There’s also the new abilities, such as Mental Connection, which lets you zip between highlighted points for added variety. The platforming is tighter and having powers like Levitation right from the off makes getting around much more enjoyable. Psychonauts 2 makes all of the advances that you would expect after two full console generations. Better yet, with the mysteries surrounding Maligula and the mole within the Psychonauts, there’s some great twists and turns to the story that I didn’t put together until the last moment. There’s tons of one-liners and little gags that had me chuckling at various points throughout. Of course, there’s still plenty of comedy to be found in this game. None of the characters are completely “fixed” by Raz’s intervention, but he is able to help break them out of the vicious cycles and help them start to heal on their own terms. As you will read in the game’s mental health advisory there are representations of addiction, PTSD, panic attacks, anxiety and delusions, but while there’s very often a comedic tone to the surrounding elements, there’s a great deal of empathy shown for each character’s struggles. Regardless of the character, and all the way through to the arch villains, there’s a tenderness to how Double Fine tells each and every character’s story, explaining how they have ended up the way they are. Turning again to Cassie’s mind, hers is carved through the paper of books, the spaces you run through often filled with living paper cutouts of hand drawings who are all nice and amusing to talk to, while there’s psychedelia, game shows and more to be found elsewhere. The visual design throughout is excellent, taking the German Expressionist style of the original game and making it look so much tactile throughout much of the game world, but with some minds dramatically shifting the art style or scenario that Raz finds himself in. No two minds are alike, the worlds both a representation of who they are and what it is that afflicts them. For Compton Boole it’s an endless struggle with anxiety and the cacophony of voices that he feels criticising him, while Cassie O’pia has to reconcile the different sides of her personality and the different fronts she’s had to present to the world in order to survive.Īs you would expect after the first game, stepping into the minds of others leads to all manner of twisted and otherworldly settings. Raz will have to dive into each of their minds (with permission), to try and help them overcome the demons that hide within. In the years since, each of the six has struggled with the mental anguish and pain of that titanic battle and the consequences of what followed. That’s not so easy as giving them a quick phone call.
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