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 I guess you could say... ...her good sense had checked out. 
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May 17, 2022 14:29
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Can't you just use your pyrokinesis to burn away the vines?
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May 17, 2022 19:10
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You’re not far off for thinking that Cassie is from Hong Kong as the wiki claims that she grew up in Shanghai though I don’t what evidence, if any, there is to support this. And what’s interesting is that Cassie is shown to have a fondness for the Enabler during the boss fight. And no, Pyrokenisis has no effect on the healthy vines.
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May 17, 2022 20:49
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Mraagvpeine posted:Can't you just use your pyrokinesis to burn away the vines? That would be far too convenient. Maybe someone really likes succulents?
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May 17, 2022 21:51
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Now that we've finished Cassie's Colllection, here's the second half of the bees' story. The fifth bee tried to freeze it, but the wasp didn't notice. The sixth bee, at last, won the day, but lost his mind. The first bee was utterly distraught. Of the many who failed, she was the first. "I will make myself stronger". And she put her kindness away on the shelf. She left the beehive and made another. But in the beehive, she is alone. She terrifies strangers. And she lives there to this very day.
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May 18, 2022 16:17
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Happy Sunday! Less happy Bob. Fair warning: Bob's levels have the heavier subject matters, and hit a lot closer to home for me. 
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May 22, 2022 11:45
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Now that we've met the last regular enemy, I want to talk about the enemies in greater detail to understand why I think theming them around mental processes was brilliant in terms of visual storytelling:
 Chimera-gui fucked around with this message at 16:59 on May 24, 2022 |
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May 23, 2022 00:46
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I did enjoy the more personalized enemies in Psychonauts 1, but most of them weren't especially dangerous or thematic. Still: Lungfishopolis is beyond iconic, and also not a human mind, so it's great to have differences there! Does make it a lot easier to keep the theme of a mind (and escalate combat encounters) by having enemies be from a more restricted list, at least. They didn't even have the deadly wildlife from 1 in the overworld! But I suppose the Psychonauts wouldn't allow telekinetic bears or pyrokinetic pumas wander around so close to the Motherlobe.
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May 23, 2022 00:54
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Chronische posted:I did enjoy the more personalized enemies in Psychonauts 1, but most of them weren't especially dangerous or thematic. Still: Lungfishopolis is beyond iconic, and also not a human mind, so it's great to have differences there! Does make it a lot easier to keep the theme of a mind (and escalate combat encounters) by having enemies be from a more restricted list, at least. I feel like outside Lungfishopolis, the only non-boss personalized enemies that really worked were the G-Men and only because they were the most thematically fitting for their mental world not only in design but in how they operated because they weren't something you could fight directly. The actors in Gloria's Theater never made sense as actual enemies since you could still talk to them and their function as actual actors meant you couldn't kill them off for good despite their hostility, meaning it would've made more sense that they wouldn't actively attack Raz until the Jasper fight where he was calling them to attack, while the armored snail cannon and mangled rabbit abomination were more annoying than dangerous and only tangentially fitted with Waterloo World and Meat Circus on the purely surface level. Plus the mental processes chosen to be enemies are so ubiquitous that they could easily fit within the mental worlds of the first game such as Enablers for Boyd, Bad Mood for Edgar, and Judge, Doubt & Regret for Gloria. quote:They didn't even have the deadly wildlife from 1 in the overworld! But I suppose the Psychonauts wouldn't allow telekinetic bears or pyrokinetic pumas wander around so close to the Motherlobe.
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May 23, 2022 07:39
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Oh boy, this level was an interesting one to play through, even if I do think Disco Elysium did a better job representing alcoholism.
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May 23, 2022 12:32
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Great write-up! Mind if I add it to the OP? I'll say that despite the lack of enemy variety, I like the enemies of this game a lot. They fit the idea of battling our inner demons, and they're visually interesting, especially when we get level specific variations. Compton's Cookoff may be the best way the enemies are shown off! We see them in cutscenes taking part in the mental scenario, and they're dressed up for the occasion: IIRC there are two Judge variants, two censor recolors, and maybe the regrets though I can't remember off the top of my head. If they had more time, DF could've maybe done more recolors, or repurposed the enemy models to make more unique enemies with different mechanics, but in the same spirit. I'm still happy with what we got though.
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May 23, 2022 16:33
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Do you think the Nightmares in Boyd's level could have been replaced with Panic Attacks?
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May 23, 2022 19:00
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Mraagvpeine posted:Do you think the Nightmares in Boyd's level could have been replaced with Panic Attacks? I would not be surprised if Panic Attack was designed to replace Nightmare going forward for two reasons:
Chimera-gui fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Feb 9, 2023 |
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May 24, 2022 00:27
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I could dig panic attacks dressed as milkmen, throwing bottles at you.
