Zodi Plays: Psychonauts (This One Time, At ESPer Camp...)

Let's Plays Completed Let's Plays
#35

Forgot to write this in advance due to work OOOPS.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [19] War’s End

Video Length: 15:22

This one’s a little short since all we REALLY do in the grand scheme of things is finish off what little needs to be done to complete Waterloo World, then clear up the stage of all figments and stuff. That said, there’s actually a fair bit to talk about in terms of game design and the actual flavor of the world, which we’ll get into in a bit. For now let’s tackle that first thing I mentioned. Unlike every other stage in the back half of this game, Waterloo World does NOT have a boss at the end. Another reason why I actually like this stage. It ends on a positive note, instead of jamming a boss fight into a game which is just not suited for them. And by defeating Napoleon at this board game, we’ve freed Fred from his madness, leaving him free to…take a nap. But once he’s done having a nap he’s definitely going to kill Whitehead.

We’re the good guy, right? Ah well, that’s it for today, I’ll see you guys next time!

Now, as I mentioned in previous episodes, this is probably the worst stage in terms of actual flavor. The idea that losing, even multiple times, to a mental patient caused Fred to become insane and develop the genetic memory of Napoleon into his brain is…obviously ludicrous and offensive and basically just stupid. That being said, I will at least do my best to present it in a proper way, since Fred is clearly dumb and Raz is ten so neither of them ACTUALLY know what’s wrong. What’s actually wrong with Fred is that, he really DOES care. The problem is that he’s very easily discouraged. He wants to get involved, wants to be “good at a thing” but the instant he fails, it all comes crashing down. This is best shown with Waterloo World, a board game that happens to be based on the deadly venture of his ancestor. It’s a game he’s probably really good at, so being beaten by Chrispin is…discouraging, to say the least. So he obsessives over it, trying to beat him over and over again, always leading to a lose.

Coupled with the fact that Fred, understandably, probably has read up a lot about Napoleon since he’s a super famous ancestor of his, the obsession over Waterloo lead him to…breaking down, mentally. The game becomes his entire world, and he Napoleon (the guy who always loses Waterloo). As said previously, none of this is actually GOOD, it’s in fact terrible, but it does at least follow it’s own twisted logic.

#36

Hey hey, more Psychonauts.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [20] I See A Red Door

Video Length: 22:34

In this exciting episode of Psychonauts, we begin the final level…more or less. I’ll elaborate on what I mean later. Point is, it’s time to help out Edgar Teegle with his problems! The setting of which is the genuinely beautiful and awesome look Black Velvetopia. Styled like a Mexican city, we find ourselves trapped in alleyways by the cruel nature of…El Odio, the bull. This level is, sadly, not very fun. At all. The painting mechanic we do, to open up passages or secrets, is actually pretty neat. The fact that you can use Clairvoyance to get hints is also really cool. But the level itself, avoiding El Odio, constantly getting sent backwards if you’re hit by him, it kinda sucks. Not helped by the fact that this level is REALLY LONG, much like Waterloo World.

Mechanics aside I do love this world though, it’s one of my favorites. It’s just really rough to play through. I don’t think we see the worst of it in this one, platforming wise, but we definitely get a full share of how awful the combat challenges are here. The wrestlers we fight to get Edgar’s Queen’s are…not BAD, really, just tedious and unfun. It’s like I said with Waterloo World. The stage with the least amount of boss fights has been the most fun. It’s almost as if those are bad in this game. For the most part, of course.

But yeah, that’s all I’ve got to say today. Hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you guys next time…for more bull!

#37

I awaken, and as such it is time for Psychonauts.

Zodi Plays Psychonauts [21] Further Bull Problems

Video Length: 26:05

Starting us off today is another wrestle fight, and it’s probably my least favorite because it proves a point I said like twenty videos ago. The levitation orb lets you ignore ground based hazards if you’re floating on it, and this dragon wrestler is letting out a roar that coats the ground with stank. Just jumping it is fine, but you’d THINK that based on what the game has told you, you can use levitate to ignore it entirely. Unfortunately, you cannot! For some reason, there is not one single instance of “Levitate can help with environmental/ground based hazards” actually being real. Ah well.

