Zodi Plays: Psychonauts (This One Time, At ESPer Camp...)

[Knight9910]

Apparently I'm not allowed to just reply with "alright" so instead I'll say all of this and...

Alright.

[LaZodiac]

Post limits are a hell of a thing.

Anyway oh boy Psychonuts. I hope you're all enjoying this game. I'm having fun with it for the most part, though to be transparent about things I've been through the ringer lately as it where, so that's making things feel weird. I hope it doesn't show!

[Knight9910]

On a lighter note, one thing I keep thinking is how much this game's art style and character designs really remind me of Nicktoons. Like... Wild Thornberrys, Rugrats, that sort of thing.

[Eurus]

On a lighter note, one thing I keep thinking is how much this game's art style and character designs really remind me of Nicktoons. Like... Wild Thornberrys, Rugrats, that sort of thing.

That's the vibe I get! It's very cartoony in an old-school way, with the almost grotesquely deformed characters. I feel like if they'd made it cell-shaded or even 2D it would have looked a lot better, as it is it sorta evokes those things but slides into the uncanny valley a bit.

[LaZodiac]

Okay, lets Psychonaut.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [5] Further Tumbling

Video Length: 29:35

Starting us off today, we get the psychic ability PYROKINESIS. This is...ultimately not even remotely useful in that it's a little too slow, and has a short range of actual effectiveness. It can be quite useful if you can get it off, but overall is not really that useful as an offensive move. It's got some uses for puzzles, however.

After that, it's time for some achievement gathering! After beating Sasha's Shooting Gallery, but before we do the second dive into the Brain Tumbler experiment, we can go to the parking lot to see how Maloof is doing. As it turns out not super well, and Bobby wants to make it worse. Thankfully Mikhail has decided to defend poor little Maloof, so that's nice at least. After that (well, before, but whatever) we do a full reading of all the currently posted Bulletin Board stuff, which gets us an achievement and gets us a couple good jokes. Likewise, we read the giant log in the middle of the parking lot to get some history on how Whispering Rock came to be. All in all it's an interesting bit of writing, and the "Shaky Claim" joke is really funny to me.

Next on our list is returning to the Campfire area and reciting Oleander's entire speech back to front. This gets us an achievement and wastes a good amount of time. Given all the stuff in this game, it feels a little weird that THIS is an achievement, but I guess someone was just really proud of that speech. Anyway, we pick up some items on our way back to Sasha Nein's lab (and as it turns out you CAN tree stump to his lab I didn't realize this!) and begin the next attempt at the Brain Tumbler experiment.

This one goes a lot better, since we have mind bullets, but overall is much the same. We continue exploring further into this strange mental world, fighting Censors of various size as well as nasty plants, all in pursuit of a bunny. Finally, we get to the end of the woods to find...a massive dark tower! And at the tip, we dream of a dentist stealing Dogen's brain! For some reason Raz decides that this is a real thing that is actually happening so he's going to...go up the tower to save Dogen. Inside his brain. Look I know nightmares can be vivid and real feeling (I've had my fair share of terrible nightmares) but Raz, you're a psychonaut. You know the dream is just a dream. Yes, it's a VERY odd dream, but there's no reason he should be reacting as if this in any way is actually happening to Dogen, and he definitely shouldn't be acting as if saving Dogen in his dream will save him in real life. You're not Freddy Krueger kid...or are you? That'd be a twist and a half.

But unfortunately for us, we don't know how to levitate with our psychic powers! So we can't get to the top of the tower. Sasha directs us to Lake Oblongata to learn how from Milla, which we'll be doing next time. I hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time. In the meanwhile, do remember the most important thing we learned today: The world shall taste my eggs.

[DataNinja]

I do like how they cram so much stuff in that people are likely to ignore/skip over.

...it's a lot of exploring, though.

Again, most of these minds are just really, really dark. The imagery is neat, though, if confusing - though I'm sure all will be explained in time. I hope.

