Psychonauts 2

The experiments that the Psychic Seven did at Green Needle Gulch left their minds wide open to outside influence without any of the usual filters that would protect it. That's why Ford was so worried about Lucy going back to Grulovia in the middle of a war.

Lucy was left wide open to influence and suggestions from the Gzar telling her that Grulovia was always great and needing an iron fist ruling it. This led to her becoming the Gzar's attack dog. If her mind wasn't wide open from the experiments, she would have been less influenced and controlled by the Gzar.

It didn't help that the Gzar and his family did show genuine appreciation for saving Grulovia from the invasion and gave her a lofty position as Minister of War. That would just further reinforce the idea that she's doing the right thing.

Edited by M84 on Sep 24th 2021 at 4:04:16 PM

Ok, that makes a bit more sense. Thanks for that.

I still feel like the details... aren't explained in the greatest detail making character intentions and motivations rather vague in a game where those details matter.

Ok, Lucrecia goes back to Grulovia and just happens to save Gristol (from Grulovians, not enemy soldiers it seems per the Wiki's caption for that scene) and become Minister of War... for a facist dictatorship. It still makes me question... just how "good" Lucy actually was here. I really get the impression She seems awfully happy up there with the facist royal family.

The more Ford and the six keep trying to insist that she's a good person... the more and more I am reminded of my group of gay friends and that one "friend" who'd be ruthlessly conservative or say awful things and we'd politely ignore it because "But he's so nice otherwise!".

I do call bullshit on the deaths being unintentional. Ford's Follicles has Raz breaking open the hydrocide and kill the mites with Ford responding "Lucy, those were peaceful protesters". The fact that the game puts us in Lucy's position and has us kill a bunch of "annoying mites" and feel good until that line... it's a powerful moment and I think it'd be really undercut if we just say "Oop. Lucy never meant to kill the protesters! She was so nice and never saw the protestors as mites!".

The Gzar is also clearly telling her to attack the protestors in the Mental Vault. I doubt he's angrily pointing at them to tell her to... "get them in a light drizzle". That seems rather naïve to think Gzar Theodore didn't want them dead there.

There's also her lines when it happens. She says "You weren't supposed to be there!" or something to that extent. Not "It was supposed to be light rain" or something. She has full control of her powers otherwise. It sounds more like she regrets her being there, NOT destroying the dam at all. Then there's also Maligula's reaction to it in the mental reconstruction; she is sad momentarily before doubling down. "So what, I kill lots of people". I don't think that was the first time she drowned protestors. I think it was just the time where she actually lost something from her destruction. And where the Gzar decided to try and leave her out to dry and failed. But the "I kill lots of people"... That's... still Lucy. Like it or not.

I keep feeling like the game is coming up with excuses for her; the "flight/fight" thing or Ford's undying love for her or the sympathy for her after Ford's decision and her love of her family. And just not engaging with the absolutely horrible things she did. Influence is not mind control. None of the other Psychic Six just randomly became monster people. Lucrecia became a monster. She chose to become a monster when all of the Six repeatedly reached out to her. And she did kill Helmut, brain shenanigans or no. And I feel like the game just doesn't want to accept that and keeps pushing all her bad stuff onto "Maligula" like she's a separate person and she just isn't. Teacher, Librarian, Counterfeiter, and Writer Cassie are all Cassie. Lucy and Maligula are still Lucrecia. It makes the narrative less compelling to brush off responsibility.

Either lean into her Unrepentant Villainy or dial her back to keep her sympathetic. Don't try to do both. She's either a monster person or she isn't. Especially if this is a character you intend to redeem.

Also, small point... WTF is up with Otto? Was a lot of his stuff artifacted from some earlier rendition of the game? The "Brain-frame" seems awfully sinister. Helmut's brain ends up in there, personally retrieved by Otto, but despite all the tech making it easy and accessible... never finds out who's brain it is??? Then there's that old pic of him being THE ONLY ONE smiling at the opening which feels strange in retrospect. And NONE of the Six have a good opinion of him; Cassie thinks he's average intelligence at best and a blowhard, Bob thinks he hates him, Compton is afraid of his judgement and criticism, Helmut's rendition of him is him arguing with Bob... And the fact that his introduction kinda sets players up to have a pretty high "Cool Old Guy" opinion of him ripe for a juicy plot twist. And the later game it got that we hadn't entered his mind... And then no shoe ever dropped. If it was just a red-herring, fine, but I still really question why no one seems to like him. There's no follow up. Was something cut here???

