Psychonauts 2 was designed as the "complete opposite" of an FPS, because Tim Schafer wanted players to leave levels in a better condition than they found them
The game is a masterpiece imo. Absolutely fantastic.
And I think they accomplished what they set out to do. The whole story is about healing and coping with loss and tragedy, and eventually coming back together as a family. It felt incredibly different from the first one, while still retaining a whole bunch of the charm that made the first one great in so many people's minds.
The first one was already fantastic, but the second one topped in terms of writing, art style and music in particular. They reduced the amount of experimental level mechanics though.
Yeah, Sasha's mind was always one of my favorites from the first one. Something about the cube and how the gravity works. And then the shrinking/growing mechanic in the Waterloo world were cool.
ETA: though the "touring van" thing to get around the "park" in the Sensorium was interesting. That one is probably the best level of the game, imo.