With that done, we can continue with the level, which is more of the same as last time, for the most part. We do however learn a bit more about Edgar. About the make up of his mind, and how it’s very clearly an abstraction to deal with the very real life problems he’s had, which are literally buried beneath the surface in the sewers. I feel like Edgar’s mental world is one of the best in the game, and though we will talk more about it next time since I sadly do not beat it this stage (it, like Waterloo-World, is just too long for that) I think it’s pretty clear how good Black Velvetopia is- flavorwise of course, I’m still not ever gonna defend El Odio. Even if the problems are at least partially my fault.

We end the stage, however, in an interesting spot. We’ve been asked by a nice dog to help distract the bull so he can do some painting. This is the only other side quest in the game, the first one being helping Dogen past that mind field a billion years ago. This is also VITAL to do, since if we don’t do this before completing the level the reward will be lost forever, and while the reward is worthless in the grand scheme of things (it’s a life max up) it IS tied to an achievement, so we must do it. But that’ll be for next time. What ISN’T for next time though, is we finally talk to the fabled bull fighter Dingo Caught-in-a-compromising-romantic-situation-with-someone-else’s-lover. And as you can guess from his extremely on the nose name, he’s a bit of a tool. He does however provide us with our final psychic power merit badge, CONFUSION GRENADE. An ammo based psychic power, it can confuse enemies, leading them to attack each other (this is not that useful). It has uses in this stage, and if you cheat the game to get it early you can use it on Boyd for a really interesting result, but otherwise it’s the least interesting power in the game and arguably the least useful as a result. I’m really bad at aiming it, and that’s at least…I’ll be fair and give that 40% to the game’s fault. But yeah, confusion grenade is ours.

Join us next time, where we will take this confusing power up that we got from the brain of some rando to beat up a gigantic jerk. Also a bull. Dun dun duuuun. See you guys next time!

#38

Wow, you really seem to like doing things the hard way. The window painting isn’t just there to show you what’s at the far side of the tunnel - you’re supposed to walk through it to the far side.

The hint about Levitation is intended to tell you to jump and float while the attack passes below you. You can use Shield to block any of the attacks, but you have to time it properly - as you saw, if you activate it too early, the wrestlers will wait until you run out of energy before hitting you. There is also precisely one place in the game with a ground hazard where Levitation will let you cross it safely. We just haven’t reached it yet.

#39

There is? I think I know what it is, but dang if I can’t…ever see why you would do that though. Also I’m aware that’s how you deal with the dragon breath, but it still seems like a natural place TO try out levitation, after the announcer told me to anyway.

Also other people have said that before and…really? Is that not just where you get a figment?

#40

You get figments by putting the window on the other hooks, which is probably the toughest pair of figments to find in the game, but you can absolutely use the window as a shortcut.

#41

Huh. Never realized that.

Well, thanks for the info. Apparently everyone else did it this way too.

#42

Onwards, to more Psychonauts.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [22] Running Of The Bull

Video Length: 20:17

Starting us off today, we do that missable side quest I mentioned last time, getting the bulldog painter to paint Dingo’s ad, and in return we get the final life max upgrade and an achievement. With those two very required things under our belt, it’s time to go beat up the final wrestler and get the final queen for Ed’s tower. Which we do, dealing with the most annoying wrestler in the level, Cobra. He has his own confusion ability, he can only be hurt after being hit by confusion grenades, and is REALLY annoying, constantly blathering on about his weakpoint because evidently they made the game too hard in testing. That’s the only reason I can see for constantly, unendingly repeating his REALLY OBVIOUS weakness. I do like how this guy strips away the varnish of Edgar’s mental world though. After that, we explore just a little more to find the right place to put the rose vine painting we found last time, giving us access to Edgar’s secret garden of peace. This also gets an achievement, though I’m not…sure as to why.