(Also, you've listed Iruka twice in the credits. Not sure if that's intentional, or just an error from when you expanded it.)

[LaZodiac]

I do like how they cram so much stuff in that people are likely to ignore/skip over.

...it's a lot of exploring, though.

Again, most of these minds are just really, really dark. The imagery is neat, though, if confusing - though I'm sure all will be explained in time. I hope.

(Also, you've listed Iruka twice in the credits. Not sure if that's intentional, or just an error from when you expanded it.)

Oops, I'll fix that straight away, my mistake! Though that's gonna be the norm until video 8 because I premake these. Oops again.

[smuchmuch]

Pyrokinesis does get a little boost in usefulness with it's upgrades later, and it's mostly useful aginst bigger slower enemies which there are litte to none at this stage of the game, except the stupid bears. But true, it's fairly situational.

And the censors don't change genral appearance between minds but they do get some neat hats in some.

Again, most of these minds are just really, really dark. The imagery is neat, though, if confusing - though I'm sure all will be explained in time. I hope.

Heh it gets a little bit darker and a whole lot wackier

One thing that is never exactly fully stated in game but sort of implied through a few lines here and there, is that the mindscapes you explore aren't the full mind of the person, just sort of what sort of make their personality stand out. So presumably there are some happier nicer and more mundane images and memories but it's not relevant to Raz so you don't get to see them. (that and it's certainly easier for the level designer)

[DataNinja]

Heh it gets a little bit darker and a whole lot wackier

I should clarify, I meant dark as in lighting primarily. Though, they are also dark imagery-wise. I mind the former much more than the latter.

[Knight9910]

The major feeling I'm getting from this is...

I feel like Psychonauts is a game with a lot of really goodideas. The backstory of Whispering Rock is good, the style is really cool, the characters are fun... the sense of humor seems to oscillate between "entertainingly eccentric" and "actually legitimately psychotic" but hey, I like it. :p

But the execution seems to leave a lot to be desired. It's... definitely a 3D platformer, but also looks like it's got some really wonky controls, and my God those @#%$ing figments just seem like basically the worst thing ever. "Hey, let's put collectibles in this game... we'll have literally HUNDREDS of them per level, make them see-through so you can barely tell where they are, AND have them MOVE! It'll be great!" ... considering the psychopathic sense of humor I mentioned, I'm beginning to suspect the developers really did just want to torture kids with these figments.

[smuchmuch]

No it's just bad game design. Visual style put over gameplay substance, so to speak.

The next mental level will be somewhat colorfull (with various degree of ilumination) and if anyting, it's one of the most annoying, fragment collecting wise, because the damn things blend so much in the background.

[Eurus]

The major feeling I'm getting from this is...

I feel like Psychonauts is a game with a lot of really goodideas. The backstory of Whispering Rock is good, the style is really cool, the characters are fun... the sense of humor seems to oscillate between "entertainingly eccentric" and "actually legitimately psychotic" but hey, I like it. :p

But the execution seems to leave a lot to be desired. It's... definitely a 3D platformer, but also looks like it's got some really wonky controls, and my God those @#%$ing figments just seem like basically the worst thing ever. "Hey, let's put collectibles in this game... we'll have literally HUNDREDS of them per level, make them see-through so you can barely tell where they are, AND have them MOVE! It'll be great!" ... considering the psychopathic sense of humor I mentioned, I'm beginning to suspect the developers really did just want to torture kids with these figments.

To be fair... this was the 3D-platformer era, wasn't it? Big platform-y levels with obnoxious collectibles, hyper-deformed cartoony graphics, and controls that are juuuust skewed enough to be a royal pain in the butt were par for the course. I'm not sure it was ever a good idea, but people got used to it so they cut it a lot of slack that we don't cut it now because we have better alternatives.

