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Die in the water? Or show me what you got?
Trouble with boss fights for Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2 ? Do not worry, these guides against big bad bosses, indexes every single detail, but more importantly; offers proper stats and tips to defeat these baddies easily. |
The Blueprint Brain Tank is a military tank, powered by a brain, that emerges from a set of blueprints. It is also the boss of Brain Tumbler Experiment and a mental version of the real Brain Tank.
Story[]
Its first reference or mention was in Basic Braining however it was not part of the obstacle course, in the final room to the right there was a door leading to a white, hallway-shaped room. At the very end of the white room the blueprint is concealed behind a small red curtain, however before Raz could see in full detail the blueprint, Oleander stops him and levitates him out of the room. Is not until the last revisit to the Brain Tumbler Experiment where Raz meets a mental manifestation of the blueprint and also fights it. Back in the thorny tower, a vision of Dr. Loboto removes the brain of Dogen Boole and dumps it into a garbage chute, which leads to a room made of blueprints. Raz attempts to follow it and while he has the chance to pick it up a mechanical claw captures the brain and merges it into one of the blueprints giving it life in the process and after doing so, the tank fires at Raz teleporting him into a battlefield.
Razputin confronts the Blueprint Brain Tank in a battlefield made of blueprints with a bunch of pillars around. Since the machine It's powered by Dogen's brain it seems to be very powerful, more so than the real Dogen. After a long fight where Raz must fight the tank as well as the brain of dogen, the brain explodes making raz get teleported back to the white room in basic braining revealing to him that the tank is part of Coach Oleander's plot to take over the world.
Appearance[]
Both Blueprint and Psychoblaster Tank have the same features: 10 spikes on top of the first 3 shells composing the body of the vehicle, inside of said shells a generator can be spotted which in the lower part connects a greenish gelatinous belly as well as three different symbols around it with a red, purple and white colors. Other things to point are a brain suspended by a claw inside a bullet-proof glass dome, double continuous tracks which each one has their own mudguards and lastly, in the middle of the top part a little hatch can be spotted where the brain itself can be introduced. Its major difference with the real Brain Tank aside from the color scheme: is the vibe of being made up of literal paper thanks to its evident capacity to split many parts by being damage.
Strategy[]
–Ford Cruller advising Raz from the bacon for phase 1.
–Ford Cruller advising Raz from the bacon for phase 2.
This boss fight features two phases, which unlike most bosses in the game where a new phase begins after taking a certain amount of health out of the boss of turn; this one has two unique and distinguishable fights with their own attacks, gimmicks as well as their own way to be defeated. The tank will fire psychic energy and confusion grenades at Raz during the fight which can be blocked by hiding under pillars, at maximum this is done 2 times, in the grenades case this ones don't have an specific amount of throws since it varies on the health of the boss, including how much the tank takes to use its charge attack but just by moving they can be dodge easily. Its weakness is that it can be rolled onto its side during the fight after depleting its energy, forcing itself to charge towards Razputin and freeing the player to firstly blast it and lastly beat or shoot its soft gelatinous under belly. It’s worth to point that when the tank flips back on its wheels; if raz uses invisibility at the right moment and reveals himself in front of the tank, it will charge again, however, it will only let the player hit the tank once.
After enough beating, it explodes into many pieces and then the player must fight the final round which is against the brain powering the last remaining of the tank. The recommendation for the brain phase is to use the Levitation Ball to dodge the lasers a bit more easily or even use Invisibility which will make the boss stop performing the laser attack. The dodge roll works too but the precision is frankly hard and there’s a probability of a glitch where Raz can be hit at random.
Attacks and Health[]
- Target Lock Beam: the tank will project a drawn outline with a crosshair on the end that moves in the same direction where the tank is looking at, however, the drawn outline can be expanded to target on Razputin, if the crosshair catches him it will change from white to red while a beep sound indefinitely intensifies and becomes faster, when this happens Raz must hide behind one of the pillars before getting shoot by a PSI Blast. Otherwise Raz will be hurt and it will deal 3 hit points of damage.
- Confusion Grenade: the Blueprint Brain Tank makes a huge question mark appear above it and right after it will throw a grenade that reverses the controls and turns everything green for a short period of time. While it doesn’t do any hit towards Raz this makes him more vulnerable to getting shoot or get hit by the charge attack.
- The Charge: the tank will rear up on its tracks for 2 seconds and after that, it will try to run over raz at a very extreme speed which in the process it can destroy the pillars on its way as well until crashing towards a wall. PSI-Blasting the tank while is rear up it will make it flip over and make it vulnerable for a total of 7 seconds. If raz misses the shoot and gets run over it will deal a total of 3 hit points of damage.
- Sweeping Laser: an exclusive attack from phase 2, the brain will summon a green laser that works as some sort of radar that can do 3 hit points by touching it. The laser moves from slow to fast, performing a half slow spin and 2 fast spins. (What indicates when the laser is going to speed up is by noticing that the brain performs some sort of roll movement).
- Super Jump: while not a direct attack, by touching the brain while landing or jumping raz can be damaged and similar to all the attacks of the tank it deals 3 hit points. This ability is mostly used to move to different locations randomly around the battlefield, although after 5 punches it will start jumping from place to place right after receiving damage. (While in movement the brain can destroy pillars instantly by touching them if they are in front of it).
For the second boss fight of the game, the blueprint brain tank is the boss with most quantity of health in the game and possibly the hardest boss to face in Psychonauts. In phase 1 the tank itself requires 4 shoots (to make it flip) and when the belly is exposed the boss can receive 7 punches (6 only in the last flip) and considering this is done 4 times it gives a total of 27 punches to defeat it. Phase 2 on the other hand it only requires 8 punches to defeat the brain, in total counting both phases, this boss fight requires a total of 39 hits to be taken down. (It can be even higher but depends on how often you use PSI-blast to flip the tank if you miss hits).
Trivia[]
- The Blueprint Brain Tank appears in the Psychonauts recap animation in Psychonauts 2.
- This is one of two other bosses in the first game where the boss theme has a second variant. The others being Linda and Jasper respectively
- This idea would evolve in Psychonauts 2 by adding variants that lacks or even adds specific instruments, reaching the point where some bosses even have more than 4 variations.
- The Laser used for phase 2 has rare chance to have continuously fast spin (Gameplay by Materwelonz demonstrating this behavior of attack).
- This is a glitch that can occur mostly on the PC version if the Vsync are turned off.
- If one takes a moment to look at the sky of the battle arena, at the center of it what looks to be a cardinal direction surrounded by a bunch of stars can be seen.
- This is the only boss fight which its second phase features a new icon in its health bar, The Butcher or The Final Boss doesn’t on the other hand.
- Similar to many things from the Brain Tumbler Experiment, the second phase for this boss fight could be a foreshadowing to the Jarred Brains.
Video Battle Walkthrough[]
Psychonauts - All Bosses -No Damage-
Gameplay by Gellot. (2:31 for the fight)