With all the queens gathered, and the stage plumbed of almost all of it’s treasures (we will be getting the scant few remaining in a bit) it’s time to head up Edgar’s card tower to see what’s at the top. And as it turns out, it’s a gigantic bull fighting arena, where we must finally face El Odio in single, pitched combat! Only the bullfighting weapons can hurt the powerful monster, and luckily we’ve got a lot of those scattered around. If you know anything about bullfighting though, you’ll notice that this…is only the appetizer to the main course. This is actually a pretty decent boss fight, and once we beat El Odio we get into phase two, where we must protect El Odio from Dingo! As I teased last time by hitting Dingo with a confusion grenade, if we hit him with one of those bad boys he’ll think he’s a bull…leaving him open to the bullfighting spears we’ve been throwing into El Odio. Dingo otherwise warps around slashing with his sword, not doing much, but he can also counter any charges El Odio does at him, so we’ve gotta be a bit quick about it.

I’ll be perfectly honest, this is a REALLY good boss fight? Like, I forgot how…not terrible this is. I’d even venture as far as to say it’s the best boss fight in the game, it’s got a good back and forth, and you’re not consigned to waiting forever to get your hits in. It’s even a two phase boss fight that still manages to not overstay it’s welcome! That’s impressive, ESPECIALLY for this game. With Dingo killed and Lampita exiled to the recesses of Edgar’s mind, Mr Teglee’s anger issues and obsession over his past is…mostly fixed. So we’re free to leave, and are given a painting of Loboto as reward. With this, plus the straight jacket and trophy, we can disguise ourselves as Loboto! But that’ll be for next time. Hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you guys next time!

Edgar’s mind is, like the other stages in this back half, really good from a thematic level. His world is a clear mental construct, a method of coping with the loss he experienced in high school, a loss that he’s obsessed over his entire life. A toxic experience indeed, and fittingly put down into the sewers of his coping mechanism as a result. The world is made of black velvet, showing the unexpected side effect of Edgar losing his goals in life; he discovered new ones. He’s actually a pretty good painter, regardless of what that rude dog said. Thus his mental world is a black velvet painting, vibrant and colourful but with a dark edge to it, hiding his suffering. It also, coincidentally and I use this term entirely tongue in cheek since it’s very much intentional, makes for a very good Mexican style aesthetic, fitting the nature of the world as a town plagued by a bull that a bull fighter needs to kill.

Which of course leads us to El Odio, his mental projection of himself in his mind. A clever viewer can note that we hadn’t actually seen Edgar anywhere within his mind up till this point, and may of noticed the similarities between the two. Edgar’s life was controlled by his hatred, and as such his mental world was controlled by El Odio. Importantly, much like the Critic of Gloria’s mind, we do not kill his Hate. Hate is, while a nasty, negative emotion, still an important part of the mind. It has it’s places, and destroying it outright would be bad. So instead we rid him of the objects that fuel his hatred, so he can go back to being a normal person again.

One additional thing I’ll note, that I feel is really fitting with the theme of Edgar’s level and mental issues, but was completely unused by myself due to just forgetting it. The roses can be used to charm women in the streets, so you may hide from the bull. Love can protect you from hatred. But this love fades, in time, because it’s not addressing the root of the problem, so eventually they’ll close their windows to you. This is a really poignant reflection on the state of his mind, and it’s a mechanic I bet half the people playing never even realized.

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#43

I think Cobra’s obnoxious repetition is just to drive home that you need something to defeat him, since many players will probably enter the card before climbing the ladder to get Confusion. The game doesn’t often throw you into situations like that where you don’t have the ability you need to deal with it yet without doing something to let you know. Speaking of Confusion, there are more upgrades for it, in levels you’ve already beaten. I remember one in particular on top of a house in Waterloo World, and I think there’s one in an out-of-the-way part of the catwalks in Gloria’s Theater. It’s odd that there’s no achievement for ammo upgrades, but this was a PS2 game - the achievements were added for the Steam version, likely to point players to things they might not find on their own. Hence the achievement for locating the secret garden.

