The thoughts is the ultimate frontier of humanity, and we’ve solely begun to discover its mysteries.
~Otto Mentallis
Welcome to the TA Playlist Wrap-Up for December 2024. We determined to shut out the yr by looking again in any respect the earlier polls of 2024 and choosing 4 previous nominees who didn’t win their ballot however deserved one other shot at Playlist glory. That gave us a pool of 32 video games to select from (would’ve been 33, however Prey (2006) was nominated in March after which received in June), and we narrowed it all the way down to our 4 favorites.
Cuphead and Maneater have been caught in fourth and third place, respectively, for all the period of the ballot, however it was a completely completely different story for the highest two nominees, which have been locked in a back-and-forth battle for all the interval. The lead modified a number of occasions, and neither sport was ever forward by greater than a handful of votes, however when the mud settled, Alan Wake 2 got here up simply quick, leaving Psychonauts 2 because the December 2024 TA Playlist Recreation of the Month.
Psychonauts 2 was developed by Double Positive Productions and in the end printed by Xbox Recreation Studios in August 2021, though to say that that wasn’t at all times the plan is a little bit of an understatement. Many video games have gone by way of troubled occasions throughout growth, however the story of how Psychonauts 2 lastly got here to be is filled with twists and turns virtually as loopy as these within the sport’s plot.
The Psychonauts journey began almost 25 years in the past, when Tim Schafer left his place as a lead developer at LucasArts following his work on video games like Day of the Tentacle Remastered, Full Throttle Remastered, and Grim Fandango Remastered, with a view to begin his personal growth studio. Double Positive Productions opened its doorways in July 2000 and commenced work on the unique Psychonauts, which launched us to a younger psychic named Razputin “Raz” Aquato.
Raz is determined to learn to use his innate psychic skills, however his household has hated psychics ever since a psychic fortune teller cursed all the Aquato household to die in water. Regardless of the curse, Raz desires of becoming a member of the Psychonauts – an elite staff of worldwide psychic spies — after studying about their adventures in True Psychic Tales journal. When a mysterious stranger offers him a pamphlet promoting the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer time Camp, a coaching facility for psychic youngsters, Raz leaves his household and runs away from the circus with a view to turn into a Psychonaut.
Whereas on the camp, Raz learns to harness psychic skills corresponding to telekinesis and levitation from Coach Morceau Oleander, Brokers Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello, and even the legendary former chief of the Psychonauts, Ford Cruller, whose thoughts was shattered in a psychic incident, leaving him with a extreme case of break up character. Raz impresses the Brokers together with his psychic aptitude, however when he learns that somebody is stealing the campers’ brains for some nefarious function, the brokers don’t imagine him. Increasingly more campers’ brains are taken, together with Raz’s would-be girlfriend Lili Zanotto, and ultimately, Brokers Sasha and Milla themselves go lacking, leaving it as much as Raz (with some help from Ford Cruller psychically stowing away in his thoughts) to save lots of the day.
The unique sport had a famously troubled growth, with numerous delays and setbacks because of each inside and exterior challenges. Double Positive needed to permit every member of the event staff to have inventive freedom over the elements of the sport they have been engaged on, however this brought about confusion and battle between the varied groups, which famously led to the firing of all the stage designers and beginning over from scratch. These setbacks slowed down manufacturing, inflicting them to overlook milestones and fall behind on the event schedule, leading to an epic crunch to lastly full the challenge.
On the enterprise aspect, Double Positive’s publishing cope with Microsoft fell by way of because of delays in growth and structural adjustments inside Microsoft as they ready to transition from the unique Xbox to the Xbox 360. At one level, Schafer mentioned that the studio was fully out of cash and fewer than per week away from closing its doorways for good, however an emergency mortgage from a pal and a last-minute publishing cope with Majesco stored the corporate afloat lengthy sufficient to complete the sport, which launched in 2005.
