KickStarter Psychonauts 2

[Infinitron]

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

100 second gameplay reveal trailer.
~3 seconds of gameplay.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

That's an atrocious trailer.

 

[Forest Dweller]

MY COCK!

 

[Unkillable Cat]

"Windows 10 PC"

Welp, that's a scrap for me then.

Only been waiting for this game for 16 years, and I can't play it because it's needlessly forcing people to use a particular (and much-maligned) version OS, when it's perfectly capable of running on older versions.

With luck a fan-patch will sort this out.

EDIT: No, Morgoth this is not butthurt. I'm surprisingly calm about this. (The butthurt may come later, though.)

 

[MRY]

Wait, what, this is actually happening?

That said, I'm sure it will be terrible.

[EDIT: Watched the trailer. Confidence is even lower now. Nothing even elicited the faintest smile. Also, kind of amazingly, the game looks somewhat worse than the original just from a technical standpoint, though perhaps that's just nostalgia talking. The original mixed childhood whimsy, sincere adventure, and some cynical deconstruction. I strongly think the last will overwhelm the first two this time.]

 

[Draconis]

I'm getting too old for these LSD type games

 

[Unkillable Cat]

OK, you wanted my butthurt?

Here you go, the pricetag:





On a minor upside, the minimum requirements on Steam state that 64-bit Windows 7 is the minimum OS required, so the current situation for me is to Wait and See.

 

[J_C]

OK, you wanted my butthurt?

Here you go, the pricetag:

Eh, I should have supported it on Kickstarter, but I was in a Kickstarter burnout when the campaign happened. Anyway, my brother and I will buy it on GOG in 50-50, so at least I won't pay the full price.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Man if this thing ends up having performance issues it’s going to be a train wreck.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Seems that conversions for Macs and Linux will be coming "later", but there are also some other ports planned.

Some of them may be a bit dodgy, though:

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Morgoth]

 

[aris]

Looks good!

 

[deama]

Idk, looks the same, couldn't they spice it up?

 

[flyingjohn]

The only bad thing i can see happening is the game feeling unfinished.
Considering how much stuff was supposed to be cut for just the crowdfunded version(most bosses),it is question have they used the extra years and money to flesh out the original idea.
But,considering this is Schafer and the game is mostly being marketed for game pass,i think it will feel like 2/3 are missing from the final product.

 

[J_C]

The only bad thing i can see happening is the game feeling unfinished.
Considering how much stuff was supposed to be cut for just the crowdfunded version(most bosses),it is question have they used the extra years and money to flesh out the original idea.
But,considering this is Schafer and the game is mostly being marketed for game pass,i think it will feel like 2/3 are missing from the final product.

They had the extra time and money, shame on them if they release the game unfinished after all these extra resources.

 

[flyingjohn]

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Oh sweet! They still have the Clairvoyance-jokes. I'll give this a closer view.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

First impressions based on the first 30 minutes of the video posted above (now dead):

# The first level acts as a tutorial and story catch-up rolled into one, and does a good job of it.

# As far as I can tell there's no need to have played Rhombus of Ruin, but it helps.

# Gameplay is identical to the prequel. This is a platformer at its heart, but not an overly challenging one. Jump across platforms, ride on elevators, collect figments, look for emotional baggage, smash memory vaults, etc. There are also Nuggets of Wisdom and Half-a-Minds to find, but I have no idea what those do.

# There are new 'mooks' to fight. The Censors are back, along with Doubts and Regrets. Doubts slow down Raz, while Regrets try to drop stuff on him from above.

# First new change: Therer's a skill-ranking system. You start with five of the original nine psi-powers, and they can be upgraded with Intern Points.

# Did you really think Raz could just waltz into the Psychonauts? Only the people that were with him at Whispering Rock know of his accomplishments, so he has to prove his worth again, but this time as an intern at Psychonauts HQ.

# The level design is impressive, and encourages me to explore and examine every room. The game uses the Unreal Engine, and pulls a few cool tricks with non-Euclidian architecture.

# The one thing that's been lacking? The humour. The writing is still clever (and there are still plenty of puns) but it's not funny... yet.

# The story and characters are good so far. Nothing has changed there. As far as I can tell all the original voice actors are back, and they all sound the same.

Overall? I'm VERY impressed, and that's quite rare.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Interesting. I figured this was another one of those soulless reboots. I'm not much of a platformer fan, but Psychonauts is one of the few games that still sticks in my head years after playing it on the XBox due to the humour and brilliant design.

 

[garren]

Doesn't look too bad so far from the previews, but getting a good game these days from the leftie crowd is almost unheard of. Eh, once it's out I'll see what the codex consensus has spoken.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Watched the entire video (good thing I saved it):

# It covers the first three brains, but it seems to skip out on stuff in the real world. Seems there's a lot there to uncover.

# The level design just gets better and better. It seems that their jump-off point is The Milkman Conspiracy.

# There's humor there, it's just late... like everything else about this game.

# Soundtrack is good. It's not annoying, it's thematic and fitting. Just like the soundtrack in the first game.

# There's a new group of kids to get to know in this one, six in total. If there's any part of the game that could sneak in any wokeness, it's them.

# It seems there's plenty of content. I know of at least three more brains, and plenty of cutscenes and story to emerge.

Overall? It's been years since I've been so hyped for a game.

Finally, here's the story-trailer for the game, which was released yesterday:

 

[Cugel]

Looks a lot better than expected but for some reason these trailers are not really getting me excited. Can't tell if it lacks some of the charm of the original or I'm just a grumpy old man now.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Looks a lot better than expected but for some reason these trailers are not really getting me excited. Can't tell if it lacks some of the charm of the original or I'm just a grumpy old man now.

I hear you, I'm a grumpy old man myself, gamewise. (In real life I'm in my early forties.)

I perfectly understand people who are doubtful of this. Can Double Fine strike gold twice? After all these years? In the Current Year? After Schafer and the Sock Puppet? After all the methods that they've pulled to fund the game?

It's a hard sell, but so far it looks like they are.

How much so? In the past 20 years I've only bought three games on release-day: Serious Sam 2 (which I deeply regretted), Alien: Isolation (which I somewhat regretted) and Return of the Obra Dinn (which I don't regret at all). The only thing preventing me from pre-ordering Psychonauts 2 (and keep in mind I have NEVER pre-ordered a game in my 35 years of gaming) is the fact that I still don't know whether I can run the game or not, as I'm one of the few (and the proud) still holding on to Windows 7.

If Windows 7 is a Go for Psychonauts 2, then I'm a Go, and I'll share every moment of it with the Codex.

But fair warning: Roughly five years ago I gave glowing praise to a game which looked like it ticked a lot of cool boxes. It was fun to play, it was promising, it looked good... and I based my words upon playing the first level. But somewhat aptly, my words proved to be deceptive, because Betrayer then went on to take a nosedive right after the first level, to the point that I still feel bad about recommending it to other Codexers.