You mentioned that Edgar is the only person whose mental issues we sort out in the intended fashion, but you mention Gloria in your writeup. Did we not help shut down her inner critic and let her step out of the spotlight to experience the real world again? On the other hand, the resolution to Edgar’s problems is probably the one most comparable to a real-world experience with mental health treatment. He does appear in his mind - he’s building a giant tower of cards in the hub part. El Odio runs circles around him.

Finally, a tiny additional note. You can also hide in the windows if you’re invisible. The roses are more meaningful, but entirely useless if you already have Invisibility.

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#44

Interesting thing to note, Edgar has all the various animals of the bosses on his jacket or arms. Just a nice little detail.

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#45

Yeah I forgot Edgar was there, I blame being tired writing these posts up. My bad on that one!

I mean we helped Gloria deal with her inner critic but that didn’t really solve her problem I think? She’s still depressed and probably still not over what happened. In retrospect, you (and others) are probably right that Raz has been more helpful than I’m giving him credit for.

Well that’s creepy. Useful, but creepy.

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#46

Hows about…some Psycho Nauts?

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [23] The Asylum Heights

Video Length: 25:23

In today’s episode, we begin the climb up the Asylum. It’s honestly not that bad, but the enemies you encounter (and the frequent glitchy platforming) does not help much. As we climb, we’ll be plagued by confusion gas filled rats and the distant chirping of a dove tailed Tara Strong. I didn’t realize they migrated this far north, but it’s nice to see one…for the most part. God if that’s not one of the worst voices in this game. I feel bad about it to, Tara strongest one of all, but even she can’t save this annoyance.

The only other thing to really SAY about the Asylum climb is the really very strange way it starts warping and twisting. It feels suitably creepy honestly, and it implies a lot of crazy stuff happened here. But at the same time…it really doesn’t work? Like, at all? Why is the real world so twisted and corrupted? It feels like it’s meant to be a mental world, but it’s not. It’s just literally like that. Later on we even find acid pits! Where did the acid come from! Also this acid is the only place in the game I’m aware of that you can levitate on safely. So good to see them make use of this explicitly talked about mechanic.

That all aside…we finally reach the top, and find the true mastermind behind it all! Sort of. Oleander is still the actual villain, but Loboto has been the most active endangering element of the plot so far, so this build up to what is actually going to end up being a simple season finale feels a little off. But hey, we now have basically every collectable, and a turtle friend. So life’s good. Join us next time, where we make use of at least one of the things I just mentioned. Hope you all enjoyed!

#47

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the reason the asylum is so mangled is that the high concentration of Psitanium has physically twisted the space around it. Perhaps the greatest irony of Shaky Claim is that they attempted to treat the epidemic of insanity by locking people up in a building right at the center of its cause. The other explanation would be that the Coach did that himself to slow down anyone who managed to get past Boyd, but I like the idea of the building just naturally having turned out that way. We’ve seen other improbable things, like a car embedded in a tree, that make me think Psitanium affects more than just people’s minds.

I also always found the Shield handy for dealing with the rats, particularly in large groups. It doesn’t block the Confusion effect, but it will prevent the damage. That was also a really easy way to get the final Psi Core, compared to the ways I’ve always tried to do it. Who knew it was so simple?

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#48

That asylum is giving me lots of vibes of American Mcgee’s Alice. The acid honestly isn’t that surprising when you finally come across it. There are a few holes in the floor that look like they were melted through. Combined with the fact that this asylum was used to hold crazy, psychic people, has been turned into a evil laboratory for a mad scientist, and is built ontop of a large concentration of a semi-reality warping mineral its in surprisingly good shape.

Anyone else cringe when Raz kisses a brain?

