So, is this game piss easy?

[dynastystar]

I try to go for achievements in alot of games so the achievements is something I pay attention to. Typically its extremely rare for the most uncommon achievement to be over 10% for the game's playerbase. In Psychonaut's case, its over 15%. Is it really that piss easy?
Edit: Went back to check the achievements percentage of Psychonauts 1, the most uncommon achievement is 3.2%.

[8-bit_gaming]

Originally posted by dynastystar:

I try to go for achievements in alot of games so the achievements is something I pay attention to. Typically its extremely rare for the most uncommon achievement to be over 10% for the game's playerbase. In Psychonaut's case, its over 15%. Is it really that piss easy?
Edit: Went back to check the achievements percentage of Psychonauts 1, the most uncommon achievement is 3.2%.

the older a game the more that percentage drops as most people wont be willing to spend the time to collect every last item in the game. but day one fans are the ones most likly to try. this time next year it will probly be down to 10% and in 16 years (how old the first game is) there will be about as many with this achevment

[Songbird]

The game is easy, yes, as are almost all the games in this sort of genre. It's not meant to have a barrier to completion and is more about having some fun experiencing the world design and humor. Falls respawn you on the last platform and barely damage you, and you're given the option to stock up on a billion healing items if you want, through I never needed any with all the health pickups bosses give you. The achievements are also going be earned naturally in 100% completion or only take a few seconds to get if they're stuff like doing specific things in combat, and the game has a lot of tools designed to make getting 100% completion fairly manageable.

Achievement completion is generally more about player retention than difficulty, with some exceptions for extremely difficult/bizzarely designed achievements. Note that Psychoanuts 1 had a bunch of chances for people to pick it up for next to nothing in pay-what-you-want Humble Bundles and such (back before they had minimums) so there are plenty of people who started the game up for 15 minutes and then didn't play it.

[dynastystar]

Originally posted by Songbird:

The game is easy, yes, as are almost all the games in this sort of genre. It's not meant to have a barrier to completion and is more about having some fun experiencing the world design and humor. Falls respawn you on the last platform and barely damage you, and you're given the option to stock up on a billion healing items if you want, through I never needed any with all the health pickups bosses give you. The achievements are also going be earned naturally in 100% completion or only take a few seconds to get if they're stuff like doing specific things in combat, and the game has a lot of tools designed to make getting 100% completion fairly manageable.

Achievement completion is generally more about player retention than difficulty, with some exceptions for extremely difficult/bizzarely designed achievements. Note that Psychoanuts 1 had a bunch of chances for people to pick it up for next to nothing in pay-what-you-want Humble Bundles and such (back before they had minimums) so there are plenty of people who started the game up for 15 minutes and then didn't play it.

thanks for the information. I learned alot of information on how easy the game is(specifically that falls respawn you on the last platform and barely damage you and stocking up). On a platforming front. one thing I seemed to notice in comparison to the previous game is that there is ALOT less hazards from watching streams and people who use Psychonauts as background footage when they're talking about something else in a video. Maybe I was seeing the wrong areas. Something else that felt like it was a step back in difficulty is the addition of an ability where you use a power on something floating in the air and you'll get pulled towards it, and then you can do the same thing with another one and another one until you get to where you were going. Where was Psychonauts would've just have you actually platform through the area(or bounce on the ball power that I forget the name of, because that gave you ludicrous height and distance but was harder to maneuver). Am I wrong about that?

I have a learning disability that makes my brain develop slower in some areas than other people would normally, so the best way for me to overcome that is to actually challenge myself(hence achievements, and hard games).

[tripbillie]

Originally posted by dyhastystar:

Something else that felt like it was a step back in difficulty is the addition of an ability where you use a power on something floating in the air and you'll get pulled towards it, and then you can do the same thing with another one and another one until you get to where you were going.

Keep in mind you cannot create those nodes in the air wherever you want them, you can only use pre-existing nodes. You still use levitation (the ball power) same as in the first game, sometimes jumping off of one of those nodes to hover over to where you need to go.

Difficulty depends on your perspective. If you've played the first game, you'll probably have a simpler time than someone that hasn't since a lot of the core platforming stuff is the same. If you regularly play games that require good reflexes like Super Meat Boy, then you might have another leg up.

As someone that has beaten the first Psychonauts many times, I still ran into situations in Psychonauts 2 where I had to think about how to defeat a boss or how to reach a tricky figment. Your mileage may vary though.

[dynastystar]

Originally posted by tripbillie:

Originally posted by dyhastystar:

Something else that felt like it was a step back in difficulty is the addition of an ability where you use a power on something floating in the air and you'll get pulled towards it, and then you can do the same thing with another one and another one until you get to where you were going.

Keep in mind you cannot create those nodes in the air wherever you want them, you can only use pre-existing nodes. You still use levitation (the ball power) same as in the first game, sometimes jumping off of one of those nodes to hover over to where you need to go.

Difficulty depends on your perspective. If you've played the first game, you'll probably have a simpler time than someone that hasn't since a lot of the core platforming stuff is the same. If you regularly play games that require good reflexes like Super Meat Boy, then you might have another leg up.

As someone that has beaten the first Psychonauts many times, I still ran into situations in Psychonauts 2 where I had to think about how to defeat a boss or how to reach a tricky figment. Your mileage may vary though.

did you actually die to any of the boss fights? or just ran around like a maniac while the boss whiffed attacks as you try to figure out how you beat it?

[tripbillie]

I did. The case that stands out in my mind was the Cook Off boss (there's a thread on these forums saying that this fight is too hard, again I think it depends on your perspective).

[lieutenantkirtar]

This game isn't very difficult. And with the newly added figment finder the hardest part of getting 100% has been made a lot easier.