Whereas the primary Psychonauts sport was successful with critics and developed a devoted fanbase, it wasn’t a robust vendor, and Majesco discovered itself in monetary bother over the following a number of years, stopping the opportunity of a sequel. Double Positive moved on to different tasks, increase a fame within the business for quirky and artistic video games, in addition to a fiercely anti-corporate, indie tradition that usually led to friction with publishers.
ShinUkyo mentioned:
The corporate itself is among the few bastions of the period earlier than indies have been capable of self-publish. Within the days the place they needed to combat so onerous to get an enormous writer to take a shot on them. They proved it with some huge successes, however lots of these have been in an period earlier than dwell service titles and such. Lately, have been they fending for themselves, it could be robust to safe even medium-sized budgets from huge publishers. As many issues as Microsoft has completed improper, it appears they’re taking excellent care of Double Positive thus far.
After a string of critically acclaimed however commercially unsuccessful video games, Double Positive determined to attempt one thing new, launching a Kickstarter marketing campaign to fund an old-school journey sport that might be troublesome to pitch to a conventional writer. The marketing campaign was profitable, elevating 100% of the $400,000 goal in simply eight hours and happening to lift over $3.3 million. That success led to the eventual launch Damaged Age and in addition served as a proof-of-concept for the concept that a sport could possibly be developed utilizing crowdfunding as a serious income.
The rights to Psychonauts reverted to Double Positive in 2011, however whereas the studio had approached a number of publishers about the opportunity of a sequel, they have been repeatedly turned down by publishers who felt the sport would price an excessive amount of to develop and never promote effectively sufficient to recoup their funding. Now, with crowdfunding as a substitute supply of funds, Schafer determined the time was proper to pursue the thought. A brand new crowdfunding marketing campaign raised greater than $3.8 million – estimated to be a few third of the challenge’s complete prices — and proved to Schafer that there was important curiosity in Psychonauts 2.
VOODOO85 mentioned:
I would additionally extremely, extremely advocate the documentary that was made throughout growth for anybody who’s both because of having performed the sport or simply all for online game growth typically. Documentary playlist right here:
“Double Positive PsychOdyssey” is a 33-episode documentary by Participant 2 Productions, detailing the fascinating and turbulent highway from the start of Psychonauts 2’s growth during to launch. It was an impressively candid take a look at all of the ups and downs of the sport growth course of. Figuring out the problems they’d with the primary Psychonauts, Schafer and the remaining Double Positive builders who had labored on the unique sport hoped that the sequel can be a a lot smoother course of, however that turned out to not be the case.
Not solely have been there inside struggles over stage design and growth of the sport, making new and enjoyable ranges with trendy sport design sensibilities whereas retaining the “Psychonautical” really feel of the unique, however the manufacturing was as soon as once more confronted with the lack of a writer (Starbreeze Studios, which ran afoul of the Swedish Financial Crime Authority in 2018), placing the way forward for the studio in jeopardy.
RumbleFish10 mentioned:
I’d advocate it because of its distinctive stage design. Psychonauts 2 has a pleasant mixture of platforming, fight, humorous dialogue, quirky characters, and a very good story. Not an ideal sport by any means, however good enjoyable for about 12-15 hours.
The place Microsoft had pulled the rug out from underneath Double Positive again in 2004 by terminating their publishing deal for the unique Psychonauts, in 2019, they served because the studio’s savior, as Xbox Recreation Studios acquired Double Positive in June 2019. Not solely did this put the event of Psychonauts 2 again on observe, it additionally got here at a really fortuitous time, as the sport was getting into a essential part of growth in early spring of 2020 – and everyone knows what occurred then. In response to Schafer, with out the backing of Microsoft, it’s doubtless that Double Positive wouldn’t have survived the COVID-19 pandemic, not to mention been capable of launch Psychonauts 2 only a yr later, in 2021.
