Return to Monkey Island (Switch)

 

A pirate I was meant to be!

Trim the sails and roam the seas!

After finishing of these huge games, losing our family cat that was with us for over 15 years and spent the last two weeks (as of writing) working with the stressful environment at work with several sick in Covid, people quiting left and right and so on (and getting a positive Covid result on my own, thanks for that) I needed something more fun to lighten the mood. What better than a return trip to the Caribbean with the mighty pirate Guybrush Threepwood? Made by most of the creators behind Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2? Sign me up!

It starts right where they left of, back in Monkey Island 2 where little Guybrush and Chuckie steps out of behind the scenes of the pirate theme park as they look for their parents... turns out it's just Guybrush Jr and Chuckie reenacting the end for Monkey Island 2 as Guybrush is the father and is about to the tell the story of how he really found the secret of Monkey Island. Apparently LeChuck has gathered a crew at Melee Island and is about to set sail for the treasure and Guybrush arrives to stop him. Several things have happened since the last time... I guess since Ossie Mandrill was about to turn the whole Caribbean into a theme park and drove off the pirates at the first place, since the pirate leaders of Secret have been deposed by Captain Madison and her co-captains and they ain't that impressed with the old pirate life. So Guybrush is on his own.

He has to infiltrate LeChuck's ship so that he can beat him to Monkey Island and while there complete a magic ritual to decrypt the map to the secret... that turns us back to Melee Island and the International House of Mojo where it have been hidden away in this safe which needs 5 keys you need to search the Caribbean for. Leaving a trail of destruction in your wake to new and old friends that Elaine have to clear up after you. And it's nice with her just being nice, no animosity that usually goes into romancing in game series to keep that element being a part of the story. You meet Herman Toothrot in a cave and fight him for one key, you ensure that Stan goes from a month in prison to ten years so that you can break him out and use it to scam pirates to accept limes against scurvy to get a flag that is a piece of a map to a sunken ship where one of the keys are found. A bit of a roundabout way to get the key, but it's an adventure game.

LeChuck grabs the secret before Guybrush so it's of to Monkey Island and the catacombs below the Giant Monkey Head and a series of interesting puzzles which leads to a door with two rotating wheels of pirates... is that a reference to the original games code wheel as copy protection? At least the game is solvable inside the game, haven't forgotten Thimbleweed Park. LeChuck is already inside fighting one of Madisons co-captains so you hurry and... you turn up in the alleyway in Melee Island and it looks that everything is back to being a theme park. You find the chest with the secret, grabs a key in the display and unlocks it, getting a t-shirt for you trouble. Didn't know what else to expect really. Back in the present Guybrush jr. says the same as I was thinking, Guybrush is bad with endings. And yet it was satisfactory enough. Looking it up it was actually one of several endings, but most are just a small after-credit scene change.

It was a fun time, made me laugh out loud several times so it was my brand of humour. They had a hint system built in that I used before getting frustrated on some of the puzzles, but I got through most without using it. A replay bonus is getting every trivia card and answering right on all of them. Many is about the games story, but some are 4th-wall breaking about the creation of the games. Many returning voices so that was fun, missing Ottis, Stan (which I believe have changed voice most of all) and LeChuck, since Earl Boen is retired (update: and now even dead, real sadness). Which is sad since Earl Boen could really sound sinister, and I miss that bit of punch with the new voice actor. He have been in Monkey Island before as the shopkeeper from the first game and maybe it's that that is the problem. And there was one side-character I actually thought sounded more like LeChuck so that could have affected me as well. Apparently people had a problem with the art-style before release, but I love it. It looks like the high detailed pictures they used in the first two games and applied on the whole game. I got what everything represented and it looked like I remember it, although, that is 7 years ago since last time. A bit miffed by the ending, but can overlook it. Took one day to play through, maybe another if you gonna complete it.

Escape From Monkey Island

So I had to continue the series, but how to do it without using ScummVM? Well, thankfully a sister project was the ResidualVM project that are focused on the 3d point and click adventure games, like Myst 3, Grim Fandango and of course Escape from Monkey Island (hopefully they supports Gabriel Knight 3 so I somewhere in the future can play that series as well).  At the moment it isn't 100 %, but it is playable and I could finish it, although some small bugs here and there, but I have a faint memory that they are in the code itself. Also irritating is a bug in the Lua bar on your second visit to Melee Island. If you run across the steps inside while someone else is crossing you risk getting stuck and have to restore. When it happened this time a faint memory emerged when I played this game as a kid and I stupidly had to replay the game up to that point since I saved over my game while stuck in hope of a restore would fix the problem. It doesn't. So save before entering and pray that you don't get stuck. Lucky me I just had to play 10 minutes again to get back to the bar.

So what to say about this follow up to in my eyes one of the best adventure games ever? It looks ugly as hell. 3D graphics in 2000 wasn't the best although I must give credit for at least making some of the characters look like there earlier form while other suffered from it.