I don't think Psychonauts 1 was more difficult than this game. It has just sold a lot more copies in bundles or on sale to people who opened it once and didn't play the game.

[Rooke]

Originally posted by dynastystar:

I try to go for achievements in alot of games so the achievements is something I pay attention to. Typically its extremely rare for the most uncommon achievement to be over 10% for the game's playerbase. In Psychonaut's case, its over 15%. Is it really that piss easy?
Edit: Went back to check the achievements percentage of Psychonauts 1, the most uncommon achievement is 3.2%.

Having gotten 100% myself, if you make the settings to ignore all damage, then yes the game is very easy, yet difficult enough where you'll still be doing a lot of re-dos.

But if you play it normally, there are several boss battles (cook off, judge) and situations (bees, graveyard) that might get you cursing the game, and loosing a lot of health.

Imo, they never should have given the option to bypass all damage, because that's exactly what most players will do.

[lieutenantkirtar]

I strongly doubt most players are turning on invincibility. I wonder if Double Fine is tracking the stats on that.

[Mobile Suit God Damn]

Let the kids turn on invincibility! It doesn't hurt anyone if there are options to turn a game into a piece of piss.

[tripbillie]

Some people like the story and want to play, but have limitations that make "normal" gaming impossible. I for one welcome accessibility as it means more people get enjoyment from this game, and I enjoy the fact that a developer says "we want everyone to play".

When/if I inevitably get carpal tunnel or arthritis, I hope there are game devs like this still out there making it possible for me to have new games to enjoy.

[Rooke]

Gradiated levels of difficulty would be better than out-and-out god-mode, like Half Life 2 and a lot of other games.

I will admit I had to play with invincibility turned on due to being an old clutz with various physiological skill problems.

But, imo, god-mode is a little too easy. I would have enjoyed it better with a bit more challenge.

[toughnails]

Originally posted by 8-bit_gaming:

Originally posted by dynastystar:

I try to go for achievements in alot of games so the achievements is something I pay attention to. Typically its extremely rare for the most uncommon achievement to be over 10% for the game's playerbase. In Psychonaut's case, its over 15%. Is it really that piss easy?
Edit: Went back to check the achievements percentage of Psychonauts 1, the most uncommon achievement is 3.2%.

the older a game the more that percentage drops as most people wont be willing to spend the time to collect every last item in the game. but day one fans are the ones most likly to try. this time next year it will probly be down to 10% and in 16 years (how old the first game is) there will be about as many with this achevment

Well, it's been 6 months now and that percentage only went up, the rarest achievement is at almost 17% now.

The game IS piss easy, it's on the level of kid games like New Super Lucky's Tale. While actually engaging 3D platformers like A Hat in Time are going to feel like Dark Souls in comparison. The platforming is linear, slow paced and entirely trivial, and even if you fall off a ledge, you just respawn immediately with only about 5% of your total HP lost. The combat has a lot of (superfluous) mechanics, but you can just hop on your levitation ball for like 3x movement speed and shoot everything with PSI Blast (which has auto-aim by the way) without the enemies being able to do anything to you. The bosses hit harder, but there are constant health picks ups during boss fights, so there's no real incentive to play better or be more cautious. Everything is telegraphed well in advance, with cutscenes explicitly showing you where is the weak spot, and there are even visual aids like glowing spots to make sure the player doesn't have to think about it at all.

And finally, despite this being a game about solving problems inside people's minds, developed by point & click veterans, there are no puzzles at all.

Overall, the game just feels like a cinematic experience. Let your character stay still for 5 seconds and the game will start nagging with pop-up hints telling you where to go and what to do. You can't turn them off either. What you can do however is turn on even more detailed hints, as well as god mode + 1 hit KO'ing enemies.

Pretty much the only reason people may not be 100%'ing this is pure boredom. If the story and visuals do not grab you, the gameplay won't either because it's just so shallow.

[dynastystar]

Originally posted by toughnails:

Originally posted by 8-bit_gaming:

the older a game the more that percentage drops as most people wont be willing to spend the time to collect every last item in the game. but day one fans are the ones most likly to try. this time next year it will probly be down to 10% and in 16 years (how old the first game is) there will be about as many with this achevment

Well, it's been 6 moths now and that percentage only went up, the rarest achievement is at almost 17% now.

The game IS piss easy, it's on the level of kid games like New Super Lucky's Tale. While actually engaging 3D platformers like A Hat in Time are going to feel like Dark Souls in comparison. The platforming is linear, slow paced and entirely trivial, and even if you fall off a ledge, you just respawn immediately with only about 5% of your total HP lost. The combat has a lot of (superfluous) mechanics, but you can just hop on your levitation ball for like 3x movement speed and shoot everything with PSI Blast (which has auto-aim by the way) without the enemies being able to do anything to you. The bosses hit harder, but there are constant health picks ups during boss fights, so there's no real incentive to play better or be more cautious. Everything is telegraphed well in advance, with cutscenes explicitly showing you where is the weak spot, and there are even visual aids like glowing spots to make sure the player doesn't have to think about it at all.

And finally, despite this being a game about solving problems inside people's minds, developed by an point & click veterans, there are no puzzles at all.

Overall, the game just feels like a cinematic experience. Let your character stay still for 5 seconds and the game will start nagging with pop-up hints telling you where to go and what do. You can't turn them off either. What you can do however is turn on even more detailed hints, as well as god mode + 1 hit KO'ing enemies.

Pretty much, the only reason people may not be 100%'ing this is pure boredom. If the story and visuals do not grab you, the gameplay won't either because it's just so shallow.

wow, I wasn't expecting it to be THAT easy once you lay it out like that. The least the devs could've done is allowed you to shut some of that off, add in speedrun achievement(s), achievements for beating the game without >insert thing that makes this baby's first platformer<.