Allgorhythm mentioned:
It is attention-grabbing that, although Microsoft purchased Double Positive over 2 years earlier than the sport’s launch, it is a multiplatform sport. Like its predecessor (earlier than the developer acquisition) not solely is it on the PlayStation & Home windows PCs however Apple PCs and Linux as effectively. […] Tim Schafer who based DoubleFine mentioned the chief advantage of the Microsoft acquisition was that GamePass offered a dependable and secure income stream. He felt one of these monetary stability was invaluable to builders like him who developed video games that have been off the crushed path.
So, that covers the story of the sport’s growth, however what in regards to the remaining product? Did Psychonauts 2 dwell as much as the legacy of the unique?
MineMasterjake1 mentioned:
It is a comparatively fast 100% however they completely nailed each side of the sport – finest sequel we might ask for!
Following on from the plot of the unique Psychonauts, in addition to the 2017 PlayStation VR tie-in sport Psychonauts within the Rhombus of Spoil, Raz is headed to Psychonauts HQ with Coach Oleander, Brokers Sasha Nein and Milla Vodella, his almost-girlfriend Lili, and her comatose father Truman Zanotto, the Grand Head of the Psychonauts whom they only rescued from Dr. Loboto’s secret lair. The story begins because the staff infiltrates Loboto’s thoughts, hoping to seek out out who employed him to kidnap Truman. What begins out as a normal-looking workplace constructing steadily warps right into a fleshy, toothy horror situation as Loboto’s psychological defenses attempt to hold the Psychonauts from studying the reality, serving as a tutorial to re-introduce Raz’s psychic powers, in addition to re-capping the motion from the earlier installments for individuals who didn’t play the unique 2005 sport or the VR installment.
Sebacean Hybrid mentioned:
That being mentioned, I LOVED Psychonauts 2! Appears to be like like I spent simply shy of 30 hrs, and that truly surprises me because it’s one of many few video games I gladly would’ve spent extra time with. Nothing felt like a chore or unnecessary sport mechanics to artificially prolong the playtime. It is also one of many few video games I want there was DLC, would not be unhappy about diving again into the world.
Whereas they don’t get all the small print, Raz sees a imaginative and prescient that reveals that Loboto’s employer is none apart from Maligula, a merciless hydrokinetic psychic who killed tons of of harmless civilians in an incident that grew to become often called the Deluge of Grulovia. Sasha and Milla inform Raz that Maligula is lengthy useless – killed in a battle with the unique Psychic Six, founding members of the Psychonauts, the identical battle wherein Ford Cruller’s thoughts was shattered – however that her cult-like followers, the Deluginists, could also be attempting to resurrect her with necromancy.
Once they arrive on the Motherlobe, Sasha and Milla begin engaged on curing Truman and finding the Deluginists, however Raz finds himself dumped into the internship program by the Lesser Head of the Psychonauts, Hollis Forsythe, who thinks it’s too dangerous to let youngsters go on harmful missions. When Raz finds the brainless physique of mailroom supervisor Nick Johnsmith packed in a field for supply to Truman Zanotto’s workplace, nonetheless, he finds himself pulled again into the middle of a thriller that goes all the best way again to the beginnings of the Psychonauts. Raz might want to observe down the remaining members of the unique Psychic Six – Otto Mentalis, Helmut Fullbear, Bob Zanotto, Cassie O’Pia, and Compton Boole – in addition to repairing the shattered thoughts of Ford Cruller, with a view to discover the reality about Meligula and the key historical past of the Psychonauts.
As with the unique sport, Psychonauts 2 sees Raz exploring the actual world to gather sources used to purchase upgrades and getting into into the psychological “brainscapes” of varied characters with a view to advance the plot, which frequently entails serving to the characters to work by way of some kind of psychological sickness or trauma. Early on, for instance, Raz tries to re-wire Hollis’s risk-averse nature with a view to permit them to go on a harmful mission with Sasha and Milla, however he by chance goes too far, primarily giving Hollis a playing dependancy. So as to repair the issue, Raz should navigate by way of her casino-themed brainscape with a view to restore her regular mind-set.
