This game felt like work. (spoilers)

[Alexx]

Hello everyone. I might be a little late, but after spending 30 hours with this game, I feel like writing down my thoughts.

After I was reading so much praise about this game, I was kind of disappointed when I finished it. I like the game and think it is very funny, has great writing and some of the most creative and mind bending level designs I have seen in years.

But the overall experience is just average. Which is fine, but I expected more after reading "one of the best platformers" so many times. Everyone keeps saying this game was "underrated", but I tend to say, that it is rather overrated considering all the praise it got.

When I finished the game - after the horrendous meat circus - I felt relief and thought: "man, finally its over." This game felt like work for me and stressed me out many times. I dont blame my gaming skills but I do blame the game design for all the annoying parts I went through.

The game started very slow and I never knew where I had to go. Obstacle course: Where is it? I didnt even know where the camp store was. I had to use FAQ to find the camp store. Then I saw all those weird things I had to collect and it took me some time to find out what all that stuff was. That is where the work part began. Somehow the collectathon was not that much fun. It felt like work. I am compulsive and need rewarding experience when playing collectathons. I HATED collecting the figments in the Waterloo level.

I had to use game FAQ (and Bacon) a lot. because of random ♥♥♥♥. Not because of the puzzles, but because I didnt know what to do or where to go. When I had to collect 800 Arrowheads I almost lost my ambition. I googled again and got the Drowings Rod. Again I didnt know how to use it properly. Googled it again. That destroys the game flow and some little tutorial or help would have been nice. (or maybe I am out of practice playing this kind of game)

Some of the platforming sections have driven me nuts. Especially the waterloo level was totally annoying gameplay-wise. That is so bad because I loved the idea and the design. it took me 45 minutes to find that Musket, because I didnt know that I could get on the rope from the inside of the building. The level design just didnt help me finding the right way. And that is what happened many times: I cheated (sometimes without knowing) by levitating (somehow) to the areas I needed to go.

What happened? After a slow start the game was really good, especially the lungfish level and the milkman level were fantastic. I enjoyed those parts a lot.

But the last levels were nothing but annoying to me and felt like hard work to finish. Even the beautiful Velvetopia Level annoyed me with its narrow streets, where I got headache from trying to find out where to go/jump.

When I arrived at the meat circus I had emotionally already finished the game. I just wanted to get through. Finish it. Like doing homework. And that was a bad start position for beating the last level. It was so annoying I cant describe it. I cheated again. I noticed that when I fall down to the web it sometimes transports me up to the next section. (a helpful glitch, thanks). I guess I cheated again when I had to fly through those fire-rings. The flying fences were beyond playable. It was sheer luck that I managed them. Patience and luck. But no skill at all... that is what I call bad gameplay.

The second time I was fighting the butcher, I was almost tearing: "When does this torture finally end?" When there was even a THIRD Boss I was almost laughing maniacally...

If they didnt remove the life-loss from the meat circus level (like it was in the retail version), I guess I would not have beaten it.

I grew up with Tim Schafers/Ron Gilberts Adventure Games and all the fantastic Rare-Platformers which had a similar concept. And usually I like collectathons. But all the things I decribed above (and probably even more) prevented the game from being fantastic.

I would like to see Psychonauts 2, because Double Fine did good work with patching the Mac Port and they seem to listen to the people. If they combined everything which is very good in this game with actual good gameplay, then things would be perfect.

I hope no one feels insulted and as I said: 50 % of the game was amazing and I guess my disappointment was so big because expected so much more. Psychonauts is still a good game, but I would not recommend it to anyone who is just a casual gamer. Maybe I am ranting so much because I started playing the game with the intention to love it. That did not happen...

[Cedars]

I understand your opinion perfectly! I'm a huge fan of the game, but I'll admit that I got really annoyed with a lot of the platforming, too. I was doing horribly in Sasha's Shooting Gallery, for Pete's sake. I can't platform for my life. But, the writing, characters, and design was just so witty and charming and engaging for me that it still won me over big time. And keep in mind that this was Tim Schafer's first crack at a platformer. I agree that the game is not for everyone, but for anyone that doesn't mind gameplay issues and wants something off the beaten path with a ton of hilarious and even heart-tugging moments, I would highly recommend Psychonauts.

[Alexx]

You are right. At least the game was good enough to keep me going on for 30 hours ;) That should be acknowledged. Usually I dont play games I dont enjoy, so Psychonauts was kind of special, because it was such a mixed feeling of being a fantastic game and utterly annoying.

The puzzle-/adventure-elements were nice, but just not balanced right imo. The game seemed to have an identical problem, which is ironic due to the story of the game.

"but for anyone that doesn't mind gameplay issues"
If a game is relying on humor, art style and story, then it wont satisfy the majority of gamers. That might be a reason why Psychonauts was not as successfull as it could have been.

It was the first platforming kind of game by Tim Schafer. Thats why I said that I am sure the Sequel would be much better. And hopefully they will hire some good and experienced test players, so they can hear the screams of agony ;)

[Cedars]

You know, I've actually wondered if Psychonauts would have been better as a point and click. It's Schafer's best genre, and while some of the combat and acrobatic ideas would be lost, I think it would benefit the overall experience. I hope that if we ever get a prequel (ha! Fat chance of that), it'll be in the style of a classic Schafer point and click. Except this time it'll have international psychic secret agents.

Yeah, the gameplay issues and the terrible marketing were probably the game's murderers. And we'll get that great sequel... eventually...

[Alexx]

Interesting thought! But I dont think it necessarily has to be a PAC-Adventure. Psychonauts has so much more potential. Games can combine action/platforming and adventure very well, just like Zelda or some of the older Survival-Horror classics (I am sure I am missing out other good examples). But what makes any of those games very good is a focus on good gameplay. A PAC focusses on Story and Puzzles. I really loved the milkman-level, although I found its visual design is very repepetive. Nontheless the concept was great, because it focussed on something else than the platforming.