[LaZodiac]

To be fair... this was the 3D-platformer era, wasn't it? Big platform-y levels with obnoxious collectibles, hyper-deformed cartoony graphics, and controls that are juuuust skewed enough to be a royal pain in the butt were par for the course. I'm not sure it was ever a good idea, but people got used to it so they cut it a lot of slack that we don't cut it now because we have better alternatives.

I'm gonna point out the last game I just LPed, Sly Cooper, is contemporary with this game. As is Super Mario Sunshine.

Psychonauts is a good game. It has no excuse being as flawed as it is.

[LaZodiac]

Hey lets go do the thing.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [6] Great Balls of Fire

Video Length: 23:23

In this episode, it's time to make our way over to Milla Vodello, the Mental Minx! First though, we have some exploration to do. We've got a lot of people to set on fire (or at least try to). We also buy the Dowsing Rod, and show it off a little. The Dowsing Rod isn't as bad as I first made it out to be, but it's still frustrating to use and kind of obnoxious as far as mechanics go. You have to mash the button to see how close you are, though the sound effects also help of course, and you really have to go at it to get the lodes of Arrowheads out. What's worse is that while yes, the dowsing rod can gather up the single Arrowheads as well, it stops actually DOING that if it can't detect any large lodes of arrows. Ultimately, there's more than enough lodes to get all the stuff we want, but actually getting them all can be pretty tedious.

Anyway, off to Lake Oblongata to do Levitation Training! Here, we learn that Raz has a pretty solid excuse for being unable to swim: his family was cursed to die in water! Harsh. This is also the part of the game where the two plot lines of "have fun at summer camp" and "discover the secret of summer camp" start intermixing...and they really don't mix all that well, to be honest. It feels like all the secret brain stuff should of happened after we did a full loop of the summer camp fun time adventures? It's paced in a really odd way that doesn't quite work. But it's fine. Though it doesn't...make much sense as to why Raz was dreaming about Dogen getting his brain removed. And why said dream was accurate. Though prescience is a psychic power so I mean sure, I'll grant it.

Benny dealt with, we can now access the boat to get to Milla. The boat doesn't control super well but this is also the only time we ever use it so that's fine enough. More importantly we're actually at Milla now! She's got this 70s disco dance aesthetic and it's pretty cool, and the mental world she's set up for training kids how to float and roll shares her fashion sense. It's not entirely fitting with my idea of what a mental world should look like (the closed in walls are kind of a bummer for me) but again, since this IS a training ground it makes sense. Speaking of, Levitation ball! It's quite a good orb, letting Raz jump far higher and farther than his regular jumps, and lets him move faster as well. With this, we could easily go get everything in the mental worlds and the hub, but we'll do that later. Additional to the levitation orb, which is a power that must be set to a button, we also get the always on float power, though the fact that it's got different buttons to levitate causes me some level of frustration as I mixed up the buttons. That doesn't happen much in this part particularly, but it DEFINITELY does in the next one.

That all said and done, we explore Milla's brain a bit and...find something quite interesting. This is my favorite part of the game, probably. I they did more things like this, and I get why they didn't, but I wish they did more like this. More things to show that the nature of a mental world is more than just a construct, it's a living breathing entity. It's pretty cool, and also really sad. And with that we're done for today. I hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time!

[GloatingSwine]

I'm gonna point out the last game I just LPed, Sly Cooper, is contemporary with this game. As is Super Mario Sunshine.

Psychonauts is a good game. It has no excuse being as flawed as it is.

Interesting but flawed is basically the default state of Double Fine games.

[Eurus]

I'm gonna point out the last game I just LPed, Sly Cooper, is contemporary with this game. As is Super Mario Sunshine.

Psychonauts is a good game. It has no excuse being as flawed as it is.

...You know, somehow I mis-remembered this as like a 2000 game, not 2005ish. That's probably rather telling in itself.

[smuchmuch]

Ah Levitation, it makes exploring, platforming and navigating the hub so much less of a chore.

