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

LaZodiac

2018-04-20, 09:24 AM

https://i.imgur.com/zVo03Np.jpg

Ah Psychonauts. Released in 2005, it's probably the most famous work done by Tim Schafer and his company Double Fine. And not without good reason, or at least so I've been told. While it is a contemporary of games I have played (both personally and as LPs) it's one that completely bypassed me, so I have like zero nostalgia for it. But it's a cult classic that didn't sell well at the initial time of release, so I can see why that may of happened. At any rate, this is going to be interesting an LP (to me at least) because of what all happened the first time I played this. We'll get into that story later, however. I'm playing the PC version, which has recently (as in twoish years ago maybe?) been updated to have ye olde achievements and the like, and I'll be doing my best to complete this game 100%, with those in mind. Do note I am saying "try" here.

As always, Monday and Friday updates are how we're doin' things here, videos typically 25ish minutes long. Don't spoil stuff, play nice, all that fun stuff. Without further adieu, lets get this show on the road.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [1] Basic Braining (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CAyrJG5-_E)

Video Length: 28:32

We open with a more than literal stump speech by a walking potato man who we'll learn to know as Coach Oleander, the head honcho of the Whispering Rock Summer Camp that is the game's setting. In a weird sort of way, this game starts in media res, since our protagonist, Razputin, has already infiltrated the campground so he can learn to master his latent psychic abilities and become a Psychonaut. Mostly as an act of rebellion against his parents and boredom from living in the circus. This is of course very very illegal, but Raz's mental capabilities are second to none and it seems that they're probably going to be letting Raz participate even though they all say, constantly, that he cannot. Sweet!

After choosing a bunk (which acts as a profile for your saves, naturally) we begin the game proper, being funneled towards the first level, Coach Oleander's battlefield of a mindscape. On our way there we encounter a bunch of other campground friends, some of whom are more friendly then others, and all of which have a...distinctly unsettling look to them. I'll be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of this game's art style, it's offputting as heck and generally not at any point enjoyable to look at. I get it's an art style thing, I do, but Raz is the only character who even looks remotely human shaped. At any rate, after trying (and failing) to assist in squirrel murder and meeting the camp bully (and his main victim aside from us) it's time to actually get this thing started!

I'll be doing a more complete look into the psyche of the minds we get into after we complete the story stuff in them, but for now I can say that Oleander's mind is definitely not my favorite by a long shot. While there are the occasional sign that it's a mental world and not otherwise, it's probably the most mundane of the levels we'll be exploring. For the most part, anyway. That's honestly okay since this IS a mental construct for us to train in, but I'd of liked them to start a little stronger on the idea that since this is a mental mind scape anything can happen. As far as actually playing it goes, this level is occasionally FAR too dark to navigate, but it works as far as tutorial levels go. We learn about all the collectables we'll have to deal with (for the most part, I don't beat this level in this video) and we learn the basics of movement. You run and jump and can double jump, and we've got poles to swing on and specific walls you can climb on and such. The mechanics are pretty standard for this sort of collectathon platformer game, and that's fine! Raz can defend himself with psychic slaps and a ground pound move, and that's it for offensive actions at the moment. All in all, this game plays...decently? The jumps feel a bit shallower than they probably are, and everything just has a slight layer of jank to it that I can't really describe. It plays well enough though, ignoring that sometimes the jump button doesn't jump (especially with regards to the pole swinging).

Of course, no collectathon platformer wouldn't be complete without things to collect, and that's where this game...not so much excels as it does shoot for the stars. First, the most basic collectable in the various mental worlds we'll go into; Figments of Imagination! These 2D, glowing pieces of mental paper represent various imagining from the person we're inside of, and collecting 100 points worth of them (they're not a strictly 1 to 1 ratio of collection to point) gives us a rank up on our psi-cadet rank (effectively just our level, like in any old RPG). The big problem with Figments are they can just kinda float around however, which makes collecting them a MASSIVE pain. And like, I do mean MASSIVE, if I have ANY difficulty in getting 100% clear on this game it'll be from this stuff. One up on the list of collectables in terms of importance are the Emotional Baggage, crying bags of various shape and size that we need to sort out by finding their tag and bringing it to the respective bag. Getting all the bags unlocks Primal Memories, which is to say concept art, of the world and the person we're inside. I feel like the Baggage is ever so slightly a missed opportunity, in that each level has the same five bags. I feel like in a more modern version of this game, the bags would be unique for each mind. It's not a big deal, and I get why they couldn't do this, but I'd like them to consider that for the sequel they're working on right now.

Let's step away from the mindscape for a second to talk about the second least important collectable in the game, and the only collectable that appears in the real world only. While they're first presented to you as if they're as important as say, Mario's Power Stars, the Psi-Cores and the playing cards that make them up are not actually all that important. They just give you a bunch of points for your psi-cadet rating. I'm not a big fan of them, but they're fine. The ACTUAL worst collectable however are the Arrowheads. Collectable in both meat and mind, arrowheads are this game's form of currency and they're awful and I hate them. I'll get into them in mooore detail later, because right now we don't have any context for them, but just keep that in the back of your mind. But enough negativity, lets talk about the best collectable in the game, and probably my favorite part of it, the Memory Vaults!

The Memory Vaults are, as you expected, vaults inside the minds of who we're in currently. Give em a smack and we get access to one of the level's memories, in black and white film reel style. Completely silent, no dialogue (spoken or otherwise) and full of actual, genuinely good framing. These memories are the best this game has to offer in terms of presentation, and I feel like a lot of people probably praise the game solely because of how successful these are at presenting the idea of "exploring the mind of another person". But that's just me.

Anyway, all that said and done, we end our episode off talking to one of the camp friends, Vernon. He's...certainly a character. I have...a love-hate relationship with this game's style of comedy, and I'll leave it to you guys to decide if any of this stuff is actually funny or not. At any rate, I hope you all enjoyed, this first update is kinda muddled since I've got a lot to say about the game's set up and mechanics. See you all next time for more of this!

Qwertystop

2018-04-20, 03:38 PM

Haven't played the game before. Seen lots of people talking about it, of course. Most recent wasn't very positive (http://www.vigaroe.com/search/label/Psychonauts). Never watched an LP of it, will be good to see.

DataNinja

2018-04-20, 04:01 PM

New LP. This'll be interesting, because I know nada about this game. I've heard of it, but not about it.

Wouldn't be a Zodi LP if everything went perfectly smoothly, right? :smalltongue:

Well, interesting cutscene start.

Huh. That is a neat little control trick.

Yeah, man, this is a really really darkly lit world. Ugh. Hopefully it brightens up later in the game.

I... dunno if this game puts its best foot forwards at the beginning. But, we'll see.

Spore

2018-04-20, 05:23 PM

The game is always blown as being this incredible masterpiece. Let's see how it holds up. So far it looks like the PS 2 counterpart to collect-a-thons like Banjo Kazooie or Super Mario 64.

LaZodiac

2018-04-20, 11:22 PM

The game is always blown as being this incredible masterpiece. Let's see how it holds up. So far it looks like the PS 2 counterpart to collect-a-thons like Banjo Kazooie or Super Mario 64.

It is, except it should be compared to it's actual contemporaries instead of those one generation behind it. Sly Cooper and Super Mario Sunshine (both of which I've LPed, naturally).

smuchmuch

2018-04-21, 04:52 PM

Ah psychonauts...

I'll say this, befre designing his game, Tim Shaefer was known or designing adventur games t Lucas Arts. and itshows. The game while being a patformer, has a ot of comedic lines, scens little easter eggs and sidethngs.. that you are very likely to miss on you first playthrough.

So here's a world of advice for those who would liketo pick it up and play for the first time: If you want to profit of this game humour and attntin to detail fully, I recomend aboding it a lot like ad adenture game, at least in the first half of the game, explore around the camp between each a lot and do not rush to each new level and objectives, try talking to about eveyone, showing objects, usin powers an genraly screw around.

I mean it's not an obligation by any means but is really in it's little detals that the game shines. That and it's level design.

As of the collectables.
Psycards and core are acturay pretty nice to get levels ad so uprades erly. Some of the powers ulocked early can make things so much easier.

Arrowheads aren't to bad if you get the detector as early as yu can (which I heavily recomend) and go hunting for deep caches during he day, otherwise yeah you'll have to do it at night and it gets annoyingand painful fast.

Ebon_Drake

2018-04-22, 04:20 PM

It seems like I had a similar experience to you of this game. I'd heard it praised a lot over the years, picked it up for pennies in a Steam sale a couple of years ago, but the tone and art style weren't really what I'd expected and I found them a little off-putting. I also had persistent problems with the audio stuttering during dialogue and tried various fixes that didn't work. I played through the tutorial section and very early bits, but then the bugs got more frequent so I ended up bouncing right off the game and never went back. I'll see how this thread goes and may give it another shot.

From the video you've posted, it looks like there were maybe a few small stutters in the dialogue with Dogen, but nothing major so far. Have you had any issues with this and/or applied any fixes?

LaZodiac

2018-04-22, 04:25 PM

LaZodiac

2018-04-23, 08:52 AM

And then we started another Psychonauts video.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [2] A Button (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jupeiedj7Ps)

Video Length: 24:56

In this episode, we get through the rest of Coach Oleander's mind. Unfortunately for everyone involved we open with meeting Crystal and Clem, two peppy excitable cheersquad members who have really annoying voices, who cheer you on as you do a punch minigame to progress. Oleander promises us a reward for clearing it as well as going forward, and the reward is blowing up the two children and I feel like this is actually a decent joke. Not worth it though, but a decent joke none the less. This episode also features some of the more...less than stellar platforming mechanics the game has to offer. Mostly in that sometimes the A button doesn't register if you try jumping too quickly, and sometimes it will register as hitting the B button (or something. Still not really sure why sometimes I just randomly fall off ledges and ropes. I have good button control and I don't fatfinger them). The worst of this culminates in the trapeze section, but I managed to work it out fairly easily. Also worth noting is the pole swinging part, which has a ton of scary looking flame jets...none of which can actually hit you, and that feels like an oversight? I don't know, it's weird.

After getting through all that, plus a really disorienting spinning room of spikes challenge (it's hard to explain in words) we reach the end of Oleander's little obstacle course...only to find that no one is there. There is a little room off to the side though, which we gladly go to explore. It gets Oleander's attention, and he apologizes for being late and rewards us with our first Merit badge! With that done, Sasha Nein shows up and more or less asks us to go to his secret lab for his own personal training course. He gives us a button as a sort of hint on where his secret lab is, and we get to see what the actual bulk of this game will probably end up being: point and click adventure game style puzzles! I'm going to go out and say I am not a big fan of those sorts of games, but these are simple enough to be fine. For one, Sasha gives a pretty good hint as to where to go. For two, Razz can show the button to everyone in the game and they'll pretty much always just spell it right out for him. So our next destination is the Geodesic Isolation Chamber. But first we explore this part of the camp a bit, showing off a huge log that tells the history of the camp, plus some corkboard notes (we'll see more of these later). We also start the Scavenger Hunt, another series of collectables that we'll be working on getting later. All in all, a pretty decent episode if I do say so myself. Hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you guys next time. But...we're not done writing today, at least.

Once we beat a level, I'm going to go over the level and talk about it, from a mental point of view. What does it tell us about the character, what does it all mean, and all that fun stuff. We don't have all the memory vaults for Oleander, which is a little troublesome, but it should be fine. So lets talk shop about the mind. Oleander's mindscape is a battlefield, and it's important to keep in mind that this is all very clearly set up for the students to get through and is not a perfect representation of his thoughts. That said, even Oleander can't keep everything controlled. This is most expressed in the Figments, showing all manner of horrible mutilation of people, weapons, bombs, and horrifying vaguely germanic soldiers representing what they felt like, if not what they actually where. A lot of people, from what I've read, take this and Oleander's character design and consider it a sign that he fought on that side of things and that's really really stupid? Like this is a testing ground, he trains by appearing as your enemy, so he dresses up sort of like them to make the mental image of him being your enemy stronger. The one memory vault we did find shows pretty clearly he fought on the other side, and was quite the soldier. And also quite a bit taller than he is now. It's pretty clear from at least this memory at least (we'll see more in the second one once we can actually get it) that he went in guns blazing, and left with more metal on his chest than his friends who got cut down by gunfire. Oleander is a rude, crass, and overall potato of a man, but it's all an act to teach these students how to handle the harsh reality of being a psychic soldier. It's a little...creepy when you consider the fact that this summer camp is effectively a child soldier training facility, but I'm sure it's not as bad as it appears, just like our buddy Coach here.

ShneekeyTheLost

2018-04-23, 12:09 PM

Honestly, not a big fan of this particular game. Unlike Banjo Kazooie, which was a game I actually enjoyed, this game has worse mechanics, edgier worldview, and overall a worse experience. And it has aged even worse than Banjo Kazooie, which is saying something.

Sorry, Zodi. I tried, but the game is just painfully bad. I'll catch up with ya next game.

DataNinja

2018-04-23, 11:20 PM

...I'm glad you didn't listen until the end of that speech. Painfully-long dragged out 'jokes'... don't particularly fall into funny for me.

And now snow.

Man, a good number of the voices here just grate on me. It's the same kinda problem I had with Yooka-Laylee, I think it was.

...there is literally no penalty for hitting the non-targets? That doesn't seem right.

Those memories are pretty neat. And, arguably, the stylized characters work better in there than elsewhere. At least, uh, so far.

I imagine it hit you because it was able to go 'faster' because of the diminishing angle? I dunno, probably based on how they coded the gun. Or else you were just unlucky.

Now, see, that's a design choice I like. Blocked door. One thing to interact with. Eventually you'll try and climb the flagpole if only while trying to get back to where you came from.

Upper body strength is needed in the mind? :smalltongue:

I do like how it shows "yep, mental world need not be concerned with physics", since... there hasn't been too much of it yet. But, yeah, maneuvering it looks janky.

Great. Now we're a Trainer, uh, Psychonaut. Now go collect 8 badges! (I assume.) :smallamused:

He does realize that directly asking where a secret lab is probably isn't the best course of action, right? :smalltongue:

I'm still not really feeling this game, but, it might pick up later. Hopefully.

Ebon_Drake

2018-04-24, 03:29 PM

Nope, there's been no problems. Any issues like with Dogen is just a case of that just being how the game is.

Dang, I was really hoping you'd have a pro tip for me. :smallfrown:

You've now played as far as I managed in the game, so I'm interested to see what happens next. I have tried running it again and the problem wasn't quite as bad as I remember so I might give it another chance.

Coidzor

2018-04-24, 07:16 PM

Ah psychonauts...

I'll say this, befre designing his game, Tim Shaefer was known or designing adventur games t Lucas Arts. and itshows. The game while being a patformer, has a ot of comedic lines, scens little easter eggs and sidethngs.. that you are very likely to miss on you first playthrough.

So here's a world of advice for those who would liketo pick it up and play for the first time: If you want to profit of this game humour and attntin to detail fully, I recomend aboding it a lot like ad adenture game, at least in the first half of the game, explore around the camp between each a lot and do not rush to each new level and objectives, try talking to about eveyone, showing objects, usin powers an genraly screw around.

It even makes sense to a certain extent. After all, you are at a summer camp.

As of the collectables.
Psycards and core are acturay pretty nice to get levels ad so uprades erly. Some of the powers ulocked early can make things so much easier.

Arrowheads aren't to bad if you get the detector as early as yu can (which I heavily recomend) and go hunting for deep caches during he day, otherwise yeah you'll have to do it at night and it gets annoyingand painful fast.

Agreed. As annoying as it is that you have to do that in the first place.

smuchmuch

2018-04-24, 10:26 PM

Abut the skiped lines, th game is pretty twitchy with dilogue, pressing any buttong while a Pc is going n anmatio tend to skipp he whole line

The fragment collecting does get a lot easier when you unlock certain powers later, thankfuly.

I don't remember having the problems you have with the jumping buton personaly. I mean Psychonaut is not the bst platormer by far but controls were never an issue and pretty tight for me. Googling it, others people seem to repport he same issue, other not. Odd.
I do wonder if maybe this has something to do with using a controller ?

If this persist there's certain sections of the game that will be... very painful, tho.

Weird that yo can't unequip items too,becaue I'm sure Ididnt have that issue on my playthrouhs. Normaly it's te B button to unequip on a controler, I beleive

It's a little...creepy when you consider the fact that this summer camp is effectively a child soldier training facility, but I'm sure it's not as bad as it appears, just like our buddy Coach here.

To be fair, the actualy going up to the 'soldier' (secret agent) thing is fully voluntary and implied to hapen with the parent agreement. .. ...Which alway kind of made me wonder what kind of society the people of this world leave in. Dunno maybe the sequel or the Vr game will tell a little more about the world. Probably not tho the whole thingi better no taken too serously and withou thinkng too hard about it.

Also as can be seen from Phoebe the pyromaniac and Dogen 'ony made a head explode once. sortakinda" , untrained psyhic kids can be pretty dangerous

...there is literally no penalty for hitting the non-targets? That doesn't seem right.

Only when you play the 'first' (and only mandatory for plot advancement) level of the mingame.

After that you can play the minigame with two increasing difficulty levels for some arrowheads as reward? Thetarget augment by ten points for each level and there's a penaltyof -1 point for a missed 'bad' target and -2 for an 'innocent' green target destroyed.

Upper body strength is needed in the mind? :smalltongue:

You never heard of muscle memory ? :smalltongue:
(...what ?... That would be totaly the kind of pun this game would go with ifthey had wanted to justify it. It doesn't but ya just know it would.)

Great. Now we're a Trainer, uh, Psychonaut. Now go collect 8 badges! (I assume.)

Funnily enough, , there is eight psychic powers total you can get in this game (not counting the puching, double jump and dive bomb you get from the start) Five are unlocked during the game, three by leveling up.

Then there's upgrades for each powers that you get every few levels, hence why leveling early by gettng psy cores and the scavenger hunt make things sooo much easier.

And four more badges that you just get as the game progress, the basic braining is the first one.

LaZodiac

2018-04-27, 09:48 AM

How's about some more of this.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [3] The Campground (https://youtu.be/6BRPWLn1G8Y)

Video Length: 22:20

In this episode, we bumble around talking to most of the other campers, showing them Sasha's shiny button and otherwise talking to them to get a feel for how they are. As it turns out most of them are jerks, and some of them are KIND OF WEIRD. In the future, when I go get around to clearing out each area, I'll be doing a lot of editing so it doesn't take forever, but for this time I'll let it linger a bit so you can get a feel for how the campground is. It's surprisingly confusing if you let your mind wander a bit, and is fairly tricky to navigate. The signs are also...less than helpful, as they're not directly outside the exit to the next location, they're just sort of vaguely pointing in that direction. This is a bit unclear.

Most importantly this episode, we find the Camp Lodge store, in which we finally find the use for Arrowheads. And I can go over the first major reason why they're terrible. First off, look at those prices! The cheapest thing here is 10 arrowheads which, lets be fair, that's fine. It's also a fairly vital pick up, in that it lets us take those playing cards and make a Challenge Marker out of it. Pretty okay! Then we have the Dream Fluff, a fairly useless healing item that costs FIFTY arrowheads. That's kind of absurd, and we're only going to buy one of these, exactly once. We've also got the PSI Colorizer, which I'll be picking up at some point maybe, which costs 250 (which is an absurd price given how useless it is). Then, for 400 arrowheads, we can buy...a passive ability that I'm not sure is even permanently on, because the game provides almost no information on how it works, the Magnet merit badge! This seems like a fairly vital thing given how bouncy the pick ups can be, and if it works the way other psychic powers do and must be EQUIPPED, than it's basically hot trash.

The most important thing here however is the Cobweb Duster, an 800 arrowhead investment that is REQUIRED to beat the game, it lets you suck up those mental cobwebs inside peoples heads. We will be getting this at a later date and, god willing, I won't have to show you the OTHER half of why the arrowheads are so bloody terrible. Fingers crossed. The big problem with this of course is that, you PICK UP ARROWHEADS ONCE AT A TIME. Now, for 50 Arrowheads we can "solve" this problem by buying the Dowsing Rod. This of course comes with a slight caveat. One, there are actually a limited amount of the big stores of Arrowheads, so once you run em out they're gone for good. Two, getting them is actually kind of annoying and finicky, though we'll talk more about that later. Third, even when you GET a deep deposit of Arrowhead, it's just like 10ish? I'll admit I can't find any documentation on how many arrowheads you get and I don't actually remember how many it gives you, but I know it gives you a number that feels wrong. This may just be me projecting my bad experience with this entire terrible garbage overpriced mechanic, however, and if all goes well we won't have to worry about it! Once we're past a certain point I'll actually explain what the deal is. Those of you who know the game know what this is, most likely.

After that we make our way to the Geodesic Isolation Chamber, save Maloof (who's been forced into it by Bobby) and gain access to Sasha's lab! He tells us we're going to be doing some Brain Tumbler experiments, but that'll have to wait until Next Time! I hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys there.

smuchmuch

2018-04-27, 11:01 AM

If memory serves, mental magnet is one of the four badges that appear inthe journal, aka it's ot cnsidered a powera, it's a pasive upgrade that's alway active once bought.

