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Just finished it last night, the ending is wonderful and left me thinking for a long time... (I even woke up in the middle of the night thinking of it.) I haven't really gathered my thoughts on it, yet. But I'll say one thing about the game... I love the comeback of the "Pappapisshu" cry! 😄

I just noticed that the symbol on the codewheel operated by LeChuck are different from the symbols on the one operated bu Guybrush:

I'm always sort of wary of peeking behind the curtain too much these days, given the double edged sword that has proven to be. I think the average player doesn't think a lot about content getting cut, and doesn't understand very well that cutting is a big part of the creative process. On the one hand I'm super interested in what the concept behind Cogg might have been and what the puzzles were like and how it fit into the story. On the other, it's hard for me to wish it hadn't been cut because maybe it killed the pacing, or they decided it was just the worst bit of the game, or didn't advance the plot enough, or just didn't fit thematically as well as some other stuff. 'Cut for time' could mean a lot of things. Sometimes I watch deleted scenes out of interest, but I only very rarely wish they hadn't been cut. In a way, I'm happier this easter egg exists than I am sad that Cogg wasn't finished in the end.

Sushi the goldfish is a cameo from Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders if I'm not mistaken. Did not expect a Zak McKracken reference!

Perhaps not as noteworthy, but I like the detail in LeChuck's diary that implies he used voodoo magic to conjure up a perpetual storm over his ship to keep seagulls away from stealing his kippers. Explains why it's almost always storming on his ship. It also made me think of his fortress in MI2, which was described as hidden by an endless storm, so perhaps that was also due to voodoo magic to keep it hidden. Lastly, and this is more of my head canon, it sorta gives an implication to the "mysterious storm" that sank LeChuck's ship when he was originally going after the Secret before the first game. If it was voodoo magic, my head canon is that it was the Voodoo Lady, as part of her agenda, who conjured up the storm, then sent out the sharks to rescue LeChuck (she displayed in Tales she can influence creatures) and used them years later to monitor Guybrush on his quest to Blood Island.

Or at least, the 80s!

Cheap thin paper, so he could read through it. He knows how to read mirrored text, no problem. (Or this is one of those retcon decisions Ron and Dave decided to make, which probably is the correct but boring answer.)

I realized only now that at some point the museum closes and becomes a crime scene. 😐 Unless I am missing something from your observation, I would say that the assumption that the museum poster includes the list of crimes is false, because the poster is torn:

Yes I noticed that as well. Felt very deliberate to me, because the first time you see it you assume it's about the game you're about to play, but at the end when you review it it hits quite different.

I agree with this... the game leaves enough wiggle room for some interpretation but it's pretty clear we're seeing the same scene from MI2's end play out but with some of the layers of imagination peeled back. I think alternate reads of that are ... POSSIBLE, but they're really pulling against what the game is pretty directly showing us. At the end of MI2 we're seeing them as adults, then as kids, then in the carnival and it seems that then ReMI strips back the carnival some, and so on, it's a progression. The area that is most open to interpretation I think is what role the carnival plays in it all. Taken at face value, where they end up seems less like a carnival with rides (the rides we can see vanish from a background) and more like ... well, at best a big park, really. Maybe a fair. It's certainly not something that feels big enough to have a network of underground tunnels supporting it, anyway. So when we see the underground tunnels with all the theme park supplies and spare tracks and things, on what level is it operating? And when the kids are imagining the big whoop sign and the rides, whose story are we seeing? It could be that they're imagining something like the Carnival of the Damned that CMI posits as the end of MI2 and start/end of CMI. I think that makes sense as an explanation, but then what exactly is the carnival we see at the end of ReMI? Is that reality? If so, it seems like a different one from the park-reality where he's telling the stories. Or at least a different aspect. One way you could tie it all together is something along these lines: In the real world (or some slightly more piratey approximation of it) Guybrush visits Stan's carnival as a kid, and goes back ever year, imagining himself having all kinds of adventures there. He doesn't quite grow out of it, but he does meet Elaine along the way, who used to appreciate it in the same way he did but has sort of moved on. She tolerates his fascination with the place but nowadays doesn't go out of her way to nurture it. In the park, there is a sort of treasure hunt, every year, but usually Guybrush either comes away empty handed or doesn't take away the biggest prize. Elaine and Guybrush perhaps go on various real-world treasure hunting adventures, but they never really do anything on the same big, grand scale of Guybrush's imagined adventures in Stan's park. They start a family, and this becomes a new priority in Guybrush's life. He no longer loses himself in the fantasy of the park every year, but he does keep it alive through the stories that he tells his son, which are a mixture of his real adventures with Elaine, and embellishments that he tells, inspired by the times at Stan's park. His son loves all the stories, and he often play acts them with his friends. Where ReMI starts is during one such thing, and we get to see Guybrush telling his son another heavily embellished tale of his old adventures. At the end of the story, for reasons, Guybrush changes tack and reminisces about his very last visit to Stan's park, the one where he stays very late, determined to finally find the secret for himself. This, he does, or doesn't do depending on the player's choice. At the end of the story Elaine tells Guybrush about a new little adventure he has planned, but before we cut to credits we get to see Guybrush reminisce one more time about his younger days when anything seemed possible, and feel content that he's passing some of that spirit onto his son with his stories.

