equally parts funny and tragic. And then the level's second half on the catwalks is just some enjoyable, super-straightforward platforming. And it's got my favorite boss fight.

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I first played Psychonauts back when it was first released on Steam and I was still fairly new to PC gaming. I remember being amazed at the time by the entire game, writing, art-style, gameplay, the whole lot of it. I can also vividly recall getting to the Meat Circus and going "Okay, fuck this game. This is bullshit and I'll never complete it." A few years later my memory of how bullshit the original Meat Circus was had faded so I decided to replay the entire game. About halfway through my replay by some luck the game was patched to make the Meat Circus easier, or if not easier then at least far less frustrating. By adding checkpoints and unlimited lives the level still required the same jumps be performed well but without having to do all of them in succession.

The Milkman Conspiracy stands out amongst all the levels as my favourite. I just love the art style in it, with shifting gravity and houses on tiny floating spheres. That combined with being repeatedly asked if I'm the milkman just cements it in my head as gaming gold. I'd have to agree with what seems to be the common consensus; Gloria's Theatre really wasn't enjoyable. I think if it had been less irritating to change the scene and lighting I'd have enjoyed it more. That being said, the plays that were performed in the level were hilarious but I do wonder if I missed some of them by not seeing every possible scene and lighting combination.

Replaying it and seeing Chris Remo's name in the credits was fun though.

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From the Double Fine FAQ:

What’s up with Meat Circus?

What’s up with Meat Circus is that you’re a sissy. Sure, sure, invisibility is very important when Raz’s dad is trying to knock you off those tight ropes. And your shield will bounce the knife thrower’s blades right into those spinning target wheels. And also you can throw a confusion grenade at that bunny and then just go pick it up, instead of trying to grab it with Telekinesis. Those things are also true. But the main point I’m trying to make here is that first one, about you being a sissy.

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The problem there is that the game doesn't really communicate that those are puzzle-like encounters. It's not clear that you're doing anything wrong, it just feels like you can't react fast enough and your timing has to be perfect.

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Meat Circus was challenging (pre-patch, I have no idea how it is post), but I always got through it by gritting my teeth. I never found it too impossibly hard, neither on PC nor on XBox.

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My biggest issue with Gloria's Theatre is all of the hideous character models created for that setting. Ugh, the game is seriously ugly during that part.

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The issue I had with the Meat Circus was the part where the water was rising and you had to do some serious platforming. I fell in the water 100+ times or something, really annoying. I don't recall the rest being that terrible.

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That was the hardest bit, but I never got stuck 100+ times. I believe there was a Psych Skill that helped, but I can't remember what it was. In the Steam version I think they added more restart points.

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I played the Meat Circus before I knew about The Meat Circus and I didn't have any memorable problems with it. Wussies.

Pff, "the best game ever made", are you--

Mmmmh, Psychonauts is probably my favourite game. Or it is at least it is in my alternating top-two, together with Planescape: Torment, so I guess you have a point there. At the time I didn't realise it, but looking back, it still stands out above all other games. I played it twice or thrice, and got annoyed with the same things again and again - the controls can be bothersome, my figment-OCD tends to make it anti-fun after some time (I'm with Tanu here, because of the hard-to-find-figments I like Waterloo the least) - but still just being in that world, exploring all the stories, minds, characters, relationships, it's such a funny, fulfilling, strange, special, different game. I probably like it as much for not being like most other games as I like it for what it is (if that makes any sense).

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It was killing me until I actually went out and bought a gamepad which enabled me to finish it.

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I dislike repeating this, but since the railing against the Meat Circus never seems to take a powder, I hafta say...it's not a very difficult level. Granted, it's way more demanding than anything that came before, but you know, I never did understand what was supposed to make the inclusion of "serious platforming" in the last level of a platformer such a mortal sin. I'm not some aficionado of 3D platformers, but I've played several and in terms of frustration or the demand for precison Psychonauts is the kiddie pool all the way through compared even to Mario 64, which I always assumed was universally played and beaten. It kind of blows my mind that it was actually thought necessary to patch the level to lesson the difficulty.

I guess I'm just one of those guys who thinks the last level earns the right to be a bit vicious, and I don't know if I'd describe the Meat Circus as that, particularly.

(If you played the PC verson without a gamepad, that's another matter entirely, since the game wasn't intended to be played with a keyboard.)

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I never found it too difficult, either, but then I say that a lot, and some of my friends tell me to shut up and stop bragging, so what do I know. U:

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The hardest level for me was Gloria's, because I am just awful at platforming in 3D. I didn't think Meat Circus was much harder than that, but then, I already expected it to be insanely hard from what I had heard, so when I only died about 6 times when I was expecting to be at it all day I was surprised.

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Yeah, Meat Circus...

Aaaaaaanyway, Psychonauts.

My favourite general parts of the game are probably when you returned to the camp and had to look for all the kids to see what they were up to. That's why I found it to be especially sad when they disappeared one after another and the camp died out. And I really like the memory-vaults. The often tragic stories told in the vaults - those counterpoints to the rather light-hearted nature of the rest of the game - were emotionally very effecting and introduced a certain level of profoundness to the characters.

Damn, now I wish my proper PC wasn't dead so I could play it again for a bit.

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Man, that Meat Circus.

A few years ago I had a girlfriend who had this wonderful hobby of watching other people play video games, so naturally I show her my favourite game - Psychonauts.

Everything went well for a while, I love playing Psychonauts and she really got into the game, so I finally had someone to share the love with... until I hit the Meat Circus.

I got so frustrated with it - I remembered how difficult it was for me before, and I did warn her this might happen - that I just refused to keep going.

We actually had a fight over this.

... I'm not sure what my original point was, but Psychonauts is a wonderful game of the video variety.

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