Psychonauts done. I have mixed feelings about this game because a lot of people have given it so much praise, but I'm coming to it about eighteen years late and I don't feel the same awe as people back in 2005 probably experienced. That being said, I think it stood the testament of time because I still was impressed.

Let's get some of the complaints out of the way first. The PS2 was an interesting time in gaming because a lot of them were delving into 3D, oftentimes not really understanding how to handle a camera. Psychonauts isn't great in terms of platforming, which is unfortunate considering the game relies heavily on it. Is it the worst in the world? No, I've experienced far worse (the first Tomb Raider comes to mind), but after living in the PS5 era, I know we can do much better. Playing this game pulled me back into high school and feeling frustration at doing the same jump about seventy times, something I haven't experienced in years.

Other than that, it's a fun game with an interesting concept. You're Raz, a kid with psychic abilities who snuck into a psychic sleepaway camp and uncovered a plot to take over the world by harvesting psychic brains to power tanks. To save everyone, you need to enter people's minds and discover their mindset, their beliefs, their past, their insecurities, their fears... Whoever designed the levels definitely has a special imagination that I cannot comprehend. For example, there is a man who was in his high school wrestling team, and his girlfriend dumped him on the day of an important match to date someone else and he lost. Seemingly random things in his mind, like a bull running around or dogs painting or the queen of hearts, come together in the end (his team name was "the Bulls" and he's working on his own version of the famous painting of dogs playing poker. I would say the earlier levels aren't as interesting, mostly because you're exploring the minds of your teachers who are more ordered and have already faced their demons, but once you enter the "civilian" population, the levels really blossom. The mind of a man with paranoia is a suburb with cameras everywhere. Or the one of a former actress is a play about her failures. Even ones that aren't intellectually stimulating are still fun. One teacher is a dance club where you race on giant balls. Or you're a kaiju monster in another. Psychonauts definitely has great variety that keeps you guessing.

Beyond that, it has a memorable and fun cast of characters. As Raz meets and becomes friends with his fellow campgoers, each of them have their own little plotlines. At the time, the voice acting must've been incredible. Even for a modern-day audience, much of the converasations from NPCs go on waaaaay longer and are more engaging than expected. I found myself laughing aloud more than once.

There are some unanswered questions though, like why Raz has this terrible impression of his father yet he turned out to be the opposite of that. Or what was up with this drowning curse. And the game does end on a cliffhanger, but probably Double Fine didn't expect to take sixteen years to make a sequel. As a studio, I think Double Fine is able to come up with very unique and fun ideas but aren't able to keep it interesting throughout; Stacking got a little boring after a while, and I didn't feel like replaying The Cave to get everything, but Psychonauts not only kept a consistent level of quality, it improved over time.

Diablo IV done. In July I sat down for about nine hours straight playing it and got severe carpal tunnel that lasted for months, which in retrospect is nuts because I injured myself for a game that's only... OK.

I think the issue with Diablo is it should have ended after II. Any extensions to the plot feel forced. Let's step back to III for a bit. I actually would get angry playing the game because of all the retconning happening, which Blizzard did to justify moving this forward. However it ended (particularly with the expansion pack) with the revelation the player is a Nephalem and a heavy hint that from now on the Nephalem would be wrenching humanity's fate back from angels and demons, setting up the next game. Which is crazy because I don't think the word "Nephalem" was mentioned a single time in IV. Although I could see connections between III and its predecessors, no matter how much I disliked the story, IV feels more detached. Cain's dead, and Diablo himself appears I think for maybe half a second in a cutscene. Of course Tristram was shoveled in needlessly, but it feels like we're doing that by rote at this point.

It terms of plot itself it's... it's fine. There's nothing terrible about it, I think it was better than III actually just because it didn't upset me. Lilith is all right as a villain, although I think for a "mother" she's very eager to kill her children, but I guess for her ultimate survival is more important. Starting from II, each act in a Diablo game is in a different area, and IV is no different except you can walk to any location from the beginning of the game (although you may be underleveled) and there are six areas, therefore six acts. Normally each of these is fleshed out, but toward the end I think they were rushing it. I actually timed myself, I beat act IV in a 1.25 hours. I didn't even go to the major town there because the plot didn't direct me toward it. At some point I'm like why did you even make this a separate thing?

The only major criticism I have of the game though is why I was rushing: You max out your level way too early on. Kind of. So you level up normally and unlock abilities all the way to 50. Once you hit 50, it stops and you can just add stats. That's fine, but all the enemies cap at 50. You can increase the difficulty to hard... but to go above that, you gotta beat the game. And I hit 50 toward the end of act II. Meaning I had trudge through four more of these without facing much opposition. And it's not like I was grinding; I just did all the sidequests and extra dungeons I found along the way. I don't see the point of preventing me to have a greater challenge should I wish. Overall I did find IV to be much easier than III, even when I wasn't overpowered. Like remember those enemies that would drop rotating arcane beams on the floor and you had to retreat so you wouldn't die? Yeah, that's not an issue anymore.

In terms of gameplay it's... again, OK. It's Diablo, we all know what it's about by this point. They changed up the abilities a bit in that you can put whatever one you want on any key, including the base attack on say... 1 or 2 instead of on the mouse. It allows for greater flexibility for fighting style and experimentation. But I think III was more fun. Take for example the witch doctor. You could make your base attack a jar of spiders. That was hilarious and enjoyable. I'm not feeling the same in this game.

Also with the environment. III had some pretty crazy areas. Like remember Cydaea? As you went down her web, there were all these giants in bondage gear in the back. Or finally going up to heaven and it had this weird, glass-like quality? IV is just miserable. Here's Russia where everyone is starving and cold. Next is Scotland where everything is muddy and wet. And then there's the desert, again, and after following Zultan Tulle so much in III I'm tired of that. Nothing really stroked my interest until we got to hell, and even then it was... aight. I mean, we've gone to hell in pretty much each game so you need to create something that's really gonna wow me at this point.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older or perhaps because the world feels awful now, but there's something about the helplessness you see in Diablo games that are getting to me. There's no happiness even after you help people; you try to find a cure for someone but it turns out it's too late and they transform into a monster you have to kill. You help a child find their parents' grave, and their ghosts come and attack you, blaming the child for "leaving them alone." A man is looking for his son, and upon finding him, he's transformed into a demon, rejecting his father's love and cursing him. It gets to the point that you wonder how humanity has survived. Like for example, how does trade even exist with all these giant scorpions, murderous trees, bandits, werewolves, and fourteen-foot snakes are running around. You see countless bodies rotting on the ground wherever you go. Like back in Diablo I, yeah shit was terrible, but you get the sense that wasn't the norm and what was happening under the church is an unusual situation. Now in IV it feels like this happens all the time and there's no hope left. You come out of it feeling worse than before.

In the end, if you like Diablo, sure, play it. There's nothing offensive about it, but it doesn't particularly shine in any aspect. I wanted to do the post-game stuff, but my carpal tunnel started flaring up whenever I did, so whatever. I'll move onto Final Fantasy XVI now.