9 Psychonauts 2 tips to help you on your mental journey

Having some Psychonauts 2 tips to hand will give you a head-start on Raz's journey to becoming a top-level Psychonauts intern, as you delve deep into various kinds of minds. While you are gradually introduced to various key features, such as the special PSI Powers, upgrades, items, modifications, and collectibles, there's still a lot to take in and things can get somewhat confusing.

You may be wondering which PSI-Pins and Powers are best, how you can get the most Psitanium to buy upgrades and items, or any number of other burning questions. Armed with these nine basic tips, you should find answers and get off to a great start in Psychonauts 2.

Looking for help with the Psychonauts 2 Hollis Classroom Mental Connection puzzle? We have a guide for that too!

1. Destroy everything to get Psitanium in Psychonauts 2

The first of our Psychonauts 2 tips is to break every object you can when you’re out exploring minds and the hub locations of the game. When things get broken, they have a chance to spawn some Psychonauts 2 Psitanium for you, which is incredibly handy to have. It’s the main currency in Psychonauts 2, and it’s mainly used at Otto-matic shops to buy health items, storage upgrades, and Pins that modify your PSI Powers.

In Psychonauts 2, destructible objects tend to be small, loose items, but everything is worth a cursory punch to see if it can be destroyed. Raz’s melee combo and ground-pound attacks are great for destroying objects, but his Pyrokinesis PSI Power is great for getting multiple objects in one go. For a nice bonus Psychonauts 2 basic tip, the sphere of fire will also highlight breakable objects with a yellow outline, so you can run around an area while charging up Pyrokinesis to see what needs breaking.

2. Get the Psychonauts 2 Psitanium wallet upgrade first

On the subject of Psitanium, another Psychonauts 2 tip is to prioritize buying the wallet upgrades. At the start of Psychonauts 2, Raz can only carry 100 Psitanium, which is just enough to buy some of the most basic upgrades and items.

Once you reach the Motherlobe hub area, you’ll be able to use Otto-matic shops and can spend your Psitanium. The first thing you should get is the Psifold Wallet upgrade for 75 Psitanium, as this will increase your maximum capacity to 1,000 Psitanium, which will allow you to get a couple of the more expensive Psychonauts 2 Pins and upgrades, such as Mental Magnet. Later, you’ll be able to afford the Astral Wallet upgrade for 750 Psitanium, which increases your maximum capacity even further to 5,000.

3. The Mental Magnet Pin is very useful in Psychonauts 2

Mental Magnet is one of the best Pins in Psychonauts 2 and you should buy and equip it as early as possible. This Pin allows Raz to collect Psitanium from further away, making gathering it up far easier. It’ll also mean you’re less likely to miss Psitanium as it normally requires Raz to walk right on top of it to be collected. While this Pin is most useful for gathering up Psitanium more easily, it also applies to the green health orbs that glowing objects and enemies sometimes drop when they die, which might save your skin in combat. You can get Mental Magnet at an Otto-matic shop for 200 Psitanium once you’ve reached Intern Rank 8.

4. Don’t waste loads of Psitanium on healing items

The combat in Psychonauts 2 is great and full of variety, but it’s also generally quite forgiving. A tip for when you’re getting started with the game is to not spend all your Psitanium on health items to help you in combat. Since Raz starts out with a maximum Psitanium capacity of 100, that’s enough to buy four PSI Pops, which restore a chunk of Raz’s Mental Energy, or one Dream Fluff, which fully restores Raz’s Mental Energy when it becomes empty. Once you’ve got at least the Psifold Wallet upgrade and a decent amount of Psitanium, then healing items will be useful to stock up on. You might never use them but they’re always good to have.

If you aren’t at full health but don’t want to waste a PSI Pop, smashing destructible objects also has a chance to drop green healing orbs as well as Psitanium. Picking these up restores a couple of Mental Energy brain segments, bringing Raz’s health back up. Most areas in mind levels will have some type of object that glows green like the health orbs – its water coolers in the Loboto’s Labyrinth level – and destroying them guarantees a health orb. Defeated enemies will occasionally drop these healing orbs too.

