If you look carefully "I was tryign to help" when Compton snuck into the "pet store" you can see some tools like a scalpel, which suggested that it was a place where animal test were conducted, which explains why he tried to save them in the first place.

I love how the structure of Bob's Bottles reinforces the idea that substance abuse rarely emerges in a vacuum - at the bottom of each bottle is some kind of hurt

59:05 The beautiful part in this part is when the potato Helmut says "I never cared for [Bob] anyway", and that's the thing that snaps Bob out of his self-loathing. "Helmut, would NEVER say that!", even with the guilt he feels, it ironically reminds him just how much they would still care about each other despite everything.

One of my favorite parts of Psychonaughts 2 is talking to the Hollis after the game is over. As much as it was Raz's fault for messing with her head, she was the adult in the room and their teacher. She takes responsibility for what happened in her mind because she should've been more attentive to her students. Teaching children the ability she used to destroy someone's mind then leaving them alone in her mind... While Raz should've known better so should've Hollis and she acknowledges that.

the truly horrifying thing is remembering raz is only TEN. he’s a ten year old, dealing with the first, second, and third, back to back. he deals with the meat circus and then the next day sees loboto was lobotomized, and then after THAT all his family drama comes undone and he’s forced to be the only one with the power to right everything.

raz is constantly held to the expectations that adults would face. it’s obvious the psychonauts is traumatic work, and they let this kid dive in. i cried after beating psy2 because i know what it’s like to be expected to be older than you are, and i saw too much of it in raz.

anyway psychonauts 3 should be Raz Goes To Therapy

I know this video's mostly about psychonaughts 2, but Loboto's backstory from rhombus of ruin always manages to destroy me whenever I think about it. The language his parents use, it's just so terrible, especially in that opening sequence of the memory vault. His father asking why he isn't leaving for his 'procedure' yet and his mother simply replying with "just keep waving, the little monster will give up eventually".

Loboto was a child. A scared, confused little boy who likely didn't even understand why his parents were sending him away like this. He was probably begging them to keep him, to not let the scary doctors take him away to their scary hospital and do their scary things to him. Crying as he promised to not bend the spoons again, that he'd be good for them, that he'd become an architect or a lawyer like they wanted for him to be before he was even old enough to talk.

And all they can do is call him a monster. Send him away to have his brain mutilated, not even caring if he survived the procedure or not. It wasn't any skin off their backs, they'd be free of their devil child either way. It's such a shame that rhombus of ruin isn't more widely accessible because it means that so many people miss out on Loboto's backstory, and thus a truly fascinating layer to his character.

Super subtle detial but

The Lucktopus sharing Hollis' hair meas that one of her eyes is blocked. Which eye? The one reading 'Risk.'

She has all her eyes on the Money, but has taken a blind eye to Risk.

I hope they do a psychonauts 3

The most heartbreaking thing to me is how it’s so clear helmut has such a love for life and all the things it has to offer, and he’s the one who was robbed of it, the most colorful man forced to live in grey

One scary thing to think about in its implication? Nick Johnsmith/Gristol Malik is very specifically NOT psychic. He has no special mental abilities, no actual powers of the mind or the like. Everything he does to the mind of Loboto, everything he does to his OWN mind, it's all done with far cruder methods.

This is a man who infiltrated an organization that casually looks into each others minds, we see that in the Motherlobe constantly. And yet, no one suspected him, no one looked in and saw a stray thought, a missing thread, a hint of ill intent or resentment. They looked in him, and that saw...Nick Johnsmith.

And they LOVED him. This man was beloved by the organization he works for. EVERYONE, even 3 members of the Psychic 6, speak of him in glowing terms. Even LILY is pretty much of the opinion he's a good, if dull, guy. Only Zonatto suspected something, and perhaps that was only due to the planning phase of Gristol's grand scheme.

Use Oleander to distract the two top agents of the Psychonauts. A few missing shipments, a blueprint from Otto Mentalis' own hand(after all who ELSE could design such a formidable machine?). The children under threat, an investigation launched, his distraction keeping them at bay with his single tank, while his agent escapes, with Gristol bringing him the Head of the Psychonauts, ready for a bit of 'surgery'.

He is then in the perfect position. Ford Cruller(and whichever kids survives he supposes) brought to the Motherlobe. Then, with the power of the Head of the Psychonauts, he orders the other Psychic 6 members to reassemble Ford's mind. With that mind beautifully remade, he can find out where Maligula, where the greatest weapon of all time, is hidden.

And then that BOY spoils it all! He undoes his agent's work, forcing him to flee early, pushing the timetable up. Worse he actually manages to FIX his distraction, turning him into, if not an asset for the Psychonauts, at least no longer a hinderance. And then he has the sheer gall to RESCUE 'Truman', before he had time to plan out anything else.

Now Gristol has to keep the brain he's replacing close at hand, just in case he needs a bargaining chip. It all seems to be falling apart. And yet...from the ashes, a new plan rises? This pathetic boy is the protégé of Ford Cruller. Have HIM bring the fool back, and get HIM to fix that broken mind for him.