Edited by InkDagger on Sep 24th 2021 at 3:22:25 AM

Re-read the Wiki page for Lucrecia and note the first image depicting her rescuing Gristol from what are clearly enemy soldiers.

It was not a civil war.

The caption for the image you're talking about seems to be faulty.

As for the dam, Lucrecia was basically trying to drive the protesters away with the hydrokinetic equivalent of a police water cannon via the heavy rainfall. Pretty brutal, but (in theory) non-lethal. She screwed up and forgot about the dam though. The Gzar ordering her to pour on more water as the protest continued didn't help either.

Even if she never actually killed any protesters prior to that, blasting people with a hydrokinetic water cannon equivalent would be more than enough to get the people to deride her as "Maligula". Police in real life are rightly criticized for using water cannons on protesters, after all.

And of course Maligula would double down. She's the embodiment of the part of the human mind that is all about fighting and violence. She's also Lucrecia's coping mechanism for avoiding the guilt she feels over killing those people (especially her sister and brother-in-law). Essentially, Maligula's Card-Carrying Villain act lets Lucrecia not deal with the overwhelming guilt.

Edited by M84 on Sep 24th 2021 at 6:59:52 PM

The stuff with Otto strikes me as first draft/iterative stuff, yeah. A direction they initially considered but gradually moved away from as development continued. Like the stuff with the other founding Psychonauts got bigger and bigger until there was just no room left, and so it became more of a Sequel Hook/meta-Red Herring.

Edited by Unsung on Sep 24th 2021 at 9:04:00 AM

The memory vault in Fords Mailroom level has Lucy reading a newspaper with the headline Grulovia Invaded. So it definitely wasn't a civil war.

So as a part of the marketing campaign for ''Psychonauts 2'' Microsoft partnered with Icelandic artist Daði Freyr for an odd online performance. Surprisingly apt fit. The production reminds me of the work Tim & Eric made for Saints Row back in the day.

Sorry that I'm over a week late, but here's Zero Punctuation's review for Psychonauts 2.

Some of the sentiments echo my own complains from earlier, and I do still like Yahtzee's way with words. But in the same way the Accentuate the Negative video style has kind of lost its appeal for me these past few years, I wouldn't mind if the game were a bit wackier in more places, but I don't know that it has to regain any cynical edge to do that. You can be both funny and serious.

Agreed. Funny often helps us deal with the more serious. It's easier to process in that way.

I actually really liked that Psychonauts matured a bit more because I liked that the conversations were able to be still goofy and hilarious while also handling mental health pretty well; something many many franchises fail at let alone handle as their main topic.

I agree. I feel like Psychonauts 2 has either changed with the times, matured with its audience, or both, all for the better. The first game was released in the mid-2000s which was still a haven of certain type of detached irony. I feel like somewhere in the 2010s our media has started to move towards sincerity in a cyclic pushback, and the sequel reflects that.

QoL patch dropped.

Those collectible aids are great. And the gauntlet seems like a good way to both try out that Rank 102 power and to get the remaining enemy-related achievements.

Stellar stuff all around.

Well well well. They went and did it. Much obliged, Double Fine. Maybe I will 100% this after all, because I never did find the last few figments in Bob's Bottles.

Sorry it's over a week late, but Psychonauts 2 is listed as Zero Punctuation's Best Game of 2021.

The Audiokinetic blog has a post on the game's sound engineering, for the digital audio geeks out there.

IGN talks with the devs on how they designed the game show level inside Compton's mind:

We're getting a physical release of the game, out on September 27th.

...It didn't already have that? Huh.

I mean, I get it, physical sales are dwindling, the game was released in the middle of the logistical catastrophe that is the current pandemic, and it was included on Game Pass on launch. Not exactly the most fertile ground for a physical release. Still, it surprised me that it didn't get one.