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#49

Oh man it’s time for more of this.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [24] Achieve

Video Length: 19:28

In this episode, we finally finish up every single little piece of whatever we have to deal with before the finale. This involves a lot of running around, but none of it really extensive beyond my own minor misunderstandings of some things. First off however, we pick up Sheegor’s good turtle friend, so that we have him for when we need him. And with turtle friend in hand, it’s time to finish up the game, starting with shoving the child brains back into their homes. We get an extra bit of mental health for doing this, as the subconscious psychic energy gets directed towards us for saving their lives. Also, I forgot to mention it, but the “dumb reason” why the brains are all scattered around is likely because Sheegor tried to hide them. But no matter, brains are acquired and we can now safely return them. We get fun little scenes with every brain we return, showing some more about the kids. We see for sure that Maloof is definitely from a mafia family, we see that half the kids are too thirsty to care about the world being in danger, and we learn that the mysterious going on with the cheer kids was they were going to kill themselves. Th…thanks game. That’s a joke you made. We get an achievement for this!

After that, we go around camp talking to our re-brained friends, showing them off our cool new compatriot Mr Pokeylope! This is also an achievement, but it’s weird because you never have to show the turtle to Mikhail since it’s possible for him to be made inaccessible if you get Maloof out, and you never have to show it to Benny because he legitimately just vanishes from the game world after you re-brain him. I say the game is weird about this because, le gasp, it’s being lenient with the obscure and nonsensical challenges it’s asking you to perform? Weird. A lot of the kids react to turtle the way you’d expect as well, unfortunately.

Next, after getting all of that done…it’s fine to actually cash in all those psi cards and cobwebs we got! The cobwebs give us more cards, so we can make even MORE Psi Cores, though unfortunately we don’t get to show off putting EVERY single card away since even with all the world’s cards collected, and with every cobweb dusted, we’re still three cards off from a full set. Interesting…we’ll find out what the deal is with THAT next time. Finally, we climb the stairway of heaven to blast over to December 25th so it can be Christmas in real life, so we can buy that single piece of dream fluff I said I would. We get an achievement for this.

And that’s it for today. Next time, we’ll begin the finale, which’ll answer all your hanging questions about stuff I may or may not be acting vague about. Hope you enjoyed, I’ll see you guys next time!

In addition I’d like to thank Much Kazoo About Nothing for use of their kazoo cover of “Merry Christmas Everyone” because it was a really dumb joke on my part and I’m glad he said yes.

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#50

The beginning of the end, Psychonauts style.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [25] Meat Your Maker

Video Length: 27:36

Starting us off today, we return our turtle friend to Sheegor. With a clear strategist on our side, we can now quite easily defeat Dr Loboto, which we proceed to do post haste. With the only threat we’ve really encountered summarily murdered, we can now safely return Sasha and Mila Vodello, the Mental Minx’s brains to their bodies. Together we save Lily, the point of no return. The game then proceeds to dunk on us for not saving any of the brains, and belittle our every action. Which…I mean, that’s fine I guess. I don’t like it and it’s bad, but I can definitely get Sasha and Mila not thinking Raz is capable. He is after all ten years old. This ignores that we literally saved the entire day but whatever. Sasha and Mila stop Lily and Raz from helping fight Oleander, and things…go about as well as you’d expect. Especially considering the pretty obviously set up for the asylum being set extremely on fire.

To make a long story short, the asylum is destroyed and Oleander is defeated…except that he’s managed to get his brain into one of the Think Tanks! He takes out everyone and it’s up for Raz to beat him in a final confrontation! This boss fight is…not super great, to be honest. It’s not AWFUL, but it is pretty…boring. You run around avoiding the rocks he throws at you, and throw rocks back at him to break his rock shield, and then you have to set his wood shield on fire so the rubble from the asylum can hit him in the brain case. It took me a bit longer than I’d like to realize that, it’s been awhile since I’ve gotten this far in this game. This is the only thing you need to worry about with this final boss fight, there is absolutely nothing else to worry about. It is…mechanically simple. After a couple chunks of rock to the face, the Think Tank is defeated!