PhoenixWartooth mentioned:
I keep in mind this sport having quite a lot of actually attention-grabbing ideas to do with psychology and psychological well being, there was a stage of creativity you do not see in lots of trendy video games. Amassing a number of the figments was a ache, particularly within the hippie stage.
A number of the themes of the brainscapes get fairly heavy, with characters coping with all method of regrets, anxieties, and fears. One character has tried to drown his dangerous reminiscences in alcoholism, whereas one other has chosen self-isolation due to his anxiousness over residing as much as others’ expectations. Regardless of the weighty nature of the characters’ issues, the sport maintains a light-hearted tone general, targeted on overcoming their points and making enhancements of their lives, with out going as far as to trivialize their traumas.
Spa1h mentioned:
It has an impressive stage design, with ranges I’ll keep in mind for the remainder of my life. Every of the degrees normally has slightly distinctive mechanic that’s solely repeated throughout the stage. I particularly preferred the hippie stage, the loopy cooking present, and the finale.
I perceive that the need of gathering these greater than 1000 collectibles for the completion is a crimson flag for a lot of achievement hunters – however it wasn’t almost as dangerous as I believed it could be. After ending the story, you’ll be able to unlock a collectible proximity tracker and journey with checkpoints by way of all principal ranges, and the sport tells you completely which sections are 100% accomplished and wherein there’s something left to seek out – alternatively, this subject is extensively coated by information makers on youtube.
Additionally, I discovered the sport a bit too much less difficult. Though the platforming within the swamp and the library stage is considerably more durable than to start with, the battles get simpler, as a result of your character retains incomes extra well being and higher skills… the numerous well being drops and obtainable consumables simply do not make it essential to “grasp” any boss combat or enemy kind.
Nonetheless one of the vital inventive video games I’ve ever performed and a masterpiece! Tim Schafer Whereas the degrees themselves do provide quite a lot of selection, a few of our discussion board commenters didn’t discover them to be almost as memorable as others, even when they left an general optimistic impression of the sport.
HiddenJaguar25 mentioned:
Just like others, I recall liking the sport, however it did not depart an excessive amount of of an affect. It looks as if your customary platformer that makes me keep in mind extra PS2 video games than an X1/XS sport. I suppose that is a good comparability given the years lengthy hole between the 2 video games. Story was wacky, weird, however not too dangerous to get into having by no means performed the primary sport.
FruitofPassion mentioned:
It has been some time since I performed it, and by no means did the primary one, however regardless of my fuzzy reminiscence on it I keep in mind actually having fun with this sport. It is entertaining, humorous, bizarre, and all out only a enjoyable sport. I keep in mind the soundtrack was actually good too and the visuals have been quite distinctive and artistically prime notch stuff.
Peter McConnell, the composer who had labored with Schafer on all the pieces from Grim Fandango and The Secret of Monkey Island to Brutal Legend and Costume Quest, to not point out the unique Psychonauts, returned to do the soundtrack for Psychonauts 2, contributing to the wonderful sound design. As well as, almost all the unique voice forged returned, together with Richard Horvitz and Nikki Rapp as Raz and Lili, whereas Schafer introduced in Jack Black (the voice of Eddie Riggs in Brutal Legend) and Elijah Wooden (Shay from Damaged Age) to voice new characters.
Those that preferred the sport tended to deal with the aesthetic model of the sport, in addition to the writing – two issues that Double Positive is known for. Whereas Schafer himself serves because the lead author for the sport, setting the general tone and plot and penning almost all the dialogue, the staff of artists and stage designers at Double Positive put their creativity and quirkiness on full show in growing the characters and environments.