Normaly there's more than enough arowheads in the deep caches to buy the duster and magnet and have some spare for a few cores. It does become more delicate if you need to start buying fluffs or the useless pst clor thing, tho

Up to you if you want to play this compeltly blind or make your life easier but there is a map of deep arowheads caches locations
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/builder111/media/bWVkaWFJZDoxMTgzNzU5OA==/?ref=

LaZodiac

2018-04-27, 11:03 AM

DataNinja

2018-04-27, 12:17 PM

I guess the joke is "Oh, Raz thinks they're nice, but then look, they're working/playing around with poison." That's what I got of it, at least.

Man... that camp has a lot of collectables strewn around, with a good amount of distance from point A to B. I can see how one could get lost.

Coidzor

2018-04-27, 03:31 PM

Weird that yo can't unequip items too,becaue I'm sure Ididnt have that issue on my playthrouhs. Normaly it's te B button to unequip on a controler, I beleive

I accidentally discovered it by hitting x when I meant to hit z to go into first person view myself.

To be fair, the actualy going up to the 'soldier' (secret agent) thing is fully voluntary and implied to hapen with the parent agreement. .. ...Which alway kind of made me wonder what kind of society the people of this world leave in. Dunno maybe the sequel or the Vr game will tell a little more about the world. Probably not tho the whole thingi better no taken too serously and withou thinkng too hard about it.

Also as can be seen from Phoebe the pyromaniac and Dogen 'ony made a head explode once. sortakinda" , untrained psyhic kids can be pretty dangerous

And let's not even get started on the ones that become zombie bullies before anyone can get to them.

You never heard of muscle memory ? :smalltongue:
(...what ?... That would be totaly the kind of pun this game would go with ifthey had wanted to justify it. It doesn't but ya just know it would.)

I think it's more about mental agility and how you need to be familiar with moving around in unusual ways in order to traverse the mental hellscapes of your enemies, allies, etc.

Funnily enough, , there is eight psychic powers total you can get in this game (not counting the puching, double jump and dive bomb you get from the start) Five are unlocked during the game, three by leveling up.

Then there's upgrades for each powers that you get every few levels, hence why leveling early by gettng psy cores and the scavenger hunt make things sooo much easier.

And four more badges that you just get as the game progress, the basic braining is the first one.

There's at least one other badge you can acquire in another way as well, but I don't want to give away more than that right now.

Coidzor

2018-04-27, 03:39 PM

How's about some more of this.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [3] The Campground (https://youtu.be/6BRPWLn1G8Y)

Video Length: 22:20

In this episode, we bumble around talking to most of the other campers, showing them Sasha's shiny button and otherwise talking to them to get a feel for how they are. As it turns out most of them are jerks, and some of them are KIND OF WEIRD. In the future, when I go get around to clearing out each area, I'll be doing a lot of editing so it doesn't take forever, but for this time I'll let it linger a bit so you can get a feel for how the campground is. It's surprisingly confusing if you let your mind wander a bit, and is fairly tricky to navigate. The signs are also...less than helpful, as they're not directly outside the exit to the next location, they're just sort of vaguely pointing in that direction. This is a bit unclear.

Most importantly this episode, we find the Camp Lodge store, in which we finally find the use for Arrowheads. And I can go over the first major reason why they're terrible. First off, look at those prices! The cheapest thing here is 10 arrowheads which, lets be fair, that's fine. It's also a fairly vital pick up, in that it lets us take those playing cards and make a Challenge Marker out of it. Pretty okay! Then we have the Dream Fluff, a fairly useless healing item that costs FIFTY arrowheads. That's kind of absurd, and we're only going to buy one of these, exactly once. We've also got the PSI Colorizer, which I'll be picking up at some point maybe, which costs 250 (which is an absurd price given how useless it is). Then, for 400 arrowheads, we can buy...a passive ability that I'm not sure is even permanently on, because the game provides almost no information on how it works, the Magnet merit badge! This seems like a fairly vital thing given how bouncy the pick ups can be, and if it works the way other psychic powers do and must be EQUIPPED, than it's basically hot trash.

The most important thing here however is the Cobweb Duster, an 800 arrowhead investment that is REQUIRED to beat the game, it lets you suck up those mental cobwebs inside peoples heads. We will be getting this at a later date and, god willing, I won't have to show you the OTHER half of why the arrowheads are so bloody terrible. Fingers crossed. The big problem with this of course is that, you PICK UP ARROWHEADS ONCE AT A TIME. Now, for 50 Arrowheads we can "solve" this problem by buying the Dowsing Rod. This of course comes with a slight caveat. One, there are actually a limited amount of the big stores of Arrowheads, so once you run em out they're gone for good. Two, getting them is actually kind of annoying and finicky, though we'll talk more about that later. Third, even when you GET a deep deposit of Arrowhead, it's just like 10ish? I'll admit I can't find any documentation on how many arrowheads you get and I don't actually remember how many it gives you, but I know it gives you a number that feels wrong. This may just be me projecting my bad experience with this entire terrible garbage overpriced mechanic, however, and if all goes well we won't have to worry about it! Once we're past a certain point I'll actually explain what the deal is. Those of you who know the game know what this is, most likely.

As a head's up for anyone playing through the game for the first time, don't load up heavily on Psi Cores, as the game will let you buy far more than you could ever actually use. Also, whenever you can actually make use of them, you can also go and buy some more, since unless you're deliberately holding onto Psi Cards until right before the endgame, you're only going to need maybe 3-4 of them at once, usually more like 1-2.

The Magnet Merit Badge is actually pretty nice. I spent 5 minutes using the dowsing rod and got it on a whim after I started playing again and I was collecting a significantly greater amount of the health and ammo drops than I was before. It's especially useful for collecting drops that fall off of ledges because with the Magnetizer, they'll float up and down vertically to get to you, rather than only being able to really travel horizontally.

And, yes, the cobweb duster is very required, but I believe you have 3-4 mindscapes before you actually need it, at least. That said, it's better to do as much collecting early on as possible. Largely because Night Time makes visibility extremely poor and the cougars can be annoying if you run into one while platforming.

IME the deep core deposits of arrowheads respawn when quitting and exiting the game and sometimes even when exiting a screen and coming back. The dowser's collection ability could definitely have been better implemented though, no arguments there.

smuchmuch

2018-04-27, 03:42 PM

I guess the joke is "Oh, Raz thinks they're nice, but then look, they're working/playing around with poison." That's what I got of it, at least.

Sort off. There's another easily missable scene like that with these twos that make it a little more clear what it's about. But like most of the strange idiosyncracyesand obvious isses of the campe.. it's never explored or delved in to the game, which given the theme of sad game, seems like a weird missed opportunies.
(I assume that like with so many Tim Shaefer gmes there was plans for this me to be much bigger at first but when they went overtime and over budget (as they did) they obbled together somthing very quickly or the ending. In fact i'm pretty sure it was te case due to a couple of thins 'llpoint when we come to it.)

I appreciate this, but I'm not playing this blind. I'll go more into what happened the last time I played this later

(Sorry, I didn't expres myself well, I meant 'blind' as in ' 'if you want to play 'folow the dousing rod' to find the cahes, not blind to the whole game. I did gather from your post that you played this game before and hadn't a good time.)

Coidzor

2018-04-27, 04:42 PM

Sort off. There's another easily missable scene like that with these twos that make it a little more clear what it's about. But like most of the strange idiosyncracyesand obvious isses of the campe.. it's never explored or delved in to the game, which given the theme of sad game, seems like a weird missed opportunies.
(I assume that like with so many Tim Shaefer gmes there was plans for this me to be much bigger at first but when they went overtime and over budget (as they did) they obbled together somthing very quickly or the ending. In fact i'm pretty sure it was te case due to a couple of thins 'llpoint when we come to it.)

Is the scene that explains the cheer kids' poison related to the kid that reveals they tried to commit suicide with poison and jumping off of a building after you re-brain them?

LaZodiac

2018-04-30, 08:42 AM

Okay, time for more Psychonuts.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [4] A Victory For Good Taste (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwnMrrcVag4)

Video Length: 29:53

Starting us off today, we begin the Brain Tumbler experiment! It opens us up to the Collective Unconcious, the morphogenetic hub of the mental worlds we'll be exploring in this game. An interesting idea, if nothing else. At the far end of it we find the door leading to our own mind, and step right in. Raz's mind is fairly...empty, showing only a Romani caravan and some figments, plus a vault showing how Raz made his way to Camp Whispering Rock. Tragically, we will never seen the world's smallest pony. Stepping into the caravan, we find ourselves stuck within static. Static that if we hit it, cracks open to reveal that we've been in an egg since we went inside. Around us is a horrifying forest, figments and in game objects both being made of horrible imagery and bones, with a rabbit the only nice thing here. Shortly into our exploration we find a horrible yellow eyed tumbler monster and are kicked out of the experiment by Sasha. Well that was fun!

With that said and done, Sasha tells us he wants to teach us how to do a violence, so that we can actually continue the brain tumbler experiment. Of course he cannot ACTUALLY teach us how to fight just yet because otherwise he might get in serious trouble, showing Sasha is the only character who actually remembers the conceit of the plot by the way. He does direct us towards who can get us the Marksmanship learners permit, however, the legendary psychomaster Ford Crueller. Aka the weird guy we've been seeing around the camp. In his secret base (which we could of gone to do all of this exposition at any time) we learn a bit about Whispering Rock Summer Camp and why it's so...very much what it is. Crueller just kinda gives us the learner's permit and that's fine, more or less. We return to Sasha, and begin the proper training for our Psi Blasts in Sasha's Shooting Range, which is our next level. But before hand he also gives us A Piece Of Bacon so he can be a Navi for us. Thanks, Crueller.

Back with Sasha, we're allowed into his mind. He teaches us about how shooting works, which isn't that complicated but is a little finicky since the lock on is kind of trash in how it works? I don't know how to really explain it in words, and I've tried a couple times, but the lock on feels really clunky in every single way. Regardless, we blow up the horrific monsters Sasha sets on us and begin shooting his mental Censor's...until Raz get's impatient and sets the spawner to such a degree it causes problems! We explode Sasha's ordered mind in what is probably my favorite level, but also least favorite given that navigating it kinda sucks because you can only access parts of it at a time by hitting switches. This isn't that bad when you're going through the plot part, but in going back to it later it can get a little tedious. We mind bullet our way through all the Censors, sealing up every pipe for them...only to realize that's actually a really bad thing to do, creating a build up of psychic energy that forms into a huge hideous Censor boss fight. And boy, what a boss fight it is! The game is incredibly unclear about what to do, and to be honest I should of realized it given all that's going on there, but it still feels like a REALLY bad boss. At any rate we explode it, Sasha gives us the merit badge (but it's signed by Crueller anyway because hah canned animations) and we leave his mind, ready to tumble once more. But that'll be for next time. Hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you then!

------

So, like I did with Oleander, since we've finished the plot for Sasha's brain lets take a look at him. His mind is probably my favorite, and the most obviously framed as a testing ground. His mind is an ordered, (near) unbreakable cube in the void of space. It shows a clear level of control no one else in the game has, even when one of the sides of the cube is cracked open by the Censor leak. Sasha only lets a bit of him out at a time. When he does, it comes out as huge impressions of parts of his life. The first one a massive childhood bed, playing blocks, all that fun stuff. It even includes a memory of Sasha as a child (a tragic one, in which we see him love his mother, only to watch her die...) to really sell home that this first area is comprised of baby memories. It's truly fascinating, and a good look into Sasha's character, the idea that each section of his mind is that ordered.

Of course it's an illusion. While the game does it's best, it cannot actually maintain that for even one side of the cube, the second one being entirely unrelated to his mentality. It's a shame, but not everything can be perfect. My best guess on how this one relates (since the figments in this part are all artsy and scholary looking things) is that they're meant to be something, maybe transistors, from his schooling? I don't know, as much as I do want to really dive in their and psychoanalyze these worlds the fact of the matter is that the game's actually not as good as it claims to be about this stuff. It's a shame because the rest of Sasha's mind works really well, it's just this one bit that goes poorly. The next facet of Sasha's mind shows all manner of cobbler's equipment, plus of course shoe boxes with his name on them. It's his Dad's job, obviously, so this is about his more personal family memories. It also features the first appearance of Repressed Rage, horrible stupid awful enemies that explode violently and represent an inner anger. While we don't see it this episode, there's a second memory vault for Sasha that more than explains juuust why he of all people would have this enemy in his brain. It'll be fun to show off, I think.

The final part of Sasha's brain looks like a super villain device, and sadly is the least interesting in terms of what they do with it. Maybe the second facet was meant to be a part of this too? It would explain some things. But yeah this is meant to be the side of his brain where all his Psychonauts adventures are, and that's kinda cool. Ultimately, Sasha Nein's mind is one of my favorite since it shows the potential this game has for diving into a mental world and really doing something interesting and creative with it. The emphasis in this case being potential.

Knight9910

2018-04-30, 10:41 AM

Is there some reason why you keep calling him Ford Crueller when the game is very clearly and repeatedly spelling his name as Cruller?

LaZodiac

2018-04-30, 11:22 AM

Because I thought it was Crueller.

I'll be correcting that in the next videos, my bad!

DataNinja

2018-04-30, 02:35 PM

Huh. Okay, this is more the kind of environment I had in mind. And that's a neat level-select thing.

...the mind itself is still very, very dark and dreary.

Oh, there we go. Weird transitions. Much better.

Yeah, Sasha's mindscape seems to make a lot better use of the conceit. It's something that could only appear here.

And, yeesh, yeah... those memories do get poignant and personal.

I think they had some neat ideas, but... yeah, that boss is pretty poorly executed.

smuchmuch

2018-04-30, 02:45 PM

I have to wonder what version of the game are you using. Because for example you say it's impossible to get back to Nein lab wih the transit system, which is odd because it i most cetainely possible in the version I'm playing. Same with liitte things like the fact you can't directly put back items it the inventory.
Mke me wondering if maybe it's nota patch thing.

he game is incredibly unclear about what to do, and to be honest I should of realized it given all that's going on there, but it still feels like a REALLY bad boss.

Actualy, it does . If you get crushed by the Megacensor giant stamp (which takes quite a bit of healt but is thankfully not an insta death) Sasha will tell you to shut the censor valves before attacking it.

I'm personaly okay that it doesn't tell you outright snce it's somewhat fairly easy to figure out if you just take a little time to observe the boss istelf while running from it.Though I do agree the health bar should be bigger and make it clearer that you can't kill it right now.

My best guess on how this one relates (since the figments in this part are all artsy and scholary looking things) is that they're meant to be something, maybe transistors, from his schooling

I alway figured it was more meant to evoke a general symbolim of his sense of minimalistic aesthetics and very organised logical side of his world view

But since then, Double Fine did release another Psychonaut game, called 'Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin' meant to serve as an intequel between Psychoanut 1 ad 2, as sch it contain major spoiler for tis one. (since it's a VR only game sadly, could'nt play it, just saw a LP)
Anyhow as an aside,it is shown in it that Sasha does have a bit of an obsesion with UFOs and aliens, which kind of fit with this face general aestehtic of circles and hanging things in the sky.

The upper part does also sort of remind me of these toys people put above cribs. Weither or not it's on purpose, I have no idea.

LaZodiac

2018-04-30, 02:47 PM

I have to wonder what version of the game are you using. Because for example you say it's impossible to get back to Nein lab wih the transit system, which is odd because it i most cetainely possible in the version I'm playing. Same with liitte things like the fact you can't directly put back items it the inventory.
Mke me wondering if maybe it's nota patch thing.

Actualy, it does . If you get crushed by the Megacensor giant stamp (which akes quite a bit of healt but is thankfully not an insta death) Sasha will tell you to shut the censor valves before attacking it.

I alway figured it was more meat to evoke a general symbolim of his sense of minimalistic aesthetics and very organised logical side of his world view

But since then, Double Fine did release another Psychonaut game, called 'Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin' meant to serve as an intequelbetween Psychoanut 1 ad 2, as sch it contain major spoiler for tis one. (since it's a VR only game sadly, coulntplay, just saw a LP)
Anyhow as an aside,it is shown in it that Sasha does have a bit of an obssesion with UFOs and aliens, which kind of fit with this face general aestehtic of circles and hanging things in the sky.

The upper part does also sort of remind me of these toys people put above cribs. Weither or not it's on purpose, I have no idea.

I think I mentioned this before, but the "put the item back" button is just something I missed. I swore I had hit it at the time but it didn't work, but now it is. Additionally, as I'll show in another video, I am in fact wrong about not being able to go to Sasha's lab via the stump transit. I just never noticed you could scroll down to it!

Knight9910

2018-04-30, 05:06 PM

Also, I want to mention on the topic of "Gypsy" versus "Romani."

I could go into my own thoughts on political correctness, but that would be off topic right now, so I'll just say this...

Yes, we get it. "Gypsy" is now considered politically incorrect and is also inaccurate. (It's believed to be a bastardization of "Egyptian" because it was wrongly believed that the Romani people were immigrants from Egypt, in the same vein as "Indian" being used for Native Americans. No, sorry George Carlin, it was not short for "un gente en Dios.") Romani is the more accurate and now the more accepted term. The game was made before the new terminology became "popularized" and is a product of its time.

But let's also accept that this game is NOT racist. There is no racial judgment or hatred of any sort present here, not even accidental. The Romani character is the hero and the most upright and sympathetic character here.

So yes, we can make a comment that the game is using an incorrect and outdated term, and acknowledge that they should probably say Romani... but having to draw attention to it EVERY TIME the game does it really just comes across as race-baiting, I think.

EDIT: I've talked to Zodi about this privately. I'll leave it up in case anyone's curious, but don't feel the need to derail the thread with it.

LaZodiac

2018-04-30, 05:19 PM

Yeah this is going to be the last time I bring it up, don't worry about it Knight. I didn't think I brought it up that often, though? I mentioned it off hand in the first episode and am here saying, when it shows up, yeah this game did a problematic thing. Was not saying it was racist, just making a note of it.

And that can be the end of this discussion since it bleeds a little into non-board safe topics.

Knight9910

2018-04-30, 06:10 PM

Apparently I'm not allowed to just reply with "alright" so instead I'll say all of this and...

Alright.

LaZodiac

2018-04-30, 06:12 PM

Post limits are a hell of a thing.

Anyway oh boy Psychonuts. I hope you're all enjoying this game. I'm having fun with it for the most part, though to be transparent about things I've been through the ringer lately as it where, so that's making things feel weird. I hope it doesn't show!

Knight9910

2018-04-30, 11:26 PM

On a lighter note, one thing I keep thinking is how much this game's art style and character designs really remind me of Nicktoons. Like... Wild Thornberrys, Rugrats, that sort of thing.

Eurus

2018-05-03, 10:38 AM

On a lighter note, one thing I keep thinking is how much this game's art style and character designs really remind me of Nicktoons. Like... Wild Thornberrys, Rugrats, that sort of thing.

That's the vibe I get! It's very cartoony in an old-school way, with the almost grotesquely deformed characters. I feel like if they'd made it cell-shaded or even 2D it would have looked a lot better, as it is it sorta evokes those things but slides into the uncanny valley a bit.

LaZodiac

2018-05-04, 09:14 AM

Okay, lets Psychonaut.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [5] Further Tumbling (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tACHJYBNo74)

Video Length: 29:35

Starting us off today, we get the psychic ability PYROKINESIS. This is...ultimately not even remotely useful in that it's a little too slow, and has a short range of actual effectiveness. It can be quite useful if you can get it off, but overall is not really that useful as an offensive move. It's got some uses for puzzles, however.

After that, it's time for some achievement gathering! After beating Sasha's Shooting Gallery, but before we do the second dive into the Brain Tumbler experiment, we can go to the parking lot to see how Maloof is doing. As it turns out not super well, and Bobby wants to make it worse. Thankfully Mikhail has decided to defend poor little Maloof, so that's nice at least. After that (well, before, but whatever) we do a full reading of all the currently posted Bulletin Board stuff, which gets us an achievement and gets us a couple good jokes. Likewise, we read the giant log in the middle of the parking lot to get some history on how Whispering Rock came to be. All in all it's an interesting bit of writing, and the "Shaky Claim" joke is really funny to me.

Next on our list is returning to the Campfire area and reciting Oleander's entire speech back to front. This gets us an achievement and wastes a good amount of time. Given all the stuff in this game, it feels a little weird that THIS is an achievement, but I guess someone was just really proud of that speech. Anyway, we pick up some items on our way back to Sasha Nein's lab (and as it turns out you CAN tree stump to his lab I didn't realize this!) and begin the next attempt at the Brain Tumbler experiment.

This one goes a lot better, since we have mind bullets, but overall is much the same. We continue exploring further into this strange mental world, fighting Censors of various size as well as nasty plants, all in pursuit of a bunny. Finally, we get to the end of the woods to find...a massive dark tower! And at the tip, we dream of a dentist stealing Dogen's brain! For some reason Raz decides that this is a real thing that is actually happening so he's going to...go up the tower to save Dogen. Inside his brain. Look I know nightmares can be vivid and real feeling (I've had my fair share of terrible nightmares) but Raz, you're a psychonaut. You know the dream is just a dream. Yes, it's a VERY odd dream, but there's no reason he should be reacting as if this in any way is actually happening to Dogen, and he definitely shouldn't be acting as if saving Dogen in his dream will save him in real life. You're not Freddy Krueger kid...or are you? That'd be a twist and a half.

But unfortunately for us, we don't know how to levitate with our psychic powers! So we can't get to the top of the tower. Sasha directs us to Lake Oblongata to learn how from Milla, which we'll be doing next time. I hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time. In the meanwhile, do remember the most important thing we learned today: The world shall taste my eggs.

