I beat the game and I am going to return all the brains I collected and get the last 2 I need.

[2rad4rio]

Ha ha, just kidding, why would I do that. Seriously, like after beating a game, who needs to go back to the hub world. As a matter of fact, they should make it to where you can go back to the camp at all and your only choice is to replay the brain levels making it impossible to get back to the camp. THEY SHOULD REALLY DO THAT.

[Kargor]

No they shouldn't. They should fix the bug where you're stuck in the mental world after completing the game, and allow free access to everything. That's how games are "supposed" to be set up.

[Mandrake]

From a narrative viewpoint, having a point of no return (PONR) makes sense: the Asylum gets completely destroyed (and thus would be inaccessible) and Raz ends up losing his brain before the final level (which makes the real world inaccessible). All the kids eventually get rebrained as well, which makes finding (or not finding) the brains in the Asylum irrelevant.

From a completionist viewpoint, however, I agree that it's somewhat annoying having to collect everything in the real-world beforehand and not being able to go back without loading from an older save. This is especially true if you're playing for the first time and will probably end up having to play through the frustrating endgame twice. Perhaps the developers could have allowed the player to wander around the camp during the daytime after the final level, although they would have needed to write/record/programme even more dialogue for everyone (and a PONR would still need to exist anyway because of the Asylum's collectables). Then again, it's not uncommon for games to have PONRs - in the past, they wouldn't even warn you that there was a PONR, let alone automatically create a save file as you passed it.

[2rad4rio]

Originally posted by MandrakeDuck:

From a narrative viewpoint, having a point of no return (PONR) makes sense: the Asylum gets completely destroyed (and thus would be inaccessible) and Raz ends up losing his brain before the final level (which makes the real world inaccessible). All the kids eventually get rebrained as well, which makes finding (or not finding) the brains in the Asylum irrelevant.

From a completionist viewpoint, however, I agree that it's somewhat annoying having to collect everything in the real-world beforehand and not being able to go back without loading from an older save. This is especially true if you're playing for the first time and will probably end up having to play through the frustrating endgame twice. Perhaps the developers could have allowed the player to wander around the camp during the daytime after the final level, although they would have needed to write/record/programme even more dialogue for everyone (and a PONR would still need to exist anyway because of the Asylum's collectables). Then again, it's not uncommon for games to have PONRs - in the past, they wouldn't even warn you that there was a PONR, let alone automatically create a save file as you passed it.

This was my first time beating it and that's excatly how it felt. But from a narrative point of view I guess I could see it, but when I playing this game I was thinking about the replayibility and then this happened and I was, dissapointed, sad, and angery.

[2rad4rio]

Originally posted by Kargor:

No they shouldn't. They should fix the bug where you're stuck in the mental world after completing the game, and allow free access to everything. That's how games are "supposed" to be set up.

It's not a bug, it's supposed to be like this. It's annoying but I didn't make this game so I can't help you, I wish I did, then I could fix it myself, or let someone who actually knows how to make games fix it.

[Resakion]

So disappointing rushing through the game so that I could go achievement hunting only to find out that my furthest save blocked off almost all of them.

[tripbillie]

I get the frustration of missing out on achievements. This game was made in a time where post-games weren't as much of a thing, and "new game+" was something that was only offered in some games.

However, Double Fine likely heard the complaints about the PONR and that's why there is a post-game in Psychonauts 2.