Posted on: January 15, 2023

richardjmoss

Games: 1872 Reviews: 12

Ending ruined the experiance

Here's the thing with me - the last thing I remember about any game I play is its ending. This a bad ending will always ruin a game, even if I enjoyed it immensely up to that point. And so it with with Return. The art style didn't really grab me, and aside from Guybrush, the voices didn't match what I (perhaps erroneously) remember of voices in previous games. But I enjoyed the game... I don't know if it is time or experience, but I did find it much easier than usual point and click affair (although I have to admit, for the first play-through I opted for casual, with the idea to complete the game first before trying to hardcore mode). But as I alluded to at the start, the ending just _ruined_ it. The way it played out I was half expecting it to be the tired old trope of "this entire thing was just a dream" but it wasn't even that, it just ended with zero resolution, at all, of anything. I feel cheated!

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Posted on: March 24, 2023

YveIce

Games: 121 Reviews: 2

nice mobil game with no soul

It's like the teen star trying to sing his one-hit-wonder song again 30 years later. He doesn't look as good as he did then, and it's more pain than joy. I can't understand Gilbert working so hard to destroy his life's work. The story just feels like it was pulled out of the trash can, from Monkey Island 2. The puzzles feel made for 6-8 year olds. And the artwork looks like it was created with a free AI image generator. And for "that" we've been waiting all these years to finally get the "end" of the Monkey Island saga? Oh no, wait, there's no end. I think we'll have to wait another 20 years to get the NEXT Monkey Island 3. I wish Gilbert would have quit his job as a game developer after Thimbleweed Park was finished. Now I have this bitter aftertaste that I can't believe it wasn't the work of the others that made the previous games so good.

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Posted on: December 25, 2022

McPillager

Games: 27 Reviews: 4

It feels... awkward

Human memory is not to be trusted. Having played every other game in the series many, many, many, (too many) years ago, this is not exactly what I had in mind. The game atmosphere, the humor, the dialogues, the scenes and even the game interface feels ...awkward -like the whole thing is trying too hard to convince, too hard to position itself in the series.

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Posted on: April 29, 2025

Hulk1842

Verified owner

Games: 142 Reviews: 1

Did not do the series justice

The puzzles were either too easy or so abstract that you would need to look them up. The worst part was the ending. If you have Tales of Monkey Island, consider that the last installment and skip this one. It is so disappointing.

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Posted on: January 10, 2024

davide1981

Games: 2 Reviews: 1

A huge, gigantic wasted opportunity.

I'm very sorry to write something so negative about Monkey Island: had high expectations for Return, as I had been waiting for this game for literally thirty years. But doubts emerge already at the presentation of the first trailer, with those horrible flash game graphics. Then the game comes out and...it's just bad. First of all, it is incomprehensible to me, INCOMPREHENSIBLE why Ron abandoned the idea of ending the story his way... it was what we were all waiting for, "Guybrush goes to hell". But no, all of a sudden that idea isn't being used, and in exchange we're given a pathetic soft reboot of the first two, which adds nothing to what we already knew. Interface and puzzles simplified beyond belief, and a nursery school atmosphere, like a cheap Sunday morning cartoon. Forget "On Stanger Tides" and the dark atmosphere of the first two: this is specifically a product targeted for children aged 12 and under. I'll tell you what definitely happened : Ron had his very clear ideas on how to design this game (those written in his famous 2014 post) , but he was understandably scared of failing. This is why he let himself be convinced by some idiot at Disney to abandon everything he had thought, which was probably "too dark" to be sold according to their damn marketing calculations, to focus on on a boring soft reboot for casual gamer, to maximize revenue and "be on the safe side. Now, every time such a beloved series is distorted in the name of market laws, irreparable rifts and disappointments are created in the fandom. And they never learn their lesson, EVER. They keep making the same ridiculous mistake. The only solution is this: make another Monkey Island, in pixel art and this time rigorous compared to the past and which tells the story we've all been waiting for: Guybrush goes to hell.

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