DataNinja

2018-05-04, 06:51 PM

I do like how they cram so much stuff in that people are likely to ignore/skip over.

...it's a lot of exploring, though.

Again, most of these minds are just really, really dark. The imagery is neat, though, if confusing - though I'm sure all will be explained in time. I hope.

(Also, you've listed Iruka twice in the credits. Not sure if that's intentional, or just an error from when you expanded it.)

LaZodiac

2018-05-04, 08:04 PM

smuchmuch

2018-05-04, 08:45 PM

Pyrokinesis does get a little boost in usefulness with it's upgrades later, and it's mostly useful aginst bigger slower enemies which there are litte to none at this stage of the game, except the stupid bears. But true, it's fairly situational.

And the censors don't change genral appearance between minds but they do get some neat hats in some.

Again, most of these minds are just really, really dark. The imagery is neat, though, if confusing - though I'm sure all will be explained in time. I hope.

Heh it gets a little bit darker and a whole lot wackier

One thing that is never exactly fully stated in game but sort of implied through a few lines here and there, is that the mindscapes you explore aren't the full mind of the person, just sort of what sort of make their personality stand out. So presumably there are some happier nicer and more mundane images and memories but it's not relevant to Raz so you don't get to see them. (that and it's certainly easier for the level designer)

DataNinja

2018-05-04, 10:06 PM

Heh it gets a little bit darker and a whole lot wackier

I should clarify, I meant dark as in lighting primarily. Though, they are also dark imagery-wise. I mind the former much more than the latter.

Knight9910

2018-05-05, 02:21 AM

smuchmuch

2018-05-05, 04:44 AM

No it's just bad game design. Visual style put over gameplay substance, so to speak.

The next mental level will be somewhat colorfull (with various degree of ilumination) and if anyting, it's one of the most annoying, fragment collecting wise, because the damn things blend so much in the background.

Eurus

2018-05-05, 10:50 PM

The major feeling I'm getting from this is...

I feel like Psychonauts is a game with a lot of really goodideas. The backstory of Whispering Rock is good, the style is really cool, the characters are fun... the sense of humor seems to oscillate between "entertainingly eccentric" and "actually legitimately psychotic" but hey, I like it. :p

But the execution seems to leave a lot to be desired. It's... definitely a 3D platformer, but also looks like it's got some really wonky controls, and my God those @#%$ing figments just seem like basically the worst thing ever. "Hey, let's put collectibles in this game... we'll have literally HUNDREDS of them per level, make them see-through so you can barely tell where they are, AND have them MOVE! It'll be great!" ... considering the psychopathic sense of humor I mentioned, I'm beginning to suspect the developers really did just want to torture kids with these figments.

To be fair... this was the 3D-platformer era, wasn't it? Big platform-y levels with obnoxious collectibles, hyper-deformed cartoony graphics, and controls that are juuuust skewed enough to be a royal pain in the butt were par for the course. I'm not sure it was ever a good idea, but people got used to it so they cut it a lot of slack that we don't cut it now because we have better alternatives. :smallamused:

LaZodiac

2018-05-06, 12:20 AM

To be fair... this was the 3D-platformer era, wasn't it? Big platform-y levels with obnoxious collectibles, hyper-deformed cartoony graphics, and controls that are juuuust skewed enough to be a royal pain in the butt were par for the course. I'm not sure it was ever a good idea, but people got used to it so they cut it a lot of slack that we don't cut it now because we have better alternatives. :smallamused:

I'm gonna point out the last game I just LPed, Sly Cooper, is contemporary with this game. As is Super Mario Sunshine.

Psychonauts is a good game. It has no excuse being as flawed as it is.

LaZodiac

2018-05-07, 09:09 AM

Hey lets go do the thing.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [6] Great Balls of Fire (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oILUTwHgWc)

Video Length: 23:23

In this episode, it's time to make our way over to Milla Vodello, the Mental Minx! First though, we have some exploration to do. We've got a lot of people to set on fire (or at least try to). We also buy the Dowsing Rod, and show it off a little. The Dowsing Rod isn't as bad as I first made it out to be, but it's still frustrating to use and kind of obnoxious as far as mechanics go. You have to mash the button to see how close you are, though the sound effects also help of course, and you really have to go at it to get the lodes of Arrowheads out. What's worse is that while yes, the dowsing rod can gather up the single Arrowheads as well, it stops actually DOING that if it can't detect any large lodes of arrows. Ultimately, there's more than enough lodes to get all the stuff we want, but actually getting them all can be pretty tedious.

Anyway, off to Lake Oblongata to do Levitation Training! Here, we learn that Raz has a pretty solid excuse for being unable to swim: his family was cursed to die in water! Harsh. This is also the part of the game where the two plot lines of "have fun at summer camp" and "discover the secret of summer camp" start intermixing...and they really don't mix all that well, to be honest. It feels like all the secret brain stuff should of happened after we did a full loop of the summer camp fun time adventures? It's paced in a really odd way that doesn't quite work. But it's fine. Though it doesn't...make much sense as to why Raz was dreaming about Dogen getting his brain removed. And why said dream was accurate. Though prescience is a psychic power so I mean sure, I'll grant it.

Benny dealt with, we can now access the boat to get to Milla. The boat doesn't control super well but this is also the only time we ever use it so that's fine enough. More importantly we're actually at Milla now! She's got this 70s disco dance aesthetic and it's pretty cool, and the mental world she's set up for training kids how to float and roll shares her fashion sense. It's not entirely fitting with my idea of what a mental world should look like (the closed in walls are kind of a bummer for me) but again, since this IS a training ground it makes sense. Speaking of, Levitation ball! It's quite a good orb, letting Raz jump far higher and farther than his regular jumps, and lets him move faster as well. With this, we could easily go get everything in the mental worlds and the hub, but we'll do that later. Additional to the levitation orb, which is a power that must be set to a button, we also get the always on float power, though the fact that it's got different buttons to levitate causes me some level of frustration as I mixed up the buttons. That doesn't happen much in this part particularly, but it DEFINITELY does in the next one.

That all said and done, we explore Milla's brain a bit and...find something quite interesting. This is my favorite part of the game, probably. I they did more things like this, and I get why they didn't, but I wish they did more like this. More things to show that the nature of a mental world is more than just a construct, it's a living breathing entity. It's pretty cool, and also really sad. And with that we're done for today. I hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time!

GloatingSwine

2018-05-07, 10:05 AM

I'm gonna point out the last game I just LPed, Sly Cooper, is contemporary with this game. As is Super Mario Sunshine.

Psychonauts is a good game. It has no excuse being as flawed as it is.

Interesting but flawed is basically the default state of Double Fine games.

Eurus

2018-05-07, 10:06 AM

I'm gonna point out the last game I just LPed, Sly Cooper, is contemporary with this game. As is Super Mario Sunshine.

Psychonauts is a good game. It has no excuse being as flawed as it is.

...You know, somehow I mis-remembered this as like a 2000 game, not 2005ish. That's probably rather telling in itself.

smuchmuch

2018-05-07, 10:28 AM

Ah Levitation, it makes exploring, platforming and navigating the hub so much less of a chore.

Ater finishig Milla's paty, I recomend not just gettng the most of the scavenger hunt (except for the three items you won't be able to get before the night anyway) and enough arrows fo the duster and Magnet but also clearing Sasha shooting gallery and Milla's party of their cobweb and most of their remaining fragemnt before finshing the brain tumbler.

It feels like all the secret brain stuff should of happened after we did a full loop of the summer camp fun time adventures? It's paced in a really odd way that doesn't quite work.

Well to be fair, you can explore the camp in its entirety much sooner and during most different training levels. I think the game expects you to, hence all those bits of missable dialogue. (Another way that for better or worse, Psychonauts fels like an adventure game disguised as a platformer .)

(I also suspect given the troubled devellopement of the game that originaly the game was supposed to have a little more gameplay content happening in the camp itself before the seond act starts.)

Ultimately, there's more than enough lodes to get all the stuff we want, but actually getting them all can be pretty tedious.

To go quicker, pretty much all the huge lodes are in the GPC/Willdrness aera, so you can rake enough very fast if you concentrate on there. The buttn mashing is very annoying though.

As of Milla's nightmares, accoding to what I read, the supposed to be the basis of a plotline during developement where Milla' nightmares would have escaped and started to infect other people mind. Then they decided that it wouldn't be quite in character fo her to loose control so they scraped it, except for a minor thing down the line.

Interesting but flawed is basically the default state of Double Fine games.

Except for Broken Age and Deep pace Nine which can be summed up as "Disapointement" and "Scam" respectively

LaZodiac

2018-05-07, 10:32 AM

Ater finishig Milla's paty, I recomend not just gettng the most of the scavenger hunt (except for the three items you won't be able to get before the night anyway) and enough arrows fo the duster and Magnet but also clearing Sasha shooting gallery and Milla's party of their cobweb and most of their remaining fragemnt before finshing the brain tumbler.

You gotta work on that time machine, truth.

DataNinja

2018-05-07, 04:24 PM

Hmmm... well, that water phobia would explain the diver's helmet.

...alternatively, that divers helmet looking thing on the docks would explain it. :smallamused:

Well, to be fair, Sasha was only 'reckless' after he knew he had himself covered.

"The best way to do [X] is to try it." I, uh, think that maybe having any instruction at all may be helpful. It's not like you say 'driving a car is easy, all you need to do is drive the car'. :smalltongue:

Well, that nightmare room is very vivid imagery.
...and, yep, the story that comes bundled up with it. Fun, fun.

Knight9910

2018-05-07, 04:54 PM

One problem I DO have with this game's sense of humor is I can't always tell what's meant as a joke and what isn't. The earlier scene with the cheerleader kids mixing poisons is one example, but now this line about the "brain-eating fish that comes out of the lake at night to search for victims"... like, that could be a joke, but it also seems like something this game might actually do.

GloatingSwine

2018-05-07, 05:08 PM

Except for Broken Age and Deep pace Nine which can be summed up as "Disapointement" and "Scam" respectively

With Broken Age they just split the "Interesting" and "Flawed" into two different products and released them as part 1 and part 2.

Coidzor

2018-05-07, 05:16 PM

Ahh, Milla's secret cranny. Definitely the one thing I didn't forget about the game before I picked it up again.

No it's just bad game design. Visual style put over gameplay substance, so to speak.

The next mental level will be somewhat colorfull (with various degree of ilumination) and if anyting, it's one of the most annoying, fragment collecting wise, because the damn things blend so much in the background.

Yeah, I replayed this after being inspired by Zodi and just... could not find the last figment in the first area of that mindscape. After replaying it and combing over it inch by inch 5 times.

Was hell.

Knight9910

2018-05-07, 09:32 PM

Also, I actually appreciate how dark this game is willing to be.

It isn't afraid to show the full ramifications of what would happen if a small child developed incredible psychic powers but didn't know how to use them, like Dogen who has to wear a special hat to not explode people, or the little girl who tends to set things on fire by accident.

It also isn't afraid to fully explore peoples' inner demons, like with Milla's secret nook or Sasha's crazy repressed brain.

But it also shows that those things don't control us. Milla is still a nice lady even despite having this crazy nightmarish stuff lurking in her head, for example. (At least she seems like it so far.)

LaZodiac

2018-05-11, 10:27 AM

RIP I forgot today was Friday NEW VIDEO.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [7] Floaty Orb Time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqxgHhxXkEw)

Video Length: 28:06

Starting us off, we take a bit of a journey back to the past to get an achievement I missed while recording; roasting a squirrel and a bird in the same area and eating both. They give decent healing but since it's in the real world it's ultimately not that important beyond the little blip on my account that says I did it. Huzzah and such.

Continuing on with Milla's Dance Party, we really start getting into the mechanics of the float and how you can chain into it using Levitate's jump. Of course they never actually explain the part where if you hold Jump while Floating, you will automatically be put on your levitate orb. Which is kind of a vital part of this mechanic to make it flow properly in my opinion? It still comes off as good, I think, though the controls still kinda confuse me here and you'll see me mess up a lot of jumps because of it. I'll always admit when it's user error and this time, it's definitely all on me. That said some of the platforming is a little bleh, especially in the room with the big wall thing. Over all though, this first chunk of Milla's stage is quite fun!

Then we get to the second third of her stage, THE RACE. This is...a frustrating but not overly hard challenge that we have to win to progress. The two cheerleaders are useless so you can ignore them, Bobby is the only person who will actually fight you for the lead. And fight you he WILL, he's aggressively rubber banded (a term that means he's basically connected to us speed wise, if you aren't clear on that) and as a result will almost always overtake you at certain points just as a matter of course. He's still BEATABLE mind you, but if it's say your first time playing and you're on the keyboard and mouse controls which suck you might spend a good deal of time here. Like me. And if you're trying to get 100% clear, also like me, you'll notice that this area is IN FACT HUGE, and has around NINETY FOUR Figments to collect. Figments that blend in with the background because of the colour of the party, and have bad draw distance, and are near opaque as heck in the first place. It's really really bad!!

After that we have the final little platforming challenge, which is focused more around the floating part of our new powers. Not overly difficult, though this area has Figments that bleed into the background and hide from sight which is always awful. That aside it's a fun little float up to Milla to get our merit badge, giving us the ability to levitate wherever we want. Hooray! Now we can collect basically everything in every level we've been too plus the hub world. And I decide not to do that until later because I am in fact an idiot. But more on that in a couple videos from now.

But before we actually go finish up the Brain Tumbler, there ARE things we can do now that we've finished Milla's Dance Party. For one, we've got enough ranks to get our next psychic power, Telekinesis! It's...about as useful as Pyrokinesis. Maybe a little less. I do find uses for it, and it has mooore uses than I gave it credit for in the actual video, but it's really not that useful when you can hit things with your psychic hands. Also none of the scenarios the training present ever really show up in game, but then that's always been a thing with this game (and often teaching entirely!). Then it's time for cheevo hunting, the first of which is given to us by Vernon telling a story that actually ends. It's not that bad a story. After that we run around for five hours trying to find the one cutscene in the game that doesn't trigger when you get within a county mile of it, and it's a cutscene in which we see Bobby hitting on my favorite side character so that's a nice reward. Plus the achievement at least. And with that (plus a ton of stuff collected incidentally) we're done for today. Hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time!

------

So, lets psychoanalyze Milla a bit. Her world is bubbly and groovy, and like with the other two camp counseler's is actually a construct made by them intentionally to teach the kids stuff. That aside, there's still a lot of stuff to take from it. Her Figments are all cute fun things, dancing and such, and also the occasional thing that I'm pretty sure is a hookah or equivalent. A strange thing to think about, I feel, given her history, but I can understand it. Milla's mental world is also the first one to have constructs in it that aren't just Censors or Repressed Rage. The Dancers are interesting to me in that sense since they serve no purpose but to have fun and dance...unless you look at the memory of Milla's orphan children being set on fire. They look similar, so these constructs could be Milla's attempts at giving them a "happy future" at least mentally. It'll never happen, of course, and she knows that (the mental damage that event caused her is so severe she can't remove it from her mental obstacle course) but she still thinks about it, to cheer herself up and give some dancing friends for the children who's training in her head. It's cute.

Also cute is the second memory vault we get from her, showing her time actually being a badass. We see just how powerful "the strongest levitator" is, and just how strong just being able to fly is, and we get a cute little tease at what could be between her and Sasha. I don't imagine that'll ever be reciprocated on his part, for reasons we'll get into later, but it's an interesting look into her life. Milla is okay, even with her trauma.

DataNinja

2018-05-11, 01:53 PM

Yeah, all that platforming looks really finicky. Especially when moving at such high speeds, I couldn't even see the drop shadow.

Yeah, I can definitely see that the story is the highlight of this game. Especially the memories.

Man... that's a lot of figments for that race. And I imagine you get kicked out of the course, too, should Bobby win.

Coidzor

2018-05-11, 03:20 PM

Oh, Bobby Zilch, his only talents are rubber-banding during racing and somehow having no one realize he's a zombie stumbling around without a jaw.

That reminds me, though, the more I look at Chloe, the more I wonder if perhaps she wears that helmet to reduce her resemblance to the cheerleader girl.

I must admit, I never noticed any similarities between Milla's dancers and Milla's orphans before. :smallconfused:

Also, I actually appreciate how dark this game is willing to be.

It isn't afraid to show the full ramifications of what would happen if a small child developed incredible psychic powers but didn't know how to use them, like Dogen who has to wear a special hat to not explode people, or the little girl who tends to set things on fire by accident.

It also isn't afraid to fully explore peoples' inner demons, like with Milla's secret nook or Sasha's crazy repressed brain.

But it also shows that those things don't control us. Milla is still a nice lady even despite having this crazy nightmarish stuff lurking in her head, for example. (At least she seems like it so far.)

I would say if anything it probably motivated her to master her powers and use them to prevent further tragedies from happening, since she seemed to already have been a good person before the horrible orphanarium fire.

smuchmuch

2018-05-11, 06:38 PM

Actualy damage floors will be making an apperance later in game as will censors with hats at least once.

And telekinesis actualy has some use againt a couple of enemies, but it's very situational, even more than pyrokinesis.

Man... that's a lot of figments for that race. And I imagine you get kicked out of the course, too, should Bobby win.

You start again from the top till you win, if memory serves. And when/if you come back on the level later, you don't have to race anyone anymore which makes the fragments collection easier. (still annoying as hell tho for all the afformentioned reasons, but easier)

That said these fragments are petty worthless being worth very little points each. You can easily get up to rank 95 (the last useful rank in the game out of a 100 ( up to 101 technicaly)) without bothering to clean them all.

Knight9910

2018-05-11, 07:57 PM

Oh, yay. Blue figments over a blue background, and green figments on green background. Whoo.

I would say if anything it probably motivated her to master her powers and use them to prevent further tragedies from happening, since she seemed to already have been a good person before the horrible orphanarium fire.

Yeah, probably.

LaZodiac

2018-05-14, 08:58 AM

Yo hows about some Psychonuts?

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [8] Taste My Eggs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA1aszBclQs)

Video Length: 17:20

Video's a little short today due to the inevitability of me editing the footage. This was like 35 minutes otherwise and there just wasn't any footage left to make it long enough to fit my standards. With that being said, lets begin! In this episode, I decide to take a brief moment out to scrounge up the arrowheads needed to get the Cobweb Duster. While doing our hunting we find some cards and scavenger hunt items, meaning it's not all a TOTAL waste of time. We also find one of the...most odd scenes in this game, of Clem and Crystasl on the lodge roof discussing...SOMETHING. I have no idea what this all means (I do actually but even knowing it, this doesn't really make all that much sense) and it's honestly kind of unsettling. And for some reason this ISN'T an achievement, whereas watching Bobby be a stupid person is. Ah well.

After that, it's off to the Brain Tumbler for further exploration of our weird dream state. Though first Sasha tells us what is wrong with the experiment, the cheap Brain Tumbler he bought is picking up another powerful entities thoughts, mixing Raz and their thoughts together to create that weird jungle pastiche. Dun dun duuun, and such. This was pretty obviously telegraphed in advance, I think? It doesn't explain all the meat though, especially in other peoples dreams (and by that we mean, exactly one meat flower in Oleander's head and no one else that we see, though Lili talks about it). Still though, science must be done! We climb the nightmare tower and witness the dream Dogen getting his brain removed, and see that Lili is next!...in our dream, which has no reason to be an accurate representation of what we're seeing, even if it is getting crosstalk from someone else's brain. Anyway, Raz decides chasing the brain will be a good idea since it'll show him what they intend to do with the brains (I...guess this is accurate?). We dive down a chute, and make our way into the enemy mind...

And it is here that we get our next boss fight, as Dogen's dream brain is attached to the blueprints of a super powerful Think Tank, which is outfitted with all manner of dangerous psychic weapon capabilities! Now, from a pure aesthetic point of view, I do LOVE this boss fight. The area and the tank's design are all really cool, having a vaguely CG look due to them literally being living blueprints. This is a good use of the "this is a mental world" idea, and one that I wish they did more of. On the otherhand...this boss sucks. It's tedious and there's no actual clear way to bait the boss into doing the thing you need so you can hurt it. It's all basically just one huge waiting game, and that's never a good thing when it comes to video game bosses. And what's worse is once this is all said and done, it has a second phase! The second phase isn't as tricky as the first, but does have some degree of waiting attached to it since it hops around so much. Overall, this game does NOT do boss fights very well, and this is a stellar example of that in action. Eventually, we destroy the dream tank, finding ourselves in the brain that held those blueprints...Coach Oleander's. Dun dun duuun. Unfortunately, before we can tell Sasha, he runs off on official psychonauts business.

And with that, we're done for today. I hope you all enjoyed this climactic episode of the game, we're officially half way done it now if you're curious. With that in mind, next time is gonna be a little different. Next time...we're gonna go brain spelunking and clear out Oleander, Sasha, Milla, and the Tumbler's worlds for all their collectable goodies! Hope to see you there.

------

With the Brain Tumbler finished, I can finally talk about it a bit more indepthly. It is, as said, a combination of Raz and Oleander's minds. That's likely why we saw the bunny (there's bunnies wandering around the snow area of Oleander's) and that's why we're seeing all the meat everywhere, according to Cruller at least. The forest area itself is an interesting little pastiche of the woods around the camp, a jumble of fears, with some of the plant life taking up a mind of it's own, or actually ending up being bones and meat like the Figments we saw. We also get to see some hints of what Oleander's plan is, and we actually got to see that a lot earlier with the episode namer, the memory where we saw that weird bird hatching and riding over the water and then getting into a fun place where it went on a tea cup ride and destroyed everything in sight with brain blasts because oop surprise, it was a brain the whole time and this was Oleander's plan, hidden away in this little crevice of his mind and abstracted by Oleander! It's pretty cool! It also explains why we have to fight Censors in that area, they're likely coming in from Oleander's mind.