ChewieOnIce mentioned:
I made some progress on this this month and as anticipated I actually beloved it. Nice story, humour, world constructing, artwork model and basic design. As anticipated from Double Positive. Did not do as a lot as I’d have preferred as I used to be targeted on clearing down backlog crap all through December however I will be ending it up in January for positive.
Lethal Strikes mentioned:
I really like the Psychonauts video games. Enjoyable gameplay, the artwork model and the writing are so good. The one draw back to them is if you wish to 100% them, they then turn into a bit grindy. I actually hope they make one other, and that we do not have to attend as lengthy once more.
As you’ve most likely observed, even these with nothing however reward for this sport did checklist one main grievance: the exorbitant quantity of collectibles on this sport. There are six completely different collectible-related achievements, and one other six tied to purchasing all objects from the store, which can contain looking for massive quantities of psitanium world wide. All in all, it’s quite a bit to gather, and also you’ll solely be a fraction of the best way by way of when you simply run by way of the principle storyline.
HawkeyeBarry20 mentioned:
If you happen to’re a completionist, this sport has a ton of nugatory collectibles. Your head was both in a information throughout your playthrough or after doing clean-up obligation. I can say this actually soured the sport for me. If you happen to’re gonna fill the world with collectibles it must be enjoyable to traverse by way of the world and I did not get that with this sport. I perceive they’ve completed one thing to make discovering collectibles higher and simpler and I definitely hope that’s the case.
Within the post-game, you should buy a filter to your psychic digital camera that can assist information you to the remaining collectibles, however it nonetheless requires going again to all of the earlier areas to search for the belongings you might need missed. Every thoughts has a lot of Figments to choose up as you’re platforming round, plus a number of items of Emotional Baggage (with Tags hidden individually), Reminiscence Vaults, Nuggets of Knowledge, and extra. The Vaults no less than provide you with slightly little bit of backstory, however for probably the most half, gathering all of these items simply seems like senseless busy work. Whether or not or not it was egregious sufficient to have an effect on enjoyment of the sport is a matter of style.
Hachibi33 mentioned:
I prefer to discover the world in all video games, so it was enjoyable gathering the collectibles as I progressed within the sport. Nonetheless, there have been too many, and a few have been troublesome to seek out, so coming again and turning round was no extra enjoyable… particularly on launch when there was nothing that will help you discover them.
Piemanns Bakery mentioned:
Performed this about (shockingly to me) 3 years in the past now! Which it actually seems like yesterday. Had a beautiful time with it and even tho lacking a Figment, Nuggets of Knowledge, Half-A-Minds, Emotional Baggage, and many others was fairly scary, I loved operating round within the ranges sufficient to probably not care that I might need to search for one (If reminiscence serves they launched an replace so as to add the collectible gadget after I had began the sport in order that was fantastic, I overlook precisely what it was, a satellite tv for pc kind gadget?). Obtained about 40 hours logged within the sport in keeping with TA and didn’t really feel like I used to be even near getting drained the sport. Story line, controls, visuals, all the pieces labored effectively. I’m actually glad it received (barely) on this vote so hopefully much more individuals get to fall in love with the sport!
Osmo76 mentioned:
Accomplished it a couple of years again. Contemplating it was excessive within the sport of the yr rankings again then I need to say it felt actually underwhelming. The thought/world is cool however the story was actually forgettable and the collectathon on the finish was little bit of a ache.
Hurn Weasel mentioned:
Good sport and fairly straightforward if not particularly fast to finish, although getting the complete 1000GS does contain getting an absurd variety of collectibles, which does appear a bit pointless. Undoubtedly price enjoying although, plus even when you’ve not performed the primary sport (I by no means have), you do not appear to overlook out on a lot of the story
Rinckenstock mentioned:
Regardless of the location’s improper classification of this as Motion-Journey quite than the platformer it truly is, it is a cracking little sport. Clearly life is much too quick for the various tons of of pointless collectibles in it which barely takes the sting off however the precise sport is nice. Plus it is on Recreation Go, and possibly at all times will likely be with Double Positive being owned by Microsoft
There was fairly a bit of debate as to the sport’s style classification on the location. It’s at present listed as an action-adventure sport, however lots of our commenters agreed with Rickenstock that it deserves to be within the 3D platformer style.
