RISE, my minions, RISE from your GRAVES! Shameless thread necromancy, in other words.
So... Psychonauts. Some nice ideas, some nice elements, mostly well done... but what's up with the ending? SPOILERS ahead, so if you haven't played the game go somewhere else. Like to buy it from Steam, where you can get it for 10$. It's well worth that even if some parts (the ending) are very annoying.
So, I'd like to say what others probably have said. WHY, Meat Circus? Why did it have to be like that?
The first thing the game did wrong about its endings was the fact that it informed me about reaching the POINT OF NO RETURN, the point after which you're mostly stuck with what you have with you, are unable to collect more lost brains or get goodies from the store etc. Well, not quite the fact that it informed me about reaching this point, but about informing that I had just GONE PAST IT. That's right, sucker, shoulda read the walkthrough first!
Well, the rats were also stupid. What's up with those? One rat explosion == 4 points of damage. You can hear them coming, but since you don't know where, you can't get ready for them. Even if you do get ready for them, they might be coming from two different directions, making it nearly impossible to shoot both groups in time. And then the rats come in large groups and waves, and in some parts appear almost next to you... Yeah, thanks for not giving me enough time to switch to pyrokinesis power or to use it. And once they hit you, you're confused and the rest of the group will hit you.
There's also the majorly annoying platformer sequence. Not only is it annoying, but in the end, you'll see a rare collectible to your right, and when you go after it you're dropped right down to the bottom. It would be much, MUCH less annoying if you lost a life from that. Instead, you'll have to waste your TIME. I gave up on that point, I thought I'd try more of that later, except that I then reached the POINT OF NO RETURN. Yeah, thanks for that...
Well, any way, I'm currently stuck at Meat Circus, where I have to get hold a goal in place so slow escortee can reach it, and then go through a platforming sequence to reach the escortee before he bites the dust in the next place. I have to repeat this at least twice. With annoying time limits. And even more annoyingly, every time you fail at any part, you'll go back to the beginning. Part-1, Part-2, fail, part-1, part-2, fail, part-1, part-2, fail, frustration. "Artificial difficulty" anyone? Oh, and it seems like I only start every new repeat with a set number of health, less than 1/5th of my current maximum.
I understand it gets WORSE than this.
The games WAS fun. This isn't. Usually at grinding parts I try it until I get bored; here, I try it until I get majorly frustrated. Bot did they get this ending wrong...