The 2022 Backlog Challenge

[twiztor | 850]

Played through Sonic Advance today. it's not on my backlog list, but posting in here because my other Sonic posts are here.

it was pretty quick and easy. i liked how the final Dr. Robotnik Eggman battle paid homage to some of the previous entries of the series. you could choose to play as Amy Rose in yhis game, which is the first time i've run across that option (i chose Knuckles of course)

[fox | 1,667]

[Foochie776 | 1,051]

I’m still working on Kingdom Hearts and I’ve started doing a BotW 120 shrine run, I’m at 55 or so 

[twiztor | 850]

sorry to keep blowing up this thread. when i added these Sonic games to my list, i didn't realize how short they are or how quickly i'd blow through them.

 

Sonic 4: Episode 1 is done.

man, this game is a noticeable step down from the Genesis trilogy. the graphics don't work for me- the 3d characters just look terrible. the physics are not right either- jumping and stopping both take some adjustment from what came before. i'm torn on the "homing" ability....it's an interesting change to say the least. the level design leaned more heavily into puzzles and mazes than previous entries, although that's not necessarily a bad thing.

not a fan of the Boss Rush finish. but i never am, so that's not much of a surprise.

since they're separate downloads, i'm posting this one now, but not crossing it off my list until Episode 2 is done as well.

Edited June 19, 2022 by twiztor

[Philosoraptor | 468]

I FINALLY got everything moved over and organized reasonably well. You know what that means, @Gloves:

I think in the coming months, I'd like to focus more on Dreamcast games. I haven't really put many hours in that console since I bought it and I'd like to play my games before the laser inevitably goes out. I've heard fixing those is hit or miss.

[Sumez | 2,950]

Finally some progress! As predicted, the games I'm currently playing aren't exactly enthralling.

The Surge - Beaten 20/6

Basically Dark Souls set in a poor man's System Shock ripoff.

I want to say the Souls comparison is a bit unfair, given the game really just takes some great pointers from that series that I think most action combat based should, and then does a lot of its own unique things.
But at the end of the day that comparison is inescapable due to the fact that pretty much everything The Surge fails miserably at, is things the Souls series excels at.

It really feels like the developers heard about Dark Souls and then decided to make something like it, but have only ever had video games described to them. Really, it's incredibly hard to explain just how bad the game feels to play. On a rare occurrence you might get into a flow where you're dodging enemies, and laying your revenge hard on them, fighting through one after the other without messing up, and you feel like you've finally managed to gel with the controls and mechanics - but then two seconds later you get immediately one-shot by a random attack with zero visible windup, and you immediately remember how painfully unpredictable and unintuitive everything is.
Unlike the Souls series, where every time your character dies, it is always clear what killed you, and what you should have done differently, The Surge resides in the direct opposite end of that spectrum, as anything will gladly kill you without notice, and without any indication of what can be done to prevent it - as such the only sensible approach to any battle is to preemptively dodge everything, which gets tedious extremely fast.

Pretty much every enemy in the game has an attack that will kill you instantly with no tell that it's coming, and most of the time there's not really any feedback that you are even taking damage, which is a problem when half of the attacks which will kill you don't even look like attacks in the first place. But those problems extend into the controls as well, since pretty much nothing that happens in combat gives you any kind of intelligible feedback, and I could write pages about the mischievous lock-on mechanism whose only consistent behavior seems to be doing everything you don't want it to.
Even the option that's supposed to auto lock on to what you are attacking, usually prefers to target something else entirely, in the opposite end of the room. It's bafflingly stupid, as if some programmer on the dev team was actively trying to sabotage the game. And the dash mechanism which is essential to dodging some attacks is basically a dice roll, often sending you in the completely wrong direction.

So is there anything to like about The Surge? Plenty, honestly. If the mechanics weren't as unpleasantly broken as they are, I could have liked this game a lot. There is an aiming system which allows you to target different parts of your foe, which can be used to knock over humanoid enemies in various ways, and use special moves to cut off armored limbs, which results in resources allowing you to upgrade your own armor for the corresponding parts - at the risk of making the battle slightly tougher.
And in terms of level design, there is at the very least a nice intention, in how every area is centered around a single hub location that you will see yourself returning to over and over as you gradually open up the surroundings and unlock shortcuts to get around more efficiently. It is a satisfying way to explore, though the locations themselves could have easily been more interesting. Most of them look completely the same, and you are very rarely given the possibility to orient yourself on a larger scale. The game especially likes to lead you through identical maintenance shafts which run through the walls pretty much anywhere and enforce the repetition, and they always manage to turn you around completely, losing any kind of orientation you might have had.

