Psychonauts 2 Best Power Upgrades | What to Get First

Welcome to the Psychonauts, new intern! Going through brains and collecting cards in Psychonauts 2 allows you to rank up and improve your abilities. That’ll be important for any Intern trying to get somewhere with their career! Raz is particularly good at ranking up, and his powers are all very important. So, what are the best power upgrades in Psychonauts 2? What order should you prioritize your upgrade points to best experience the game with?

Best Power Upgrades in Psychonauts 2

While you can grind up your intern rank and purchase all power upgrades in Psychonauts 2, there are some upgrades that are the best. Our list prioritizes movement abilities and collectable-locating abilities over all else.

Be warned! There are minor spoilers in this guide. Please read at your own discretion!

Best Utility Power Upgrade Order

These powers are all about collecting stuff. And we love collecting stuff!

1. Levitation: Bouncy Ball – The Bouncy Ball upgrade of Levitation is fantastic. It allows you to jump higher than your Double Jump, which can let you explore in ways not exactly dev-intended. Since Raz can grab ledges, the Bounce into Float combo can let you explore places that you could never otherwise.
2. Mental Connection: Dark Thoughts – This upgrade requires Rank 32, but you should get it as soon as possible. Dark Thoughts lets you get to secret areas that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. This only really lets you get one or two extra figments or secrets per map. But, that’s one or two extra collectables that you’d never get otherwise! Get it early and it’ll be easier to 100% maps.
3. Pyrokinesis: Trés Bon Fire – On the surface, this may seem like a combat-only ability. However, it’s shockingly good for finding items! Since your Pyrokinesis Area of Effect is so massive with this upgrade, you’ll get to see the outlines of burnable items and enemies alike. That can be handy for farming Psitanium! You can also use this to cheese Safes; use your Pyrokinesis through a grate (like in Psi-King’s Mind) and you’ll spook the Safe into getting closer to you.
4. Time Bubble: Quick Time – This upgrade isn’t required to access secret areas. It is a significant upgrade to your cooldown, though, allowing you to rapid-fire slowdowns. For some parkour puzzles, Quick Time will be exactly what you need to quickly and easily move across platforms without waiting for a meter to refill. The next upgrade, Time Zone, makes Time Bubble much, much better for combat.

Best Damage Powers

These powers will help you in combat! This is where the majority of upgrades go to. They aren’t as handy as being able to explore brand new areas, but they can make the game much easier.

1. Melee: Slap Happy – The Slap Happy upgrade adds an extra lunge on the end of your melee combo. Both the 3rd hit and this new hit are very slow with high commitment, making them bad for dodging. However, this lunge goes very far and does a ridiculous amount of damage! If you want combat to end faster, this is an essential upgrade.
2. Psi Blast: Chain Brain – This power gives you some basic area of effect damage in fights. While it says the blast is weaker, it can still chew through low health enemies like Mini Censors or Regrets near instantly. This lets you clear out the rabble in a brawl so you can more easily take down big threats. And in the later fights of the game, that’s incredibly useful.
3. Clairvoyance: Mental Block – We recommend upgrading this before entering the mind of Bob Zanotto. Mental Block will let you deal with the extremely annoying Bad Mood enemy without worrying about getting jumped in the background. Trust me, this will be critical later on.
4. Telekinesis: Extra Mustard – Telekinesis is a surprising damage-dealing ability. Especially for countering enemy attacks, such as the Regrets’ anvils! Extra Mustard makes sure your counter-flings hit hard and rewards you for catching those projectiles. Since some fights require Telekinesis, this’ll come in handy.

Razputin’s Mental Projection distracts enemies in combat, which is great against Enablers. However, that can be upgraded at your leisure. You don’t need it to fight Enablers. It’s just useful!

Exploring the world of Psychonauts 2 should be much easier now that you have these new powers. Do you want more help getting through the world so you can rank up faster? We have your back!

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