What this doesn't explain is WHY this is happening, or why the depiction of the nightmare tower and the weird dentist man are accurate portrayals of what is happening, but I guess Oleander is just really details oriented? Who knows, I'm not actually a brain doctor I'm just playing as psychoanalyzing these guys.

DataNinja

2018-05-14, 06:41 PM

...well, uh, strange stuff on the rooftop. That poison stuff seems a lot more ominous now. (Not that it wasn't before, but something happening once could be a joke. Twice... less so.)

...those blasted poachers. That you certainly don't know any of. :smallamused:

How many cards are there? :smalleek:

The aesthetics of this fight, I really like them.

I guess the reason for the 2nd phase is, well, just before it started I was literally about to comment on the fact that I was surprised that levitation wasn't involved at all, given that you just learned that. It's just... poorly implemented.

LaZodiac

2018-05-14, 07:15 PM

117 cards, 9 per PSI Core. So that's 13 PSI Cores all together that I will need to buy eventually, and way way WAY more playing cards than is really needed, I think?

DataNinja

2018-05-14, 08:13 PM

Hoooo boy. That's, uh, a lot. :smalleek:

Knight9910

2018-05-15, 01:24 AM

117 cards, 9 per PSI Core. So that's 13 PSI Cores all together that I will need to buy eventually, and way way WAY more playing cards than is really needed, I think?

Hoooo boy. That's, uh, a lot. :smalleek:

As has been mentioned, I think, one of this game's greatest sins is just this - TOO MANY COLLECTIBLES. I mean, collectibles are neat but you can definitely overdo it, especially when most of them don't even have anything interesting about them.

Like, okay, let's really look at these things.

● 16 Scavenger Hunt Items - Each one is unique and has a bit of lore attached to it. There's enough to have plenty to find but not so much it's obnoxious.
● 19 Vaults - Each one contains a unique slideshow about the life of the person whose mind you're in. Again, there's enough to have plenty without being annoying.

These are actually GOOD collectibles! But then...

● 117 Psychic Trading Cards - They're all exactly the same and have nothing interesting about them.
● 50 Emotional Baggage - There's a few different types but they all act exactly the same and have nothing interesting about them.
● 500 Gazillion Figments - They have different appearances based on what mental world you're in and what part of it, but that's it. Even then they're kinda generic, plus there's seriously like eleventy bajillion of them, they're see through and flat so you can barely see them from certain angles, and sometimes they move. @#%$ these things.

That's roughly infinity stupid BS collectibles that should not exist.

DataNinja

2018-05-15, 12:25 PM

● 500 Gazillion Figments - They have different appearances based on what mental world you're in and what part of it, but that's it. Even then they're kinda generic, plus there's seriously like eleventy bajillion of them, they're see through and flat so you can barely see them from certain angles, and sometimes they move. @#%$ these things.

That's roughly infinity stupid BS collectibles that should not exist.

To me, the figments specifically put me in the mind of "if collecting every coin in Mario 64 was needed for 100% completion."

Knight9910

2018-05-15, 02:18 PM

To me, the figments specifically put me in the mind of "if collecting every coin in Mario 64 was needed for 100% completion."

Definitely.

Also, the level system is idiotic to me in general. So the level cap is 101. Every 10th level gets you either a new PSI power or an upgrade to an existing PSI power. Level 101 gets you an achievement. The other 90 levels give **** ALL. They don't increase health. They don't increase stats. They do nothing. They are literally just padding.

So... why not just decrease the level cap to 10, put an upgrade on every level, and make levels take 10x longer to get?

smuchmuch

2018-05-15, 08:53 PM

The other 90 levels give **** ALL. They don't increase health. They don't increase stats. They do nothing. They are literally just padding.

So... why not just decrease the level cap to 10, put an upgrade on every level, and make levels take 10x longer to get

Upgrades are every 5 levels after level 35, not 10.

And the level in between give you a good indication of how close you are to the next upgade since generaly gaining levels go prety fast and at a fairly consistent/controlable rate.

To me, the figments specifically put me in the mind of "if collecting every coin in Mario 64 was needed for 100% completion."

Yes ?
I mean I' not a compulsive gamme copletionist, personaly but i was unde the impression that getting veyting there isto get in the game was part of the very definition of it.

And Psychoauts really isnt worth 100% completing, at least for the collecting stuff part. Just a small uninteresting and nt worth the effort video that can be seen any with blink reader.

The last usefull upgrade, gameplay, is at level 95. And god know you don't even need it to complete the game. The coweb duster and having pyrokinesis/telekinesis/invisibility (so level10/20/30) are the only barriers the game will throw at you, never does it say, force you to gather X fragments or cobwebs in a level to continue. Technically as soon as level 30 is hit and you've bought the cobweb duster, you're set. Everything else is gravy taht you are free to go after pretty much at your own rythm. The colect-athon aspect of psychonauts is actualy fairly optional and personaly I fairly enjoy it that way.

Knight9910

2018-05-16, 04:08 AM

Upgrades are every 5 levels after level 35, not 10.

And the level in between give you a good indication of how close you are to the next upgade since generaly gaining levels go prety fast and at a fairly consistent/controlable rate.

And?

No, really, so what? That still leaves us with 83 USELESS levels and I'm sorry, there's no excuse for that. If you want an indicator of how close you are to the next upgrade, then program in an EXP bar.

I feel like this is the same argument as "it's okay that Skyrim is full of bugs, because modders will fix it." No, their game is still full of bugs.

And Double Fine still made a game where there are about 1,000 too many BS collectibles that are useless and bad.

It should not be on me, the player, to work around their bad design choices and laziness. It should be on them, as the developer, to MAKE A GOOD GAME. And no, I don't believe I'm asking too much because I actually have been a part of game development and I know what goes into it. And no, we can't all be Super Mario 64, but this is just a really bizarre design choice and I feel like is a big part of the reason why we're not playing Super Psychonauts Galaxy 12: Raz's Revengeance right now.

smuchmuch

2018-05-16, 08:02 AM

And ?

And I'm just saying as far as I'm concened I don't see particulary bad game design in this as I personaly find it easier to read that some bar. Maybe it's because I'm used to think in scales of tens and hundred being fom a country that use metrics.
Anyway well have to agre to disagre. Is all.

I feel like this is the same argument as "it's okay that Skyrim is full of bugs, because modders will fix it." No, their game is still full of bugs.

Not really, this is a compellty different argument.

A bug make the game unplayable in ways that are generaly pretty objective. I have yet to see anyone arguing that unresponsive controls, crashing or what have you make for a better exeperience. And I certainly don' apreciate beng sold what is effectiely an incomplete product (and yes quality contrl ;is part of the finishing process of a game.)

And it's not like Psyconauts is lacking in bugs either, unrespnsve controls, wonky trigers for some events...
And even non buggy but still very bad dsign decision on which I would agree wtih you as a matter of fact. There shoud be less fragments, they should be more visible and less annoying (especialy on two level where they are the sumum of annoyance)

But the way the levels are organised do not fall under those as ar as I'm concerned, it doesn't cripple the game neither in prformance, not, a far as I've been concerned the enjoyemnt I've derived from it.

And no, we can't all be Super Mario 64, but this is just a really bizarre design choice and I feel like is a big part of the reason why we're not playing Super Psychonauts Galaxy 12: Raz's Revengeance right now.

Given how quick he crowdfunding campaign from Psyconauts 2 reached it's goals (despite the fairly sketchy result of pevous doublefine producs crofunded so far) it must not have bothered people that much.

I'm going to hazard the hypohesis that the fact the game was both poorly advertised and fairly bugged when it initialy came out, leading to it being a financial flop and making pett much ever major publisher Shaefer tried to pich it to ot being too interested had a lot more to do with it.

Knight9910

2018-05-16, 08:28 AM

I have yet to see anyone arguing that unresponsive controls, crashing or what have you make for a better exeperience.

You clearly haven't hung out much on Steam forums then. :p Just saying.

And honestly, I guess I shouldn't say the weird leveling system is THE reason why it didn't sell, so much as an example of the strange, seemingly poorly considered decisions that went into this game. Psychonauts in its entirety strikes me as a REALLY good idea that was handled in a rushed, unfocused, and just... bad way. Which is also definitely something I know a bit about.

LaZodiac

2018-05-18, 10:40 AM

Slept in so almost missed today's video rip.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [9] Brain Blast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRV3QuBsusY)

Video Length: 24:16

In this episode, we 100% clear the first four levels of the game! We get to collect all the figments and those really really suck to collect since they move around, are barely visible half the time, and sometimes go into the level geometry. I've been all over that before, so there's really not much to say that aside. We also have the Cobweb Duster now, so we can collect the Mental Cobwebs and turn them into cards at a later date. Because that's all they're good for, they do nothing else. The emotional baggage at least gets us from concept art when we get all of them. But of course, most important of all, are the Mental vaults. We got most of them on our first run through of these stages, but we missed Oleander's and Sasha's second vaults. Oleander's of course being an intentional miss since oh man it reveals his first vault is a lie! The dude was considered to stubby for any of the military, even the cook staff. That's embarrassing. I guess the psychonauts must of taken him at least. Sasha's second vault is also um...really awkward to talk about because it's one of those inherit dangers of experimenting with psychic powers and I'm glad the game showed it but also not glad because man that's sure a thing to just put on a character. No wonder he keeps his mind so tightly run.

But yeah that's all there really is to say on this one folks. I hope you enjoyed my...absolutely chef finger kisses level fantastic artwork I did to make up for the fact that I lost basically all of Milla's brain's footage. Don't worry you didn't miss anything. Oh, there is one other thing. Stay for the end because the game may of accidentally forced me to start the next plot event so I've shown that at the end of this video. Though next time, we're just gonna run around the camp site at night, so I hope you're excited for more of THAT at least.

smuchmuch

2018-05-18, 12:26 PM

Manyo got to feel sort of sorry for Oleander when even the cook corp reject him on size basis.. But only sort off.

I hope you enjoyed my...absolutely chef finger kisses level fantastic artwork I did to make up for the fact that I lost basically all of Milla's brain's footage.

(Well there's not a huge lot of it but for what it's worth I tough it was fine.)

Also in the things I do like about ths game are those little details I notice for the first time at each replay.Never noticed before that the giant fish actualy tries different baits for Lili in the background, including a comic book and a TV..

Knight9910

2018-05-18, 01:05 PM

Also I said this over Discord but I'll say it again here-

After last video's revelation I was annoyed at the game playing to the "military guy is insane, kill-happy, and obsessed with creating the Ultimate Weapon" trope, which seems to appear in every movie and TV show and is very irritating to me, coming from a military family.

But today's revelation that Coach Oleander is actually NOT a military guy but is in fact a valor stealer who got kicked out of every single branch of the military he applied to... that actually puts what I think is a really interesting spin on it.

DataNinja

2018-05-18, 01:25 PM

Concept art's a pretty interesting reward. Neat to see, though.

Huh. Well then. I must say, the memory vaults sure are interesting. And evocative. And yet still sometimes manage to involve humour (even the cooks didn't want him...).

Oh dear. That doesn't bode well for Sasha.

Oh dear. That doesn't bode well for Lili.

Coidzor

2018-05-18, 11:48 PM

Regarding the mini-Collectathon, I ended up having to cheese Levitation to get up onto that last platform that provided so much vexation around the 16 minute mark. Ended up spending about 8 minutes jumping, and trying to get purchase to bounce up further, on scenery objects that you technically shouldn't be able to jump off of but you sometimes can anyway when on top of that levitation orb.

Which, coincidentally, ties into something else that I ended up doing during my night time collectathon at Camp Whispering Rock. Because I also put off the last tidbits until after visibility was ...reduced.

My sympathies for putting up with that punching minigame and Milla's Dance Party. I found, though, that while tedious, the race was actually the most straightforward and easiest place to figment hunt. I just wasted 15 minutes of my life going over it with a fine toothed comb and that was that.

The first segment, though, I spent 45 minutes on, going through, step by step, about 4 or 5 times, and I still had one single figment that eluded me.

LaZodiac

2018-05-21, 10:54 AM

A little late because of rough sleep woop woop!

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [10] Camp Grounded (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1fMcVLGx40)

Video Length: 13:06

Short one today, since we're just going around the camp ground cleaning up all the cards and scavenger hunt items I missed, which is actually not all that much except for in the Lake area, which hasn't been explored since we got to it. There really isn't much to say here, the cool bit about how there's a scavenger hunt item for each of our basic psychic powers we learn here is pretty neat, though we cannot get the last item on this list just yet as a result of this. Other than that, there just isn't really much to SAY about collecting in the camp ground. Other than I really, really should of done it directly after beating Milla's stage so I could do it in the day. Look at this game and how absurdly dark it is. Lightening my screen up itself would likely cause no change beyond making it harder to see in the different direction, and not one single iota of in game options changes how these shadows look because it's not ACTUALLY shadows, it's just textures. Adding to that, at night pyrokinetic Bob Cats show up and they're SUPER annoying since they have a ton of range. Thankfully, once we DO get everything we never have to interact with them or really the hub world in general, so they aren't MUCH of a threat. But for the times where I must cross paths with then, they're kind of garbage.

But yeah. That's it for my collectathon duties! Next time, we return to actually playing stages in this stage based video game...with one of my least favorite levels. Oh boy!

DataNinja

2018-05-21, 12:09 PM

Oh, I totally get the tunnel urge. "Oh, there's a way that looks to be off the main path? Better go that way, in case it's a bonus section I'll be missing if I go the 'right' way."

Oof, yeah, that's stupidly dark. I didn't even know there was a rope there. And, while, as you say, you 'should' have done this earlier, there wasn't really an indication that darkness would be a huge problem.

Purple? Nah, can't think of why you'd choose that. :smallamused:

I have a feeling you'd only see psychic raptors once. :smalltongue:

Man, he really does have an obsession with calling her The Mental Minx.

Ebon_Drake

2018-05-22, 03:37 PM

So, I have been playing along at home and am a bit further ahead than the videos at the moment. I'd followed the thread's advice and did the camp collect-a-thon bits in daylight, but even then that last card in the cabin area is a royal pain. It took me a long while to spot the climbable netting, partly because that mechanic doesn't get used all that much and partly because at a distance it just looks like a dark patch of wall rather than something you can interact with. I also had loads of trouble making the jump across to the rope and had to climb all the way back up a good dozen times.

Using TK for the glass eye at least made sense to me on a logical level, even if it wasn't a normal use of the power in-game. The one you have left in the wilderness was far less intuitive for me, not least because it's one where using telekinesis really seemed like the sensible solution. I even left it until I'd levelled up in case I needed upgraded TK, but nope. I had to Google the right answer.

Same with the beehive, it really is very finicky to hit especially since you can't seem to lock onto it. I assumed I was doing the wrong thing until I gave in and looked it up. I tried to go uphill and line up a shot at distance, but I think (as per the video) you actually have to get right underneath it?

LaZodiac

2018-05-25, 10:50 AM

Oh boy, Psychonauts time.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [11] Fish (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z2_x96NFWk)

Video Length: 24:55

Starting in this video, things get a touch more negative than I'd probably like. I'll try to fix this in the future, but this part of the game is kinda rough for me for a variety of reasons that I'll get into later. So I kinda lay on the vitriol more than I probably should.

That being said, in today's episode we use the Batysphere to float our way down to a gigantic air bubble under the water, in search of the horrific hulking lungfish monster that kidnapped Lili, and all the children. We ring the bell of awakening from the old flooded town, and begin the boss fight. The very, very long boss fight in which we have to avoid running into the water walls. We smack boxes of nails so that the lungfish sucks up the nails to hurt itself, and we avoid it spewing out rocks and other boxes at us. A rather simple fight that goes on forever. After that, it's time for a really lengthy platforming segment where the Lungfish pushes the air bubble around the lake. It's presented from the lungfish's point of view and that's coolish, but for the most part this bit just lasts way too long, and then segues into another nail sucking section that goes into another long running away from the boss part. Thankfully, once that's done we can fight the Lungfish for real...unfortunately it's a really finicky mechanic, wherein you must trick the lungfish's angle to get stuck in a clam, which is far harder than it looks and definitely glitches out at times. Once it's stuck you can wallop the Lungfish for a bit, until you need to get it stuck again.

After beating up the fish a bunch, we can finally disable it and throw the psychic portal at it to enter it's mind to free it from Oleander's control! And what a mind it is...welcome to Lungfishopolis, probably my least favorite level given how increeedibly slow you move. You can't use Levitation here at all, and all your actions are slow and plodding. Additionally, and this is just me so you're free to disagree, but I don't find the comedy in this level funny at all. A lot of it is presented as if this is a real place Raz is visiting, not a mental world, and it just...it doesn't work. It's not very good as a mental world and it obviously can't be a real place, but there you have it. Lungfishopolis. One nice thing at least, we get a "power module", in fact just the Shield merit badge, and Shield is a super useful psychic ability that can block all damage! We'll be using it a lot here, and occasionally in the future.

The conceit of Lungfishopolis is that Kochamera, who is very clearly obviously Coach Oleander, is their protector and savior, and we must defeat him to break the mind control this fish is under. We won't get to it today, but we will rampage through the city killing thousands of innocent not real fish people. I like to think we've done good today. But yeah, hope you all enjoyed this, I'll see you guys next time.

DataNinja

2018-05-25, 01:19 PM

While the first phase isn't super interesting, the second phase is at least neat conceptually. Aesthetically, it's really neat, and the little effects - like the seaweed flopping down as it moves into the air - are cool. It's a rather unique environment - even air-underwater places like in the Wind Waker don't tend to have it shifting around.

...I'm not sure if it's a joke that a Fish Navy would have tanks or not, but it feels more apt that their Army would have boats. Possibly floating ones. That can move in air. i.e. something that couldn't happen outside a mental world.

Yeah, I'd been wondering if he'd jump out of the river in prior episodes... but then he got his feet wet and all was hunky-dory.

I guess one could argue that maybe the city is the result of the outside mental influence?

How is hyper-electricity different from normal electricity? They could have called it psycho-electricity, and I wouldn't have questioned it. :smalltongue:

Knight9910

2018-05-25, 01:43 PM

Yeah, I get what you mean this world is bad.

Like, I get what they were going for. It's a role reversal joke, where the human is the giant monster and the monsters are all the helpless tiny people that you crush underfoot. And I guess maybe there's a joke of like "who knows what animals think about? Maybe they think about being people!"

And that's all pretty clever... but it doesn't feel right for a mental world that's supposed to embody a person's personality and feelings. It feels like they came up with a clever joke and then tried to haphazardly build out from there, rather than thinking the whole thing through.

Knight9910

2018-05-25, 02:09 PM

So, I was thinking about this, and this is going to ramble a bit but I am making a point about the game.

In the RPG I've been working on, one of the core concepts is the balance between the playable races. Currently, I have four, but originally I had three.

One of those three races was humans, and the concept I had for them was that they were masters of technology and decent with qi but couldn't use magic because the human mindset is too grounded in our own perceivable reality. I thought that was a really clever idea and a commentary on the culture of pragmatism where we get too wrapped up in what we can see and forget about our spiritual and emotional side.

The big problem was that it threw the entire balance of the three classes out of whack, because neither of the other two could be manipulated into the proper place to allow humans to be +Tech, -Magic. As a result I ended up with two different races both being unable to use magic for their own reasons, but no race being unable to use Qi.

Needless to say, everyone I told about my idea pointed this out to me and told me I should change it. Eventually I relented and I'm glad now that I did.

The point I'm making is... Psychonauts seems like a game where there was no one on hand who was either willing or able to tell the developer "dude, this idea is clever and all but it makes no damn sense, change it." Like, this game feels like just... raw ideas unfiltered and unpolished.

smuchmuch

2018-05-25, 06:06 PM

I guess one could argue that maybe the city is the result of the outside mental influence?

The memory vaults makes it a little more explicit as to what the symbolism of the level is meant to be but knight more or less summed up the general idea of it. The lungfish still thinks of itself as his tiny litle fis and human as hese hug hulking things who did strange thing to it.

As of the navy using tanks and trucks but no boats, oddly enough ... You'll notice each new enemy is introduced by the radio DJ, who sure has a familiar voice, almost as if perhaps said navy could be seen as the mental creation and influence of a man who dream of millitary forces but actualy has no idea what he's talking about ?

I enjoyed the level fair enough when I played it, it was unepcted enough o make chuckle and it did help that the level is a relatively short one but definitively the whole things could have been much more surrealand more like a mindscap.

But that's a fairly common thing with psychonaut levels, except for Sasha's cube, they on't feel like they're tying to represent a whole mindscape with all it's twist and turn an complexity, more just a general symbolism of a particular state of mind or problem.

And design wise, it really feel like it was sort of throwing ideas at the all desgn wise and see what stuck, even if the result don't feel alway that consistent.

Ebon_Drake

2018-05-26, 11:46 AM

Yeah, I enjoyed Lungfishopolis in no small part because it's so out of left-field and completely not what you'd expect to find inside the lungfish's mind. I'm not sure how well it would hold up to replays, but it seemed solid enough to me? It does drag a bit and the controls are a little awkward, but there were only a couple of parts where I was actively annoyed by them - trying to get the high-up figments and a latter stage of the city area that we'll see next time. On the whole though I thought it was a fun change of pace and the humour worked for me. I certainly don't dislike it anywhere near as much as Zodi does, although I do fully agree with all the issues with the initial boss fight.

