So like last month I watched Dan Olsen's video where he talks about the film Annihilation, which specifically focuses on how it makes use of metaphor and how others talk about metaphor (link here, with a content warning that a] the film is a horror film and his editing most of the times there's explicit gore out only does so much and b] the video spoils the film by necessity.)
One thing that stuck with me in the film is how Dan asserts that the film is good as, essentially, Baby's First Allegorical Film. There's lots of stuff in the film where the symbolism is straightforward, and we get to see relevant stuff about the protagonist before anything weird and symbolic starts happening so we get a good baseline for things. Not to mention characters literally just, diagetically discuss the relevant themes of trauma, change, and reflection. Despite this, the film still has lots of complexity and multiple layers to the story, so while it's blunt, you can work through the different metaphorical elements as you watch.
And this gets me thinking, Psychonauts is in a similar boat with videogames as a medium- it's a solid entry point for thinking about stories as metaphor, thanks to its gimmick of entering other character's minds. Hell, I think it's one of the games that got me to do exactly that; even as a kid, when I learned about it I picked up on at least some of the metaphors involved in the original game's plot.
I should probably clarify, I'm not saying this just because I think the games are good; in fact, I find that all three games have some fairly distinct flaws in them, and the original in particular is fairly rough by modern standards in several ways. But among the game's strengths are their use of metaphor when exploring any given mental world, including making the story implied by gameplay reflective and supportive of the explicit story shown in cutscenes and dialogue.
For context, the basic gameplay of the two main games in the series consists of jumping around, exploring, and collecting things, with adventure-game inventory puzzles in the original and action combat in the sequel. Your overworld connecting areas are physical locations, such as a summer camp or a spy base, but your separated levels are set inside people's minds- Raz takes a small portal, and uses it to both hypnotize the target and project himself into their minds, and from there he can explore and his actions typically have an impact on the person's behaviour even after he leaves. And from here, the two big strengths of the series as vehicles for metaphor come into play.
The first is how the game's overall plot is structured. Despite the strong storytelling focus, the actual plot of Psychonauts games is very straightforward- the original game is about Raz going to a psychic summer camp, discovering a brain-stealing conspiracy, and going to the asylum the villains are hiding out in to confront them. The sequel is about Raz now being made a formal Psychonaut, but it's right when a mole is trying to bring back a seemingly dead villain that leaves Raz having to learn what really happened to her and uncover the dark secrets of the Psychonauts' founders. The simple plots are paired with complex characters, especially those whose minds you explore leading into often self-contained stories regarding their current mental state.
In addition to this, the games make it very clear when Raz is in the physical world, or a mental one- there's almost always a scene explicitly showing the transition or otherwise making it obvious from context. Likewise, there's a strong distinction between different minds in all but one stage of the original game- you always know whose head you're in, in addition to whether you're in one or not. While this does mean you miss some of the fun of ambiguous endings to the overall story and even many mental world stories, it also preemptively means you're not asking "Wait, so what just happened?" or "Is any of this plot able to be taken at face value?", and the fact that individual mental worlds are almost always reflective of different individual minds means you can likewise compartmentalize your analysis of the metaphors used in the stages, even with the games having overarching recurring themes around trauma.
The other biggest strength of Psychonauts as beginner-level metaphor is that they're, like Annihilation, simultaneously really blunt with their metaphors, but also- especially 2- full of multiple layers of varying degrees of subtly. Again, the gameplay, normally not factored directly into storytelling, is consciously considered in Psychonauts, to the point 2's final level has no Regrets despite them being in almost every other level, extremely basic foes who even appear outside dedicated combat sequences, and the second enemy introduced in the game at all- there's no narrative place for them in the final stage, so they're excluded from it.
Furthermore, because you almost always see whose mind you're going into before you do so, you're already primed to know what the metaphors will be about- you're not surprised to see how Gloria's mind is a stage where the mood lighting changes the scene entirely, because you already get to see she's an actress with an uncontrolled mood disorder. You're only surprised at Compton's mind being a cooking show because he's otherwise not food themed in the physical world- meeting up with him at minimum lets you see how he willingly self isolates and is highly anxious, so even if you ignore the optional dialogue where he reveals his poor self esteem, it's not surprising thematically that his mind is a contest where he's harshly judged. As the player, you don't need to guess what a given stage is about in terms of what mental illness or psychological concept is going to be discussed, so you can focus more on the discussion itself.
To use Compton as a further example, the three main judges in his mind (not to be confused with Judges the enemy type, also introduced here) as well as the host of the show are all handpuppets in the likeness of his peers- specifically Ford (the founder of the Psychonauts), Hollis (the current second in command and frequent visitor of the isolation chamber herself) and Otto (the only member of the Psychic 6 to remain sane enough to continue his work) as the judges, and Grand Head Truman as the host. The symbolism here is obvious- he's projecting his poor self esteem onto other people and assuming they're secretly aware of his failings like he is. He even removes one of the puppets from his own hand after finishing the level with his self-confidence rebuilt; the subtext might as well just be text here.
But the judges are also all goats- this is a much less clear metaphor than the puppet thing because it's reliant on the knowledge that despite their reputation, goats do have discerning taste in what they like to eat; Compton specializes in talking to animals with his own psychic powers, so it makes sense he'd be aware of this relatively uncommon knowledge, and in turn that means framing the judges as animals who are more judgemental than others realize reinforces how Compton fears being shunned for his own mistakes, despite other people not seeing the same thing in him. It works on both a literal level, as he's a mind reader who spends time in a place with goats, and a metaphorical level, as a goat is something that's deceptive about how harsh of a judge it is. And thus, we get a single group of characters who are simultaneously a very blunt metaphor, and also a fairly subtle one, for the same basic concept- and that's without getting into the rest of his mind as the player sees it.
I don't really have any witty ending here; I like Psychonauts and watching Dan talk about something thematically related got my gears turning. These games are good entryways into stories as metaphor because their simple plot, clear distinction between literal and allegorical storytelling, and mixture of surface-level and complex symbolism means that even a basic reading of the story will discuss metaphorical elements, and you can understand these primary metaphors even without any relevant specialist knowledge or practice with literary analysis that will help you follow the smaller details. And they're still approachable with interesting gameplay, a mix of humour and drama, and an interesting overall premise, so you don't even need to be invested in literature to have a reason to try them out.