Der Fluch von Monkey Island™

It's been so long since I last played 'The Curse of Monkey Island'! What a great time to revisit this gem now that it is available on GoG. After the divisive conclusion to Ron Gilbert's 'Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge', it's hard to imagine how to continue the 'Monkey Island' series. Game designers, Jonathan Ackley and Larry Ahern, took the reins and produced a game that managed to honour the work that Gilbert had done, tie up (m)any potential loose ends from previous games, retain -- or at least emulate -- the first two games' sense of humour, respect the 'Monkey Island' traditions, and create something original. All the while, Ackley and Ahern gave us a classic that just may be THE BEST 'Monkey Island' game to date. 'The Curse of Monkey Island' is easily the most visually stunning 'Monkey Island' game in the franchise. Like other LucasArts game of this era (i.e. 'Day of the Tentacle and 'Full Throttle'), the artwork still holds up 20 years later and looks great on modern PCs. Would a HD remaster version be welcomed? Of course! But honestly, 'The Curse of Monkey Island' doesn't really need it, especially when the score, sound effects and voice acting still sound fantastic. It's hard to imagine anyone else whose voice acting that can embody Guybrush Threepwood's naive optimism and determination as well as Dominic Armato's. 'The Curse of the Monkey Island' is not an easy game. There are a few puzzles that require outlandish solutions (i.e. some trial and error guessing, "brute forcing', and looking up hints or walkthroughs may be required), but the game does not frustrate. It's fun and has great pacing, interspersed with more insult sword fighting, (a skippable) arcade naval combat, and cinematic cutscenes that Walt Disney would have approved. If you haven't tried 'The Curse of Monkey Island' yet, now it's the time to do so!

This was the first time that the UI was incredibly smooth and easy to use in this series. I'm not saying they could have done it sooner; I’m praising them for doing it this well the first time they were able to. Basically you hold down a mouse button over what you want to interact with three options will pop up you choose one of them by moving the onto it and letting go of the key. No more having to click the verbs on the screen. This also introduces voice acting. I honestly can't even imagine this series without these voices; I played this one before the others and have now played the remaster and special edition of the first two. Without Earl bowens raspy tones it's simply is not the same pirate LeChuck. This has a lot of my favorite characters of these three. I cannot get enough of Murray The Living skull who is still convinced that he and his kind will win despite the fact that he no longer has a body. This was also the first time that I felt emotionally engaged with one of these. I like to think of it as the first two feeling like they were made by the Monty Python crew and this one was more Edgar Wright think of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz: Funny right from the start but now there's character arcs and we actually care if someone succeeds at what they're setting out to do or not. I'm not saying the former is inherently worse but I do think that this way hits much harder and encourages more replayability and going over stuff in your head afterwards and such. There's finally actually consequence to Threepwood’s incessant incompetence and now the way you’re relating to Elaine is actually trying to make things better fixing your own screw up because you have always been the biggest problem in her life. This brings back the insult sword fighting and adds that you now have to board other pirate ships from yours in order to engage in it and you're not just doing it for an ego boost like everything you did in the first two - you're doing it to save your love.

second best monkey island game behind the first, do not skip it!

Masterpiece - one of the best of the series

I played this for the first time when it came out in '97, and overall it still holds up! It's fun, goofy, and only has a few moon-logic solutions on the mega-monkey mode. Definitely look up the modified graphical rendering modes to get the best result on modern computers.