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May 24, 2022 12:06
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Anaxite posted:I could dig panic attacks dressed as milkmen, throwing bottles at you. Now now, that would surely help you! It's fortified with what the world needs, after all! What the world deserves.
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May 25, 2022 01:38
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May 25, 2022 17:48
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Bob's life is just misery.
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May 26, 2022 19:29
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Mraagvpeine posted:Bob's life is just misery. At least, that's what constantly dwells on his mind. No doubt he has countless happy memories, but those never add up to anything when you're as miserable as he is and has been for a while now.
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May 26, 2022 19:47
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Yeah, his isolation and especially alcoholism did not do him any favors. In fact it was confirmed last video and by the earlier conversation with Camilla that Truman fired him due to the latter putting people's lives at risk.
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May 27, 2022 00:48
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 This part of Bob's Bottles hits me the hardest.
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May 28, 2022 15:41
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Oooh, wow, uh. Yeah. That one hits close to home, but I think it was very well handled.
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May 28, 2022 17:07
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Mhm. Out of all the levels, this one was my favorite. ...Not much to add to that, the game itself shows why better than I could put to words.
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May 28, 2022 17:29
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Hm, I couldn't figure out if depicting that one character in Bob's mind as a moth is supposed to be a metaphor for something. Also, little error in the game: in that scene at the very end of the episode with Helmut/Nick and Bob talking, the text box calls him "Bulb Bob".
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May 28, 2022 20:27
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Carbon dioxide posted:Hm, I couldn't figure out if depicting that one character in Bob's mind as a moth is supposed to be a metaphor for something. I don't know why it's a moth either, but it might have to do with plants since that's Bob's specialty. Also, at the part with the spinning blades, I could read 3 of the words on them: "Never" "Ever" and "Apart". What's the 4th one? Mraagvpeine fucked around with this message at 21:35 on May 28, 2022 |
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May 28, 2022 21:32
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Carbon dioxide posted:Hm, I couldn't figure out if depicting that one character in Bob's mind as a moth is supposed to be a metaphor for something. There are a bunch of possibilities: the idea of going through a metamorphosis, camouflage, being attracted to light (to a fault), or moths just outright symbolizing death; they're often considered to be a dark counterpart to butterflies. Heck, I've been reading that some moths feed on fungus before their metamorphosis. I can't find anything particular about this moth, so I guess we have our pick of metaphors. Mraagvpeine posted:Also, at the part with the spinning blades, I could read 3 of the words on them: "Never" "Ever" and "Apart". What's the 4th one? "Forever." Anaxite fucked around with this message at 21:44 on May 28, 2022 |
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May 28, 2022 21:42
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I believe the Moth is a manifestation of Bob's alcoholism, a maladaptive coping mechanism to his pain which he was trying to protect himself from by not feeling anything. That's why the Moth claimed it was trying to protect Bob by shielding him while also blinding him to the negative effect it was having on him to led to the aforementioned intervention gone wrong between him and Truman. That's also why the fight ends with Bob removing the moth from his eyes, effectively erasing the drat bug's existence.
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May 29, 2022 00:33
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Chimera-gui posted:I believe the Moth is a manifestation of Bob's alcoholism, a maladaptive coping mechanism to his pain which he was trying to protect himself from by not feeling anything. That's why the Moth claimed it was trying to protect Bob by shielding him while also blinding him to the negative effect it was having on him to led to the aforementioned intervention gone wrong between him and Truman. I would agree with that, it's also why it looks like his face and why it's coping mechanism is to keep his good AND bad memories drowned in an ocean of booze. Moths are attracted to the light, but burned by it - it might be how he felt, where any time he had a good memory it was accompanied by an equal or greater pain.
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May 29, 2022 01:33
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I think it is also because it can be formed by truncated the word Mother
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May 29, 2022 09:22
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Samovar posted:I think it is also because God dammit I can't believe I missed the pun opportunity. Anyhow! Video's been up a bit, so now I wanted to get stuff about Bob off my chest because of all the levels, his really, really hit me hard in every playthrough. Of all the characters we've seen so far, and visited the minds of, Bob is the one who's been kicked one too many times, is down in the dumps, and truly feels like he lost the most in the battle with Maligula.