The very first screenshot that was shown of Melee Town showed the alley in High Street made inaccessible by the fish crates. This ended up not being in the game, correct?

I discovered Cog Island completely through normal play! I was collecting the trivia cards while I considered what to do next, and one came up that was a bit weird: It mentioned an island I know didn't exist, but it also game a map co-ordinate as answer. I decide to try out the map co-ordinate to see if it could exist on the game map... and it could! So I told Guybrush to dive down and lo! An island of cut content, that I wish hadn't been cut! Of course you can't come back up... so you end up dying, which felt weird at the time. But it was fine with the autosave feature. A great easter egg to stumble across!

Here’s a thought. Is the intro shot actually just… Moving on… The covered-up ‘spit’ sign itself isn’t particularly subtle, but I enjoyed how the actual location of that area is roughly where it should be relative to the Big Whoop-ified version of Booty Town.

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet but i just walked past the scumm bar for the millionth time and a bottle was thrown through the window from inside. Guybrush had to dodge and then said “hey watch it!” Now the window stays smashed whenever i go back. Love it.

Not sure if anyone else noticed/posted this, but when you find Herman, you can use the pieces of paper on him and he'll reveal that they're from him. They are pages from his copy "At the End of the Plank" and he was using them to help mark his way throughout the cave.

The "Seckrit" sign that Captain Madison and co. use as LeChuck bait is misspelled the same way Dr. Fred's secret lab is in Maniac Mansion.

A few things I noticed: -The first 3 parts mimic the first 3 parts of the original SOMI; the fourth and 5th play out more like the island hopping and twist ending of MI2... -In part 1, Widey mumbles some foreshadowing: "the secret smells like popcorn," "lights out always comes sooner than you think" -there are a bunch of weird looking birds all over high street that look just like the weird bird next to the parrot in the prologue -Dee mentions that anchors used a straight V-shape last century and only became the familiar modern design this century. I did a little cursory googling and it seems like the change happened in the 19th century!!! What does THAT mean?!?! Also, a few questions: -I'm not sure if people were referencing this earlier in the thread, but are the dead pirates on Terror Island supposed to be the "Men of Low Moral Fiber" of the 1st two games? Who else would they be? -Can anyone make out the words on Curator's shirt? It has "Melee" written backwards on it. Is it the Treasure hunting or Sword Master t-shirt? Something else?

Speed Runner is an interesting one for me - as I'm planning on speedrunning the game properly. Playing it on Writer's Cut, Hard Mode with some pretty good routing, it took about 1hr 35m, so there's not that much headroom in it for people speedrunning it more casually. Also, the achievement was awarded on the fade to credits after talking to Boybrush at the end. It might be quicker to do the alternate ending of running out through the caves.

Does anyone have any idea how to take ReMI apart to get hand on some of these graphics. I was thinking about doing a few maps of this game as a personal project or creating one of these pamphlets Guybrush is carrying around. But how to get these graphics except of takin screenshots? Or maybe even getting other graphics of this game as well.

I mean honestly, I don't think anyone here will be able to say something that will serve as an "ah-ha" moment. I could be wrong of course, but I don't think it's possible to convince someone else that the ending is good; it has to come from that person's experiences and thoughts. I think some the epilogues paint a clearer picture on what happened to certain characters. I feel that there is enough evidence to support multiple interpretations. I myself am operating under the interpretation that LeChuck and all the other characters are not simply animatronics and I don't feel Ron puts a lot of pressure on that not being true. Yes, on the surface, it seems that it's being heavily pushed as fantasy, but again, many of the epilogues (along with the fact that Elaine says the story gets crazier each time Guybrush tells it) makes it clear to me that Ron doesn't want to dictate it to the player. It's an ending not for everyone, and I wish I could say something that can make it clear why I found such satisfaction from it, despite 10 initial minutes of emptiness, but I don't think words alone will do that. I made many posts about it within the last week or so, but I'm not sure if that makes it clear enough. Someone else here could perhaps make a better case than I.

I do feel like every game post-Curse treats LeChuck as some sort of Ghost Zombie Demon Pirate, so the best methods for dealing with him are anyone's guess at this point. And yeah, the intro background change is fantastic, I didn't notice when it happened, but just gradually noticed that it didn't look like I remembered

Yes Thunderpeel, very dream-like the way that’s done. It starts out as a fairly faithful reproduction of MI2’s Big Whoop, but then becomes a strange seaside park.