Raz then proceeds to get up to the tank for absolutely no reason, so that a random out of nowhere splash from the Think Tank’s brain case can hit him. For some reason the liquid the brains are in is…liquid sneezing powder, and that causes Raz to be de-brained! With nothing else to do but think, we opt to throw ourselves into the Think Tank as well. And with that we enter hell.

A mixture, a more complete mixture, of Raz and Oleander’s brain. They were already connected because of the Brain Tumbler detecting Oleander’s brain, but here they are entirely connected. We meet a small little baby Oleander, and cash him through the darkness and the squishiness of the Romani caravan that was Raz’s home, a horrifying visage trying to push through the fabric of our mental world, calling Raz’s name. And we finally find ourselves in the most infamous level in the game, the exception that you can mentally add to every definitive statement I’ve said about the game’s level. The Meat Circus. A terrible, awful level combining every single badly made mechanic in the game to create one of the best and also worst final levels in history. It has some good mechanical stuff thrown in as well, but on the whole it’s…well, it’s what I’ve been hinting at this entire time. Psychonauts is a game that is 90% just a point and click style adventure game. The combat is bad, the platforming is worse.

Therefor, here is a final challenge, THE final challenge, where it’s entirely combat and platforming oriented. With an infuriating escort mission with Little Olly. And, spoilers for next time, a timed platforming segment where if you fail you need to restart from the beginning. I’m not ashamed to admit that, with keyboard controls, I could not beat this at all. It was not possible, and it’s part of why I have SUCH a negative opinion on this game sometimes. Getting to this part and being utterly stonewalled was awful. The only real positives I can say about this stage, even here in this far more chill and better natured playthrough, is that the aesthetic of Meat Circus is really good, and the music is fantastic for this hectic hell scape.

So yeah, we very slowly and painfully make our way up the circus tent, helping Little Olly save the singular bunny from all the horrible meat monsters, and it goes way easier than I expected given some of the challenges here (especially the knife throwing guy, screw that guy). We end with a peak into Oleander’s memories, showing us how horrifying a butcher dad is to a small child. I can’t say I blame him. And with that, I leave you for today…but next time. Next time…the finale! I hope to see you there.

#51

The circus is in town. Let’s go to the circus.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [26] [FINALE] Daddy Issues

Video Length: 31:40

Today, we finish meat. The next segment we have to deal with is a rail grinding one, and aside from two instances of having to make the game VERY cross with me by jumping backwards up the rails, this is actually a perfectly fine and decent challenge. It is also, sadly, the last time I can say that in this game. But then it IS the finale, we’re gonna get a lot of that. We find the last cobwebs here as well, as well as the last baggage, and the last memory vault was last time. So we’ve finally 100% cleared the game, and achieved the fabled Rank 101 in the PSIcadets. Our reward for doing so is a…cute(?) scene showing us how Sheegor escaped alive with Mr Pokeylope, and how it turns out Linda McLungfish are lovers. Thanks game.

With all the collectables finally finished off, and our power at maximum, we can now continue to the third and final part of Meat Circus…the final boss fight! It’s against Little Ollie’s Dad, The Butcher, and I swear this is NOT Tim Curry doing his voice, it’s not, I checked! But he does a pretty damn good “nasty Tim Curry” impression, and that’s REALLY cool actually. And that is the only positive I have to say about this boss fight. Well that and the fact that it’s really fast, he takes a lot of damage and you only have to cycle through his attacks three times…if you remember how to fight him, that is. Dodge his violent swings, avoid the overhead smash, then climb up his arm to whack him in the face. But that’s not all…after beating him, he rips open a tear in the mind and throws Raz away, along with a carefully wrapped meat package. Which turns out to be, dun dun duuuun, Raz’s Dad!