The memory vaults makes it a little more explicit as to what the symbolism of the level is meant to be but knight more or less summed up the general idea of it. The lungfish still thinks of itself as this tiny little fish and humans as these huge hulking things who did strange thing to it.

Smuchmuch gets it. What we're seeing is a simple animal's mind that's being overwhelmed by powerful human psychics. The city isn't the result of the lungfish's natural thoughts. It's a representation of Oleander's implanted psychic control, which is why most of the citizens are all "gosh darn it sure is fun to follow the rules!" and so on. The useless band of resistance fighters are the lungfish's few independent thoughts that are feebly trying to break free of the coach's control. It'd be nice if it was a bit more surreal, but I think it works well enough.

LaZodiac

2018-05-28, 09:10 AM

Oh man, more disproportionality angry at fish time.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [12] Freedom (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JdJ2PBy-LI)

Video Length: 26:01

Starting off in the ruins of the prison we destroyed, we finally find our first memory vault! I love the gag that it's so super duper tiny compared to us...and am decidedly less thrilled about the contents of said vault. The memories are of...the fake construct inside it's mind that is probably created from Oleander's mind control device. Which doesn't make any sort of sense? The memory vaults are meant to be memories...that exist. And I mean yes, I know, we can make fake memories like in Oleander's mind about his war service. We can make odd, modified, symbolic memories like The World Will Taste My Eggs. But this? This is the memory of...memories. It raises too many questions, and none of them are interesting or good.

Anyway, we stompy monster Raz our way through the rest of the city, fighting all manner of things. Boats with turrets, more hyper electricity, tanks and then slightly more powerful tanks, and of course the thing the Navy is most well known for: their airforce! I actually like this gag, the joke that the Navy has deployed everything BUT boats at us (the news radio never brings up the boats so they're probably just independent) and it just makes me laugh. This is a pretty frustrating thing to deal with, but since I've been diligent about collecting stuff I've got upgraded PSI Blasts, which let me ricochet shots! It's not as good as you'd think, but it is rather effective at destroying these planes.

After dealing with that, we finally make our way over to Kochamera island to fight Kochamera himself. And this boss is...sure a boss. Of all the bosses in the game it is probably the best in terms of taking a thing and executing it, but that feels like a really low bar for the most part. As long as you're smart with your shielding you cannot be hurt at all. It is...unfortunately mechanically boring, but I'll take boring and fair over exciting and awful any day. But yeah, we beat up the Jet Jaguar/Ultraman wannabe, freeing the fish from Coach Oleander's mental prison! We learn the fish's name, and then dive back into Fishtown USA to get the last bit of figments we need for 100% completion. And with that, the next hub area is unlocked, sweet! Hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time for...the level everyone knows about.

------

In the interest of fairness, here is my attempts at picking apart what the fish's mental world is like and why. The lungfish running around town are the actual mental image of the fish's self, split into tiny pieces and sedated by the artifice of the mind control implants. The revolutionaries, terrible at it though they may be, are the parts of Linda's brain that won't give up the fight. The Navy are all aspects of this mind control device, defenses attached to it that create psionic constructs within the mental world to combat would be attackers. As for why the mental world itself has memories of a time before the mind control, I have absolutely nothing. Especially given the other memory vault does show the actual reality of our fishy friend. But hey, at least I tried to explain it. That's more than the game can say.

Knight9910

2018-05-28, 09:46 AM

And now there ARE boats, killing that whole "lawl the fish navy is a land army" symbolism. :\

And the tanks... man, speaking of tiny, annoying, difficult to see things that this game demands you pay attention to.

The Kochamera coming to Lungfishopolis vault memory is... difficult to sort? It's not exactly a false memory but not exactly a real one. It's a memory from the perspective of the imaginary lungfish living inside the lungfish's head, implanted by Oleander as a means of control. Imaginary memory?

Also, I'm pretty sure Kochamera is based on Gamera, not Godzilla. Just sayin'.

tyckspoon

2018-05-28, 12:24 PM

After dealing with that, we finally make our way over to Kochamera island to fight Kochamera himself. And this boss is...sure a boss. Of all the bosses in the game it is probably the best in terms of taking a thing and executing it, but that feels like a really low bar for the most part. As long as you're smart with your shielding you cannot be hurt at all. It is...unfortunately mechanically boring, but I'll take boring and fair over exciting and awful any day. But yeah, we beat up the Jet Jaguar/Ultraman wannabe, freeing the fish from Coach Oleander's mental prison! We learn the fish's name, and then dive back into Fishtown USA to get the last bit of figments we need for 100% completion. And with that, the next hub area is unlocked, sweet! Hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time for...the level everyone knows about.

Re: Draining your psiblast ammo - The boss turns solid a bit before firing the Deadly Triangle Beam at you. If you had quick reflexes and stubbornly ignored the 'Shield reflects energy blast' mechanic the level was trying to teach you, you could probably pop him with a psiblast at that time. Taking away your ammo would force you to use the intended mechanic.. which is also not great game design, now that I think about it. :smallannoyed:

smuchmuch

2018-05-28, 02:19 PM

The memories are of...the fake construct inside it's mind that is probably created from Oleander's mind control device. Which doesn't make any sort of sense? The memory vaults are meant to be memories...that exist. And I mean yes, I know, we can make fake memories like in Oleander's mind about his war service. We can make odd, modified, symbolic memories like The World Will Taste My Eggs. But this? This is the memory of...memories. It raises too many questions, and none of them are interesting or good.

It's a memory from the perspective of the imaginary lungfish living inside the lungfish's head, implanted by Oleander as a means of control. Imaginary memory?

As far as I understand it: The 'imaginary lungfishes' already existed in the fish mind before the coach went in since they represent the fish thoughts, more or less. The city and the Navy are a representation of the coach
(we do see a similar sort of symbolism thoughm ade more explicit in another mind.)

With the girl scouts in the milkman and the milkman himself in the milkman conspiracy

I'll admit it /is somewhat jarring that it's from the inside of the mind' perspective rather than the outside like all other memory vault. I think in his case there's no real reason for that except the need of exposition.

Although now that I think of it, the "the world shall taste my eggs one" which is aso from an 'inside the mind perspective.
I alway figured it was here because it was the coach dreams (since he's asleep near his radio when yo go in the brain tumbler a it really does have the sort of pure surealimagery you’d think of a dream) so ,if we really wanted constancy, who knows, maybe the fish actually dreams of the city when it's asleep ?
(In fact now that I think of it, due to its newfound size and having to be at the at the beck and call of the coach, it spends most of its time in the ruins of droned human city. So that may go a long way to associate the city imagery with the coach takeover.)

Pure spéculation, tho. I doubt the authors put it that much though nt hir mental world, they were more trying to gt enough varried evels with different designs in whatlitle time and money hey hadleft I suspect

(Tim Shaefer is known for almost alway getting overtime and budget on this game, and it shows in the seconds acts of his games)

-------

The boss fight is annoying. I don't mind puzle boss fights and I like the principle of it but boy does it go on way too long.

DataNinja

2018-05-28, 10:22 PM

I don't know if the memory that's in the vault is a fake memory, so much as a representation of what this mind was before. That is, just concentrating on swimming and all.

As annoying as it does get after a bit, I really do find the Coach announcing his attacks and all funny. Because it's the kind of thing that someone playing at superhero would do.

...yeah, I really got nothing more to comment on for this vid.

smuchmuch

2018-05-29, 07:45 AM

Because it's the kind of thing that someone playing at superhero would do.

Between this, playing little soldiers and the way he works along Raz terrible 'arms and brian of a little girl' jokes (which is totaly the a joke a ten years old wold crack, I feel maybe the coach maynot be the mature person at heart.

Knight9910

2018-05-29, 08:12 AM

As annoying as it does get after a bit, I really do find the Coach announcing his attacks and all funny. Because it's the kind of thing that someone playing at superhero would do.

He ends up with the same problem as the panda dude from Sly Cooper.

It's a funny idea, except that he only has like 5 attacks, so there's a LOT of repetition.

LaZodiac

2018-06-01, 08:54 AM

How's about some Psychonauts to start off your day?

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [13] The Milk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoOdnOApHHU)

Video Length: 23:55

Starting us off today, we quickly get the second to last scavenger hunt item back in the campground; an old miner's skull that we need the Shield power to obtain. I'm not a big fan of this since it's pretty unintuitive, but given the other scavenger hunt items have required using our powers this one needing one makes a degree of sense as well. You just gotta figure it out.

Now for the real meat and potatoes of the episode. Heading up to the asylum, it seems our route into the place is actually blocked by the night watchman. Though judging from his scribbles and his ranting, he should be on the other side of this gate. Without many options at our disposal, we throw out Sasha's psychic portal to invade his mind. At first everything feels relatively normal, and then we find the Clairvoyance merit badge in his fridge, which helps him see the world like he does. It seems the Milkman is missig, maybe dead, and Boyd won't help us out until we find the Milkman. So, we step out into the rest of his mind.

Outside the mental confines of his home we find a level with some of the best representations of what it would actually be like to be within someone else's mental world. Welcome, to the Milkman Conspiracy. A simple sleepy suburb, but eyes are hidden everywhere, watching us. The figments are mostly just regular, ordinary people and things, but enough of them hide cameras or are actually sinister if you look closely that it's actually off putting. There are black cars in every driveway, and secret agents clearly pretending to be other people milling about being suspicious. It is in my opinion this stage, where the game actually truly begins. The first three were tutorials, made by psychonauts to help you out. Fish town is fish town. Here we have our first look into someone's actual psyche. Unfortunately, mechanically, it's not super great. It's the most Adventeure Game-y of them all, having us run around solving relatively simple puzzles to obtain items that will let us pass by the agents, all to make our way to the graveyard so we can find the book that tells us where the Milkman is.

Helping us with this is the Clairvoyance power, which is my favorite power in the game. With it, we can see 2D representations of what the target of our Clairvoyance thinks of Raz. These are often some of the funnier jokes this game has, like the weird brain slugs that transport things around seeing Raz as a package. The effect is amplified in the Milkman Conspiracy since just holding say, a pair of hedge trimmers makes us look like a completely different person. It's fun, relatively flavorful, and shows just how unfortunately warped Boyd's mind is. So long as you have the most basic of appearance signals, you are a gardener, or a plumber, or a road crew worker.

All that aside, it's not time I talked about the thing that makes me so negative about this part of the game. My past time playing this game, the first time I played this game, I had to use the keyboard and mouse controls. This was the first real mark against the game, since the keyboard controls are abjectly terrible. But things where, for the most part, fine. I got the cobweb duster, got the dowsing rod, got a ton of arrowheads and spent them all, it was all good and cool. Then I got to Boyd's level. Starting with the Milkman Conspiracy, every level has at least one mental cobweb that is explicitly in your way and MUST be collected to pass. Unfortunately, the game has a rather severe glitch where, at random, without any indication and without any obvious triggers (which is to say, it can happen at random) the Cobweb Duster can just vanish from your inventory forever. You have to go buy it back from the camp store. Now, given my arrowhead count currently this isn't that big a deal. Back when I first played I had basically run the store dry buying as much as I could, buying a ton of cores and such, and I had run out of Deep Arrowheads to find. Which meant I needed to grind up the arrowheads in the camp, one at a time, to get all 800 I needed to buy the Cobweb Duster again so I could actually continue on with the level.

Adding insult to injury, this game features ye olde classic cheat codes. One of which is to get max arrowheads. Unfortunately, the PC version had those removed for no reason. Now, as of last year or so, Psychonauts was updated to have achievements and to reduce the difficulty of one of the levels later down the line...but they didn't fix the cobweb duster glitch or put cheat codes back in as a failsafe against this glitch. Which can still happen, by the way, and guess what? There is a point of new return in this game. And if you pass it and your cobweb duster vanishes, you're basically out of luck. Hope you had a prior save! So yeah, this incident incredibly soured my opinion of the game, and given the Milkman Conspiracy is kinda tedious to play and a little too long (and other things we'll get into next time and in the videos to come) this last segment killed my enthusiasm for the game almost entirely.

All that aside this run has made me like the game a lot more. Hope you all enjoyed this silly, ranty video. See you guys next time for more milk.

DataNinja

2018-06-01, 01:20 PM

...when you have collectables right in the middle of the path, I might suggest re-evaluating how many 'collectables' you have, Game.

I see we've also been recolouring our powers. :smallamused:

I'm liking this neighbourhood, from the looks of it. Takes something, well, ordinary, and puts an unnatural twist (heh) on it.

It depends on the hedge. Some have a lot less dense branches and stuff, but a proper (and well-established) one is pretty solid, just because there's no room to squeeze in between anywhere.

LaZodiac

2018-06-01, 02:31 PM

Starting from when we got the colourizer I've been changing the orb colour to match the level, actually. So yes, nice catch :smallamused:

Ebon_Drake

2018-06-01, 02:43 PM

Huh, hadn't heard of that glitch. That really does suck. I'd expected your complaint to just be that there's a point where you can't progress without having the cobweb duster and you'd had to grind for it in the dark with pyro-cougars around, but that is a legit beef against the game so fair enough.

Honestly, you're better off not using Levitation much in the Milkman Conspiracy anyway. It's far too easy to go flying off into the void and die. That was one aspect of it I didn't like, particularly since Sasha's mind had handled screwy geometry so well. In any case, it really does pay to be methodical in going through Boyd's level to make sure you get all the figments. I made the same mistake of shortcutting and then losing track of which houses I'd been in. It doesn't help that it's another case where the bright palette means the figments tend to blend in.

One interesting thing about the emotional baggage is that while all the minds have the same five items, they do have unique crying sounds that correspond with the mind you're in. It's a neat little touch that makes them slightly more notable.

I didn't have trouble figuring out the solution to the post office keypad puzzle, but I did have a bizarre amount of trouble in actually using the keypad. I'm not sure if it's how I mapped the controls, but for some reason the button I had to use to press the numbers on it was jump?! Despite the fact that there's a perfectly good interact button in the game and at least four other better potential options than the jump key. I cycled through literally every other button that the game uses and wracked my brain trying to think what else it could be before I eventually thought "oh hey, what about jump?" Stupid keypad.

I've now completed the game and 100%'d the achievements, which is the first time I've actually bothered doing that. And I did it all with keyboard and mouse too :smallcool:. Using a controller would probably be easier, but the only real trouble I had with K+M was completing the punching challenge in Basic Braining.

smuchmuch

2018-06-01, 08:26 PM

(Well I think adventure games are great, especialy Grim Fandango, so I'm totaly willng to strike you pon that hill you are so willing to die on.
....I just need to find a weapon which I will no doubt make out of wooden sticks, duct tape an an old shrimp fork which a old man in peru will hav given me in echage for a metal detector whch isfounf in....)

That said the gameplay on the milkman conspiracy is not it's greatest point I'll grant it, inventory maageent in this game is more of a chore than anything else. And you misremember dear lady, devoid of combat ? I whish It has one of the most annoying mini boss in the entire game.

No what stals the sow here are the visual of course, but also sounds. The agents steal the show, there's something almost hypnotic in listening just how many lines they have (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erEytjmUM4A) all in that deadpan tone, the nonsensical animation with their respective and Boyd's semi randomly generated ramblings.

Plus fun with cairvoyance

It's pretty much the poster boy level for this game and most people favorite level. To me, it's the second as I prefer the one right after.

Coidzor

2018-06-01, 11:37 PM

In my experience, the best place to grind for arrowheads isn't in the camp, but instead in a place, such as Sasha's Lab, where there are a lot of breakables. Actually, I think the number of breakables increase starting with Lungfishopolis and the next 4 worlds after that. Lungfishopolis would be perfect for grinding extra arrowheads if not for the awkward slowdown effect, come to think of it.

In the interest of fairness, here is my attempts at picking apart what the fish's mental world is like and why. The lungfish running around town are the actual mental image of the fish's self, split into tiny pieces and sedated by the artifice of the mind control implants. The revolutionaries, terrible at it though they may be, are the parts of Linda's brain that won't give up the fight. The Navy are all aspects of this mind control device, defenses attached to it that create psionic constructs within the mental world to combat would be attackers. As for why the mental world itself has memories of a time before the mind control, I have absolutely nothing. Especially given the other memory vault does show the actual reality of our fishy friend. But hey, at least I tried to explain it. That's more than the game can say.

The real question is... where did Linda get a teevee before she was kidnapped by Coach Oleander?

And is it perhaps Linda's love of television which has imprinted upon the brainless campers after she returned their bodies to the campground?

LaZodiac

2018-06-04, 08:53 AM

It's time to deliver the milk.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [14] Cookies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EULxw0BhrQI)

Video Length: 26:57

Starting off this episode, we solve the hedge maze finally. This one is...annoying. It's very simple of course, you just find a crow feather (which we already have in the real world) and use Clairvoyance on it near those crows in the maze and...that opens up the gate to the flowers we need to become a grieving widow. It's probably the most Adventure Game-y scenario we have to deal with in this game, because it really doesn't make any sense. But it's okay, because now we can sneak into the graveyard! Within the graveyard we find that the Milkman's body isn't here, and instead we find a book. The book ultimately contains nothing, but it's FROM the book depository, so now we know where to go. And by that I mean we're going to the post office. This bit is of course finicky as it's hard to get the Clairvoyance to hit the target. It's not that bad though. Once we're inside, we find a spooky dark room that hides the Plunger, which we need to get to the book depository. Nothing can stop us now!

Except for a Nightmare, of course. The remnant of an abandoned plot line, for some reason Boyd still has Nightmare fights in his brain. And boy, what fights they are. I'm trying to be more positive but they're really just not good at all. Their only real attack that I've encountered is their grab, which is unavoidable if you're actually trying to deal damage to them in a timely fashion. Otherwise they just move around the battlefield in faux menace. Once you've hit them enough they break open, spewing out inner rage which you can grab with your TK and throw into it to finish it off. But what if you don't have enough rank to HAVE TK? I don't know! As far as I know you either get enough to have TK or you're stuck fighting the boss forever.

With the Nightmare out of the way we can now head to the book depot. It's not that hard to get there, though the sniper segment can be tricky if you're not careful. Also tricky, getting the game to register that you're hitting Clairvoyance so you can use the helicopter helmet we find the way the game WANTS us too. This bit was actually super annoying, as I hope you can tell from how I'm mashing the button after a point. But we finally get it, and it reveals the location of the Milkman! So now all we need to do is go there and get into the building. After we get into another Nightmare fight woo boy.

Now that we're actually AT the main rainbow squirt building, we have to get inside. And...this is a very difficult part, which took me FOREVER. In order to get into there, the game WANTS you to shoot the child with your PSI Blast. But this is actually impossible given the set up of the area and how fast she zooms away if you get spotted. The other way you get in is by being invisible and sneaking past her, but she can see you if you're invisible (as has been shown earlier in this video or last one, I think) so she will just run back and close the door! Now, it occurred to me while editing that you could PROBABLY drop down from the roof to get inside, but it really doesn't feel like there's enough time to do that. But, finally, we do it...and we are rewarded with a really bad bossfight. The way her two attacks work, it's very difficult to actually get in a hit. She throws her Gods Eye shuriken thing at the exact intervals that the cookie bomb explodes, meaning that to avoid one implicitly means getting hit by the other, like 80% of the time. The way you hurt her is by punching her, which is often just not viable, or using TK to throw the cookie bombs at her, which is also basically not viable half of the time. After we beat her up enough, she makes the entire arena go into the dark, meaning the only way we can progress is by using the Gods Eye she dropped to Clairvoyance into her head. But as I've shown you, the game is unreliable about actually making that WORK. Even when you do get it to work, you're now doing this exact same boss pattern with all these stupidly timed attacks, but from her perspective so it's harder. This is a REALLY hard boss, which makes no sense given this levels anti-focus on combat. This is a puzzle level, it shouldn't have a boss fight in the traditional sense.

But whatever. We beat the Den Mother, releasing the Milkman! Boyd proceeds to uh...blow up everything. The rainbow squirts hiding his aggressive tendencies and programming, the agents trying to find them to squash that programming, the censors that are here to help out. Everything. Everything will be bathed in the off white colour of door to door milk. We're the hero! With all that said and done, we finish collecting all of Boyd's brain stuff. Hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time for...another stage that is sorta infamous.

------

So, how does one go about psychoanalyzing Boyd? Well, it's clear he's got paranoid delusions, brought on by a mix of him losing multiple jobs and his own personal problems (some of the figments show a worker getting drunk and are located in pretty clear hiding spots, making it obvious that Boyd has not been fired for NO reason, at least). The poor guy finally snaps and makes molotov cocktails out of some milk and blows up the mall he was working at, and is sent to the insane asylum...where he's programmed by Oleander to serve as his watchmen. And as we saw once we killed the Den Mother and triggered his programming, his other function is to destroy the Asylum and everyone in it to hide what Oleander is doing. Devious.