The hovertext says "Settle accounts with [name]." Guybrush asks, "Do I owe you anything right now?" Locke says something like, "Thanks for noticing." Wally says something like, "Thanks, with all this business I tend to forget about getting payments for small orders like yours." Voodoo Lady says something like, "Much, but not monetary" and doesn't take payment. I don't remember trying the coinpurse on anyone else yet.

Ah, don't bother. I think I'm completely wrong about that. And I totally missed these kids in the background (posted by Low Level). My whole idea that the Prelude isn't modern, but "timeless" is blown out the water by the presence of these three...

I think you misinterpreted my post. The reason I say the eyes pose a problem is because I was spinning my own narrative that the park we see in RTMI is the product of a curse by Big Whoop itself, rather than going down a path of assuming that LeChuck's own curse attempt was successful. Meaning that both Guybrush and LeChuck are trapped by it, and are equally helpless. It was a exercise to brainstorm a take on events that fits RTMI in the tone of MI2's ending, regardless of RTMI clearly taking it's own direction.

Same. I like seeing an old piece of dev history and I like that they sank it beneath the ocean. It’s a cool Easter egg. I can’t really imagine how it worked into the finished game, though, and don’t really need to.

👕 I beat #Mojole #190 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 4/6 💚💚🖤🖤🖤 💚💚🖤🖤🖤 💚💚🖤🖤🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

booyah 👕 I beat #Mojole #190 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 5/6 🖤💛🖤🖤🖤 🖤🖤💚🖤🖤 💛💚💚🖤🖤 💚💚💚💚🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

Girlbrush. Ladybrush sounds like a product sold in the cosmetics area of a store.

I must say Part II of this game is probably my favorite "Island-less" act in all of the Monkey Island games. Everything was perfect

One piece of music I particularly loved was when Guybrush frees Murray in Leship's hold (right after we hear a rendition of Murray's theme from TOMI). The music in that "room" changes once you can explore the whole ship (it then becomes a variation within the whole Leship music suite), and you never get that piece of music again. It was quite fantastic:

After rejoining the forum, I realised that I never opened the chest! 🤦‍♂️ I was kind of disappointed in the reveal, and it was really late, and so I didn't really explore the area. I thought that was it. Tonight I went back and considered some of things I've read here, and that the "Secret" was that the entire thing was a theme park (just as Bill Tiller told us), it has made the ending more poignant. Especially Guybrush on the bench, looking back. It might take me a while to process it all. I'm so glad it's getting so well reviewed, though! And (again) I don't know why the graphics looked to awful to me in the screenshots and the trailer, it looks wonderful. I simply cannot imagine the game looking any different now. I think Rex was the perfect choice! (Although I bet he's traumatised from the experience!) Same goes for the voice acting. Dom was perfect. Even Alexandra Boyd, who I have struggled with in other games, was perfectly great. Strangely the biggest issue I have is probably with the dialogue. Sorry to repeat myself, but the whole game was just so damned PLEASANT. Everyone is in such a good mood and so willing to be lovely to everyone. It kind of stripped the game of having any big laugh out loud moments. Which isn't to say the characters weren't memorable or interesting, they all were. But there wasn't any drama. I really thought Elaine following Guybrush's trail of destruction was going to lead to a big confrontation, but it just led to another pleasant conversation. No matter what Guybrush says, Elaine forgives him or shrugs it off. It's not "bad", per se, it's just a not very "Monkey Island" choice. Was this the lack of Tim Schafer in the room? Dave Grossman seems likely an unflappably lovely guy... was this his cheery voice in every character? Obviously Ron and Dave have talked about this game being a reflection of who they are today. Are they both just incredibly mellow 50-somethings? Did they deliberately not attempt to capture the original feel? As I say, it's not "bad". It's quite enjoyable being in this pleasant world. It's just not what Monkey Island has been for the past 30 years. (Shrugs) Anyway... random thoughts!

The reason I put Return first was because not only do I find it a great game on its own, but it made me appreciate the other games even more. So, even as much as I love the other games and have nostalgia for them, Return actually makes me appreciate them even more now knowing what's been established in Return. It reframed how I view the entire series in a great way.

Same for me. But I really, REALLY enjoyed Return. I have the feeling that will grow with time, and it could overcome even MI2. Now I just want to play it again slower, and discover every little detail.

