Return to Monkey Island

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.

Ron Gilbert, enough with the non-endings! Either seek help form associates in order to write an ending-ending, or stop making games to avoid ruining your legendary status in your field.

I've been a fan of Monkey Island since 1993 having played and loved both original games back then, later Curse which I also loved, then Escape which... I hated and never finished. Never really felt the urge to play Tales. The special editions were also great because they gave you a chance to revisit the originals with voice acting though I didn't care much for their graphics... Why am I telling you all this? Well, because there's a ton of reviews telling you this game is just bad and not on the spirit of the old ones - and I completely disagree. Sure, it looks different, but so did Curse. Yeah, has a different interface, but again so did every game in the series, and right, it's more streamlined and probably easier - but personally, being older and having less time in general and especially less time to spend being frustrated and playing trial and error games, I actually appreciated this. And the humor is spot on, I think. I'm not going to try to convince anybody who didn't enjoy it, that they're wrong because they're not - obviously. But for the undecided: be aware that this is not as black and white as it might seem. I have actually just purchased the game here for the third time after having played it upon release on the Switch (which works surprisingly well!) and having also ordered the physical big box version from LRG. So, it can't be that bad, can it?

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.

Don't bother with this game if you expect a true Monkey Island 3. You will be disappointed. It is not a true successor to Monkey Island 2, you will not find closure. If you liked everything that came after that game, you will enjoy this one too though, as the many positive reviews show.