I actually quite like how the game presents Boyd's various conspiracy theories. Mentally, it turns out those agents are just factors of his own mind and while they ARE making him think things are all connected and out to get him, they're working with the censors of his mind to remove the programming. Even though his thoughts are full of crazed, wild imaginings, even his brain can tell what is and isn't a foreign entity in his mind. It's cool because we never actually fight or see censors until that scene, since we're such a small problem in the grand scheme of things. Too bad that it seems Oleander planned for this, and the trigger of Boyd's Milkman persona is the programming being attacked mentally. This is how you do this by the way, you don't just stick buildings and a Jet Jaguar reference into an island chain and populate it with fish people and say it's mental programming, you have to actually do it with nuance since at the mental level that's all you have.

The nightmares even make sense to be here, though I feel (and still feel honestly) that they're massive wastes of time and make Milla's nightmares feel less unique due to just being copies of it. Boyd's nightmares being flame based makes sense given his trauma, but if you're gonna shove in two stupid nightmare fights make him more thematic and don't just rip off one of the only things I really REALLY like about this game. So yeah, that's Boyd's mind, a paranoid psyche that is literally fighting itself in a twisted suburbia. I really like it.

DataNinja

2018-06-04, 11:22 AM

Ick. Bad boss design. The only way to attack it lets it occasionally unavoidably damage you?

Huh... is it just me, or does the Milkman look like Boyd?

So... there's no difference between those two nightmares?

There was also that agent using the flowers as a golf club. So, yes, they're not the best at their job. :smallamused:
(Regardless, I still find it all hilarious.)

To be fair, if you headed back along the lines right now, you'd have to come back this way anyways to continue, so it's really not increasing the number of trips. (Granted, I'm sure you'll be doing it during clean-up instead...)
Oh, nevermind. You did it now. :smalltongue:

Welp. Okay then. Kaboom.

Xondoure

2018-06-04, 02:00 PM

Ebon_Drake

2018-06-04, 02:00 PM

Just shoot the boss, ya big dummy! :smalltongue: Same goes for the nightmares.

Agree that getting through the door to the Rainbow Squirt hideout is terribad and took me ages. It is better if you've got upgraded invisibility, so don't have to worry so much about the timer running out. I don't think the squirt can actually see through it, but she only stands outside for a ridiculously short amount of time so it's really hard to then jump over her. I did try jumping onto the roof and then dropping down behind the squirt, but the roof overhangs and the squirt barely steps past it so it's either impossible or extremely hard. I never thought of shooting her, but Invisibilty plus Psi Blast would probably be the best solution.

LaZodiac

2018-06-04, 05:13 PM

Just reading through! A few things to note, because while I certainly agree Psychonauts is a flawed game I think you all are being a tad on the harsh side. First off: comparing it to Mario Sunshine is not a fair statement, because the size and budget of the development teams are not comparable. Psychonauts was made with limited time and money and it shows.

In defense of figments and too many damn collectibles, the game is not actually all that long and as such is one of the few that I have actually bothered to 100% complete. That said, I feel your pain. I remember fruitless deaths trying to get the last figments out of the saw room in the Coaches head.

Finally: Lungfishopolis vs. Boyd the Milkman and mental programming. The difference in how these things express is one of methods. The lungfish literally has a chip in its head forcing it to do the coaches bidding. That's why the Coach's control of the Lungfish is represented by Lungfishopolis, a lungfish military, and of course the radio tower. Boyd is the result of a person who after performing grand arson was abused at an insane asylum for years and is desperately trying to pick up the pieces of his scattered mind. The coach only had to tap into preexisting psychosis to turn Boyd into his pawn. The absence of a literal mind control chip is what separates those situations.

Edit: on bad boss design, IIRC it was hard but I don't think you have to get hit to hurt the troop master? IDK, been a while

I also compare it to Sly Cooper, which is far more comparable. I admit that yeah, it's not fair, but it's worth thinking at least. I am trying to be less negative in my commentary from this point on, it's just hard due to my prior experience with the game.

I get that, I just think that for Lungfishopolis it just leads to an otherwise not enjoyable level, whereas in Milk it leads to a good level.

Just shoot the boss, ya big dummy! :smalltongue: Same goes for the nightmares.

Agree that getting through the door to the Rainbow Squirt hideout is terribad and took me ages. It is better if you've got upgraded invisibility, so don't have to worry so much about the timer running out. I don't think the squirt can actually see through it, but she only stands outside for a ridiculously short amount of time so it's really hard to then jump over her. I did try jumping onto the roof and then dropping down behind the squirt, but the roof overhangs and the squirt barely steps past it so it's either impossible or extremely hard. I never thought of shooting her, but Invisibilty plus Psi Blast would probably be the best solution.

I swear I've tried that before and it doesn't work. My bad, then, though that doesn't work for Den Mother for the game reasons the rest of the ways you have to fight her don't. As far as I can tell anyway.

smuchmuch

2018-06-04, 07:32 PM

Technically the intent of the maze door puzzle is not that you just have to look at it with crow eyes for it to open.
It is that it opens when you pass hrough the little door but close when you go through it again, somethig you can only realise only through clairvoyance as it give you a view of both doors, so you have to jump over the little door. (Mid yo haven't tried to jsut jump over the small door wihout uing lairvoance to see if it works) You just solve the puzzle by accient because you like bouncing around a lot. :smalltongue:

I swear I've tried that before and it doesn't work. My bad, then, though that doesn't work for Den Mother for the game reasons the rest of the ways you have to fight her don't. As far as I can tell anyway.

You can shoot the nightmares and you can shoot the den mother, even when looking through her POV. However the targeting detection is kinda wonky so you still need to get fairly close to hit reliably (at the bottom of the stairs at least) and since those are two fights were you need to move a lot to avoid being hit, it's fairly annoying.
That said, you most certainly can do it an it is technicaly possible to do this fight without being hurt with shield and TK.

Also It is not an oversight that you need telekinesis to fight the nightmare mnii boss because it is not possible to get to the nighmare mini boss without having the telekinesis badge.
This is in fact why the whole mandatory cobweb' duster is here in this level. There is a mandatory cobweb right in the post office before this fight. You can't buy the cobweb duster from the main lodge until you reach psy rank 20 which, is exactly when you get telekinesis and already got pyrokinesis.

Kinda wish the final level had looked a little more like the original concepts fromt he primal memories.

The nightmares even make sense to be here, though I feel (and still feel honestly) that they're massive wastes of time and make Milla's nightmares feel less unique due to just being copies of it.

In truth this is because they oriinaly were meant to be Mila's nightmare. (and I don't jsut mean the model resused)
While it does make sense enough in the version of the game as it is, according to the psyhonauts wiki,this fight is an artifact from an abandoned storyline where Mila's nightmares would have escaped her mind and infected other people's.

Finally: Lungfishopolis vs. Boyd the Milkman and mental programming. The difference in how these things express is one of methods. The lungfish literally has a chip in its head forcing it to do the coaches bidding. That's why the Coach's control of the Lungfish is represented by Lungfishopolis, a lungfish military, and of course the radio tower. Boyd is the result of a person who after performing grand arson was abused at an insane asylum for years and is desperately trying to pick up the pieces of his scattered mind. The coach only had to tap into preexisting psychosis to turn Boyd into his pawn. The absence of a literal mind control chip is what separates those situations.

Pretty much.

LaZodiac

2018-06-04, 07:37 PM

You can't buy the cobweb duster from the main lodge until you reach psy rank 20 which, is exactly when you get telekinesis and already got pyrokinesis.

RIGHT. I entirely forgot that's a thing. I'll give the game that, yeah.

Coidzor

2018-06-05, 10:36 PM

Funnily enough, I had the opposite problem. I immediately forgot about the Shield during the Book Depository sequence and apparently just blindly lucked my way into the Rainbow Squirt HQ accidentally after deciding to lead with invisibility on my first try.

Also accidentally solved the Hedge "Maze" just because I like to bounce around when there's no reason to refrain from doing so.

LaZodiac

2018-06-08, 09:38 AM

Today is a surprisingly important episode of Psychonauts.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [15] All The World's A Stage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIXTh40WQZ0)

Video Length: 24:15

In this episode, we finally finish off the scavenger hunt, getting another achievement and a couple PSI Cadet ranks in the process. We also finally learn Cruller's secret, and learn what the purpose of finding those brains is (beyond just helping our technical friends). After that we make our way to the next stage! It's Gloria von Gouten, a semi famous actress who's star has pretty clearly burnt out considering her current location. And her mental world is, on reflection, probably one of the best in terms of symbolism. But we'll get into that later, though rest assured a lot of it will become clear as we play.

The conceit of Gloria's Stage is that we've got to stop The Phantom within her mind so her inner muse can shine forth. But with a nasty inner critic and a production obsessed with the traumatic and dramatic moments of her life, it'll be tough to work our way through it. We need to find plays that'll play out on set for us, and we need to navigate between sets and moods to influence what, where, and how everything plays out. Each set is a different memory, with the mood changing which memory the stage is being used for. It's really well put together...on paper at least. In practice this is KIND OF annoying, especially since the bad mood has a ton of really annoying enemies. Since this stage is just one singular stage that changes sets, all the figments are mostly hidden here which is both a blessing and a curse. But honestly, after making SMART use of Pyrokinesis and being able to play this area with a controller instead of a keyboard, this stage has come off way better than it did my first time playing it. That's kind of weird, honestly, since I went into this dreading it because I used to hate this level.

But yeah, that'll be it for today. There isn't a LOT to talk about Gloria's Stage, but there also is if you catch my drift. I'm just gonna wait to mention most of it. All I can really specify is, get help if things are going badly for you. It's important. Sorry if this came out of nowhere but I feel it's important!

DataNinja

2018-06-08, 01:42 PM

Wouldn't it be better to deliver them as you get them? Since it said delivering them increases your mental health potential. Or is that just a final reward for all of them?

...so, for helping get the star of the show back together, Raz would be the star of the show? :smalltongue:

I must admit... the 'bad acting' and the music for the play kinda, well, I'll say I'm not the biggest fan. So, interested in the story it has to tell, but, yeah... hopefully it doesn't overstay its welcome too much.

LaZodiac

2018-06-08, 01:45 PM

DataNinja

2018-06-08, 02:17 PM

To say returning all the brains at once gets you a special reward is...technically true. We'll cover that later :smallwink:

Ah, alright. Makes sense. :smalltongue:

Ebon_Drake

2018-06-08, 04:50 PM

Yeah, Gloria's Theatre would be my pick for the game's worst level aside from That One Level. It's a shame, because I actually quite like the way the spotlight mechanic is used to reflect Gloria's bipolar condition in-mind and it also goes to a lot of effort to tell us Gloria's story. In theory, it could have been a great level. Unfortunately though, the deliberately bad acting and the music on the happy side are so very grating. The back-and-forth aspect and the puzzle navigation are also frustrating. Gloria outside her mind is also... not ideal since the writers conflated bipolar with having violent mood swings.

Wasn't aware there was some added benefit for not rebraining the children as you go. I'm intrigued!

Knight9910

2018-06-08, 07:49 PM

So... one thing I find kind of interesting is how some items in the mental worlds are... "real" and some are just figments, and a lot of times it's the same sorts of items.

Like how in Lungfishopolis, there are solid buildings and there are "just figment" buildings. And now in the actress lady's head there are actual imaginary people like the critic and the stage producer, and then there are "just figments" people like the audience members.

It makes me wonder why some of these items are more solidly imagined then others.

In Gloria's case, maybe the reason why the producer and critic are real is because they hold more significance to her, while she never really thinks that hard about the audience.

It's also interesting to me how some of the imaginary people seem to have solid anatomies while others have Rayman anatomies.

smuchmuch

2018-06-08, 08:30 PM

Ah Gloria theater , actualy one of my favorite level of this game. At least definitively th best of meof he the set of three levels to come.

Mother's Basement made a video about it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XGvq3JusSY) (HUGE SPOILERS for this level though) and I agree with most points give or take some nitpicks.

Gloria outside her mind is also... not ideal since the writers conflated bipolar with having violent mood swings.

Bipolar psychosis however is a thing, farily rare and marginal, thank god but notheless tit does exist.
Given that when we find Gloria she's talking to potted plants and she thinks she's in the middle of a perfomance, it's clear she 's in the middle of a delusional phase when w et her. And the way she speak to Raz as soon a she's out of the 'spotlight' makes it clear she sees him has someone she'd hold rightfull resentement over.

Not saying it's a great representation of bipolar disorder but on reflection it does hold a little better than I previously though when I first played this game.

Eurus

2018-06-08, 09:38 PM

You know, I actually wondered if Gloria was more PTSD than bipolar. Although it seems more likely that she's just a badly written bipolar.

Xondoure

2018-06-09, 02:00 PM

I feel like Gloria has borderline personality disorder coupled with childhood ptsd, and added onto abuse and neglect suffered at the hands of this clearly-not-okay insane asylum. BPD explains the rapid mood swings and detachment from reality much better than bipolar disorder.

LaZodiac

2018-06-11, 09:28 AM

Okay, lets do us a Psychonauts.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [16] That's Showbiz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psPShdhLkrM)

Video Length: 30:17

Last time, we started Gloria's Stage. Today, we continue, making use of the mood matrix and the plays to get further into Gloria's psyche. There really isn't much for me to say HERE, because I kinda stumble my way into the solution to all the puzzles almost immediately, minimizing the difficulty of getting through this stage by quite a lot. We also manage to see basically every memory scene we need to see, making it PRETTY clear what happened to cause Gloria to fall apart. Eventually, we get a hold of the play for the escape from Hagatha Home, which lets us get the balloon to come down for us, lifting us up to the rafters.

In the rafters, we find the Phantom! Chasing him down the catwalks, finding figments, baggage, and the last memory vault along the way, we encounter more than a few really bad platforming glitches, but overall have a decent time. We flash the Phantom in the face with some light, scaring him off, but all that really does is set us up for a rather annoying boss fight that feels entirely tacked on vs the Critic, who is surprise surprise the Phantom. The fight is super annoying, his attacks having far too much homing and the air vent you need to ride up to the rafters being too thin is NOT helping matters. Luckily, he's not TOO hard, just annoying and tedious like most boss fights in this game. But yeah, after crushing her inner critic we have...more or less helped Gloria, I suppose? She gives us her Emmy award, and we leave it off there for today. Hope you enjoyed!

------

So, Gloria's Stage is probably the best in terms of sheer symbolism. Gloria's life was the stage in it's entirety, and as such it occupies her mind without end. The figments of her mind are all various stage stuff, with the best use of figments of course being the audience. The stage itself replays traumatic (and happy) memories in repeat, over and over again, obsessed with those moments that refined her. Sadly, the whole bipolar mood switching thing is handled incredibly badly, so while it makes for an interesting mechanic for a level, writing wise it's pretty offensive and bad. Still, it's...it's workable, I suppose. Gloria is the only person with an actual real mental condition and it's really not that surprising it's written poorly. That ASIDE, the actual symbolism of the stage and all that's going on is really good. The inner fight between your personal critic and your muse, your negative and positive, it's expressed really well here. It's important to note that unlike say Boyd's "Den Mother" keeping his mind control trigger hidden, we don't KILL the Critic. We just reduce the unhealthy amount of noise he's throwing Gloria's way. In that sense, I do like this level.

smuchmuch

2018-06-11, 03:00 PM

The fight is super annoying, his attacks having far too much homing and the air vent you need to ride up to the rafters being too thin is NOT helping matters.

Yes he leads his shots quite well (they don't home per se as far as I can tell, they are straight shots, he just shoot where you are going to be instead of where you are, half the time)
Yes on the catwalks, you get sandbags dropped on you when you get detected by a beam of light.
And right at the start of the level, you are presented with a "puzzle' where you have to use invisibility to get through a door.
Kind of like the game was trying to tell you something here :smalltongue:

(And yes, I tested it, it works, he won't shot if eh can't see you. And t works on other enemies on the level as well. Making it a good way to get away from the big censors on the catwalks so you can blast them from afar or light them on fire or avoid the annoying fire dogs)

As of being long and tedious.. to each their own, I suppose. Personally I liked it and would take it any day over 'vodoo Simon says'. It likely did help that while I usualy really dislike an anemy throwing one liners at my character in vide games, here I found it kind of funny.

Ebon_Drake

2018-06-11, 03:46 PM

That lousy mailboat took me ages to figure out. The first time I tried to ride it out, I somehow fell off as it scrolled away and so assumed it was a timed platforming challenge. I kept trying to springboard off the treasure chest to reach the visible script and portal at the higher platform. I eventually got the solution through dumb luck after way too much trial-and-error.

At the risk of repeating myself, just shoot the dang bats! The ricocheting psi blast kills em dead. You can also use shield to hold off the buzzsaw enemies and then hit them when they stop, but yeah I found friendly fire was the easiest solution for them anyway.

I quite liked the rafters section too, although I always struggle to remember it when I think of Gloria's level. Shield is decently effective at stopping the sandbags, although they go on long enough that it's pretty close-run. I also found shield was decent against the burly censors as long as you can get into the right rhythm with it. I didn't think Jasper was too bad as a boss, but hoo boy the floating mechanic does not work well while under fire.

For anyone watching who's not familiar with the game, there is actually a reason why we wanted Gloria's award beyond it being shiny. All will become clear next time.

I'm not sure what you mean by Gloria being the only one with a real mental condition? Fred has a cartoon version of Dissociative Identity Disorder and Edgar is billed as having OCD with his compulsion to draw the bullfight, although I'd just put him as straight-up obsessive. They're also both rather depressed. We'll obviously get your thoughts on them over the next few videos. There's also Boyd and his paranoia, plus there's presumably a reason why Crispin was in the asylum but we never see it.

LaZodiac

2018-06-11, 05:14 PM

Yes he leads his shots quite well (they don't home per se as far as I can tell, they are straight shots, he just shoot where you are going to be instead of where you are, half the time)
Yes on the catwalks, you get sandbags dropped on you when you get detected by a beam of light.
And right at the start of the level, you are presented with a "puzzle' where you have to use invisibility to get through a door.
Kind of like the game was trying to tell you something here :smalltongue:

(And yes, I tested it, it works, he won't shot if eh can't see you. And t works on other enemies on the level as well. Making it a good way to get away from the big censors on the catwalks so you can blast them from afar or light them on fire or avoid the annoying fire dogs)

As of being long and tedious.. to each their own, I suppose. Personally I liked it and would take it any day over 'vodoo Simon says'. It likely did help that while I usualy really dislike an anemy throwing one liners at my character in vide games, here I found it kind of funny.

I mean you had to pick the worst boss from that game to make the comparison but I mean eh, that's fine. To each their own! It's entirely fair.

That lousy mailboat took me ages to figure out. The first time I tried to ride it out, I somehow fell off as it scrolled away and so assumed it was a timed platforming challenge. I kept trying to springboard off the treasure chest to reach the visible script and portal at the higher platform. I eventually got the solution through dumb luck after way too much trial-and-error.

At the risk of repeating myself, just shoot the dang bats! The ricocheting psi blast kills em dead. You can also use shield to hold off the buzzsaw enemies and then hit them when they stop, but yeah I found friendly fire was the easiest solution for them anyway.

I quite liked the rafters section too, although I always struggle to remember it when I think of Gloria's level. Shield is decently effective at stopping the sandbags, although they go on long enough that it's pretty close-run. I also found shield was decent against the burly censors as long as you can get into the right rhythm with it. I didn't think Jasper was too bad as a boss, but hoo boy the floating mechanic does not work well while under fire.

For anyone watching who's not familiar with the game, there is actually a reason why we wanted Gloria's award beyond it being shiny. All will become clear next time.

I'm not sure what you mean by Gloria being the only one with a real mental condition? Fred has a cartoon version of Dissociative Identity Disorder and Edgar is billed as having OCD with his compulsion to draw the bullfight, although I'd just put him as straight-up obsessive. They're also both rather depressed. We'll obviously get your thoughts on them over the next few videos. There's also Boyd and his paranoia, plus there's presumably a reason why Crispin was in the asylum but we never see it.

I am bad at remembering to use the PSI Blasts. Rest assured, I'll make used of em.

Concerning the spoilers: yeah that's not how any of that works to a degree where I don't feel comfortable saying it's accurate in the slightest. And the last one of those isn't actually OCD he's just got anger issues that express themselves in an interesting way, which is still very wrong but at least reasonable compared to the genetic memory of Napoleon Bonaparte. I'll touch on this stuff later.

DataNinja

2018-06-11, 07:39 PM

Does the shield power protect you from the falling sandbags?

And could you invisibility through the spotlights?

Postscript: Apparently yes, given the other comments.

So that was... a chapter. They certainly aren't afraid to pull punches. (Granted, Mila's nightmares rather showed that, too, but this is rather more explicit.)

Coidzor

2018-06-12, 12:27 AM

Jasper's tracking adds almost a modicum of challenge until you figure out exactly how wide your zig-zag pattern should be.

Definitely more entertaining than the repeated Nightmare boss fights.

smuchmuch

2018-06-12, 04:05 AM

I mean you had to pick the worst boss from that game to make the comparison but I mean eh, that's fine. To each their own! It's entirely fair.

I would have compared it to the Mughsot because of a certan similarity between 'turn herojector on 3 time o make him snerale and 'turn all the mirrors three time to melt his guns' but Mugshot does offers quite a bit of cover during his fight and the three phases have a different layout so fair enough.

Also not to spoil or anything but to avoid some future frustration... the invsibility trick, it works for a certain game of catch. Should make a certain level a litte easier.

I'm not sure what you mean by Gloria being the only one with a real mental condition? Fred has a cartoon version of Dissociative Identity Disorder and Edgar is billed as having OCD with his compulsion to draw the bullfight, although I'd just put him as straight-up obsessive. They're also both rather depressed. We'll obviously get your thoughts on them over the next few videos. There's also Boyd and his paranoia, plus there's presumably a reason why Crispin was in the asylum but we never see it.

