The Secret of Monkey Island and LeChuck's Revenge are both legendary adventure games, so you may be thinking, "Oh no... I hope they don't screw this up!"... Well, worry no longer! Let's just get this out of the way first: the art style -- I'll be frank: it's not my favourite art style ever. But... It's very well-done technically, and honestly, it grows on you after a while, and you learn to appreciate how well it suits the overall tone of the game. But the graphics are just one piece of the puzzle, because you're in for a real treat with the music... Michael Land returns to lay down the same kind of amazing soundtrack that helped make the first 2 games so memorable, and the voice acting is outstanding. Dominic Armato reprises his role as our favourite wannabe pirate (As far as I'm concerned, he is the one-and-only true voice of Guybrush Threepwood, full stop). The story and writing is overflowing with charm, humour, and even a fair share of truly heart-touching or "aww"-inducing moments. And it does this without ever feeling long-winded or boring. And finally, the best for last -- the puzzles! Just... oh... wow... the puzzles... I don't know if I've ever played an adventure game with better puzzle design! Almost every adventure game has at-least one puzzle that veers into Moon Logic (I'm looking at you, "monkey wrench" puzzle from MI2), but not this one. The puzzles are challenging but never unfair, and not once did I ever have to resort to "click everything on everything" -- I was always able to figure it out. Of course, if you do get stuck, the game has a built-in hint system that gives you increasingly revealing hints. I can't recommend this game enough. If you loved the first 2 games, you'll love this. If you just love good adventure games in general, this is a great one. Enjoy -- I can't wait to play this through again :D
I'd love to tell you it's a great expansion pack, but they honestly still haven't fixed a ton of stuff wrong with the base game. The developers have decided that making more money from DLC is more important than fixing the laundry list of game-breaking bugs that you can see from Steam, Reddit, etc I used to love the Tropico series, but it seems like each game was released with a lower bar for QA and this game took it too far. Played it a few months ago, and they **still** haven't fixed the queuing logic for the Pirate/Commando/Cyberspy missions and citizens still do stupid things like walk across half the map to go to church. Vote with your dollars and don't give these greedy executives more money until they deliver the product they promised us.
I'm going to ride to this game's defense for a minute. I know a lot of people (including myself) were somewhat disappointed in it, and rightfully so. However, I still do think it's a solid-enough adventure game that just failed to fill the really-big shoes its predecessors made for it. The graphics still have an endearing, cartoony charm to them. Michael Land still lays down that great Caribbean marimba music. The humor is whimsical and mostly-funny, but perhaps is guilty of feeling a bit forced at times. The puzzles are still pretty logical overall, save for a couple that somewhat hurt the overall experience. So yeah - While I wouldn't recommend this game over any of the first 3 games or the Tales of Monkey Island series that follows it, it's still a good game compared to most other adventure games. Definitely worth playing if you're willing to wave away a couple of stupid parts.
Most of us know that those old-school Sierra games have a reputation for being sadistic and unforgiving - So you know what you're signing up for when you play them; however, most of them at-least have charming graphics, music and writing, interesting puzzles, memorable characters, a dash of humour, and are short enough that you can kind-of forgive the game for making you start all over again because you forgot something in the first screen. This game has **none of that**, save for maybe the graphics/music being charming enough. Instead, the first half of the game is dominated by you having generic military conversations with highly-forgettable cardboard cutouts padded by puzzles that amount to nothing more than "read the manual and type what it tells you to". It reminds me of that quote: "Oh cool - A puzzle where you have to type out the instructions for CPR from the manual. How fun!" -- Nobody ever on the face of the planet There are also several places where this game will force you into no-win situations for the most frustrating of reasons. Spoiler alert - When you give the security guard your ID don't forget to check it when he gives it back - He gives you back the wrong one. (I guess they hire awesome guards at the Pentagon). Of course, you won't find that out until you've wasted hours of your time and are forced to replay hours of this so-called "game". I know - what a great puzzle! Sorry I ruined it for you! /s Oh, and if you lose at the dice game or decide not to waste your time playing it, you'd better reload - There's no skill involved (it's completely chance-based), but if you don't beat the world's worst employee at gambling on-duty on the way to a life-or-death mission you've already lost the game - But you won't find that out for hours. To add to other reviews, the "submarine simulator" is like... 75% of the game's length, tedious, unskippable, and you will likely have to play through it every time you restart the game - which will be often.
The art. plot, and dialog of this game radiate charm and character, but like a lot of old adventure games be ready for some frustrating crap from an era (thankfully) left behind. - You can die in many ways with little warning or foreshadowing - Lots of backtracking and try-everything-on-this puzzles - There's a large unskippable maze in the game, and you will die every time you make a wrong turn And worst of all: - You can back yourself into a corner and be forced to basically restart the game! And it's for doing some of the most trivial things, like eating apples However, if you are willing to suck it up and tolerate these things, the whole Kyrandia series is an amazing story and worth a play, and I promise the later games learn their lesson from this one.
