Return To Monkey Island Review:
Why the game is good, but a little saddening at the same time
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| The logo of Return To Monkey Island. |
This is essentially just my steam review of the game, just a tiny bit longer!
TL;DR:
4/5
Nice game, worth it's money. I'm proud of the team for making a nice product and glad that Ron Gilbert's back in the franchise to take care of his baby. But I'm still a little bugged about a VERY certain thing:
Introduction
In this review (AT THE END), I'll discuss the overall integrity of the series and the ending of MI 2 in particular, just scroll down if that's what you're here for. :)
Monkey Island is one of those franchises which have such a complicated history that it's hard to attempt to satisfy every fan when releasing another title. I think most people who are fans of the series are aware of the history of the games and their original creator, Ron Gilbert, who left after MI 2 in 1992. Most of the time, people prefer the vision of the original creator of a series, especially when they made some of the most legendary games of the industry. However, there is a clear divide between the people who prefer MI 1+2 and the people who started their journey with Curse of Monkey Island and its sequels. Thus, handling the making of a direct sequel to MI 2 which still acknowledges the stories of every other MI game and considers them canon.. is excruciatingly hard! And still, Ron Gilbert mostly succeeded. With restrictions, in my opinion! (Spoiler talk at the end)
Graphics
Let's start with the art style, as it's the one thing that kept many people from buying and playing the game. MI 1+2 were technically advanced at the time of their release. Curse was even exceptional. However, many people wanted to see a pixel-style Return to Monkey Island. In my opinion, the new art style is a fresh approach for the series which honours its origins while staying modern. Flat colors, sharp visuals and still gorgeous lighting, dynamic camera angles.. all are gorgeous to look at and stay out of your way while playing the game.
If you're unsure about it, just try it. You might end up getting used to it. Furthermore, it's a MUCH more appropiate style than any of the 3D-styles MI had. I'm aware it's just my opinion, but hand-drawn 2D graphics just enable the best and snappiest gameplay for point-and-click adventures while staying timeless in a certain way.
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| A screenshot from the teaser which started the whole artstyle discussion. It looks great. |
Audio
As an audio-engineer, one might think that I have a sophiticated and elaborate opinion about the game's sound. But the truth is, there isn't a lot to discuss for me. The music sounds spectacular, most arrangements are from older MI 1+2 tracks if I remember correctly. That isn't a bad thing as MI 2 had one of the best and charming soundtracks I know! The adaptive music system sounds nice to the ear, keeping the arrangements fresh depending on your actions. I didn't notice any bad or unfitting sound effects. It's just a very clean, very nice sound overall. The voice actors also did a stunning job, even though many people from my country were sad about the missing German dub. The combination of German text and English voices was alright for me though.
Performance and Quality of Life Features
It's a 2D game in 2022. It runs in a borderless fullscreen or windowed mode and.. flawless. I didn't encounter any bugs whatsoever. Gameplay, dialogue control, moving through the environments - everything feels as snappy as it should. There are a few hiccups in the beginning when you're just starting to discover the running feature, but that's just a matter of getting used to. I wish there was a feature to skip long animations/cutscenes (e.g. when retrying a certain puzzles multiple times), but aside from that it feels nice to play. There are little quality of life features like the game pausing when you're tabbing out of the game, a system to re-read the most recent dialogue lines (for inattentive people like me..), a simple pause feature at any point in the game, a feature to highlight all interactive objects with the press of a button (as seen in adventures like Deponia), ... They really did a good job.
Gameplay
As someone who witnessed most adventure games through a let's play it's a daunting task to play a p'n'c adventure oneself. Puzzles might get too hard and at some point you might cling to an online guide. Still, I wanted to try the "hard mode" of this game. Or, as I think of it: the proper mode. Puzzles are relatively easy to get through and logical at all times. Later in the game, the puzzles get more dense and there are many of them which run parallel. That's not a problem at all, because there is a good hint system integrated into the game, which let's you approach the puzzles step by step without you having to follow a guide all the time and getting the blunt solution to a puzzle. It let's you have a smart moment for yourself, which is nice.
