GBAtemp Recommends #103: Psychonauts
Welcome to the 84th issue of the GBAtemp Recommends Revival Project! This project is a revival of our once-weekly feature where we share our favorite games and applications with you. The titles we recommend may be "old school" games, a piece of Homebrew, an ROM hack, sleeper hits, an application, etc, but one thing's for certain, we think they are fantastic and deserve your attention!
On today's entry, we're going deep into the psychosis of the strange mind of one of Tim Schafers biggest games ever. Set to get a sequel in the future after so many years, it's time to take a look at the series that people have begged to happen for years! This is:
Psychonauts
Psychonauts is a game where the paranormal IS the norm. Utilizing psychic powers, you will plunge deep into the the minds of crazy individuals as Raz, the coolest and most powerful cadet at the psychic summer camp.
The worlds of this game are incredibly colorful, unique, and hilarious. By entering people's minds with your psychic abilities, you will find all sorts of obstacles to overcome, platforms and jumping puzzles to solve, enemies to shoot, secrets to discover, and various collectibles. From the war-torn landscape of Coach Oleander's brain to the black-and-white dreariness of uber-agent Sasha Nein, every level is its own wonderful blend of character and charm.
And the story is just as large. Every character has a mental hurdle to overcome, which creates a sense of backstory, world building, and overall sincerity to the charming world that Psychonauts has built. It's funny, heart-warming, and downright fantastic.
As you progress through the game, you'll acquire more psychic powers will get you through harder levels, all of which are fun to use and pretty easy to learn. The game has the best sense of balance in puzzling to make things a challenge, but not enough to frustrate you and not easy enough to bore you. The platforming is solid, the combat is simple but expansive, and everything meshes together well.
Psychonauts is full of content and full of freedom of exploration. It has a long lasting sense of playability, allowing you to reach level 100 in its skill system, it doesn't grow tiresome even when you're searching under every upturned stone for a card you might be missing, and its combat is plenty of fun.
Perhaps by today's standards the controls feel slightly dated on controller, but the PC version allows plenty of hot keys and remapping to overcome the slight hiccups of the console version. The only annoying issue I had with the original game was the constant menu popping that has to be done to switch between all your powers, as you can only carry 3 at a time.
This small complaint is nothing compared to the awesomeness that is Psychonauts though. It was one of my favorite original Xbox games, and the recent announcement of the sequel has my heart racing.
You can pick up this fantastic game on PS2, XBOX, or Steam.
In fact, if you would like to buy the game on PC, you can actually head over to the official FIG page for Psychonauts 2, where you can donate $10 to the crowdfunding campaign to bring Psychonauts 2 closer to its goal, as well as netting yourself a digital PC copy of the game for your donation! $10 is also the price of the game on steam, so why not fund it on FIG to get yourself a great game, and further produce a soon to be great sequel?!
Psychonauts 2 $10 Backers Link for Downloadable copy of the first game!Genre: Platformer, Adventure
Release Year: 2005
Developer: Double Fine Productions
Published by: Majesco Entertainment
Directed By: Tim Schafer
Released For: PlayStation 2, XBOX, Windows, OSX, Linux
If you enjoyed this week's edition of GBAtemp Recommends! Please leave a comment in the thread. This helps us monitor feedback and ensures we keep posting these articles in the future.
If you would like to see the original archive of our previous entries, you can look at our archived content here.
IMPORTANT: I will now be accepting submissions for GBATemp Recommends features! If you would like to submit your own Recommends article to possibly be featured on our front page, please send a word document to [email protected]. Submissions need to follow the format of previous recommends articles. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Submissions can be of any title, however try to be unique with your picks. Don't expect to be the only person to send an article of Pokemon Blue or Super Mario 64