Ater finishig Milla's paty, I recomend not just gettng the most of the scavenger hunt (except for the three items you won't be able to get before the night anyway) and enough arrows fo the duster and Magnet but also clearing Sasha shooting gallery and Milla's party of their cobweb and most of their remaining fragemnt before finshing the brain tumbler.

It feels like all the secret brain stuff should of happened after we did a full loop of the summer camp fun time adventures? It's paced in a really odd way that doesn't quite work.

Well to be fair, you can explore the camp in its entirety much sooner and during most different training levels. I think the game expects you to, hence all those bits of missable dialogue. (Another way that for better or worse, Psychonauts fels like an adventure game disguised as a platformer .)

(I also suspect given the troubled devellopement of the game that originaly the game was supposed to have a little more gameplay content happening in the camp itself before the seond act starts.)

Ultimately, there's more than enough lodes to get all the stuff we want, but actually getting them all can be pretty tedious.

To go quicker, pretty much all the huge lodes are in the GPC/Willdrness aera, so you can rake enough very fast if you concentrate on there. The buttn mashing is very annoying though.

As of Milla's nightmares, accoding to what I read, the supposed to be the basis of a plotline during developement where Milla' nightmares would have escaped and started to infect other people mind. Then they decided that it wouldn't be quite in character fo her to loose control so they scraped it, except for a minor thing down the line.

Interesting but flawed is basically the default state of Double Fine games.

Except for Broken Age and Deep pace Nine which can be summed up as "Disapointement" and "Scam" respectively

[LaZodiac]

Ater finishig Milla's paty, I recomend not just gettng the most of the scavenger hunt (except for the three items you won't be able to get before the night anyway) and enough arrows fo the duster and Magnet but also clearing Sasha shooting gallery and Milla's party of their cobweb and most of their remaining fragemnt before finshing the brain tumbler.

You gotta work on that time machine, truth.

[DataNinja]

Hmmm... well, that water phobia would explain the diver's helmet.

...alternatively, that divers helmet looking thing on the docks would explain it.

Well, to be fair, Sasha was only 'reckless' after he knew he had himself covered.

"The best way to do [X] is to try it." I, uh, think that maybe having any instruction at all may be helpful. It's not like you say 'driving a car is easy, all you need to do is drive the car'.

Well, that nightmare room is very vivid imagery.
...and, yep, the story that comes bundled up with it. Fun, fun.

[Knight9910]

One problem I DO have with this game's sense of humor is I can't always tell what's meant as a joke and what isn't. The earlier scene with the cheerleader kids mixing poisons is one example, but now this line about the "brain-eating fish that comes out of the lake at night to search for victims"... like, that could be a joke, but it also seems like something this game might actually do.

[GloatingSwine]

Except for Broken Age and Deep pace Nine which can be summed up as "Disapointement" and "Scam" respectively

With Broken Age they just split the "Interesting" and "Flawed" into two different products and released them as part 1 and part 2.

[Coidzor]

Ahh, Milla's secret cranny. Definitely the one thing I didn't forget about the game before I picked it up again.

No it's just bad game design. Visual style put over gameplay substance, so to speak.

The next mental level will be somewhat colorfull (with various degree of ilumination) and if anyting, it's one of the most annoying, fragment collecting wise, because the damn things blend so much in the background.

Yeah, I replayed this after being inspired by Zodi and just... could not find the last figment in the first area of that mindscape. After replaying it and combing over it inch by inch 5 times.

Was hell.

[Knight9910]

Also, I actually appreciate how dark this game is willing to be.

It isn't afraid to show the full ramifications of what would happen if a small child developed incredible psychic powers but didn't know how to use them, like Dogen who has to wear a special hat to not explode people, or the little girl who tends to set things on fire by accident.

It also isn't afraid to fully explore peoples' inner demons, like with Milla's secret nook or Sasha's crazy repressed brain.

