Tales of Monkey Island: Complete Season

Monkey Island is still a nice time sink if you like slightly pirate related (miss)adventures - but story wise I'm waiting for Ron Gilbert to get his shot at the true ending of the trilogy and the REAL secret of monkey island. The puzzels are mostly enjoyable but you need to walk a lot around a lot - a mechanic never done right in 3D adventure games. The Camera jumps around and you don't know where you can walk to. Concerning the Ending [Minor Spoiler]: Why does it end like that? Why can't they let guybrush just die already? Every learn-a-piraty-fight-technique puzzle, every get-voodoo-ingredients puzzle has been done to death now. He could have died a hero but know he is just a zombie cash cow for more slightly pirate related fantasy games. The game is not bad - but it being named "Monkey Island" is just for the money. The bloodline to the original is thin now and gets ever thinner with every new game.

The monkey Island series is anything but entirely consistent. The first game has that dry Ron Gilbert humor and is a 90s point and click adventure. The second game many consider to be a improvement over the first game. It was considered to have better artwork, a improved sound track, the puzzles were more challenging, if not infamous. Then the third title came along, which was CMI. It took the series in an entirely different yet vaguely familiar direction. It was animated something like a Disney picture and the sound track was far more modern with a complete voice over from a very talented voice acting cast. For many this was not a "true monkey island game" and a wedge between fans began to form. Ron Gilbert's conclusion to the second game suggested that he may have some incredible twist in store... Curse was headed by a different creative team and it went in it's own direction, without consulting Ron Gilbert. Then the 4th game, a new interface and CGI. The game seemed to alienate quite a few fans. This title also went in it's own direction, adding twists and turns to the long existing canon/ ethos of the franchise. Then of course we had Tales which occurred 12 years after Curse... It seems that they wanted to redo the appeal of Curse of Monkey Island. The game is very cinematic, which makes it as fresh as Curse must have been in contrast to pixel art ( which some prefer) It felt like a playing a movie while watching it unfold However, it was a episodic release and sometimes the episodes felt rushed. Reused graphics, fewer puzzles, because it was episodic meant that some of the puzzles were a bit tedious or time consuming to fill the time. If you're a super monkey island fan, you probably like all of them and play them for their continuity and characters. You're probably not huge on canon and "Ron's vision"... If you're someone who likes to see series evolve/ change and have a special place in your heart for the series, then I'd recommend this one.

In chapters 4 and 5 there is a bug (i don't know what causes it) that crashes the game at a certain point of the story. I was able to fix it for chapter 4 and play and finish the chapter, but I'm stuck in chapter 5 and cannot progress. For some reason, once you reach a certain point in the story, the game just crashes. very frustrating. DON'T BUY THIS VERSION. You have to go out of your way to fix this issue and it still does not guarantee that you will be able to play it.

I already bought the game on the app store and after finding it here on GoG, I just had to buy it again. From a game perspective, it captures everything an adventure game is supposed to have; an engaging plot, an evil villain, and a love triangle :p The point-and-click interface is simple to use doesn't really require much intuition although some of the puzzles really make you think which is great! I haven't had to think like that for games in a long time. A great buy for any adventure fan.

First of all, I have to say that it is a very impressive game in the Monkey Island series. The developers not only created a good adventure game by its own, but also managed to capture the spirit of old games (especially Monkey Island 2 and The Curse of Monkey Island), bringing back a lot of familiar elements but making quite many fresh things. The story is just great, the new characters are memorable, the interesting twists on recurring characters are well-made... and this game has the best Insult Swordfighting system ever. The game, however, has its flaws caused by episodic structure and budget reasons. While the story is solid and ever-progressing, the quality and the pace of the game varies heavily from chapter to chapter. In some of chapters, there are a bunch of tedious fetch quests and labyrinth navigation, which are not so awful as they may seem, but which really look like a filler and kinda cripple the excitement from playing the game. There are a bunch of technical problems with the game, like missing animations, skipped voice-over line and improperly switched scene. The game seems to had no extensive proof-reading too - if you are playing the game with subtitles, be ready to missed punctuation signs, syllables or even the whole chunks of the sentence sometimes. But do not be afraid! This is still a very good game and a must-play for every Monkey Island, and for me, it is the best experience I've had since I finished The Curse of Monkey Island. I highly recommend this game, but, still, beware you about the lack of polish.