5. Explore the Psychonauts 2 Motherlobe and other areas between missions

Another basic tip for Psychonauts 2 is to make sure you explore the free-roam locations between missions. You’ll be able to find collectibles, spend your Psitanium at Otto-matic shops, and can find and complete optional side missions to increase your Intern Rank.

Mind levels and free-roam locations have completely different sets of collectibles. In the free-roam locations in Psychonauts 2, like the Motherlobe, you need to look for PSI Challenge Markers, PSI Challenge Cards, and Supply Chests and their keys. Finding a Challenge Marker will give you an entire Intern Rank, but these markers can also be crafted by purchasing a PSI Challenge Marker Core from an Otto-matic shop and the combining it at the shop with nine challenge cards.

Exploring all the nooks and speaking to the NPCs in each free-roam location will also turn up a few optional side missions for you to complete. These offer rewards upon completion, including more Intern Ranks and extra Psitanium.

6. Increase your Intern Rank by finding Psychonauts 2 collectibles

Mind levels in Psychonauts 2 have lots of collectibles that each contribute towards your Intern Rank, so it’s a good idea to collect as many as you can. Figments are the animated scribbles found throughout these levels are the most abundant collectible. Every 100 you collect will grant one Intern Rank. Emotional Baggage requires you to find a baggage tag and reunite it with its weeping bag. Every five of these will net you an Intern Rank. Finally, Nuggets of Wisdom are gold objects that will give you a whole rank once collected.

You should also make sure you’re gathering the previously mentioned free-roam collectibles too to maximize your Intern Rank. Having a high rank unlocks better Pins to buy at Otto-matic shops and unlocks better PSI Power upgrades. For each Intern Rank you gain, you get one Intern Credit which can be saved and spent on these power upgrades. Half-A-Minds are another type of collectible found in mind levels, but they contribute towards Raz’s Mental Energy. Finding two halves makes a whole brain that gets added to Raz’s total health, so these are also important to search for.

7. Use the Collective Unconscious to replay Psychonauts 2 levels

Once you’ve completed the first couple of levels, you can get access to the Collective Unconscious which allows you to replay slightly condensed versions of Psychonauts 2 mind levels to explore and pick up any missing collectibles. Head to the Nerve Center in the Motherlobe after you’ve completed the first few mind levels with Hollis, and you will be introduced to the Collective Unconscious by Sasha.

In the early stages of the game, it’s good to bolster your Intern Rank as much as possible by getting 100% in the first few levels. However, Psychonauts 2 also has a post-game state where you can explore freely, so even though gathering collectibles is very useful, you don’t need to panic about getting every single one before the game ends.

8. The Psychonauts 2 Levitation PSI Power is one of the most useful abilities

Levitation is one of the first Psychonauts 2 PSI Powers Raz gets. It’s a very useful power to always have in hand, mostly for travel and platforming, but it can be handy in the midst of combat to. Using Levitation in the air causes Raz to summon a small balloon which slows and controls his descent. Using this makes jumps in platforming far more forgiving, as you can make quick corrections by deploying the balloon.

Using Levitation on the ground will cause Raz to summon a ball under his feet that he can roll on, allowing him to move much faster than normal. There is no sprinting mechanic in Psychonauts 2, and Raz’s movement is quite slow, so using Levitation to get around quickly is another good Psychonauts 2 tip. Later on in the game, you’ll be able to unlock a super jump ability that will make getting to high places much easier, and its effectiveness in combat can also be enhanced with other upgrades.

9. Hold back on upgrading the Clairvoyance PSI Power

The Clairvoyance PSI Power in Psychonauts 2 is not very useful. It allows Raz to see through an NPCs vision but generally doesn’t do much else in the early levels of the game. There will be occasional prompts around certain characters that will reveal Psitanium deposits when Clairvoyance is used. For the most part, you should avoid putting your Intern Credits into Clairvoyance upgrades and instead focus on the more versatile powers like Telekinesis, Mental Connection, and Pyrokinesis. Psychnonauts 2 players need to be aware that is does become more useful later in the game, and at Intern Rank 102 – the highest rank – you’ll unlock the final Clairvoyance upgrade, Limitless, which removes all cooldowns for your abilities!