Return to Monkey Island

The journey is this game's true prize I wasn't thrilled by the idea that Gilbert made it sound as if he wanted to ignore the last three games for the story of this one. Good news: he didn't, he acknowledged their existence, there are some references to the later games as well ... and of course there's Murray. The story starts innocent, Guybrush is on a race with Lechuck, on his quest causing collateral damage like never before ... but in the end I felt something was missing. Remember that passage The Dark Tower where Stephen King tells you to stop reading before Roland reaches the tower? (Of course you don't, who reads books these days?) That might have been a good warning in RoMI as well. The whole time it's hinted that Guybrush and Lechuck are not so different after all, so one would think that they had a big scene together in the end, but that part was completely left open. In the end I was not like "Oh, he got me good! Haha!" ... it was more like "Oh no, not again ..." The riddles are mostly rather easy, I only had difficulties with a few of them. The controls are ok, except for somem minor issues with the inventory (and why the heck does the game menu open with 'o' instead of 'Esc'?). The voice acting is as good as we know it from the other games, the music is great. Like in Woodtick in MI2 the same track plays with different instrument when you wander around a scene. The variations of the old themes are nice as well. The graphics ... well, they are what they are. As probably everyone else I miss the pseudo realistic look from the first games, that tehy felt like right out of a pirate movie poster. So I was not all too keen of the new look, when I first saw it. When playing the game however, it's a different thing, they actually fit quite well, most of the time. It's the era of Switch games, we have to live with that. I thought about giving only 4 stars, but then I stuck with 5. After all I had a good time and most of the time the game had the right feeling.

RtMI is, for the most part, a pretty solid adventure game. It's quite nostalgic, but at the same time it feels properly modern in execution. The UI is streamlined (a little too much, perhaps), the puzzles are (mostly) logical, if not always very clear, and the much talked-about artstyle is a touch odd, but I got used to it very quickly. The story's fine, if not terribly original, and many of the characters are likeable and memorable, but the best part is how the game explained the ending of MI2 in logical and believable way (although Curse also did it pretty well). But then there's the ending, and that's where the game falls flat on its face. In MI2 it was quite original and surprising, in Thimbleweed park it was annoying and here it's just plain insulting. So yeah, I don't know if I can recommend RoMI with clear conscience.

It took me a while to get into this. Personally I wasn't that sold on the art style but it really growed on me. The story is very much dependent on nostalgia and it feelt a bit easy although with some more challenging puzzles towards the end. But as a whole I loved it. The story, the humor and the seriously way they handled the legacy of the old games. A must buy in my book.

The game is great overall: - story is fun, not the best of the series, but very decent - puzzles are good, generally simpler than previous titles, and there are some interesting new ideas that worked well But - I'm not a fan of the visual style: I much prefer the Special Edition's (previous titles) - The Trivia game (can be ignored) is rather annoying and contains minor spoilers of things to come: questions about stuff that appear later in the game. And where is the porcelain?

Been waiting on this game for a while; I played all other games in the series. Art style - Great! No, it is not like in previous games (nor it should be); it is different - still great. Humour - Hey, it is still Monkey Island and Guybrush at his finest Puzzles - Puzzles are more on the Telltale series level than on the first two games. Story - Nothing spectacular, good Ending - Dear god ... not sure if the Monkey Island game is supposed to make you depressed. Won't spoil the end, but god, it sucks on so many levels.