But it also shows that those things don't control us. Milla is still a nice lady even despite having this crazy nightmarish stuff lurking in her head, for example. (At least she seems like it so far.)

[LaZodiac]

RIP I forgot today was Friday NEW VIDEO.

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [7] Floaty Orb Time

Video Length: 28:06

Starting us off, we take a bit of a journey back to the past to get an achievement I missed while recording; roasting a squirrel and a bird in the same area and eating both. They give decent healing but since it's in the real world it's ultimately not that important beyond the little blip on my account that says I did it. Huzzah and such.

Continuing on with Milla's Dance Party, we really start getting into the mechanics of the float and how you can chain into it using Levitate's jump. Of course they never actually explain the part where if you hold Jump while Floating, you will automatically be put on your levitate orb. Which is kind of a vital part of this mechanic to make it flow properly in my opinion? It still comes off as good, I think, though the controls still kinda confuse me here and you'll see me mess up a lot of jumps because of it. I'll always admit when it's user error and this time, it's definitely all on me. That said some of the platforming is a little bleh, especially in the room with the big wall thing. Over all though, this first chunk of Milla's stage is quite fun!

Then we get to the second third of her stage, THE RACE. This is...a frustrating but not overly hard challenge that we have to win to progress. The two cheerleaders are useless so you can ignore them, Bobby is the only person who will actually fight you for the lead. And fight you he WILL, he's aggressively rubber banded (a term that means he's basically connected to us speed wise, if you aren't clear on that) and as a result will almost always overtake you at certain points just as a matter of course. He's still BEATABLE mind you, but if it's say your first time playing and you're on the keyboard and mouse controls which suck you might spend a good deal of time here. Like me. And if you're trying to get 100% clear, also like me, you'll notice that this area is IN FACT HUGE, and has around NINETY FOUR Figments to collect. Figments that blend in with the background because of the colour of the party, and have bad draw distance, and are near opaque as heck in the first place. It's really really bad!!

After that we have the final little platforming challenge, which is focused more around the floating part of our new powers. Not overly difficult, though this area has Figments that bleed into the background and hide from sight which is always awful. That aside it's a fun little float up to Milla to get our merit badge, giving us the ability to levitate wherever we want. Hooray! Now we can collect basically everything in every level we've been too plus the hub world. And I decide not to do that until later because I am in fact an idiot. But more on that in a couple videos from now.

But before we actually go finish up the Brain Tumbler, there ARE things we can do now that we've finished Milla's Dance Party. For one, we've got enough ranks to get our next psychic power, Telekinesis! It's...about as useful as Pyrokinesis. Maybe a little less. I do find uses for it, and it has mooore uses than I gave it credit for in the actual video, but it's really not that useful when you can hit things with your psychic hands. Also none of the scenarios the training present ever really show up in game, but then that's always been a thing with this game (and often teaching entirely!). Then it's time for cheevo hunting, the first of which is given to us by Vernon telling a story that actually ends. It's not that bad a story. After that we run around for five hours trying to find the one cutscene in the game that doesn't trigger when you get within a county mile of it, and it's a cutscene in which we see Bobby hitting on my favorite side character so that's a nice reward. Plus the achievement at least. And with that (plus a ton of stuff collected incidentally) we're done for today. Hope you all enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time!

------

So, lets psychoanalyze Milla a bit. Her world is bubbly and groovy, and like with the other two camp counseler's is actually a construct made by them intentionally to teach the kids stuff. That aside, there's still a lot of stuff to take from it. Her Figments are all cute fun things, dancing and such, and also the occasional thing that I'm pretty sure is a hookah or equivalent. A strange thing to think about, I feel, given her history, but I can understand it. Milla's mental world is also the first one to have constructs in it that aren't just Censors or Repressed Rage. The Dancers are interesting to me in that sense since they serve no purpose but to have fun and dance...unless you look at the memory of Milla's orphan children being set on fire. They look similar, so these constructs could be Milla's attempts at giving them a "happy future" at least mentally. It'll never happen, of course, and she knows that (the mental damage that event caused her is so severe she can't remove it from her mental obstacle course) but she still thinks about it, to cheer herself up and give some dancing friends for the children who's training in her head. It's cute.

