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Obviously this means Monkey1 will be playable inside ReMI, like Maniac Mansion was in DOTT. Bravo Ron!

I’m curious if this finale will address the cliffhanger set up in Tales regarding the voodoo lady setting up Guybrush and LeChuck, that was always something I was eager to see addressed in a future Tales sequel.

Knowing Ron he's messing with us and its a obscure returning character like the guy who sales you the map in mi1 or the rat from m1 and m2. 😂

My first thought is LeChuck. Anyone wanna place some bets lol

She pretty much confirmed that what LeChuck told about her was true though, the game even highlights the fact that LeChuck wants revenge against her for being used in her "scheme". By the end of the game Elaine doesn't trust her, while Guybrush I guess still kinda does. Also in the post-credit scene she looked pretty evil looking to me...

Yeah, my impression was she's neither good or evil but right in the middle (maybe leaning a bit more towards good). She's not controlling people or changing their nature, just guiding them and omitting key details. She is working to keep things on a certain path and I think those details could fit nicely into what is going on and revealed from the end of LeChuck's Revenge.

The HT Marley thing has always felt like a pretty easy thing to undo if they wanted. "But you told us you were Grandpa Marley!" "I'm a crazy old man with no pants, I tell people all sorts of things! The real question is why you listened to me in the first place."

I am trying to figure out my feelings about it. On the one hand, I thought it was a silly plot point, then and now. On the other hand, it feels weird to ignore such a big story detail, even if I didn't like it. On the other, other hand WAS it a big story detail? In the end the only thing that happens with it is he ends up being Governor, which we at least know isn't the case in ReMI, so maybe it's fine to just ignore it? On the other, other, other hand, is it STILL going to feel weird to just have that plot point hanging? On the other, other, other, other hand maybe the whole plot frame work and how they get from MI2 to the current story will also conveniently explain any weird discrepancies like this and we don't even have to worry.

I think you might be referring to this. Still doesn't mean there isn't a in-universe reason for it to be like that. (Even though they probably won't address it)

After hours of hopping through various versions of different Monkey Island games: “Oh yeeeah, I was playing Return…” 🤨😅

Then, exiting the stump again will take you to Curse.

Put it inside the stump, then the stump inside Monkey1 takes you to Monkey 2

Don’t be afraid of a little esoteric trivia, people. 🤷‍♂️

This would mean the first for a SCUMM adventure on the Switch.

Wow. Mojole dishing out the killer trivia I did not know. 👕 I beat #Mojole #135 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 3/6 🖤💚🖤🖤🖤 💚🖤🖤🖤🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

This was particularly common in the early 2010's, during the whole "young adult novel turned movie" phase. Lots of movies at the time were so confident and dedicated to the idea that they were going to be "the next big thing!" that they forgot to focus on just making it good. So many movies that I can't for the life of me remember the titles of now fell into the trap of starting a bunch of plot threads in the first movie, resolving none of them, ending on a cliffhanger, and never making a sequel. Which now in the grand scheme of things, ten years later, made that viewing experience ultimately worthless. Only a very small number of those franchises ultimately made it through to the end of the series as I recall (Divergent never even made the final movie due to diminishing returns and poor fan reaction.) My point is (and I know I've made this point before) I'd rather MI ended neatly (or as neatly as we could expect from Ron at least) on a strong note with as much of the legacy talent still with us as possible, than have it continue for years and diminishing in quality overtime, losing more and more of the talent over the years, eventually having to recast Guybrush with Harry Styles, or the like. I'd actually rather have a complete reboot than watch MI slowly lose, piece by piece, what makes it so special.

