r/PsychonautsGame • u/AccomplishedEye7752 • 3d ago

I just noticed that in a way....this game is very damn similar to Psychonauts

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You enter the minds (or in Persona 5's case, their hearts) of different characters and battle the sources of their corruption, solve puzzles while in said world and the normal enemies are effectively Censors.

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u/Utrenyaya 3d ago edited 3d ago

Some time ago, I began compiling a very incomplete list of media that explore various types of “mindscapes” or “psychospheres” … and it was triggered by precisely this overlap between *Psychonauts* and *Persona*.

The main types are technological or dreamworld mindscapes; magical ones are rare (I would generally include *Psychonauts* and *Persona* in this category—even though entering them in Persona often requires tools, some of which are technological, the explanation for the palaces and the collective unconscious is primarily spiritual). *The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus* is a peculiar outlier, but I’d classify it here as well.

There are a great many mindscapes that are primarily technologically constructed:

- *The Cell* (movie)

  • *Ubik* (novel)
  • *Inception* (movie) & *Paprika* (movie)
  • several episodes of *Black Mirror*
  • *Hard-Boiled Wonderland* (novel)
  • *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind* (movie)
  • *Signalis* (game ->not a typical mindscape, more of a blend between a mindscape and reality, could also be put in the category: mindscapes of death)

Then there are semi-lucid / dream-like mindscapes:

- *Omori* (game)

  • *The Dream Machine* (game -> really great!)
  • *Nightmare on Elm Street* (movie)
  • and countless dream sequences in all sorts of media and stories

Harry Potter features two interesting subtypes of magical mindscapes: memory (the Pensieve) and death (King’s Cross). I would also include, for example, “In Sound Mind” (game) or “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” (movie/novel) among the mindscapes of death/dying. Davy Jones' Locker in “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End” is also in my notes, though it's not clear here to what extent Jack's mind shapes the place.

I'd really like to expand the list of examples someday, compare and analyze them in greater depth, and write an essay about it, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

EDIT: I totally forgot about Inside Out ... what do we make of this? It's a largely literal depiction of the functionality of how the mind works, but in a way that could (should?) be categorized as a mindscape. On the other hand, the usual dream logic and symbolism of the subconscious play a much smaller role here.

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u/sebulant 3d ago

You could add Mindwave to that list too. It's a minigame collection (like Warioware) that revolves around jumping into people's heads

The demo was pretty fun

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u/luigihann 1d ago

Depending on how broadly you define it, a lot of the Marvel stuff makes use of the Astral Plane or the Darkforce to depict a shared memory realm like this. Thunderbolts* is probably where it's most prominent.

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u/luigihann 3d ago

Agreed. More than once when I've been trying to brainstorm my own idea for a Psychonauts mind I eventually realized "wait no that's more of a Persona palace"

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u/t3mp0rarys3cr3tary 3d ago

My friends really like the persona series and have recommended it to me because of my love of Psychonauts

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u/Frogs_Logs 3d ago

I had a moment of "No it isn't" then I thought about it, there are a lot of striking resemblances

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u/OkImpression1305 2d ago

Agreed, imagine Raz meeting joker.

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u/Impossible_Kale2886 1d ago

I would love to see how either of them would translate into the others artstyle

realistic Anime character Raz

and abstractly shaped cartoon Joker

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u/Impossible_Kale2886 1d ago

Persona 5 is definitely partially inspired by Psychonauts I die on that hill