It's too bad, because the game really has a lot of potential, and I have heard the sequel is a lot better. At this point I'm not sure if I have the patience to challenge it though.
 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Sumez

[RH | 4,903]

I beat Sonic 2 on the Switch Genesis library.  I'm counting it as "beating any other Switch title" even if it's a technicality.

[Kguillemette | 1,544]

Graces F is starting to get sloggy. They altered the classic mini hack and slash of other tales games to kind of a spin on Secret of Mana where you lunge in for a combo and then back off until your combo meter recharges. They also eliminated free run placing combat on an invisible grid. Why they did this is beyond me, but they did go back to a more traditional hack and slash style with Zestiria. I assume I'm not the only one put off by this for that reason. I am enjoying the political drama blended with the over the top fantasy elements that is dominating the first act in the story, however. If it were a weaker story, I would have had to put this game down.

[Brickman | 3,983]

I haven't done an update for a while. I'm going to call it a day on Cupead.

I am up to King Dice which is the second last boss of the game but I just can't beat him and I don't have the time I did when I was younger. I can nail all the sub bosses that you have to beat before facing off against him but I can never nail all the parries you need to do, so I get steamrolled by the cards. I'm actually not too bad at the parry ability but something about this boss I just can't nail it.

Anyway, it's an amazing game and I highly recommend it. I love the variety of boss rush, run n gun and shmup levels, they even added a few bullet hell lite segments haha. The artwork is also amazing. It's definitely a 10/10 game despite me not being able to finish it off.

Other game updates:

Aggelos- About 80% done. This game is awesome
Blasphemous- About 70% done. Pretty good, some short comings, but I'm enjoying it.
Panzer Paladin- Played two levels so far. It's ok, nothing special so far.
Rise of the Tomb Raider- About 30% done. Pretty fun and I like it a bit more than the first.
Steamworld Heist- Played two levels so far. Seems like a fun Worms clone.
Yooka-Laylee- Played about 3 worlds. It's a good Banjo clone but I need to spend more time with it.
Shin Megami Tensei V- Around 50% so far. Incredible game but I haven't had time for it recently.
Persona Strikers- Still haven't touched it since last year but I'm loving it so far. I think about 40% complete.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

21 minutes ago, Brickman said:

I haven't done an update for a while. I'm going to call it a day on Cupead.

I am up to King Dice which is the second last boss of the game but I just can't beat him and I don't have the time I did when I was younger. I can nail all the sub bosses that you have to beat before facing off against him but I can never nail all the parries you need to do, so I get steamrolled by the cards. I'm actually not too bad at the parry ability but something about this boss I just can't nail it.

I mean he did warn you

 

[Brickman | 3,983]

5 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

I mean he did warn you

 

haha indeed he did! Forgot to mention how great the soundtrack was too. 

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

On 6/29/2022 at 11:39 PM, Brickman said:

I haven't done an update for a while. I'm going to call it a day on Cupead.

I am up to King Dice which is the second last boss of the game but I just can't beat him and I don't have the time I did when I was younger. I can nail all the sub bosses that you have to beat before facing off against him but I can never nail all the parries you need to do, so I get steamrolled by the cards. I'm actually not too bad at the parry ability but something about this boss I just can't nail it.

Anyway, it's an amazing game and I highly recommend it. I love the variety of boss rush, run n gun and shmup levels, they even added a few bullet hell lite segments haha. The artwork is also amazing. It's definitely a 10/10 game despite me not being able to finish it off.

Other game updates:

Aggelos- About 80% done. This game is awesome
Blasphemous- About 70% done. Pretty good, some short comings, but I'm enjoying it.
Panzer Paladin- Played two levels so far. It's ok, nothing special so far.
Rise of the Tomb Raider- About 30% done. Pretty fun and I like it a bit more than the first.
Steamworld Heist- Played two levels so far. Seems like a fun Worms clone.
Yooka-Laylee- Played about 3 worlds. It's a good Banjo clone but I need to spend more time with it.
Shin Megami Tensei V- Around 50% so far. Incredible game but I haven't had time for it recently.
Persona Strikers- Still haven't touched it since last year but I'm loving it so far. I think about 40% complete.

Cuphead is so flippin' good. Glad you enjoyed it even though you didn't quite make it to the end. It's a beautifully crafted experience and definitely one of my favorite modern games. I can't wait to try out the new DLC and character.