Ah damn, I just hated the jumping ball in psychonauts. ;)

Actually I havent played any big game for a very long time and I found my way back to my gaming roots. Maybe that is why I was having this bitter sweet experience. I just recently bought all the valve-games too and I catched myself playing Half Life 1 again, which I already played 15 years ago, and I had to force myself to finish psychonauts...

But I totally agree that another PAC would be great. Day of the tentacles is probably one of my favourite ones. and Loom. I LOVED Loom. Those old adventure games had at least the same impact on me, like Nintendo had with Mario. Anyway... Lets wait for Double Fine Adventure. Even though it is without Ron Gilbert... :P

[defcon]

Kinda ironic that one of the story achievements is called "A Victory for Good Taste". Yeah, I'm also happy my taste advises me to not proceeding with that game.

I understand the fans who love the game for it's unique art style and bizarre worlds but gameplay and dialogues are just extremely boring and the humor is dumb and far away from the good old LA classics. Oleander's war mind was nothing special and Sasha's shooting gallery was ok but there are lots of better Jump'n'Runs out there. I heard that many people complain about a level called meat circus and the difficulty in the final level but I want to give up anyway.

I had similar feelings with Stacking and Costume Quest. Maybe I'm just not suitable for Double Fine Games but I really think they should improve storylines and long-term motivation of their games.

[Chubzdoomer]

Just beat the game and this is exactly how I felt as well. Not a bad game, but super tedious at times and nothing overly special. The figments were a terrible idea. Collecting flat, 2D objects in a 3D game is just awful. They should've just required you to get within close proximity, then they'd automatically float towards you and be collected similar to the powerups when you get the magnet.

Originally posted by amoshiggs:

Perhaps this is why this game never became more than a cult hit... I found this post by searching for "Waterloo". I too am very much stuck on that stage and it's annoying to have to keep going to Google.

This game has a way of being bewildering about what to do next for me.

Oh man, the Waterloo level was really poorly designed. It sucks too because I loved the concept of playing and interacting with a virtual board game, but the way it was designed (both logic-wise and level design-wise) was nonsensical at best. They completely blew it with that one.

[genoforprez]

I LOVED THE GAME AND CAN'T WAIT FOR PART TWO =D

[Alexx]

HI GUYS. OP SPEAKING! After 3 years I have to say that I remember the good things about this game more fondly than the bad. But reading my own post reminds me of the bad gameplay and all the frustration. Does anyone remember the theatre level? Ha, me neither... Anyway, I am looking forward to the sequel. Cheers.

[genoforprez]

There are certain elements of the theatre level that I liked, and I appreciate the creativity of it, but it was probably my least favorite level. Changing the scenes and the spotlight was a cool idea in theory, but in practice it was a little... eh...

You're not the first to complain about all of the doo-dad collecting either. Even some of the people who are the most devout lovers of the game and of Double Fine have expressed on the DF forum that certain elements of the doo-dad collecting should be changed or toned down. For example, the figment collecting in itself isn't too bad, it was only certain KINDS of them that people tended to really dislike, such as the ones that escape the environment so you had to stand there and wait for them to come back out of the wall, or the ones that floated in the air between two buzz saws over a sea of spikes where it was almost impossible to get without dying. (There is at least one figment in Meat Circus that I'm pretty sure *is* impossible to get without jumping to your death at least once.)

So the collect-a-thon stuff aint perfect. Some have even said that the game is flirting dangerously with repeating the famous mistakes of Donkey Kong 64.

I like to think that some of the feedback Tim and crew have received over the years has been taken into consideration. (And trust me that they can't go a single day without someone complaining to them that Meat Circus is too hard/annoying. It's such a common thing that it's sort of achieved inside joke status in the community at this point.)

So on some level I totally get you! But these things didn't bother me TOO terribly much, and the positives definitely outshined whatever negatives there might have been for me. =D

[Alexx]

Oh Donkey Kong 64. I remember the disappointment when I was young. DK64 was pure labour with all the different things to collect. Psychonauts was not half as bad in that regard.

I remember that I hated collecting the figments in the waterloo level. first of all they were hard to see and required some annoyingly precise jumps.

[Elaine Marley]

Some of the figments in Waterloo require annoyingly precise jumps if you try to get them all your first time in the level. It's easier to get them when you return to it after beating it, because then you can re-position the cow figures to jump on top on and make it easy to reach the tricky figments.

[Mr. Moyer]

I just started this game a couple of weeks ago, almost finished now. All I have left is to ride the elevator to the top of the asylum and do meat circus. I sort of agree. The early levels were fun but it did take a bit of work sometimes to figure out exactly where to jump or how to kill a boss. For me, it wasn't so hard that I had to google anything, but the bacon came in handy and sometimes I died from jumping the wrong way off of a platform. The early levels, even collecting things was not too tough (except for the race portion of Milla's mind and finding all the figments in there which was a nightmare). But now I've finished all three asylum patients' minds. I am taking a break from the game because I've been through Edgar's Velvetopia eighteen times and still cannot find 2 figments!!! And the Waterloo level I think I am missing 13 figments, and I only see two left that I cannot reach because they are hovering over the river and I can't jump that far. So yeah, I'm feeling the grind. Maybe if I come back in a month or two to finish up I'll find those last figments. Maybe meat circus will feel less like work than the asylum patient levels. Then again, maybe not.

[Alexx]

The game is more fun if you have your OCD under control. ;)

[margotorus]

Dude, the game gives you a list of what you need to do and a map of where to go.

[alevmax]

А у меня игра глючит и лагает. Как быть?