Allgorhythm mentioned:
Whereas TA’s action-adventure definition will not be a very good match for Psychonauts 2, in distinction the sport completely aligns with TA’s platformer definition.
SiegfriedX mentioned:
Unbelievable sport, certainly one of my favourite 3D platform sport, a style we do not get almost sufficient new video games on Xbox yearly. I’d like to see the primary one get a remaster with achievements, it is also a unbelievable sport although it is extra of a collectathon sport. Psychonauts 2 and Alan Wake 2 are in my view two video games which have bought far lower than they need to.
Regardless of the style, just about everybody thought that the sport was a worthy sequel, bettering on all facets of the unique Psychonauts.
GustavoDrN mentioned:
Psychonauts 2 is a sequel that lives as much as the unique. With enjoyable and artistic gameplay, the backstory is fairly attention-grabbing with numerous good moments.
Even those that weren’t too eager on Psychonauts 2 agreed that the sequel was higher than the earlier entry within the collection.
Kariyanine mentioned:
I do not love both of the Psychonauts video games however I do assume that this one improves the core gameplay a bit. The platforming simply feels higher in Psychonauts 2 than it did within the unique. Granted perhaps that’s as a result of this sport would not finish on the terrible Meat Circus torture that the primary did however regardless, I did benefit from the act of enjoying it greater than the unique.
So now, the one query that is still is, how lengthy will now we have to attend for Psychonauts 3?
MrKelvino mentioned:
I had a blast with this sport with the traversal, completely different powers you should use in and out of doors the degrees, and the distinctive artwork model. I hope the builders do extra with this collection sooner or later.
Piemanns Bakery mentioned:
Right here’s to Double Positive doing a component 3…they’re nonetheless in enterprise proper? I actually hope so, have dug all their video games I’ve performed thus far!
We had 785 tracked avid gamers enjoying together with Psychonauts 2 through the month of December, with 359 avid gamers beginning it for the primary time, and 81 avid gamers ending off the achievement checklist through the month. A complete of 9,227 achievements have been unlocked in December, price 153,725 Gamerscore and 267,325 TA Rating. That’s a per-gamer common of 12 achievements, 196 Gamerscore, 340.5 TA Rating every, and an general ratio of 1.73.
Probably the most generally unlocked achievement in December was “TK-O”, which might be earned through the very first fight encounter, and can be very troublesome to overlook. It was unlocked by 359 avid gamers through the month – presumably the identical 359 who began the sport for the primary time. The least unlocked achievement was “Safecracker”, with solely 78 tracked avid gamers opening all 20 Reminiscence Vaults within the sport through the month of December.
A complete of 38 tracked avid gamers earned all 57 of the sport’s achievements through the month of December, making their manner onto the December 2024 Shout-Out Listing. The primary gamer to completely full Psychonauts 2 was denisjales, who completed on December 4, however the quickest completion of the month goes to TheNeonShadow97, who unlocked the ultimate post-game achievement, “Making Peace” simply 57 hours and 32 minutes after beginning the sport. Congrats!
That’ll do it for this belated December 2024 wrap-up. My apologies for the delay on this one – actual life obtained in the best way within the month of January, and I simply didn’t discover the time. The wrap-up for January 2025’s sport, Metro: Final Gentle, is in progress and must be out in a couple of days, however within the meantime, we hope you’ve managed to get some co-op enjoyable in with the February TA Playlist sport, Portal 2. Don’t overlook to depart your feedback about your time within the Aperture Science Check Facility on this month’s Spoiler-Free and Spoiler Dialogue Threads. See you there!
