The Secret of Monkey Island™: Special Edition

This is the most beautiful game ever. Well, at least - no, not only in my memories. What can I say? It's a classical point-and-click adventure. Maybe *the* classical point-and-click adventure. Of course, there have been others before that, maybe even more innovative ones (Ask me about Loom!) - but this one is the first I remember that has such a truly beautiful atmosphere throughout the entire game. The jokes are hilarious. That and it's consequent denial of actual violence (you can't die, fights are rather comical) makes it one of the best suited games ever for kids. The Special Edition features a reimagined soundtrack, new graphics AND the possibility to switch back to the old graphics at any moment to see that every scene is true to the original. It seems to lack only one thing: the infamous "Insert Disc 22" joke (or at least I haven't found that stump yet).

Back in 1991, the captivating world of Monkey Island made a 12-year-old boy buy an English dictionary and painstakingly translate sentence by sentence until he finished the game. Years later, that boy works in video games and credits Monkey Island for his career choice. Needless to say, I was very excited to buy this gem re-imagined, now with the fantastic work of Dominic Armato. My hopes were fulfilled to a partial extent: the art team contracted by LucasArts for revamping the old visuals simply does not possess the artistic skills of (now Pixar's) Steve Purcell and other amazing artists responsible for the original artwork. More so, the cartoony character design desperately lacks the charm of the (more photo-realistic) original or the 3rd installation in the Monkey Island series. Regardless, the game deserves a full rating: its writing did not age a bit, puzzles are fun (while sometimes excruciating) and one can switch to the original graphics at any moment. A thumbs-up for the purchase is a no-brainer.

To be honest, the new version has too many flaws for this price tag. You still have to use the old "Look, Pick up, Push, Pull, Open etc..." control scheme but the area with those buttons (through which you can derive the keyboard shortcuts easily) isn't there anymore, neither is the inventory and you have to open the inventory with ALT, which I've never seen before. It's ignoring all standards, the old one as well as the new one. What I don't like either is Guybrush's new look. Most of the time it looks like he has a sidecut and in general he is the usualy comic like big and thin figure instead of his old self, especcially the last picture with him and Elaine looks better in the original version. The feature to switch between versions instantly with a button press is neat though. The content is the same as before, Monkey Island 1 is just plain weird and defies most logic, which makes it a lot of trial and error compared to modern point'n'click adventures, but it has a certain charme.

This is a perfect update and really the opposite of what the negative reviews say. The new art is very well done and fits the series. The voice acting is good. The interface is much easier to deal with than the old version. And frankly, if your nostalgia is so thick that you for some crazy reason don't like any of these updated features, you can play the entire game in the old classic style. As a result, there is zero reason to not like this rerelease.

This is a first-impression writing. I may update it. This version suffers from many problems, some of which are more subjective than others. The good news is that you can press F10 and stay in the classic mode. The bad news? Well... 1. I like the voice acting but it's not available in classic mode. Lame. 2. You can't click to advance dialogue. Lame. 3. I don't like some of the choices for the "Special Edition" style. In particular, I strongly dislike their version of Guybrush. The original artwork (e.g. Guybrush and Elaine, at the end) are wonderful pieces of art. I wish they had imitated those. 4. The "Special Edition" interface is horrible. The verb menu is clunky, as is the pointer-selection alternative. 5. Some points feel very cheap, such as the dock scene at the beginning. You really couldn't afford a little dual-scrolling here? Come on. It looks so flat at lame that the original version feels better. And it's a shame because some of the art is nice. Sadly, I can't imagine playing this remake over the original. That said in stark contrast the the "HD" version of "Day of the Tentacle", which gets everything right. Among other things, it allows the player to choose which UI to use. Summary: "Day of the Tentacle HD" shows you a brilliant update to the original. Buy it now... twice. Someone out there needs a copy and you can gift it to them. "Monkey Island: SE" doesn't get *everything* wrong but there's little here to enjoy. If you already can play the original via ScummVM, you should probably stick to that.