Monkey Island Made Me Nostalgic For A Series I Have Never Played
It's strange how a game like Return To Monkey Island can evoke such nostalgia for a series that I've never bar a few hours of the first game decades after it was released. Yet, as soon as that familiar shot of Mêlée Island appeared - paired with Michael Land's incredible theme song - there was a sudden wave of coming home to an old comfort. Almost as if I had been waiting since 1991 to see what happened after the ending of the second game. It's a pretty impressive achievement considering I wasn't even born then.
The more things change, huh?
While I may have missed some of the context of the game's opening - having not seen the original ending of Monkey Island 2 until after I had finished this reboot/sequel. The framing device of the game being a story told by Guybrush to his son is perhaps the best narrative choice made in the game. Boybrush's interjections as he challenges the more questionable aspects of his dad's story adds important context to the tale - establishing him as an unreliable narrator from the get-go. These tales have always been fanciful and wild, and having this be an old man regaling a child of his swashbuckling past really makes it easier to get behind the more outlandish aspects of the story.
Point-and-click adventure games have a reputation for their difficult - and sometimes incoherent - puzzles. No one would blame you for having to look up that you have to combine the pulley with the rubber chicken. The team at Terrible Toybox has come up with a genius workaround for this. Not only are there two difficulties that affect puzzle difficulty, Guybrush has a hint-book in his inventory. Rather than outright tell you the answer to the puzzle, however, it will offer a selection of hints becoming more and more blatant as you continue to ask. So rather than the game telling you "go talk to Elaine, get the limes, and give them to the pirates'', it will nudge you in the right direction first, saying, "who do you know who may have limes?"
Finally, someone I know will have some answers!
A major point of contention prerelease was Return To Monkey Island's visual direction. Which for whatever reason struck the ire of many a commenter. However, after all the noise and strife made online, I can say it looks miles better than the special editions from the early 2010s. I wasn't completely in love when I saw it in trailer form, but on the OLED Switch, the art style really comes into its own. Both the environments and the characters look fantastic and the characters are more expressive in motion than ever before.
Tell me a tale one more time!
The bigger point of contention is the game's ending. There's no two ways about it, you will either love it or hate it. For a game that is as presented as putting a full stop on the series, this is a big deal. You may well enjoy the entire game up until the final 10 minutes sours you on the whole thing. That is a lot to ask of a player, and while I won't spoil it here, I do like it, however it very much feels out of nowhere.
It's just a bit anticlimactic…