The only other game on your current list that I've played is Rise of the Tomb Raider, which I thought was okay. It's definitely a quality game but I was turned off by all the unnecessary crafting and open-world type stuff they crammed in; I actually prefer the reboot over Rise. I haven't played Shadow yet, but it's on my list.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (PS5, Rebel Agent)
Score: 8/10

This is my first Ratchet & Clank game and I have mixed feelings. The graphics are great and the gameplay is generally enjoyable, but nothing really stood out as excellent. I had a tough time scoring this game, but I ultimately landed on 8/10 due to the sheer quality of the whole package.

Let's start with the graphics. There are several options available, but I played on the Performance Ray Tracing preset which holds at a solid 60fps with fancy lighting effects while sacrificing some of the detail and resolution you get in the quality mode. For most people, you won't even notice the drop in quality and the the high frame rate is an absolute must. The graphics are colorful and the layered designs of the more complex environments are a beauty to behold. That being said, there are several indoor levels and open world stages which lean towards more bland design. You'll also be revisiting several areas with no real change to the environment, which reduces the wow factor quite a bit. Overall, I'd say it looks like a fancy PS4 Pro game, but doesn't particularly push the envelope of what a new generation can do.

So what about the gameplay? Well, just like the graphics and level design, the quality varies greatly. The game is at its best when it gives you lots of space, lots of enemies, and lots of weapons. Chaining together all the crazy armaments is what makes the game fun, so the smaller indoor areas and many boss fights feel constrained. Upgrading the weapons is very satisfying and having a bunch of your favorites totally maxed out is a joy. Outside of combat, there's not much to do, which may be for the best. I found the exploration to be exceptionally weak with tons of invisible walls and kill areas that force you to stay on the beaten path. This may just be an R&C thing, but it feels very restrictive for a game released in 2021. There are also a few on-rails sections, but I found them to be pretty enjoyable, even if they limit your movement.

Weirdly enough, the central conceit of the game, the "rifts," have essentially zero impact on gameplay. They inform the story, but are essentially just minor warp points in the levels. Sometimes they take you to little challenge areas, but that's about it. The idea that they could only be done on the PS5's super fast SSD has been thoroughly debunked, which makes a lot of sense when you play the game and see how little they influence actual progression.

I think what I've written probably reads more like a 7/10 game, but the production values here are just so fantastic that it's hard not to reward them. There's something intangible about the way the game's visuals mesh with the action, storytelling, and voice work which makes it more than the sum of the parts. It's a cool experience and I'm glad I played it. I won't be going back to old games in the series, but I would gladly work my way through a new R&C game every 2-3 years if Insomniac keeps pumping them out.

 

Well, that's game number 8 from my backlog for the year, so I'd consider it a smashing success thus far. I've also completed two games off-list for a total of 10 for the first half of 2022.

Myst continues to haunt my now-playing list and I'm working on a few co-op games with my son. Up next is probably gonna be some combination of Cuphead DLC, the new TMNT, Returnal, Ghost of Tsushima, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Final Fantasy X.

Edited July 1, 2022 by DoctorEncore

[Brickman | 3,983]

3 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

Cuphead is so flippin' good. Glad you enjoyed it even though you didn't quite make it to the end. It's a beautifully crafted experience and definitely one of my favorite modern games. I can't wait to try out the new DLC and character.

The only other game on your current list that I've played is Rise of the Tomb Raider, which I thought was okay. It's definitely a quality game but I was turned off by all the unnecessary crafting and open-world type stuff they crammed in; I actually prefer the reboot over Rise. I haven't played Shadow yet, but it's on my list.

Yeah I’ll definitely be giving the DLC a go. Apparently the new character is pretty good too. 

Yeah the crafting in the new Tomb Raider games can get a bit annoying but I guess it’s all the craze right now in these types of games haha.

I’m pretty much just sticking to the story which has reduced some crafting time and made the game more linear. I know it’s meant to be all open world but I don’t have time for it right now.

[Floating Platforms | 716]

I don't have to work for another 9 days and I have the house to myself most of that time, so it's a perfect opportunity to get through some backlog!