Stan, what did they do to you?

Musically I can't complain, the tunes are there and harkens back to the original which is a nice touch. The dialog on the other hand... feels less fun. At times there are a funny line here and there, but not like the other games. Somehow they kiddied it down since the word Hell has been replaced with Heck and it gets a bit grating since it's obviously a censor thing. Earlier games had no problems with the word hell, so way this? And the voice acting isn't as top notch as before, together with a graphical let down that takes away the charm of the reaction in Curse of Monkey Island. Speaking of voice actors, they mostly make a decent job, but they changed Elaine Marley voice actor (although she came back for the special editions and Tales of Monkey Island) and while she sounds a bit like her it throws me of at certain times and then Stan, also another voice actor. This one sounds like how he looks, speaking through his teeth I would guess.

Stan, what do you sound like?

Gameplay wise is also a let down since it's no longer a point and click game, instead being played with keyboard or joystick, which make me guess it was intended for a console release primarily. This possess a problem since you don't know what you can interact with since Guybrush has to see it and at certain angles the command doesn't come up or you must stand exactly right for it to trigger. Reading through The Adventure Gamer I can't but help thinking that this was the reason the Scumm engine was created. 

Storywise, Guybrush and Elaine returns to Melee Island after a 3 month long honeymoon finding out that the Carrabien is being bought out by a Australisn tycoon, a politician named Charles L. Charles is grabbing Elaine's governor title and her mansion is being wrecked. This will lead Guybrush across the Carrabien to search for a legal contract to stop the demolition and then the discovery of an Ultimate Insult and the true secret of Monkey Island all the while LeChuck rears his ugly head again. The secret by the way is that the giant monkey head is in actuality the head of a gigantic monkey robot! How that worked since it is clearly shown in the original being the skeleton of a real giant monkey is beyond me.

Where's the steampunk stuff to make it work?

Is it hard? No not really, but to many puzzles for my taste are based on timing in where you set something in action and has to pull of the right move before the time passes. Sadly one of them is in the Lua bar which makes the glitch kick in. And as a kid I was stumped at this point since you need to stop a moving tray with a flaming ship under a painting and when the chef leaves the kitchen you sneak in, and empties a can of grog in a container causing the ship, for some reason beyond me, to be warm enough to melt a wax painting revealing a map. And they say Gabriel Knight 3 killed the genre. Replaying it I noticed another such puzzle I had forgotten, but I found this one rather fun. You have three trenches in a cliff and a pile of rocks. Three exit at the bottom. Two exit is just putting the rock in respective trench, the third is the puzzle. So you have to time the rocks so that they push one of them into the last exit. Now, the earlier timed puzzle had no fixed clue when to stop it, you had to try and memories the best position to stand and when to execute the action. This one on the other hand had branches where the rocks passed by alerting you to perform an action. A visual clue which made it rewarding to observe and try out until you solved. It might also be enjoyable since the bug wasn't present here.

Overall I'm rather mixed about this game. Still the lingering memories about the let down it was to play this after years of anticipating, how ugly it was, the irritating controls and the less than stellar writing. And yet there is moments when I can't but smile at certain jokes or allusions to the older games. To see a 3d version of Melee and Monkey Island trying for a complete copy of the settings from the first game (almost, several important places are gone or shuffled around, but they at least tried).  To see Carla, Otis and Meathook again, the return of Herman Toothrot and Murry, the evil demonic skull. It's all rather nostalgic still.

I maybe didn't need to see Stan sgsin

The Curse of Monkey Island

The Curse of Monkey Island, the third game in the series and the first with voice acting. Really good voice acting as well. I played this game so much that many lines I still remember and especially how they were annunciated. Who can forget lines like "Damn you saucy female, what do you mean?", "You have been struck with the hair demon", "Beware the horrors of... SKULL ISLAND! It's a Duck!" and everyones favorite skeleton "I am MURRAY, evil demonic skull, turn back, turn back, darkness will envelop you! Bwahahahaha!!!". Many fond memories. They also reintroduced insult sword fighting, but this time on the high seas which meant you had to rhyme. Rather fun gathering insults. Also, the graphics in this game I believe is hand drawn animation and it looks fantastic. Compare to say King's Quest VII or Leisure Suit Larry 7 which also was in "cartoon form", but it wasn't as fluent as in this game. At least in my opinion.

Story then, probably due to the original creators leaving Lucasarts before the start of the game, we jump forward in time and Guybrush Threepwodd has escaped the carnival of the damned and is a drift the caribbean seas. He stumbles upon LeChuck laying siege to Elaines fort at Puerto Pullo and is captured and thrown in the hold. He manages to escape and by doing so causes LeChuck's FLAMING VOODOO CANNON BALL to backfire destroying LeChuck. At the beach at dawn he proposes to Elaine with a giant diamond ring Guybrush found in LeChuck's treasure hold. Of course it contains a "gastly, disfiguring voodoo curse on it" so it turns Elaine into a solid golden statue. So you have to free her from the curse. 

