Monkey Island™ 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge™

I played Monkey Island 2 back in the mid- to late 1990s and I remember that I didn't really enjoy the game that much even back then. Having purchased it again on GOG and played through it, I have to say my opinion hasn't changed. Many of the puzzles are just painful, with illogical actions required and hardly any hints given. The "adventure game logic" typical of adventures in the 1990s abounds. I feel this has been much better handled in some more recent adventures like Resonance or Technobabylon. There's been real progress in the genre and I don't think Monkey Island 2 has aged well in that regard. I found its puzzles a frustrating experience and frequently had to use a walkthrough or the newly implemented hint system. I also didn't enjoy the story that much. Whereas Monkey Island 1 had a certain charm, there's excessive fourth wall-breaking in Monkey 2 which is pretty immersion-killing for me. And the ending is downright bizarre. I mostly played with the original graphics, but on the whole the remastered edition seems to be okay to me. Voice acting wasn't bad, I liked Guybrush's voice and thought the actor did a good job. Monkey Island 2 is deservedly a classic, but don't be fooled by all the "Best adventure game ever" nostalgia. This game can be very frustrating and IMO just isn't that well-designed in some parts. Certainly worth a buy, but don't exspect that you'll invariably enjoy it, even if you like adventure games in general or have even played Monkey Island 1.

I must say I cannot agree with most other comments here. The remake itself is top notch in my opinion - MILR provides all the foundations (more flexible movement, finer animation, facial expressions) that SOMI lacked and the remake again transfers the beautiful ideas behind the original low-res artwork into nice, COMI like cartoon graphics. The new interface is also close to the original 3rd installment of the series, which for a very good reason sets the standard for p&c to this day and the combination of the original MILR soundtrack with the COMI level voice acting of the remakes could teach some 2010s game a lesson. However I cannot in understand, why MILR ever got all its praise. Humor? Sure. Characters? Yeah. Story? Yup (well - except the bolted on end) All on SOMI/COMI level. But the developers themselves admit to stretching out the gameplay by enforcing as much location changes, almost all of them backtracking, as possible. And boy did the succeed. With several frequently visited locations nested three deep within other ones (each requiring transistional animations and/or long walking distances between them, because why not) and no fast travel, one wastes up tp ten minutes retrieving an item that suddenly is important while being considered useless by Guybrush one second before... This is made even worse by highly unfair puzzles: Failing one of the many unmarked quicktime events yields similiar results/reactions as attempting sth. completely useless. Failing other interactions gives explicitly misleading replies (e.g. an object is said to be "way out of reach", leading one to try out/search for all lengthy/throwable/etc. objects with it, while the solution is cutting with a small knife.) With almost three dozen areas accesable and just as much inventory items, failing randomly when trying the right thing leads to an endless search for alternatives. And the area based clue function is more likely to spoiler later puzzles in the same place than to help.

I played the original, or retro mode, or whatever you want to call it, but with the voice acting. This wasn't bad, but it wasn't as visually appealing as the first game; the colors in a lot of the backgrounds were washed out, and most of the locations weren't all that interesting. I did like the new look of Guybrush, though, and his voice actor fits him perfectly. This one takes quite a long time to really get going, and not long after it does, it shoots itself in the foot. With a nuke. The last portion of the game is extremely tedious and annoying, sending you to random screens whenever it feels like it. The fortress area right before that was a great villain's lair - the kind I dream of, as an Adventure fan - but that was easily the highlight. The humor brings some good laughs, but not nearly to the extent that this game's reputation would suggest.

Though I do agree with the more positive that overall the game is well-made, and often witty and enjoyable, it is somewhat disheartening to be 77% of the way through the game, and then encounter a game breaking bug which removes access to any controls or inventory, save for quitting the game. Additionally, I neglected to hard save frequently, and the game "helpfully" decided to auto-save right before it revoked my ability to play the game I paid for. Though I personally enjoyed the 77% of the game that LucasArts deigned to let me play, I would've hoped that when remaking a game, they would have checked for third act bugs that demolish the previous 5 hours I spent playing their game. Also, the game absolutely refused to download via GOG Galaxy, giving me an E2 error every time. I had to download the alternate installer from their website to get the game installed. And it seems to be an issue with this software, as Galaxy has no trouble downloading the other titles I have. Still, I did enjoy the 5 hours I was allowed to play the game, but considering how often tedious point-and-click adventure games can be, I'm not going to replay it to get to the end; I'll probably find a let's play somewhere and watch that instead.

great