I just finished up Golf Story

I don't have tons of experience with golf games, but they're usually pretty enjoyable. My favorite up until now has been NES Open Tournament and this has very similar mechanics to that (and other more arcade-y golf games) but much more variety and personality and sidequests and quirky characters and fun level designs. It does a lot of things right. The difficulty was never too much to handle but it did feel like the courses were getting a bit harder. There could have been a tad more challenge, as I didn't have to retry many missions and only the last of the three major tournaments needed a restart.  I also thought the ending was a little anti-climactic and expected a bit more story to wrap everything up.  Those are minor complaints, though. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this and I hope that Sports Story gets a release date pretty soon.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,525]

34 minutes ago, Floating Platforms said:

I don't have to work for another 9 days and I have the house to myself most of that time, so it's a perfect opportunity to get through some backlog!

That's my dream...

[Floating Platforms | 716]

13 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

That's my dream...

Been a long time coming. Usually the wife fills any time off I take with activities that involve...<sigh>...leaving the house.  The only responsibility I have is to take care of my lazy husky.

[Sumez | 2,950]

Ducktales Remastered (even though it's clearly a complete remake) - Beaten 2/7

I've concluded in the past that Contra 4 is most likely the only actually good WayForward game, but occasionally I tend do be willing to give them another chance.
This is a game I've been sitting out basically since it came out, and I'm not sure why I never really put it on till now. But I really needed a break from the stuff I've been playing lately, so I decided to pop in a short game that could most likely be finished in the same day - which it did.

Honestly, a remake of the classic Capcom game is a fantastic chance. As I've talked about before, most recently in the recent game debate thread, the original game is a good game that feels like it could have been a lot more, and even the sequel manages to betray this potential. The remake unfortunately does little to build on its foundation, but it does address a few of the issues I had, most notably it fixes the Transylvania stage and adds a completely new final stage instead of just repeating the Transylvania one.
The game also starts out with a very short but completely new intro stage which gives the impression that we're in for more of a brand new game, but once you go into the classic five stages, you quickly realise how much of the original level layout is actually reused as-is. That doesn't keep the game from feeling new though - The mechanics are replicated, but new, and as is little details in how the reused enemies work. You're guided around the stages in new ways that actually utilizes more of the areas that would otherwise have been completely optional (and thus mostly pointless) in the original NES game. Either via subtle layout changes or new collectibles.

All of that is good, and it's kinda fun to scour every nook and cranny for hidden diamonds and other bonuses, even if it does obstruct the otherwise quick flow of the game. But like NES game, there's little use for the money you find. There's a gallery where you can unlock a bunch of uninteresting items. The enemy and characters sprites compared to their old 8-bit incarnations are a fun thing to dig into, but four individual sketches of the same bland background isn't - I think having added an actual in-game objective to spend the money on would have been obvious, even DuckTales 2 had items you can buy. And even the contest with Glomgold to obtain the most riches is completely removed in this one.

What the game does add though is cute character "sprites" that hit a nice cross between old-school video game sprites and the original cartoon designs, while a few of the original TV voice actors return to voice their characters. Most notable are Huey, Dewey and Louie (and Webby) whose voices feel almost essential to the tone of the classic show, and even Alan Young is doing Uncle Scrooge in what's got to be one of the final performances of his life. There are a lot of little cutscenes with the characters talking interspersed between stages and during them as well. There are many places where it gets annoying and they just refuse to shut up while you just want to get on with the game, but there are also moments where it works really well, and adds an enjoyable sense of adventurous flavor to each destination, which makes them feel much more like episodes of the TV show than they did in the NES game.

Overall the "new" DuckTales is very enjoyable, and even though it does little to remedy the short length of the original game, it still feels more ambitious than what you usually see in licensed WayForward games. It plays well, though there are a few moments where the controls feel more clumsy than they needed to be, and especially the hitboxes can often feel like they were engineered to troll you in situations where it seems like you should have been able to make it over there and pogo on an enemy's face. The game is still super easy even though I played on Hard Mode, though the final stage stopped pulling punches and actually made me replay it several times, due to the added rush at the very end.
The music is mostly reused from the classic Capcom game, but given new fresh life. I don't even need to look up who made the music for this, because there's a very very obvious Jake Kaufman flair embedded into all the classic tracks. The Amazon especially has been taken to 11 with a super catchy oomph, and even the old four-second stage select loop has evolved into a bit of an emotional jingle. The Moon theme, you ask? It's so good it gives me tears in my eyes.

[Floating Platforms | 716]

StarTropics is done. I saved the world from aliens on Independence Day, just like in the movie!