We get to see that Bob found Helmut, someone who truly enchanted him, changed some of his world views, and brought him out of his shell in a manner nobody else had been able to do up to this point. I mean, hell, just being part of the Psychic Seven doesn't mean you feel like you deserve it, and he may have still have been in the shadow of his nephew Truman. Then he loses Helmut fighting against Maligula. None of the other Psychic Seven experienced the same kind of loss. They had lost friends, physically and mentally, but their friends were not the key to their sense of belonging, self-worth, and drive. Cassie and Compton chose, through action or inaction, to drift apart. Ford and Lucy chose their respective actions. Otto somehow copes with things in general. And Helmut didn't lose Bob—he exercised agency in choosing to save his husband, retaining some sense that he did the right thing for the one he cares of. Bob, however, is the only person who gets to feel he had no agency when it came to saving one of the most important things in his life. It's not like the Psychic Six were able to do anything to help Bob later. We don't see anything they do with him after the fight, but they each had their own trauma to deal with, shown in their levels and memory vaults; they had to help themselves first and, in many ways, could not. The irony of the Psychonauts is that they explored the frontiers of the mind, and their mental abilities, but even in their mental dominion they are unable to truly see how to heal their own hurt, and that of others. Because of that, they suffer. Bob suffers. But you know what? It's not just about the above. It's also about what I personally see when I look at Bob's character. He's that introverted, sensitive kid who has some artistic leaning, has difficulty expressing himself, maybe was bullied—or just outright ignored by his peers—, feels constantly overshadowed by friends and family, and withdraws from the world to try and focus on the things that work for him. Maybe he was okay being a loner (though in this case, probably not), but he gets a taste of what makes life worth living a pretty long time after his childhood experiences, and that's an amazing revelation! He's torn between "This is great!" and "how soon until this stops working for me?" This is also why chasing after seeds in his mind hurts so much: You can have an idea that something is really good, but you can't just shake off all those childhood habits; they'll be with you for the rest of your life, and it's a constant struggle. I guess, when push comes to shove, I see a little bit of Bob in me. His tale has an extra layer of "this is what happens when you don't get the support you need," and there have been plenty of people who fell into various hobbies (hellooooo, video games) or habits as a way of not having to deal with the outside bullshit of the world that still goes on and still needs to be dealt with. The inner saboteur affects relationships, it affects work, and it even affects play. It may remain strong a long time, and it still does for me. Unfortunately, Bob doesn't get the therapy he needs, but hopefully we can do better. Anaxite fucked around with this message at 23:51 on May 30, 2022 |
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May 29, 2022 14:17
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Anaxite posted:Hollis Forsythe had issues at a hospital years ago and nearly destroyed a person's mind, and still struggles with that, but there's nothing to suggest other serious traumatic events. I remember it as her nearly destroying the mind of that other doctor who was stealing all her work…
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May 29, 2022 14:27
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AweStriker posted:I remember it as her nearly destroying the mind of that other doctor who was stealing all her work… That's it. As I see it, what makes that event not as horrifying overall is that she didn't quite succeed (the Psychonauts intervened), and there's still a part of us, the audience, that can go "yeah but the doctor deserved it."
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May 29, 2022 15:48
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Anaxite posted:I mean, hell, just being part of the Psychic Seven doesn't mean you feel like you deserve it, and he may have still have been in the shadow of his brother Truman. Isn't Truman his nephew? Which further begs the question, we get a good look at his relationship with his mother; but he must have a sibling as well to have a nephew, and I don't recall them ever being mentioned.
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May 29, 2022 23:08
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Iamyourking posted:Isn't Truman his nephew? Which further begs the question, we get a good look at his relationship with his mother; but he must have a sibling as well to have a nephew, and I don't recall them ever being mentioned. Truman is indeed his nephew. But I confess I don't remember anything referring to Bob's relationship to a sibling in the game.
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May 30, 2022 14:52
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Samovar posted:Truman is indeed his nephew. But I confess I don't remember anything referring to Bob's relationship to a sibling in the game. I agree. The memories made it seem like he was an only child.
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May 30, 2022 16:05
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It might be that his sibling is significantly older than him and already left home by the time his mother died.
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May 30, 2022 16:49
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I got the sibling/nephew thing mixed up :v But otherwise we never find out about his sibling. It's a total mystery.
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May 30, 2022 21:38
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Anaxite posted:I got the sibling/nephew thing mixed up :v Bob reconciling with his extended family could be a potential plot element in a Psychonauts 3.
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May 31, 2022 00:16
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Speaking of plot, it's time to do something unrelated to story that I've been putting off until this very moment: backtracking! We had the opportunity to go back into past minds every since Hollis Forsythe was sorted. Having all the powers, however, really lets us clean out those minds and truly sort their baggage. Grab a drink, relax, and have a look through everything we missed. We're also rapidly nearing the end of the game. I'm going on a little break to let people catch up, and we'll dive into the last of the plot next week.
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May 31, 2022 17:05
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I didn’t include this creature when I wrote about the enemies since not only are they not aggressive but unlike the first game, you will never encounter them during your first run through a Mental World in 2 so let’s have a look at them now:
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May 31, 2022 20:55
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Mraagvpeine posted:Can someone tell me what is written on those fans you need to slow down? Are you going back there later for this? Well, I managed to read one fan. It said, "Reality is", "Perception is", "Time is", and "Illusion is" Mraagvpeine fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Jun 1, 2022 |
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Jun 1, 2022 06:19
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