A little bit about the structure of the game (spoiler just in case, I won't go too much into detail):
SPOILERS At first, I was a bit scared that Return just rehashes the structure of MI 1, as it's proven to work and satisfying. I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed that it's rather an advanced version of MI 1's structure, which allows the game to breathe more and open up towards the end. SPOILERS END That in itself is welcome change and makes the game feel full of content. I'd say it's definitely worth the 20 euros/dollars, especially considering the replayability of it (with collectables e.g.)
STORY (no spoilers)
The humor of the game is friendly and easy-going most of the time, but sometimes there are cruel and hilarious jokes! It's a mixed bag, really. The story manages to combine to 2 different canons.. kinda (I'll elaborate at the end of this review). It's a nice pirate story with a lot of meta commentary directed towards the players or just from Gilbert about the current state of being, without going overboard. Too much of it might ruin a game experience in my opinion and that's just not the case here. You'll get a nice pirate adventure if that's what you're looking for. However, if you didn't play MI 1+2, you should do it beforehand. It will improve your experience in a palpable way as there are many hints to the older games. BUT you might also get frustrated, becauseeeeeee:
Story (SPOILERS for MI 2 and Return and.. Deponia kinda?)
I do not care about the literal secret of Monkey Island. It was of course a very interesting thing which most of us thought Ron kept from the public over many decades. Mystery is always intriguing. But after seeing the end of Return, it's likely that there probably isn't a certain secret anymore - and that's alright. I'm not even annoyed about the abrupt ending with allusions to the MI 2 ending, while executing it very differently. No. My problem lies within the very BEGINNING of the game.
When Ron left the team in 1992, he left us with a game which couldn't be much more ambivalent in its tone. For the majority of the playtime, it was still a cartoon-like comedic game with funny dialogue lines. However, in subtle ways throughout the game and more sequences towards the end, it keeps getting darker, more mysterious and confusing. Just think about the music in comparison to MI 1! It has an ending which can be interpreted in many ways by the player, even in rather extreme versions.
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| Guybrush and LeChuck at the more industrial part of the Monkey Island 2 ending. |
Return tries to retcon the ending of MI 2 just like Curse did, but in a much more elegant way - by continuing just where MI 2 stopped. This is however extremely obtrusive when you revisit MI 2 and compare the dialogue and set-up. It doesn't fit perfectly and little hints just get ignored, which is sad. That's why Return in my regard isn't a perfect sequel to MI 2, but just a nice part of the overall franchise which suits the original style more than its Gilbert-less predecessors. It's still a good game! But not Monkey Island 3, unfortunately. Which leaves me craving for the original idea Gilbert might've had in his head many years ago. Or at least a version which could feel similar to it.
To dive deeper into this idea: Imagine what MI 3 could be like. A dark journey into the mind of a lonely child? A twisted brother relationship? An escape from a voodoo spell which LeChuck put on Guybrush? A humourous existential crisis? A "my parents didn't love me" drama? Everything at the same time? Anyway, all of these things sound a lot more intriguing and artistically satisfying than Return to Monkey Island, which while delivering great meta commentary about Monkey Island's fanbase and creator himself just fails to achieve anything I described above. I'm not saying that Curse, Escape or Tales should be disregarded or considered non-canon. All I want to say is that it would be nice to explore the idea of a Monkey Island 3, a real one. Which would have to disregard the other games in order to work. Just story-wise, as an alternative to the current state. Say, an alternative timeline/universe.
This isn't a criticism to Ron or his team. They did the best they could to deliver a good product which could be marketed towards every corner of the fanbase and thus profiting financially from it while unifying and respecting the entire fanbase as well. Sounds good, but I'm still ALWAYS a fan of the more complex side of things. In this case, a kids game made by 20-year olds in the nineties.
P.S.: Anyone who is upset about the ending of Return probably never played the Deponia series (which is great btw, you should check it out) and its ending. This is still very harmless, trust me. You'll get over it, just enjoy the ride you had before it.
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| Chucky looks at the camera in an evil manner. The perfect hint that something's still up at the ending of Monkey Island 2. |
If you think this commentary was interesting, be sure to check out this video by B- Mask, who talked about a similar topic before the announcement of Return:
https://youtu.be/eSn_pI5idr8
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