Fred does not have DID.
Fred is just, I think, writen because they wanted to have someone based on the old steretype/joke that there's alway someone in an ainsane asylium who think they are Napoleon or Julius caesar. And that's it.
The whole 'genetic memory' is a poor justification of it.

That said the stereotype Fred is derived from does itself comes from sometihng that had a basis in reality particularly last centuy in Europe (even if t's frequency was eagerted). Namely a form of grandiose delusion were people indentified and modeled themselves after historical figures up to the point that sense of identity could get blurred.

But Fred himself is a joke and the whole level is IMO the worst in the game. (That awfull awfull platforming and frament collecion.. even worse than Mila's race for god sake. And eew fake rench accents. Oh go, so bad.) And easily the one who feel the least like a mental world. AT leas Lunsfshopolis, I could see where the imagery was and how i related but Fed.. eh. Zodi can tear this one apart.

Edgar is a little harder to place, he has anger issues (its the whole point of'El Odio) and some difficultymoing on' but he did build this whole other persona and history over the 'real' events, so there'sdefinitivel some serious escapism oin thee as well, to the poin whre one hs to wonder if h's not a geunely delusional.

Of course if one wants to take the lore of the game in account, thee is he convenient excuses hat the asylium is stil ubilt near Psytanium' which make, accrding to Ford 'unstable people more unstable' (a covenient excuse for lazy writting, you say ? Eh maaybe but then again I alway felt from the tone of the game from the start that nothing about it shuld be taken too seriously.)

Ebon_Drake

2018-06-12, 12:04 PM

Concerning the spoilers: yeah that's not how any of that works to a degree where I don't feel comfortable saying it's accurate in the slightest. And the last one of those isn't actually OCD he's just got anger issues that express themselves in an interesting way, which is still very wrong but at least reasonable compared to the genetic memory of Napoleon Bonaparte. I'll touch on this stuff later.

Fair enough, I think I get where you're coming from. I don't want to derail by jumping ahead too much, so I'll hold my thoughts for now and we can discuss them properly as we get to them.

LaZodiac

2018-06-15, 07:34 AM

New video time, now from the position of Having A New Job That Has Morning Shifts! Hoo boy.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [17] Vive le France (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddVr-XgEEA0)

Video Length: 25:35

Today, we head past Gloria and her garden into the Asylum proper. Within the hallowed, hollowed out remains of this building we find our next two levels. Fred Bonaparte, and Edgar Teglee. We'll deal with the very angry Ed later, and instead focus on Fred. Though first, we find out WHY we're dealing with this mental patients. Which is to say, Chrispin Whitehead, Doctor Loboto's evil assistant, is keeping us from getting further up the Asylum. He's half blind, immune to psionics, and unflabable in his desire to not do anything. So we've gotta get a disguise to get past him. We've already got the claw from our lovely friend Miss Gloria. Next up we'll be diving into the mind of Fred, someone who's...having some trouble, lets say.

A lot of people hate this level. I'm going to continue my trend of being weirdly controversial when it comes to Double Fine games and say this is probably one of my favorites? I don't know, but something about it feels nice. It doesn't feel much like a mental world at all of course and I dock it points for that, but as far as an actual gameplay conceit it's pretty cool. There's three tiers, the two players (Fred and his genetic memory of Napoleon) being tier 1, tier 2 being walking around the game board as if you're the player, and tier 3 is down at the gritty, piece level. I actually like this, even if it is a little tedious. For some reason for me it's the FUN tedious, where I don't mind doing it. Maybe it's the mini, non threatening platforming challenges that are involved here. Maybe it's the sort of pointed commentary that makes me think of cooler ideas than this. I don't know, but whatever it is I just sort of like Waterloo-World.

Of course you can assume all of that praise I put on this level is almost entirely directed at the gameplay of it. The writing is...much to be desired, though the comedy in this chapter works the best I think and we'll see better examples of that next time. The actual CHARACTER writing is...bad, badder than normal for this game even, and while I'll touch more on this later Fred Bonaparte is...really not good at all, and while I can think of how he ACTUALLY is meant to come off as, it just doesn't work either way.

Anyway, that's it for today! Hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time!

DataNinja

2018-06-15, 12:49 PM

So, this seems like an interesting conceit for a level... but, man, does it look like heck for all the figments. :smalleek:

Coidzor

2018-06-15, 01:03 PM

Personally, I don't think that Napoleon is an actual "genetic memory" and more that's just what Fred thinks it must be. But maybe that's because that makes marginally more sense than what is actually canonically the case.

So, this seems like an interesting conceit for a level... but, man, does it look like heck for all the figments. :smalleek:

Getting the figments can be fairly tedious, to say the least. Between having to re-attempt jumps that take a while to climb up to be able to do and harvesting in the orchard and all, at the very least.

Ebon_Drake

2018-06-15, 03:01 PM

Huh, I was gearing up for you to completely hate this level so I'm quite happy that you actually liked it at least from a gameplay point of view. I'd rank it fairly highly, although I'll freely admit that a very large part of that is just down to the music being literally the 1812 Overture. I also appreciate how huge the game board is too - I'd reckon it's bigger than the actual hub levels, Zodi's shown probably less than a quarter of it so far. All the other levels are fairly enclosed and linear, so I liked being able to just run around and explore as I pleased, doing the various sub-objectives as I came across them. I don't think enemies respawn anywhere either, so once you've cleared it out it's a pretty chilled level to go bouncing around collecting stuff. I kind of wish the game had gone further though in pushing the concept of playing a Chess-like strategy game, so the game board was more active and had some level of move-countermove gameplay going on beyond the scripted events.

The figments are nuts though. There's just shy of 250 to collect, which I think is the most of any level in the game. Milla's and Boyd's hit around 200ish too (and I'd put Milla's down as the most frustrating one overall), but at least those are split into distinct sections. They're also easy to miss, especially the ones up high. Climbing on top of that cottage near the guillotine in particular was especially terrible. My preferred method was to use Levitation to bounce around on the giant carpenter to get the high figments rather than doing what the game actually wanted me to do.

Also, I'd missed that Lily cutscene when I was playing so thanks for that!

Personally, I don't think that Napoleon is an actual "genetic memory" and more that's just what Fred thinks it must be. But maybe that's because that makes marginally more sense than what is actually canonically the case.

Yeah, that's how I took it too. My read was that Fred had a breakdown after being humiliated by Crispin and developed another persona to try to cope. Because he had a tangential connection to and interest in Napoleon, that's what the persona ended up being. As far as I'm concerned, we only have his word that he's even a blood relation to Napoleon; he could just happen to have the same surname. I'd completely forgotten about the emphasis on it being some dumb genetic memory thing until this thread brought it up again.

Coidzor

2018-06-15, 03:48 PM

Huh, I was gearing up for you to completely hate this level so I'm quite happy that you actually liked it at least from a gameplay point of view. I'd rank it fairly highly, although I'll freely admit that a very large part of that is just down to the music being literally the 1812 Overture. I also appreciate how huge the game board is too - I'd reckon it's bigger than the actual hub levels, Zodi's shown probably less than a quarter of it so far. All the other levels are fairly enclosed and linear, so I liked being able to just run around and explore as I pleased, doing the various sub-objectives as I came across them. I don't think enemies respawn anywhere either, so once you've cleared it out it's a pretty chilled level to go bouncing around collecting stuff. I kind of wish the game had gone further though in pushing the concept of playing a Chess-like strategy game, so the game board was more active and had some level of move-countermove gameplay going on beyond the scripted events.

The figments are nuts though. There's just shy of 250 to collect, which I think is the most of any level in the game. Milla's and Boyd's hit around 200ish too (and I'd put Milla's down as the most frustrating one overall), but at least those are split into distinct sections. They're also easy to miss, especially the ones up high. Climbing on top of that cottage near the guillotine in particular was especially terrible. My preferred method was to use Levitation to bounce around on the giant carpenter to get the high figments rather than doing what the game actually wanted me to do.

Yeah, definitely tooooo many figments.

The enemies NOT respawning, other than, I think, a few of the medium-sized ranged-attack Censors, is also a very nice touch that helps a bit with the frustration of that bloody Carpenter's roof and the times you have to Levitate over rivers.

Although to a certain extent it also makes the level that much more tedious to go through after you've cleared it out and just have to hunt through the entire world for that one single figment that you missed somewhere.

Knight9910

2018-06-15, 07:47 PM

The Asylum has a guy who thinks he's Napoleon and a patient who believes he's an orderly but isn't.

They're just hitting all the insane asylum cliches, ain't they?

Qwertystop

2018-06-15, 08:12 PM

The Asylum has a guy who thinks he's Napoleon and a patient who believes he's an orderly but isn't.

They're just hitting all the insane asylum cliches, ain't they?

No, I think that guy actually is an orderly. Or, at least, a guard and not a patient.

Knight9910

2018-06-15, 11:58 PM

No, I think that guy actually is an orderly. Or, at least, a guard and not a patient.

He's wearing a straight jacket, and Bonaparte's mental vault specifically shows him as a patient. Although it does seem like there is some legitimacy to his guard status, as Dr. Loboto made him one.

Incidentally, speaking of Bonaparte's mental vault... yeah, losing a board game to a psych ward patient is kind of a lame excuse for developing split personalities.

LaZodiac

2018-06-18, 07:16 AM

Oh hey more of this!

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [18] Continued War Games (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlgdECw0HCI)

Video Length: 23:32

In this episode, we continue tackling Napoleon's boardgame of the mind. Making use of pieces, collecting snails for the Hearty Knight, all that fun stuff. Ultimately there just isn't a lot to talk about this one, it's just more of the same. Which is probably why so many people DO dislike this level. Some of the jokes are good but otherwise it's just...lots and lots of this exact same thing.

I do hit some pretty incredibly glitches though, I think. And I slowly but surely learn to respect pyrokinesis. Never should of let my initial thoughts due to keyboard controls get me down, fire is a friend!

But yeah, that's it for this one. This and the next stage are gonna take three videos to complete due to just being so long, but honestly they're not all that bad. Hope to see you tomorrow for the conclusion of war!

DataNinja

2018-06-18, 01:24 PM

I like the personality of the pieces.

...well, that's a clever call back joke to the burglar on the roof. It wasn't the Censor.

I'm glad that the devs thought of just... jumping in.

Knight9910

2018-06-18, 11:29 PM

So I was thinking... and I think Fred is actually kind of an interesting case.

The thing is... in spite of what he says, he DOES care... a LOT.

You mentioned how neat it is how all of the little pieces in this game have their own personalities... well, this is Fred's mental world which means those personalities are clearly HIS invention. This board game is clearly one of his favorite things. It dominates the entirety of his mental world, he's assigned quirky little personalities and stories to all of the pieces on the board...

In fact, he might care TOO MUCH... as we've seen he gets discouraged extremely easily, and with one failure he just declares that he doesn't care and quits whatever it is he was trying to do forever. That's his defense mechanism against having to admit that he failed at something. "I didn't fail, I just wasn't trying. I don't care!"

So the issue isn't that he lost, it's that his loss led to him declaring "I don't care" on HIS FAVORITE GAME OF ALL TIME... the game that dominated his entire mind. What Napoleon represents is his own mind fighting back to prevent him from giving up the thing that he loves more than anything else. It might also be a genetic memory... or maybe he just has convinced himself that's what it is... but its primary purpose for being there is to try and save him from himself.

At least that's my theory on it.

LaZodiac

2018-06-18, 11:31 PM

I forget if we got the second memory vault in this episode, but regardless on Friday we'll have definitely seen it so I can get more into it.

I will say that for the most part, you're not wrong.

LaZodiac

2018-06-22, 07:53 AM

Forgot to write this in advance due to work OOOPS.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [19] War's End (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbIXZqGaPWo)

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.

DataNinja

2018-06-22, 01:52 PM

Not much to comment on the end of the level... but it's really neat that they have those collection aides for at the end. It doesn't take away any of the challenge of playing the level itself, but it helps with the mopping up after you've done what they want you to do.

Coidzor

2018-06-22, 02:37 PM

The cows were a nice touch, yeah.

I still say that if you have the space for it, constantly backflipping to spam Psi Blast faster than you normally can, while also maintaining distance, is the most efficient way to defeat the burly censors.

I have to agree that actually not having a boss felt like it flowed better for Fred. Worlds better than having 3 bosses in The Milkman Conspiracy, certainly.

Ebon_Drake

2018-06-23, 11:59 AM

I also agree it was nice not to have a shoehorned boss fight against Napoleon.

While I like the memory vault slide shows as a concept, the trouble is that we only get a few still images to piece together the story. My take on Fred vs Crispin is that it wasn't just the fact that Crispin beat Fred repeatedly that caused Fred to snap. From the little we see of Crispin, he seems quite eloquent and very snide so I figured he probably went heavy on emotional manipulation during their games and broke Fred down through taunting and belittling him as well. Fred tried to do a nice thing by reaching out to one of his patients, but it turned out said patient was an awful, horrible person. However, I feel that's borderline fanon.

I still say that if you have the space for it, constantly backflipping to spam Psi Blast faster than you normally can, while also maintaining distance, is the most efficient way to defeat the burly censors.

My preferred method for them is still Shield, although you need it fully upgraded to get the most out of it. It may not be the most efficient in terms of damage-per-second, but it is very effective in terms of straight-forward simplicity.

I'd say the actual best tactic against them is Invisibility plus fully-upgraded Levitation, since that deals a lot of damage quickly and they can't retaliate. That combo wrecks most things though.

LaZodiac

2018-06-25, 08:07 AM

Hey hey, more Psychonauts.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [20] I See A Red Door (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx0zcqHwT6o)

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!

smuchmuch

2018-06-25, 06:22 PM

Personaly felt Avoiding El Odio isn't much of a mechanic, to hate. Or love. Or notice, really. There are plenty of checkpoints, plenty of shortcuts, particulalry if you use the paintings at certain places and it's not like he pursue you or anything, he alway stay on the same course making him fairly easy to avoid. Made even easer if you use the rose trick.

DataNinja

2018-06-25, 06:37 PM

Not even a minute into the new level, and it's already feeling very much like a mental world.

Complete with SM64 paintings, even. :smalltongue:

Heh. Dogs playing poker.

The corridor leading to the Bowser/Peach painting with the trapdoor in SM64 is a pretty dang egregious invisible wall... but yeah, this one's probably worse, given you can see collectables and stuff on the other side.

Oof, those flags are super unforgiving.

Coidzor

2018-06-25, 11:58 PM

My main complaint was that there's a couple of bits of tricky platforming where if you fall, then you can end up landing right on top of El Odio. He wasn't much of an issue when I was just trying to progress in the level.

I did like the dogs to some extent, although I'm kind of confused about their differing views of Raz.

Ebon_Drake

2018-06-26, 04:16 PM

I really liked Black Velvetopia, on balance I think it may actually be my favourite level in the game. It's long, but felt varied enough that it didn't come across as padded. El Odio can be frustrating and I wish he wasn't quite so frequent, but mostly I felt any hits I took from him were just down to my own errors rather than bad design. I agree that the luchador fights are kind of lame though.

The art style is gorgeous, although the neon colours do make it another tricky level for finding figments. It's interesting that it's the only level in the game where Raz himself is styled differently too, it's something I would have liked them to have done more frequently.

I'm really not sure why you had such difficulty with those flag poles? I can't remember having anything like as much trouble with hitting them. Since you often seem to be jumping at the flag or right against the wall, I guess you maybe need to aim for the dead centre of the bar instead?

LaZodiac

2018-06-29, 07:37 AM

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

Zodi Plays Psychonauts [21] Further Bull Problems (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhNnY8YfZgs)

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!

DataNinja

2018-06-29, 12:58 PM

Knight9910

2018-06-29, 01:49 PM

I think maybe what they meant by "unless he can fly" was actually "use the Levitate Orb's jump and float feature to stay above the fire" rather than "just hop on your clown ball."

LaZodiac

2018-06-29, 03:47 PM

I do wish that the memory vault told you something different than what Raz got told. They're nice visuals, but just being told the exact same thing as what's revealed through talking to people... kinda seems to defeat the point, if you know hat I mean.

So, just a thought, rather than going through the bull tunnel to get to the 4th queen... couldn't you have just gone back through the window shortcut that you'd mentioned could take you there?

Ah, you'd think that works, but each hanger has a different outcome. Doing it would only get us a single figment.

I think maybe what they meant by "unless he can fly" was actually "use the Levitate Orb's jump and float feature to stay above the fire" rather than "just hop on your clown ball."

Yeah, obviously, but this also feels like the exact spot to make use of the ability to levitate orb is supposed to have.

Ebon_Drake

2018-06-29, 04:45 PM

Ah, you'd think that works, but each hanger has a different outcome. Doing it would only get us a single figment

Nah, at 17:01 you can see the alley with the bulldog and the 4th queen. You can just float down from there instead of having to sprint through the long tunnel.

Agree that Confusion is very not good and I'd rank it as the worst power. I guess in theory you could get more mileage out of it by doing Edgar's level before Gloria's and Fred's, but I don't feel that would actually accomplish much. The aiming on it is atrocious, although using the lock-on makes it a little better. Still, I only used it when the game outright required me to do so.

I spoilered it before, but since it doesn't look like you'll be using it I'll say it again out loud: Invisibility plus Rolling Havoc-upgraded Levitation is a pro combo.

Knight9910

2018-06-29, 11:31 PM

Yeah, obviously, but this also feels like the exact spot to make use of the ability to levitate orb is supposed to have.

Come to think of it... that whole "you can levitate over traps and damaging floors" thing... maybe I'm just failing to remember, but has that mechanic actually come up AT ALL so far?

LaZodiac

2018-06-29, 11:32 PM

Come to think of it... that whole "you can levitate over traps and damaging floors" thing... maybe I'm just failing to remember, but has that mechanic actually come up AT ALL so far?

There is exactly one area it (apparently) shows up in and that's such a genuinely out of the way spot it would never ever be a concern ever.

Xondoure

2018-06-30, 12:41 AM

There is exactly one area it (apparently) shows up in and that's such a genuinely out of the way spot it would never ever be a concern ever.

It comes into play while scaling the tower as well, but yeah, not used much.

Coidzor

2018-06-30, 02:47 AM

It comes into play while scaling the tower as well, but yeah, not used much.

I honestly forgot about it by the time I reached that point, so I just treated that entire floor as if it was made of lava and just avoided it outright.

Ebon_Drake

2018-06-30, 06:02 AM

I honestly forgot about it by the time I reached that point, so I just treated that entire floor as if it was made of lava and just avoided it outright.

Same, except I didn't quite make the jump and was then surprised to find myself not dying since I was still on my levitation ball anyway. I think there might have been a collectible down there too though? Guess we'll see in a couple of videos' time.

I think I also assumed it worked against Dragon based on the announcer prompts, but I just went the Shield route too. It doesn't help that his attack is essentially the same as Kochamara's area attack where Shield was the intended solution.

LaZodiac

2018-06-30, 09:48 PM

It comes into play while scaling the tower as well, but yeah, not used much.

That was the one I was talking about, actually. So I don't know the fabled Other Place this comes into play.

LaZodiac

2018-07-02, 08:46 AM

Onwards, to more Psychonauts.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [22] Running Of The Bull (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GDINtKg_Yw)

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.

DataNinja

2018-07-02, 12:43 PM

I imagine the game being "nice" to you during the Cobra fight was because you hit him back into the cloud of confusion gas, thus prolonging the effect.

Ebon_Drake

2018-07-02, 02:06 PM

That joke of Lampita doing a sad cheer after you beat Dingo was one of the few genuine LOL moments I had in the game. Not a full belly laugh, but at least an amused chuckle.

The fight with Cobra is very frustrating, but I think it's a bit more tolerable if you've got the upgrade to Confusion at level 85 that doubles the effect's duration. Amusingly, it's possible to get that upgrade before you've actually acquired Confusion itself.

If I remember rightly, there is actually another confusion ammo upgrade later on. However, it's completely pointless by the time you'd get it.

smuchmuch

2018-07-02, 08:21 PM

I'd say Raz also helped Gloria quite a bit as well as Edgar. I mean that's gotta count for something.
Also if you count Linda as a sentient being, you know, freeing her from actual mind control.

Small detail, Ford does have thing to say on how to beat the wrestler like any eneeis but only after you met them but only untill you beat them (s youneedto fail the fight at la oncc to hear it), making it fairly easy to miss if memory serves. The one for Eagle has a slightly funny bit.

I do remember that confusion can be used on quite a few NPCs to get snippets of dialogues actualy.(It achieve nothing much, it's jst for fun). I'll have to try it.

Well thn endgame approches fast.

LaZodiac

2018-07-02, 08:26 PM

LaZodiac

2018-07-06, 07:20 AM

Hows about...some Psycho Nauts?

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [23] The Asylum Heights (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuzGwRksUTE)

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!