I can easily see why I never beat this growing up. It's good and fun until the last couple of chapters where it gets to be annoyingly hard with enemies that move too fast for your character (whose extremely slow turn and response rate becomes much more noticeable). Their weapon ranges are the same as yours (if not longer) until the very last chapter, so it makes for a lot of exploration to find the path of least resistance. Then when you find that, you have to hope the RNG of the enemy behaviors means that they won't pull some stupid BS that might take a life.

Maybe this is all just a way to say that I'm really bad at games, but I found the opening stages to be a lot of fun, even with the not so smooth controls (and I'll still try to beat StarTropics 2 next year) but those last two or three chapters were obnoxious.

After finishing that, I started up Battle of Olympus. I haven't played that in probably 30 years, so I have vague memories of it being more difficult in the early game and then it gets a bit easier.  I've made it to the forest stage with the Hydra and the Cyclops and I'm pretty sure this is where I'm supposed to be. I'm going through it completely blind (except for the snippets of memories I have from childhood) and taking some notes as I go so there's less backtracking.

[Sumez | 2,950]

3 hours ago, Floating Platforms said:

I can easily see why I never beat this growing up. It's good and fun until the last couple of chapters where it gets to be annoyingly hard with enemies that move too fast for your character (whose extremely slow turn and response rate becomes much more noticeable).

IMO the controls is exactly what makes Startropics so much fun. Even in the final chapter when it goes into more of an all-out action game, the methodic movement of your character means it's never a question of pixel perfect precision and twitch dodging, but instead creating a series of tactical gunfights that are more about outsmarting your enemy, thinking ahead, and treating the encounter like a puzzle. It's too bad you didn't like it, but I'll say I appreciate it for being unlike almost anything else.  

[Kguillemette | 1,544]

Still chipping away at Tales of Graces f. The story is still compelling enough that I just set the game to auto so I can snooze through combat. Otherwise I would have dropped this game 10-15 hours ago. The game doesn't give you nearly enough gold to buy the best equipment as it comes up. Instead, what the game does is for you to craft, or in game language, "dualize" monster drops into item that can then be resold to shops for profit. Essentially what this means is that maxing out equipment for each portion of the game involves 20-30 minutes of crafting items to resell to get enough money. So after 4 towns worth of upgrades, I have spend over 3 hours doing nothing but looking at shop menus. This is really unfun and I'm glad they did away with this. 

And I know this is a wii port, but I feel they left a lot on the table artistically. There just isn't much detail in the flora and fauna as I feel there could have been and the color palate is very muted especially in comparison to other Tales games. I have played gamecube games that paid more attention to detail.

Dungeons are pretty basic, again especially for a Tales games. I have come to expect centralized puzzles to be the heart of each dungeon of varying difficulty with a few monsters as obstacles, but instead dungeons are straight lines for the most part with monsters along the way. This is fine for an SNES rpg, but I just expect more at this point. If there are any puzzles mixed in, they are so stunningly obvious their solution that it ends up as more a chore than a brain exercise. 

This may be the in the top 3 of mechanically worst RPGs I have ever played. Right there with 7th SaGa. Like I mentioned before, if the story wasn't so compelling, I would have quit long ago. I'm truly rolling the dice for a great payoff.

 

[Floating Platforms | 716]

17 hours ago, Sumez said:

IMO the controls is exactly what makes Startropics so much fun. Even in the final chapter when it goes into more of an all-out action game, the methodic movement of your character means it's never a question of pixel perfect precision and twitch dodging, but instead creating a series of tactical gunfights that are more about outsmarting your enemy, thinking ahead, and treating the encounter like a puzzle. It's too bad you didn't like it, but I'll say I appreciate it for being unlike almost anything else.  

I wouldn't say I didn't like it overall, but the last couple of levels felt unbalanced from the rest and created a frustrating experience at the end. I could understand the puzzle argument in theory, but the enemy movements are randomized so it's not like you can find a specific pattern to work through. Instead it's about trying a couple different tactics to see what works best (and usually trying each a few times to make sure the random elements didn't mess up those early tries). The movement is too slow and methodical in those later levels and give you no time to react to certain circumstances, or pivot strategy the way I would have liked. If I could turn 90 degrees as fast as those alien soldiers could, then okay. If I could shoot and turn (or vice versa) in short succession, then great. But the game won't let you do anything off of that slow rhythm and the last couple levels felt designed for a higher level of reactivity that wasn't allowed.  For instance, those speeder bike things can go straight to hell. They created a pure guessing game of which way you should try shooting and even then it didn't matter sometimes because there's a chance they won't do the little hop that buys your shot time and speed through to hit you.

