I went into Double Fine’s latest release with no expectations. After all, a game following up a title from over ten years ago has a whole lot to catch up to. But Psychonauts 2 shines brilliantly because it manages to sustain the energy of the PS2 era it hails from and Double Fine’s signature humor, while making things feel fresh and real enough to rival current gen debut titles.
To be entirely honest, I don’t remember much of Double Fine’s iconic 2005 release, Psychonauts. I marathoned what I did play one night in college, and the details are fuzzy at best. But Psychonauts 2’s player onboarding is stellar, providing all the info you need to understand anything you may have missed or forgotten about the original, without delving too far into exposition.
This is a sequel in the truest sense of the word, taking place directly after the VR game Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin. Truman Zanotto, leader of the Psychonauts and father of our hero Raz’s crush, Lili, has been kidnapped. Raz, along with his mentors from the Whispering Rock Summer Camp are set to go rescue him, or at least, that’s what Raz thinks is happening. His expectations are shattered though when he reaches Pyschonauts HQ and is told by the fastidious Agent Forsythe that his appointment to the agency in the first game wasn’t actually official. She enrolls Raz in the intern course instead, seemingly keeping him on the sidelines of the main adventure that was previously set up.
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