Apparently they tried to translate it into italian and part of the translation is into the code, but then came the notice from Lucasarts that every other version except english would have that scene cut because translating it well into every language was a pain. On youtube there's a video that explains how to see the italian version on ScummVM, but honestly I wish there was some way to hack the game to unlock it while playing normally (sure, the song won't be all translated, or at all, but it's one of the most iconic moments of the series)

Well I finally feel ready to discuss ReMI... and there's 18 pages of hot takes to work through 🤪 I'm sure they're filled with interesting and thought-provoking discussion, though! My main takeaways were: My, what a PLEASANT game. Everyone is so damned nice about everything all the time. ("Remember that time I blew up your ship, left your stranded on an island, and you were nearly eaten by cannibals?" "Oh yes, but don't worry about it!") Guybrush is unbelievably nice and non-destructive, too (apart from maybe two moments where I felt they added them afterwards because he'd been so nice) LeChuck has been defanged from his absolutely terrifying MI2 version. OH! And the art style is amazing! That was my first impression. I was like, "Oh shit! I love how this game looks". And I was definitely someone who was unimpressed with the screenshots and trailer. The whole game looks so much better when you're actually PLAYING it. The ending still bends my brain a little. I suppose I want to believe everything really happened... but the game sort of tries to have its cake and eat it, too: The games are retellings of fantasies that have been had... inside a fantasy pirate world. The opening sequence and the park bench are all "reality", but it's a reality where pieces-of-eight are real currency and pirates are real. It also means that the ending he told his son was just randomly weird: "And then I remembered I was in a fairground where I worked as flooring inspector..." Okay, dad! Thanks for the crappy ending to the story. Are you feeling OK? I'm getting a bit worried. It's a bit odd when you think about it... but Ron wouldn't have it any other way.

I've just finished the game. It's GREAT. And I love the ending, it made me cry.

Yeah, especially the fact that she's in costume and seems to stay in character as "governor" would be a way of explaining how they met in the park and why he started falling for her. I still think she might be a higher-up in the park, since she seems to get around the island area pretty frequently, but still takes her "job" very seriously. You think Guybrush as a kid came across a Zoltar machine at the carnival and wished he were a Pirate?

I found my favorite character in the whole series: Lemonhead!

This is a detail that (I think) can only be seen for a few moments. Guybrush is sitting on the bench and a small boat is floating in the pond in front of him. That boat is a touching detail. To me it is another hint that he is a bit lost in his memories of past adventures or fantasies.

Murray's theme from Tales does briefly play when he's first introduced in the chest! (Hopefully the below has the timecode embedded)

If you haven't already done it, I suggest: Asking Toothrot for quotes of "At The End Of The Plank". A beautiful, beautiful novel. Reading Toothrot's philosophical manifest, entirely. Among other things, he presents us with the new version of an old question:

In the ending, you can take a photo as a pirate, which was also possible in real life at PAX and Gamescom. 🙂 More generally, the recreation of Melee shown at events was a giant real-life reference to the ending. 😁

So, the other day I posted two things I would change about the game. Freeing Wally and having a showdown with LeChuck. Both of those are now perfectly answered for me. There is an achievement to free Wally, which I did last night and man did it feel satisfying. I had wanted to do that since Curse, my first MI game, so a weight has been lifted. With the multiple epilogues, it gave a scenario for what happened to LeChuck and Lila. Forever fighting in the pits of hell over the Secret. Knowing what they are fighting over is a T-shirt makes it all the the more satisfying. Cool way of showing how their obsession enveloped them. I realized I just wanted a bit more closure on Lila and LeChuck especially and that short epilogue does just that in spades. It also works on many levels. LeChuck was described several times throughout the series as true evil that could never be destroyed completely. So, him being enveloped by his lusts and trapped in hell fighting over essentially nothing is perhaps the perfect end for him. It also compliments the fantasy/carnival aspect well. Their animatronics are stuck in place, still after the secret, while Guybrush leaves and starts a family with Elaine. So, now I wouldn't change a thing. The game is perfect to me and just gets better the more that gets unraveled/revealed. The other epilogues compliment other characters/aspects perfectly as well.

Did anyone yet mention that the checklist on LeChuck's motivational pamphlet gets filled out as you do stuff in the game?

Oh wow... DID NOT KNOW THAT. I mean, I think where I fall on this is that the literal SECRET, as it were, is that there is an amusement park that actually exists and that some amount of what we're seeing is fantasy. Which, I mean, it's easy to overthink, but we've been buried in a metric crapton of "clues" pointing directly at that since the very beginning. How MUCH is fantasy is where things start to get subjective, I think. Bits of it? Some of it? Most of it? All of it? Hard to say. I don't know if Ron and Dave have very clear notions of where those lines are drawn, or if it's kind of fuzzy for them too. But while it's fun to ponder (and I intend to continue doing so!), I feel like that's of secondary interest. Like so many good stories, it isn't about what it's About. And what it's About is abundantly clear, even if what it's about isn't.

I always find it really funny how much LeChimp looks like Homer Simpson.