[Sumez | 2,950]

Psychonauts - Beaten 4/7

Although I'm a longtime Tim Schafer fan, I originally passed over Psychonauts when it came out. I wasn't really ready for something that wasn't a comedic adventure game, and the reviews were generally mixed at best. Over the years, though, this game has garnered quite a bit of a cult following, which has only increased my curiosity about it. I've always wanted to play it, but never really taken the time for it.
Well, over 15 years later I finally get around to it, and... surprise, surprise, the contemporary criticism was correct, this game is little more than an inadequate imitation of much better 3D platformers such as Banjo-Kazooie and Jak & Daxter. Well, at least on the surface...

Right off the bat, I'm kinda disappointed that even though it's released as a PS4 disc, it is simply the PS2 version of the game running in an emulator. This is probably on me for not doing my research properly, but a PC version of the game exists, so I imagined a better source existed to use as a basis for this release. But for all I know maybe the PC version isn't great either.
Now, I also don't know if it's the emulation to blame, or the game ran just as bad on PS2, but there's a very noticeable lag on every input, and the whole game runs at a frustratingly low framerate which makes the already shoddy controls even more frustrating to attempt to rein in. I want to say I got used to the lag after playing for a while, so it stopped actively bothering me, but for all I know it probably kept affecting my performance anyway. There is a lot of platforming in the game, and in something like a Mario game where you always feel completely in control, many of those areas probably would have worked a lot better. But in Psychonauts, the moment you take off the ground, your positioning is impossible to direct - And the camera reacting to every tiny nudge isn't exactly helping either.
The emulation comes with a ton of other issues, like the screen fading out into a color making it impossible to see anything, and sound disappearing completely for long stretches of time. Overall I can't possibly recommend playing this game on PS4 if you do consider playing it.

It's impossible to find PS2/4 screenshots too, so here is one of the PC version

Outside of terrible platform physics though, the game does have a lot more going on. There's a story that suddenly goes in crazy places with no warning, starting out at a summer camp for young psychics, and ending with having to thwart a plot for world domination. The setting exists primarily as a setup to allow entering the brains of other characters to explore their psyche, which makes up the game's major platforming stages. The idea is a lot of fun, but takes a long time to take off. You'd think stages based on people's minds would let the developers really get crazy with ideas, but for the majority of the game it's really just there to provide bog-standard stage themes such as "war trenches" or "disco party".
Fortunately once the plot gets going and the game completely changes trajectory, you finally get to a bunch of much more creative stages, really digging into childhood traumas of the people you meet, and putting you in unique situations in order to help overcome their mental problems. This is by far the strongest part of the game, which is kind of funny consider none of those characters actually tie into the plot at all, but merely function as the final set of obstacles before the game suddenly decides to throw you into the final confrontation with your own daddy issues.
These stages are also where you finally get to explore a bit more freely instead of following a linear route, which also justifies the obnoxious Banjo'esque collectibles (which don't really serve any purpose anyway), and it's also the point where Tim Schafer's brilliant brand of humor finally gets to shine.

I probably would have preferred just skipping the outer plot entirely, as well as the useless "tutorial" stages, and just gone straight into the meatier stuff right from the beginning, but I think Schafer had way too many ideas he needed to get out there. The story is weirdly disjointed, in a way that's clearly not on purpose, and feels like it's skipping several essential beats, with nothing to tie together major setpieces. Honestly, it's surprising how massive the game actually is, given how much work has been put into each individual brain world. But I think the developers were probably also overstretching themselves - the game is just way too ambitious for its own good, and to be honest it's commendable how much they did manage to put into it. If the "video game" part of Psychonauts had been up to speed and enjoyable to play, this could have been a great game. But as it stands, it's honestly hard to recommend.

[G-type | 2,481]

always wanted to play Psychonauts... never got the chance... I probably missed the window of time where I would have actually enjoyed it.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

9 minutes ago, G-type said:

always wanted to play Psychonauts... never got the chance... I probably missed the window of time where I would have actually enjoyed it.

I played it for the first time last year and thought it held up pretty well. I liked it quite a bit more than @Sumez. There are some issues with the controls, but the difficulty was very reasonable and I never got frustrated with it. Even the infamous Meat Circus level only took me a few tries. Here's what wrote last year if you want an alternate take. 

"I loved it. The writing, voice acting, and level design are all amazing. The controls can be a bit wonky and imprecise, but I only found it to be an issue during the acrobatic portion of the final level. This has definitely become one of my all-time favorite 3D action platformers."

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by DoctorEncore