I love this game, maybe for nostalgia, but replaying the games in order I notice so many throwbacks to the first two games and it makes me crack a smile. The only boring part I feel is when you return to the Carnival of the damned. It's set up as the final confrontation, but before that you have to undo a similar curse from the end of the second game and then you have to figure out a way to destroy LeChuck once again. It just dragged on for me and stupid me got stuck until I checked a walkthrough to understand that I was supposed to make another hangover remedy. Again, since that is the closest we had for a voodoo spell I guess it makes sense, but still.

I feel you buddy!

Since I bought the trilogy pack I didn't start with this game so I could get the whole story, but when I got stuck in the others I usually changed game and I came the furthest with this before a walkthrough I believe. If that is due to being easier or greater design I can't say, but my guess would be easier. Then again, while I think about it, I think I got stuck in finding the Voodoo lady, since I needed to pull the alligator tongue and I seem to recall a memory when looking that up.... how embarrassing, that is like the third puzzle of the game. I seem quite lousy with these kind of games.

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge: Special Edition

LeChuck's Revenge, the sequel that delivered on the wackiness and difficulty. More timed events and more wordplay that means that a non-english speaking native keeps you busy for days... or years if it wasn't for the internet. I'm especially referring to the Monkey wrench puzzle. The monkey wrench puzzle is that to open a secret tunnel behind a waterfall you need to get a banana to hypnotise a monkey and take him to the pump and use him as a wrench, aka a monkey wrench. Well good for you that gets that witty word pun, but for a non-english native that is almost complete gibberish. There's a reason why the safest strategy is to use everything on everything.

The Swedish version of this trolling is to utter the phrase "Får får får? Nej, får får inte får, får får lamm" (The joke being is that is says "Does sheep get sheep? No, sheep doesn't get sheep, sheep gets lamb"

Of course the biggest puzzle that stopped me from progressing the longest time was after escaping Phat Island jail. I couldn't leave since they had taken my map I needed to show the boat captain and it was gone. I restarted several times as a kid until I figured out how to get my stuff back. I just opened the envelopes that was in the prison with my name on it. How was I supposed to know that? Or I might just be that stupid. The special edition then, nice looks, great music and the voice cast superb. Problem is that they changed the control scheme again meaning I have yet to learn it again and the timing on certain puzzle makes me prefer the old graphics since I at least can pull that off. Especially at the end of the game as LeChuck hunts you in the tunnels.

Story, after besting LeChuck and losing Elaine Guybrush is searching for the treasure of Big Woop. This hunt takes him to Scabb Island were he encounters LeChuck's right hand man Largo Lagrande which sets up the return of LeChuck and a race to find Big Woop to escape his terrible revenge. He meets old friends like the Voodoo Lady, pirates of low moral fiber and Elaine while encountering new ones like Wally. Poor Wally. You steal his glasses, spits at him, get him captured and so forth. Poor guy indeed. Also, the ending is a real twist that puts the whole series upside down. A pity the original creators left after this, but the game following this was in my opinion the greatest of the original three games.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

The Secret of Monkey Island. I remembered when I got this game back in the late 90's or early 2000's at a sale for the Monkey Island Bounty pack containing at the time the whole trilogy. And how I played it. This time I played the Special edition version I got for my playstation 3 since it got the voice acting and really nice graphics if I must say so. It looks almost enchanting and the voice acting is superb with most of the cast returning from the third game which introduced voices to the series. Same Guybrush, same LeChuck and Voodoo Lady and even the return of the original Elaine Marley. And if you dislike the graphics you can with a push of a button return it to its original looks. Only unnerving thing is that it is really made for a computer since the controls aren't as optimal as a mouse. Especially when its demanded fast finger action that really could have used quick commands. At least I was able to still play the games, compared to getting it for my computer which hardly work anymore.

The story then is that you are Guybrush Threepwood who wants to be a pirate so he set out on the three trials, sword fighting, thieving and treasure hunting. His quest will take him all over the Caribbean facing of against the Ghost Pirate LeChuck and his undead crew while finding the love of his life, Governor Elaine Marley. I used to play the original all the time as a kid. Especially the Melee Island part since that was the Insult Sword fight. Playing through I also realise that I for the most part skipped the Voodoo Lady since I never realised you could go another frame in her house. This of course made it a bit hard to follow her character in the other games when she referred back to this game. All in all I remember that it was fairly easy to get to the sea and set sail for Monkey Island, but I got caught on the ship since I didn't get how to leave it. So I looked up a walkthrough for that. Today I can see the ingenious game design in letting the cannon be a necessity to get money at the circus and then reuse it to get to Monkey Island. This series were fairly good at introducing a concept early and then reuse it for a puzzle later. Sad thing is that if you like me took your sweet time you mostly had forgotten how this things worked. Rather different today when I was able to play through the whole game from memory.