And with that we enter the second worst part of this stage. We need to climb our way up the tent while Raz’s Dad peppers us with attacks, all while the water is raising upwards. If it reaches us, if we run out of time, we have to restart the entire section. In the non patched game, if we game overed I’m pretty sure we’d have to restart this entire final boss. Either way, considering the fact that the platforming CONTINUES to be really bad and clunky, a timed platforming segment is right up there with escort mission segment as “why would you do this???”. And the unfortunate thing is, unlike the escort bit, this part has potential. I like the idea of actually exploring Raz’s own inner demons, and the set up clearly could of stripped away all our psychic powers so we could only platform. The way the game is now that would be horrendous, but if the game was better they could definitely do that and it’d be a really cool, iconic moment of the game. But instead we get what we got, and you can see a few times how Raz Dad kinda ruined my time here. Thankfully, we’re able to push through and make it too…

Phase two of the boss fight! Butcher Dad is powered up with fire, and Raz Dad is helping out with flaming exploding clubs. Thankfully for us this is also his weakness, we can TK them at The Butcher to knock him down, letting us punch Ollie’s dad directly in the face. A few rounds of that, and we’re finally done, the two Dad’s being tossed into the meat grinder! The dream dads slain, we finally see what that spooky ghost screaming our name is; our actual Dad! He’s been trying to contact and help us, since as it turns out Raz’s dad is not even remotely as bad as he thinks, because he’s ten years old. We have a nice little conversation, and Raz maybe gets a happy moment…before the combined meat dad appears. It’s time for the final fight, Raz’s actual Dad empowering us with gigantic burning man psychic powers! The final, truly final phase of the boss fight is here, and ultimately not that big a deal. You just have to run around until the super power is charged, then go big and hit him a few times. It’s not really compelling or fun, tragically, but it’s workable. We finally kill the meat father, and with that we can finally separate Oleander and Raz’s brains.

And that’s it. We have our ending. Oleander doesn’t go to jail since he was suffering mental trauma, which is…fine I guess. I get that, and Psychonauts can literally rewire your brain to fix brains so that’s fine. We get our last little bit of gross ship teasing with Raz and Lilli, Raz becomes the Psychonaut child soldier he always dreamed of being, and it seems like it’s time to leave…until, dun dun duuun, we learn that the Head of the Psychonauts has been kidnapped! And it’s Lilli’s Dad! So we fly off to save the day, sequel hooking fans of this game forever…until like twoish years ago where a VR puzzle game came out that is a sequel to this. But yeah, that’s it. That’s the end! Hope you all enjoyed!

And so Psychonauts ends. My thoughts? I’m…not the biggest fan of this game in the world! When I first played this, I was very slowly (but surely) soured on the experience because of all the terrible, terrible glitches that exist, and how the game is just really put together weirdly. It is a game that is heavily flawed, and has not aged well, and really wasn’t aged well at the time of release. But it’s better than I remember it being, and the patch to Meat Circus made it way more possible. So on the whole, this was a good experience, and I’m glad I LPed it! And I hope you’re all glad to have watched this little piece of game history. I feel like playing this, when I did, was actually pretty good. The last big project I did (ie not Kirby) was Sly Cooper, a really well put together collectathon style game from the same era as this, and it really allows for a contrast. Sly Cooper is, as far as I can tell, barely talked about and yet it’s so good. Psychonauts is decidedly flawed, but for some reason this is the game that endures and becomes a hyper cult classic that everyone rave’s about. That’s always interesting to me, is all I’m saying.

But yeah. That was Psychonauts. I hope you all enjoyed, and I’ll see you guys next time. But what’ll we do next time, you may ask? Well, I said in the video I was taking a week off, but to be honest I’m still itching to go on my next project so I’m fine with not doing that. Next up, it’s time to wake up. Same Zodi time, same Zodi channel, get ready for…Furi!

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#52

Anyone else find the sound of the knife throwers somewhat disturbing. Also the butcher boss really sounds like a demon version of Nigel Thornberry.

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#53

The knife throwers are super gross! Someone in the other place I post these mentioned that as well, so you’re not alone.

Like I said, Butcher Dad is a REALLY good Tim Curry impression.

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#54

And here’s the next LP: FURI. Hope you all enjoy.

@moderators this thread’s over, keep posting open but you can shuffle it to the complete zone.