I don't necessarily agree that every piece of media should have a clean conclusion with no loose ends. I do think though, that if the intention is for a larger series with foreshadows, it needs to be appropriately mapped out, so there is some real pay off for those foreshadows. There is nothing quite as satisfying than when a story comes together. It adds further value to previous installments and makes it extremely satisfying to go back and see all the hidden references that now make perfect sense. Many writers will make the claim that they had the story mapped out. When watching or reading it though, it's usually incredibly obvious when a story was mapped out vs when it's not. I agree that too many forms of media are too preoccupied with jumpstarting a franchise, that they don't focus on making nice, self-contained entries that hint towards something more. When done right though, both can be achieved, and can be immensely gratifying to follow, so long as real thought and planning is given to the bigger picture and not skimping on the details and care for each, individual entry. That being said, I am hoping for some sense of closure with Return to Monkey Island. I'm fine with some loose threads, but would love for the larger narrative and saga to have some form of a conclusion, as the website is implying.

Mr. Fossey should be on the list! His loyalty to LeChimp is noble, and it's impressive what he is able to achieve with his crew of monkeys.

Yeah it’s weird. Melee Island in general had this very creepy quietness to it when I played it as a child, with no ambient sound effects like in the CD version, and slightly less music too. It was jarring to hear the music, although it is appropriate, as it was always an eerily still, lonely dock for me. Especially when you explore minus Stan.

It's perhaps also the MI game that's most self-consciously a sequel since MI2, but I guess we'll know for sure when we play it. CMI was more like a 'reset', obviously at the beginning and end it addressed a lot of MI2 stuff, but the main action was pretty self contained from that story. EMI comes closer I think, In a way it sort of seems like the approach we'll get here - it almost follows on from where one game leaves off and then uses Melee Island as a kind of base camp for the rest of the story. But it's a very different version of Melee Island and so it feels a bit harder to connect the dots back to MI1, and after that the story introduces so many new elements of course. Tales obviously self-consciously wanted to break direct continuity and imagined some other adventures happening between EMI and it, providing a buffer for another sort of 'reset' With Return, we'll see how it lands. Maybe the titles have something to say about their place in the series (this is a little tongue-in-cheek, but fun to think about): Secret was about being let in to a fun but slightly mysterious world. 2: LeChuck's Revenge: was the first and only numbered sequel and already hints at a darker follow up. Curse was about... the simultaneous blessing and curse of inheriting what MI2 left us with. Escape was about escaping from tradition and embracing a maximalist, wild interpetation of what MI could be. Tales was mainly just about telling a cool story in the universe, where there are many stories to tell. Return is about getting back to the story Ron started telling, and finding a new way to tell it.

When I look at reddit polls (a true and reliable metric, I know), Escape polls better than Tales when all of the Monkey Island games are choices. Tales polls better than Escape when they are the only two choices. You can infer different things from that, but to me it suggests that Escape has a very distinct feel to it that can translate as love-it-or-hate-it.

I can totally get behind this, it's actually how I feel about the game and why I like it. But my point is (and it's another unpopular opinion, i guess) is that Escape is a game that knows what it wants to be (even though it may not be of everyone's liking) and so, to me, it feels more coherent and a better experience than Tales. Tales might feel more familiar though, and that's why people like it over Escape. Also I think Escape (when you get in the right mindset) is kinda easy. Certainly easier than Monkey 2 at least. And the pc controls are good and easy to grasp.

I have some unpopular opinions regarding Tales. I don't really get what all the fuss is about and why people like it so much over Escape: I don't like the Morgan-Guybrush-Elaine-Lechuck "love conflict" they have going on. It has the art style I like less in all of the games (not including special editions), even though I still like it. The puzzles are really easy, even though they are interesting in concept. It's overly dramatic for a Monkey Island game. It has unfortunately the worst music because of the limitations of the WiiWare. I didn't mind the same character models reused for other characters, I think it's really cool how they made each pirate on Flotsam feel really different and unique with that limitation. I have some other gripes with it and decided to end with a positive unpopular opinion because with all that said, I still really like the game and what it was trying to achieve, and I really have fun playing it. On another note, I thought the Ransom DLC was pointless and kind of ruined the whole joke with the character. I think the bleeps over curse words are way funnier than the curse words themselves

Mm, I suppose the it's a good point that the HT Marley reveal already appeared to contradict the journal from MI, so it's not so bad to re-contradict it back in the other direction.