Also cute is the second memory vault we get from her, showing her time actually being a badass. We see just how powerful "the strongest levitator" is, and just how strong just being able to fly is, and we get a cute little tease at what could be between her and Sasha. I don't imagine that'll ever be reciprocated on his part, for reasons we'll get into later, but it's an interesting look into her life. Milla is okay, even with her trauma.

[DataNinja]

Yeah, all that platforming looks really finicky. Especially when moving at such high speeds, I couldn't even see the drop shadow.

Yeah, I can definitely see that the story is the highlight of this game. Especially the memories.

Man... that's a lot of figments for that race. And I imagine you get kicked out of the course, too, should Bobby win.

[Coidzor]

Oh, Bobby Zilch, his only talents are rubber-banding during racing and somehow having no one realize he's a zombie stumbling around without a jaw.

That reminds me, though, the more I look at Chloe, the more I wonder if perhaps she wears that helmet to reduce her resemblance to the cheerleader girl.

I must admit, I never noticed any similarities between Milla's dancers and Milla's orphans before.

Also, I actually appreciate how dark this game is willing to be.

It isn't afraid to show the full ramifications of what would happen if a small child developed incredible psychic powers but didn't know how to use them, like Dogen who has to wear a special hat to not explode people, or the little girl who tends to set things on fire by accident.

It also isn't afraid to fully explore peoples' inner demons, like with Milla's secret nook or Sasha's crazy repressed brain.

But it also shows that those things don't control us. Milla is still a nice lady even despite having this crazy nightmarish stuff lurking in her head, for example. (At least she seems like it so far.)

I would say if anything it probably motivated her to master her powers and use them to prevent further tragedies from happening, since she seemed to already have been a good person before the horrible orphanarium fire.

[smuchmuch]

Actualy damage floors will be making an apperance later in game as will censors with hats at least once.

And telekinesis actualy has some use againt a couple of enemies, but it's very situational, even more than pyrokinesis.

Man... that's a lot of figments for that race. And I imagine you get kicked out of the course, too, should Bobby win.

You start again from the top till you win, if memory serves. And when/if you come back on the level later, you don't have to race anyone anymore which makes the fragments collection easier. (still annoying as hell tho for all the afformentioned reasons, but easier)

That said these fragments are petty worthless being worth very little points each. You can easily get up to rank 95 (the last useful rank in the game out of a 100 ( up to 101 technicaly)) without bothering to clean them all.

[Knight9910]

Oh, yay. Blue figments over a blue background, and green figments on green background. Whoo.

I would say if anything it probably motivated her to master her powers and use them to prevent further tragedies from happening, since she seemed to already have been a good person before the horrible orphanarium fire.

Yeah, probably.

[LaZodiac]

Yo hows about some Psychonuts?

Zodi Plays: Psychonauts [8] Taste My Eggs

Video Length: 17:20

Video's a little short today due to the inevitability of me editing the footage. This was like 35 minutes otherwise and there just wasn't any footage left to make it long enough to fit my standards. With that being said, lets begin! In this episode, I decide to take a brief moment out to scrounge up the arrowheads needed to get the Cobweb Duster. While doing our hunting we find some cards and scavenger hunt items, meaning it's not all a TOTAL waste of time. We also find one of the...most odd scenes in this game, of Clem and Crystasl on the lodge roof discussing...SOMETHING. I have no idea what this all means (I do actually but even knowing it, this doesn't really make all that much sense) and it's honestly kind of unsettling. And for some reason this ISN'T an achievement, whereas watching Bobby be a stupid person is. Ah well.

