Around 24 hours into Psychonauts꧃ 2, I ran into a problem. After making my way through all of the game’s twisted brain levels, collecting every little scavenger hunt doodah - no thanks to you, Astronaut Ice Cream - and talking to every character to drain the last bit of Tim Schafer dialogue out of them, I was still one collectible away from completion.
No worries, I thought. I’ll be fine. What is it anyway, a piece of emotional baggage? A PSI challenge marker maybe? Oh, a figment. Well, that’s going to be a pain, but at least it’s probably in a more linear level like Compton’s Cookof⛎f, or Hollis’ Hot Streak. As long as it&🐭rsquo;s not Bob’s Bottles. Right, let’s check what level it’s on... Oh. Balls.
If you’ve played Psychonauts then no doubt the word ‘figments&rs▨quo; sends a chill down your spine and quite possibly drives you to tears. These opaque collectibles are supposed to litter the environment and tell a story, but there🙈’s so many of them that it’s hard to keep track without literally writing every single one down - a big ask when some stages have more than 200 figments. They can be big, small, blend into the background, come in a variety of different colours, and unless you get lucky, you’ll never know which one you’re missing.
Figments can be tracked in a notebook, which sounds helpful, but it’ll only tell you the figment you’re missing if you’re lucky enough to have grabbed another of its type in the level. If that figment you&rsquo🌟;re missing is one of a kind, you’re given no clue. I love you, Psychonauts 2, but why do you want to hurt me s꧙o?
Admittedly, in this case I was lucky. I knew before my search began that the figmen♛t I was missing was a banana - a far cry from the many times I was forced to search for one missing unique figment in other levels. It beඣing a banana didn’t give me much to go on - the whole level is themed around a gardener after all - but my pride wouldn’t let me stop short of 100 percent. I had to find this banana.
Off I went, sailing around the level’s open sea💞s on a Psychonauts door, stoppin🎃g to check every single island, and generally giving more of a shit about healthy eating here than I ever would in real life. Bob’s Bottles features multiple tropical islands, so I figured a banana could be on a tree, or possibly in a crate somewhere. Genius, me.
After about four hours of going through this level head-to-toe, I was pretty convinced that the game was lying to me. I had, in fact, found every banana I must have. No one else in the history of banana finding had ever found as many bananas as me. Why would yo𓄧u lie to me, Psychonauts 2? I trusted you.
Delirium soon set in. I felt like I’d been adrift at sea for years, desperately hunting my white whale, which was actually a yellow banana. I lazily kept pushing my door boat around until a small yellow glimmer caught my eye. My detective senses had not failed me. The final banana was, as I had always suspected, in a tree. It sat there, glimmering and winking at 💜me, waiting for me to end my fabled quest. I lept off the boat and thre♎w myself into it to finally close the door on bananas, Psychonauts, and awful collectibles.
You might think I’m a bit of an idiot. You’d be right, but that’s besides the point. This elusivꩵe banana was harder to find than you might expect - in fact, it has been under your noses the entire time. I challenge you to look at the featured image and beat me, master banana finder, at my own game. Can you even see the bloody banana there? It’s a dull yellow against a yellow sky! Thanks, Psychonauts 2, I’ll never look at fruit the same way again.