DataNinja

2018-07-06, 03:15 PM

Yeah, unless there's an explanation as to why it's like this - psychic bleed off from psitanium, or something - then it's a little weird how it's all twisty-turny. Cool visuals, though.

smuchmuch

2018-07-07, 07:45 AM

Technobabylon ? It was pretty allright. Wasn't a big fan of Regis as a main character, I fidn the two cops a bit too self righteous (comes with the territory,I guess. Besides it's Wadjet eyes games) but I did like the universe

And eh, whatever the reason that made the asylium so twised it does make for a memorable last stetch of plaforming before the incomming point of no return

LaZodiac

2018-07-07, 08:09 AM

Technobabylon ? It was pretty allright. Wasn't a big fan of Regis as a main character, I fidn the wo cops a bit too el righteous (comes with the territory,I guess. Besides it's Wadjet eyes games) but I did like the universe

And eh, whatever the reason that made the asylium so twised it does make for a memorable last stetch of plaforming before the incomming point of no return

Yeah, the asylum is memorable, at least.

Speaking of memorable, a question for all of you who've been watching me for awhile. Do you remember any stand out moments in my videos, particularly the video they happened in? I may or may not be making a cool compilation video for increased exposure reasons, and I wanted to have some Good Content tm to show off.

DataNinja

2018-07-07, 11:15 AM

Well, I always remember the Sand Bird, but I don't think that's the kind of memorable you want. :smalltongue: If you want strutting your stuff, well, there's the Phantamanta fight that I remember (especially the end). (https://youtu.be/mAwQwCv1rRA?t=279) I was impressed, too, getting through the first two phases of the Queen of Karst without getting hit, but that's probably a little more than a 'moment'.

And, of course, there's your particular personality. Going for cruelty bonuses (https://youtu.be/QpuiDSX4DnM?list=PL3RUYdXfQrwgIbDLeyvDrvVuUO3KCeHV r&t=698) and explosions (https://youtu.be/Y_mWG3xyy0k?t=405).

Oh, also Dark Matter (https://youtu.be/TegW8IuyvKg?t=1420), where you fought basically the entire phase with one HP and no lives left. Throw in some spectacle (https://youtu.be/m4Z1XQsutT4?t=480), and, oh yeah, Mr. Quintesson (https://youtu.be/MyjUWOWuuic?list=PL3RUYdXfQrwjpghHPeT7Tf8Vf4STDdmm U&t=432), you made that one look pretty fun.

That's really what comes to mind at the time, but I also just woke up. And any or all might not necessarily be what you're looking for.

ShneekeyTheLost

2018-07-07, 11:29 AM

Don't forget to toss in a few "mistakes were made" clips as well.

LaZodiac

2018-07-07, 04:59 PM

DataNinja

2018-07-07, 08:15 PM

God yes please I can barely remember any of them. That's a very good idea.

Well, uh, I'll see if I can set aside some time to go through stuff, but with work trying to squeeze as much time out of me as possible, and then going on vacation to visit friends for two weeks... I dunno if I'll have much opportunity to watch anything extra.

LaZodiac

2018-07-07, 08:16 PM

Well, uh, I'll see if I can set aside some time to go through stuff, but with work trying to squeeze as much time out of me as possible, and then going on vacation to visit friends for two weeks... I dunno if I'll have much opportunity to watch anything extra.

Oh yeah that's fair. If you DO decide to do it, do it on your own time. Don't kill yourself just for a dumb request from me :smallbiggrin:

DataNinja

2018-07-08, 07:58 PM

So, just out of idle curiosity, I took a brief glance at exactly how much Zodi-time there'd be to look through.

Sproggiwood: 6:16:05
Skyward Sword: 24:39:12
Filler: 1:12:03
Sunshine: 8:05:19
Minish Cap: 9:04:38
RWBY: 3:33:05
Four Swords: 2:31:50
Momodora: 3:05:03
Megaman: 1:00:48
Ocarina: 12:41:51
Cat Girl: 0:42:55
Dream Land: 0:27:31
Fire Emblem: 20:43:50
Gunslinger: 4:46:27
Metroid Prime: 2:05:48
Nightmare: 3:14:14
Crystal Chronicles: 9:03:41
Power Rangers: 0:52:52
Wind Waker: 15:12:25
Sly Cooper: 4:31:02
Dream Land 2: 2:08:50
Taste Ofs: 11:42:32
Total: 147:42:01

So... that's a lot of Zodi, to say the least. :smalltongue:
Even taking out the non-commentary LPs, filler, the Taste Ofs, and the playthroughs unlikely to have sudden MISTAKES MADE during recording (like Fire Emblem)… that's still, like, three full days of material to work through. :smalleek:

One thing you could do, of course, is a montage off all your times making Link bash into a wall at the end of a video. :smalltongue:

LaZodiac

2018-07-08, 08:07 PM

So, just out of idle curiosity, I took a brief glance at exactly how much Zodi-time there'd be to look through.

Total: 147:42:01

So... that's a lot of Zodi, to say the least. :smalltongue:
Even taking out the non-commentary LPs, filler, the Taste Ofs, and the playthroughs unlikely to have sudden MISTAKES MADE during recording (like Fire Emblem)… that's still, like, three full days of material to work through. :smalleek:

One thing you could do, of course, is a montage off all your times making Link bash into a wall at the end of a video. :smalltongue:

Yeah feel free to not even consider doing that a tertiary priority, I'm fine with what you've suggested and doing some searching myself when I have time. Good lord that's a lot of Zodi.

Some highlights include Skyward Sword somehow being longer than Fire Emblem and RWBY being the baby satan number.

DataNinja

2018-07-08, 08:14 PM

Some highlights include Skyward Sword somehow being longer than Fire Emblem

I mean... it's also, like, twice as many videos. Plus, you did a lot of speeding up in the last half of FE. Which I remember quite clearly. :smalltongue:

(Also, Power Rangers being 52:52.)

LaZodiac

2018-07-08, 08:16 PM

I mean... it's also, like, twice as many videos. Plus, you did a lot of speeding up in the last half of FE. Which I remember quite clearly. :smalltongue:

(Also, Power Rangers being 52:52.)

Right I forgot the actual video count for each. Also yeah next time I end up getting roped into doing a hell RPG I'll try and make it more manageable for my fans who go beyond and are awesome.

Ooh, that's a nice one. Momodora is 03:05:03 and that rules too.

DataNinja

2018-07-08, 08:43 PM

Right I forgot the actual video count for each. Also yeah next time I end up getting roped into doing a hell RPG I'll try and make it more manageable for my fans who go beyond and are awesome.

To be fair, that was my fault for spending a stupid amount of stuff on stuff that the game ended up tracking itself in the end for the important bits. :smalltongue:

The, for instance, Gold Skultulas weren't much of a problem (other than that one duplication error I made that freaked me out, whoops).

LaZodiac

2018-07-09, 07:48 AM

Oh man it's time for more of this.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [24] Achieve (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmfSKxu5NqU)

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" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwvYHpIQ4AA&index=2) because it was a really dumb joke on my part and I'm glad he said yes.

DataNinja

2018-07-09, 06:41 PM

LaZodiac

2018-07-09, 06:49 PM

...I suppose what a reward consists of depends on your point of view. :smalltongue:

The fact that it auto-activates upon death like a fairy seems like a decent use of the dream fluff. Granted... losing a life astral projection layer doesn't seem to be too debilitating, really.

And we're getting the final video tomorrow? Not next time? :smallwink:

I'll be honest with you I forgot half of what I wrote in these after a point so any errors are entirely there and ready for you to laugh at.

Either way, next time will NOT be the finale :smallwink:

Coidzor

2018-07-10, 04:38 PM

...I suppose what a reward consists of depends on your point of view. :smalltongue:

The fact that it auto-activates upon death like a fairy seems like a decent use of the dream fluff. Granted... losing a life astral projection layer doesn't seem to be too debilitating, really.

And we're getting the final video tomorrow? Not next time? :smallwink:

Really, about the only time they're useful is against the Den Mother, if you don't immediately work out how to beat her, and against the final boss if you take a moment or two to get the pattern down against them.

Though there are a few cases where it can be convenient, I suppose. Especially if you're rusty on how to play the game from setting it down for years.

smuchmuch

2018-07-11, 08:38 PM

Really, about the only time they're useful is against the Den Mother, if you don't immediately work out how to beat her, and against the final boss if you take a moment or two to get the pattern down against them.

Though there are a few cases where it can be convenient, I suppose. Especially if you're rusty on how to play the game from setting it down for years.

Found them useful against the nightmare miniboss, telekkinesis can be tricky wth the keyboard. n besides they cost almost nothing at this point in the game, so, eh, no harm havin a couple.

And I'd imagine there shoudb at least two videos worth content at least after the point of no retun we're going to jump in.

Ebon_Drake

2018-07-12, 05:29 PM

I was irrationally annoyed that Mr Pokeyloke is constantly referred to as a turtle, when he's quite clearly a tortoise. However, after googling it that's apparently a British vs American language difference? I'd only use the word turtle for the aquatic shelled reptiles (or the Teenage Mutant Ninja ones) and exclusively use tortoise for the land kinds, but according to Wikipedia in North America turtle is used as an overarching term while tortoise is used interchangeably for the land types. So uh, thanks Psychonauts for teaching me a thing?

Dream Fluffs are an odd one. They're of most use in the early game when your health total is low enough to make them nice insurance, but you can't really afford to use them much since you have other priority purchases - the cobweb duster of course, but I'd also rate the Mental Magnet badge as a quietly solid anti-busywork upgrade that's worth getting early. By this point in the game you may as well buy a full set of Dream Fluffs since there's nothing else to spend your cash on, but dying from straight damage isn't really a risk any more since you have max HP and can now play infinite keep-away with a mix of levitation, invisibility and shield to take advantage of regeneration. I had Fluffs trigger in the Mega Censor and Jasper the Critic bossfights though and it's better for that to happen and continue where you are than to lose a projection layer and restart from a checkpoint, so I felt I got my money's worth out of them.

LaZodiac

2018-07-13, 07:25 AM

The beginning of the end, Psychonauts style.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [25] Meat Your Maker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSULlpKdyyw)

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.

smuchmuch

2018-07-13, 11:52 AM

Loboto is confirmed to be alive (somewhow, that's not explain how he survived his fall, possibly he fell into water) and appersa in Rhombus of ruin and vaguely hinted at the end to possibly appear in the sequel.

-------------------------------------------

Funny, I know I'm probably the only one, but I really don't think the the meat circus is that bad. Music gets old fast, tho. And *** everthing int h final starting wit the long cineatic realy feellike it was coble together fom smeting that was eant to be much longer and halfabndoned in dvelopment ideas.

The escort stage is incredibly annoying, that much I'll grant. God I whish lil Ollie would just shut the frig up and I could have done without havng to save him every ten seconds for once. I don't mind the knife thowersr, thouh having the puzle with them and the wheel was actualy kind of clever although hard to enjoy due to 'lil anoyance' forcing you in a hurry.

The incoming big top, though,.. I honnestly enjoy. I though it was nice to have a straight and honesty not all that hard platformng exam challnge and I think its pretty straightforward.

The boss fights are no very good but they are fairly easy so eh.

Ebon_Drake

2018-07-13, 04:18 PM

That reveal of Mr Pokeylope's Barry White voice was one of only two proper belly laughs I had while playing the game. It was so unexpected and ridiculous that it cracked me up.

The other one I had was while playing the Meat Circus, where I broke down into laughter at how unremittingly awful it is. What finally got me was that I'd struggled through the escort section and the next section to reach the boss and thought "sure that was bad, but at least it wasn't all that long". But nope, it just keeps going.

I agree that the actual design of the Meat Circus is good, but I do also think it went a bit too far into the grotesque. In particular, the sword swallowers' horrid spitting-up sound makes my skin crawl.

I have to say though, I ended up replaying the circus again afterwards because I'm some kind of idiot masochist*, but I didn't find it that bad on second play? It's a lot more bearable once you actually know what you're meant to be doing in each of the sections.

* From what I read, the key change in the difficulty reduction patch was that you now don't lose projection layers if Lil Olly dies, you fall into a bottomless pit or you fail the timed platforming section. I did all of those plenty of times in my first play-through, so wanted to see if I could get through it while treating those as a proper deaths still. It turned out I could, but if you're right that Lil Olly's health originally didn't refill at each tier then holy crap that would've been insane.

DataNinja

2018-07-14, 12:26 AM

...man, I hate timezone stuff. Didn't get up until noon where I am, so missed most of the day. Whoops. Guess I need to catch up on stuff now, 12 hours later, while I'm still wide awake.

So, sure, I can accept Pokeylope's a talking turtle, Psitanium mutation or experimentation or whatnot and all... but if that's his brain, uh, is that, like, taking up the entirety of inside his shell? :smalleek:

...wait, whose brain is that, then?

You'd think that they'd be a little less nonchalant about the fact his brain could be inside one of his death machines.

Well huh. You'd think this would be the final battle.

I wonder if this mind meld's going to end with something to do with Raz's dad. Because I seem to remember it being mentioned that he was a psychic, too.

Or maybe not.
Also, ouch. Escort.

Oof. That is a lot of time on that third tier where you can literally do nothing to help your escortee...

HalfTangible

2018-07-14, 10:05 AM

Escort missions

If there was ever a game mechanic that was pure evil...

smuchmuch

2018-07-15, 09:16 AM

Edit:Oh yes, sorry bout that, obvious spoilers in the link posted below.

Funny thing, you can actualy complelty avoid that whole section in a spedrun by cheesing levitation. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsDc1YVxHA0&t=56m23s). I wonder if that was patched up

LaZodiac

2018-07-15, 09:20 AM

Funny thing, you can actualy complelty avoid that whole section in a spedrun by cheesing levitation. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsDc1YVxHA0&t=56m23s). I wonder if that was patched up[

I don't imagine it is. Also if people want to avoid spoilers, don't look at this video, obviously, cause it's a speedrun of the whole game.

LaZodiac

2018-07-16, 08:02 AM

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

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [26] [FINALE] Daddy Issues (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El3_WMNlQoM)

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!

DataNinja

2018-07-16, 12:04 PM

Well, that seems like a rather boring an anticlimactic boss. Reminds me of just the giant censor, without the minions.

I actually like the ladder because it feels like it belongs in a mental world. But, yeah, rest of this stage? Seems like a horrible design with what this game has shown its strengths to be.

Oh boy. Slightly changed boss. Also, huh. Floating creepy face is still floating and creeping. Guess it wasn't a representation of Raz's dad like I though it might be.
...or not.
Well, it was a representation of the real dad, so... half points? :smalltongue:

Well, at least they changed up the mechanics for the final final boss? Even if those mechanics are... really unwieldy.

Yeah, from seeing this played, this game seemed to have its ups and downs. But it mostly just depended on taste.

Oh, hey. This is the first time that you're going to be playing a Taste Of game for a full playthrough, isn't it? (Unless I'm misremembering. Or this is a different Furi.)

ShneekeyTheLost

2018-07-16, 12:53 PM

Knight9910

2018-07-16, 01:25 PM

Come on, Zodi. You missed the most obvious joke!

At the end, you say that Psychonauts as a game is fine.

Don't you mean... it's DOUBLE FINE?

DataNinja

2018-07-16, 03:24 PM

This wasn't a Taste Of, this was a full-on Let's Play. She's alternating between Zelda and Not Zelda so she doesn't get burned out on the series by playing All Zelda All The Time (tm).

I know. I was referring to the next series, which is going to be Furi. Which was previously Tasted (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyjUWOWuuic) on the channel, unless there's another Furi that I'm unaware of. (A quick google didn't show anything, but I'll admit that it's entirely possible I could be mistaken.)

Ebon_Drake

2018-07-16, 03:57 PM

LaZodiac

2018-07-16, 04:27 PM

And so ends Psychonauts. I haven't always agreed with your opinions on the game, but you definitely have some valid criticisms of it. I'm also genuinely thankful for you giving me an impetus to try the game out again.

As a post-script, I don't think the children's Campster pages (http://www.doublefine.com/campster/index.htm) have been mentioned? I didn't bring it up earlier since it has some spoilers, I'd intended to mention it after the rebraining but then promptly forgot. The pages give a bit more background on the various campers, including things that don't get much screen time in the actual game - not least Crystal and Clem's issues. They're also a kind of hilarious time capsule for the early 2000s. Enjoy!

To be honest I didn't even realize that was a thing. As you may of noticed from the Milkman Conspiracy level, I've been incredibly burned on every Double Fine game, without fail. So I'm not what you'd call the biggest fan of them. So yeah, that's pretty cool though!

Also yes, the Furi in question is the Furi I did a taste of so long ago. We'll get to see the rest of it! And next time I post, wheter it be the new video or in a response to this one, I'm also going to be starting a new poll to determine what my NEXT next LP is. Because after Furi is a new Zelda, and then it's POLL TIME.

Qwertystop

2018-07-17, 09:13 PM

HalfTangible

2018-07-17, 09:34 PM

...So the official Psychonaut uniform is a black turtleneck?

Also, I've got to wonder where Raz got that idea of his Dad – there's absolutely nothing addressing what might have been done to get Raz thinking his Dad hated psychics to anywhere near that degree.

(and how does "trauma about being unable to save rabbits" become "take over the world"? All the other craziness had at least a tangential connection.)

EDIT: Yeah, going back to that two-part review/retrospective I linked on the first page (see (http://www.vigaroe.com/2018/03/psychonauts-in-review.html) also (http://www.vigaroe.com/2018/03/psychonauts-in-review-2-narrative.html))... it looks pretty accurate? Not perfect, there's some points that he missed that impact the critique or that I disagree with, but I think that "Psychonauts would have worked better as a Saturday-morning cartoon than as the Monkey-Island-dressed-up-as-Banjo-Kazooie that it actually is" is spot-on.

I relate a fair bit to Raz's thoughts on his dad. From the sounds of it, he probably never told Raz he had psychic powers.

Oly's trauma with his dad happened to him when he was extremely young, and as we see from the other memory vaults, Oly's size (both then and later in life) was the biggest impediment to him getting what he wanted. I find it odder that he suddenly became a good guy again after Raz jumped into his head, like it was JUST THAT EASY!!!

LaZodiac

2018-07-17, 10:03 PM

After some long hard thinking and my Mom asking me for 20 000 dollars to help push off the landlord for her bar, I've come to a conclusion about Raz's thoughts on his Dad.

Mostly in that, as an adult of 26 years old, I'm still finding new ways to be excited by, impressed by, and dissappointed by my parents. Raz probably got hit by a club once during catch, overheard his dad cursing psychics for killing someone he liked, and his little ten year old brain worked it's broken magic.

DataNinja

2018-07-17, 10:58 PM

I relate a fair bit to Raz's thoughts on his dad. From the sounds of it, he probably never told Raz he had psychic powers.

I'm fairly certain Raz mentioned that his dad was a psychic early on. I want to say it was probably mentioned after a Brain Tumbler or Merit Badge trip, to either Ford or Sasha. I know that I'd had that idea in my head, and I knew nothing about this game before this LP.

HalfTangible

2018-07-17, 11:01 PM

LaZodiac

2018-07-18, 07:47 AM

I'm fairly certain Raz mentioned that his dad was a psychic early on. I want to say it was probably mentioned after a Brain Tumbler or Merit Badge trip, to either Ford or Sasha. I know that I'd had that idea in my head, and I knew nothing about this game before this LP.

He mentioned to Ford that he THINKS his Dad his psychic. He doesn't know for sure.

Anyway, fulfilling the thing I said last time, it's time for AN POLL. So, the next LP is Furi, and after that is Phantom Hourglass. But what'll be after THAT? It's time to determine that, through VOTE. So let's lay out the options.

But first, here is the Strawpoll itself, right here! (https://www.strawpoll.me/16101404)

1: Zodi's Choice (Iconoclasts) - A game by Konjack, maker of the famous indie gem, Noitu Love and it's sequel. An amazing game, about a mechanic who just wants to do her best to help people.

2: Kid Icarus Uprising - The triumphant return of Pit, the angel who can't even fly on his own. Join him and the great goddess Palutena as they return, as does the evil monster Medusa who they might stop once and for all!

3: Tactics Ogre Knight of Lodis - A tactical RPG, showing a hidden story in the Tactics Ogre world. Join a young man as he adventures to find himself, among other things.

4: EVOLAND - An RPG about RPGs, from the early days to current. I've never played this, it would be blind!

5: Harvest Moon More Friends Of Mineral Town - The girl variant of everyone's favorite farm sim that isn't Stardew Valley. Will we become a successful farm, and will we find love?

6: Custom Robo - A world where people solve every conflict with miniture, psychically controlled super death robots. We have a mysterious bracelet and a mysterious Dad Past. I don't actually have a good way of presenting this game because it's very weird. We need a job basically.

7: Ronin - Your father is dead. You have nothing but a tech suit and a katana. Kill everyone responsible. A turn based 2D action game, very interesting.

8: Bayonetta - A character action game staring Bayonetta, an umbran witch with intense power. She's here to chew bubblegum and kill angels. And she's got plenty of both.

9: Bioshock - Under the sea, everyone is free. A First Person Shooter with vaguely RPG elements, inspired by System Shock. Can you survive the underwater utopia of Rapture?

10: Drakengard 3 - A character action game, staring Zero, a woman with one of her eyes replaced by a flower. Her and her dragon have one goal; brutally murdering Zero's sisters. Extremely violent and concerning. This would be mostly blind.

11: Final Fantasy 12 - A sort of bad but still good RPG staring the optional character in a regular RPG. An epic plot that is very different from a lot of what Final Fantasy does, while being exactly the same.

12: A Hat In Time - An adorable time traveler must get a bunch of objects to fix her hat based time machine. A collectathon style game, and one people like a lot. This would be blind!

So yeah, please vote on this poll! Which game will be after Phantom Hourglass? Let's find out! This poll'll be open until NEXT FRIDAY (July 27th).