Then? Why then the universe serves him up his future on a silver platter! Maligula, he doesn't even have to search for her. The boy brought her right to him! Surely this is a sign, a reward for all the suffering he endured in that awful exile, and for all his months working that mailroom job.

And it almost worked too. If only he'd not been blind to the fact that Maligula was not HIS weapon. She was her own, and she was now going to make him pay for bringing her back. A man with drive, ambition, and a mentality that saw no one else as worthy of even being in his presence, let alone thinking about.

This is the story of Gritsol Malik, and how he almost took over the world.

1:00:10 Something I wanna point out is what helps snaps bob out of this spiral is when the helmet plant says something along the lines of "i abandoned you and never loved you", a fact bob knows for sure isn't true. I feel like this does a great job of showing how our mind can twist facts in order to "protect" us, but when we start to look into the details we see they're just phoney lies to make us feel bad.

Bob does not just drinks beer - he drinks mushroom liquor_. Helmuth _hates mushrooms. Bob drinks mushroom booze to further punish himself for percieved guilt for Helmuth's death. And realization that Helmuth would never harm him is what causes Bob to stand up and fight.

And as someone whose father was an alcoholic, that level hit a bit too close to home.

The easter egg in Hollis' mind is hilarious. You take a "pen", and throw it at the "ward", and then you get a bizarre animatic drawn and voiced by Pendleton "Pen" Ward, creator of Adventure Time. Fans of Adventure Time might watch that animatic and be like "Ohhhh.... Yeah that's makes sense." Not that the clip itself makes sense, just that it makes sense that it comes from the mind of Pendleton Ward lol

Compton's mind is definitely the most layered of all.  There's the explicit themes of anxiety of judgement, but that judgment comes from a supposedly hypocritical point of view.  Someone who can talk to animals is gonna be very messed up when animals are used for food, which is why all the food talks too.  But Boole sees other people not being picky about what they eat and compares them to goats.  Who are they to judge him when they don't care what they eat?  The boss fight also heavily implies that you're fighting a related eating disorder on top of this, which is a realistic part of empathetic vegetarianism, which he no doubt has, from talking to animals.  It all ties together in a way that's never explained but definitely intended.  Things going unspoken but still being understood is in character for a person who can talk to animals.

The best part of Compton's level, aside from making you hungry, is that the time limit does nothing.  That's a good change of pace for someone like me who also hates time limits.  If you run out of time, nothing bad happens.  I thought that was an excellent unspoken way to depict the defeat of anxiety.


Oh, and Sam was my favorite intern by a mile.  She was Oleander's favorite too.

I think I like the intern “side plot” in a way. I started the game hating them for the same reason as you, and I didn’t really turn around on them fully, but in a way I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I find it’s normal to have some antagonistic forces amongst your peers, and it’s sometimes about getting them to see the error of their ways, and other times it’s about showing how you’re going to be the mature and “bigger” person to thrive despite them. This whole game is about maturing, understanding that minds are fragile and not play-things, and ultimately separating yourself from the side of you that craves power and even revenge.

Something i want to note about Loboto's back story is something addressed at the end of Psychonaughts 1 and that the mental worlds are from one person's perspective and can be unreliable narrators concerning reality. It's even outright stated in Black Velvetopia. What we can trust is how Loboto felt and how he understood it as a child. Granted, lobotomizing your own child is a big deal, we don't have an actual account of the parents' end of things. Its entirely possible that there was a 3rd party goading them into it, convincing them it was good for their child, like how some scared desperate people get exploited in buying snake oil. Or it's really as simple as how Loboto remembers it. We just don't know beyond how it affected him.

Also will say? The main interns who actually become cool with Raz is actually Adam, Gisu and Lizzie. Sam is kinda… questionable, Morris is focused on his radio and Norma is Norma.

Adam, Lizzie and Gisu actually do treat Raz like a friend after Lucktapus. Heck Adam even says he’ll help if the others caused grief

I became re-obsessed with the world of Psychonauts after beating 2. Watched all of Psychodyssey and loved it. I don't think there's a world out there that's more uniquely cared for than the one found in this series. Psychonauts 2 is my favorite story ever told.

I, for one, view Norma as a side villain in this game. I firmly believe that she was the one to convince the other interns to do so. She also snitches on Raz to Truman when she thinks Raz is the mole, which also inadvertently causes Maligula's return.
Also, she only apologizes one time. She apologizes for thinking Raz was the mole during the Maligula fight.
As for the other interns, they are usually nicer to Raz.
Adam doesn't really do much in the story.
Morris is happy to include Raz's baby sibling Queepie in his radio show.
Gisu helps Raz's elder brother with getting over his hatred for psychics, as he's the nastiest member of the circus family.
Lizzie, in her own way, warns Raz about the Thorny Witch.
And Sam is just nice to Raz all the time, despite her being mean to the animals. Leads to some funny moments such as when Raz mentions Dogen and her remarking that his head is surprisingly not exploded, dedpite being Dogen's friend.
I do wonder if Sam didn't get the psychic explosion attack because of her being a girl? Maybe, in the Boole family, the brain explosion powers only afflicts the males?

The wall in lucys mind is made of emotional baggage