After that, it's off to the Brain Tumbler for further exploration of our weird dream state. Though first Sasha tells us what is wrong with the experiment, the cheap Brain Tumbler he bought is picking up another powerful entities thoughts, mixing Raz and their thoughts together to create that weird jungle pastiche. Dun dun duuun, and such. This was pretty obviously telegraphed in advance, I think? It doesn't explain all the meat though, especially in other peoples dreams (and by that we mean, exactly one meat flower in Oleander's head and no one else that we see, though Lili talks about it). Still though, science must be done! We climb the nightmare tower and witness the dream Dogen getting his brain removed, and see that Lili is next!...in our dream, which has no reason to be an accurate representation of what we're seeing, even if it is getting crosstalk from someone else's brain. Anyway, Raz decides chasing the brain will be a good idea since it'll show him what they intend to do with the brains (I...guess this is accurate?). We dive down a chute, and make our way into the enemy mind...

And it is here that we get our next boss fight, as Dogen's dream brain is attached to the blueprints of a super powerful Think Tank, which is outfitted with all manner of dangerous psychic weapon capabilities! Now, from a pure aesthetic point of view, I do LOVE this boss fight. The area and the tank's design are all really cool, having a vaguely CG look due to them literally being living blueprints. This is a good use of the "this is a mental world" idea, and one that I wish they did more of. On the otherhand...this boss sucks. It's tedious and there's no actual clear way to bait the boss into doing the thing you need so you can hurt it. It's all basically just one huge waiting game, and that's never a good thing when it comes to video game bosses. And what's worse is once this is all said and done, it has a second phase! The second phase isn't as tricky as the first, but does have some degree of waiting attached to it since it hops around so much. Overall, this game does NOT do boss fights very well, and this is a stellar example of that in action. Eventually, we destroy the dream tank, finding ourselves in the brain that held those blueprints...Coach Oleander's. Dun dun duuun. Unfortunately, before we can tell Sasha, he runs off on official psychonauts business.

And with that, we're done for today. I hope you all enjoyed this climactic episode of the game, we're officially half way done it now if you're curious. With that in mind, next time is gonna be a little different. Next time...we're gonna go brain spelunking and clear out Oleander, Sasha, Milla, and the Tumbler's worlds for all their collectable goodies! Hope to see you there.

------

With the Brain Tumbler finished, I can finally talk about it a bit more indepthly. It is, as said, a combination of Raz and Oleander's minds. That's likely why we saw the bunny (there's bunnies wandering around the snow area of Oleander's) and that's why we're seeing all the meat everywhere, according to Cruller at least. The forest area itself is an interesting little pastiche of the woods around the camp, a jumble of fears, with some of the plant life taking up a mind of it's own, or actually ending up being bones and meat like the Figments we saw. We also get to see some hints of what Oleander's plan is, and we actually got to see that a lot earlier with the episode namer, the memory where we saw that weird bird hatching and riding over the water and then getting into a fun place where it went on a tea cup ride and destroyed everything in sight with brain blasts because oop surprise, it was a brain the whole time and this was Oleander's plan, hidden away in this little crevice of his mind and abstracted by Oleander! It's pretty cool! It also explains why we have to fight Censors in that area, they're likely coming in from Oleander's mind.

What this doesn't explain is WHY this is happening, or why the depiction of the nightmare tower and the weird dentist man are accurate portrayals of what is happening, but I guess Oleander is just really details oriented? Who knows, I'm not actually a brain doctor I'm just playing as psychoanalyzing these guys.

[DataNinja]

...well, uh, strange stuff on the rooftop. That poison stuff seems a lot more ominous now. (Not that it wasn't before, but something happening once could be a joke. Twice... less so.)

...those blasted poachers. That you certainly don't know any of.

How many cards are there?

The aesthetics of this fight, I really like them.

I guess the reason for the 2nd phase is, well, just before it started I was literally about to comment on the fact that I was surprised that levitation wasn't involved at all, given that you just learned that. It's just... poorly implemented.