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I like this take. My initial impression from March (which remains) was that it was extremely well-written in a very thoughtful, subtle way. As far as the humor goes, there was less reaching for punchlines (stylistic difference, not a value judgement) in favor of a more laid back kind of humor. But those themes, man... very mature, quietly powerful, and expertly woven throughout the fabric of the game. To me, most of the other titles in the series were superlative entertainments, while this one felt like a more thoughtful and robust work of art.

Hi all, actual benjoyce from all of those years ago, mostly from MILegend.com! I am also one of those people with a lifelong obsession with the games, starting from the tender age of 9, with CMI being my first game. I wrote my BA (2009) and MA Theses (2011) on the games, comparing the Disney influences, theme park design and adventure game design, as well as the many-many meta-layers of references of these games, sprinkling it with a bit of Baudrillard here, a bit of On Stranger Tides there (this before the 4th POTC movie, too), few kicks of theme park history, and a big dollop of game studies for good measure. I have even returned to the games later in my scholarly career here. And I think I am about to write a game studies paper on ReMI eventually. I think that ReMI is a fine addition to the series, and a genuine iteration of the same principles that made the games great back in their day. Ron Gilbert was into meta for many, many reasons, mostly because postmodernism was in the Zeitgeist and a lot more innocent that the metafiction we get these days. But I believe that ReMI in particular owes its humour and metafictional aspects very much to William Goldman's fairytale adventure novel, The Princess Bride, and I especially emphasise that it is the novel, because it has a lot of textual shenanigans that plays with both the way stories are told, and also the nature/status of fictionality. Goldman's constant barrage of patently absurd historical claims and the obvious fictionalisation of his authorial persona, the numerous digressions, omissions, blatant lies, tall tales, asides, and the whole "found manuscript"/"fictional editor" shtick is very much in the same vein as Gilbert and Grossman's masterful play with the computer game as a (meta)medium. There are several themes that run through Gilbert's whole oeuvre, intense preoccupations and hard-won lessons of storytelling, observations of real life and human nature that go well beyond the MI games, and his protagonists always seem to be "Lost in the Funhouse," to quote John Barth's lovely short story, which, incidentally, touches upon the same themes as ReMI, and it ends like this: "He envisions a truly astonishing funhouse, incredibly complex yet utterly controlled from a great central switchboard like the console of a pipe organ. Nobody had enough imagination. He could design such a place himself, wiring and all, and he's only thirteen years old. He would be its operator: panel lights would show what was up in every cranny of its cunning of its multifarious vastness; a switch-flick would ease this fellow's way, complicate that's, to balance things out; if anyone seemed lost or frightened, all the operator had to do was. He wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he wishes he were dead. But he's not. Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator- though he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed." Quite like a game designer's passion, wouldn't you say so? But I don't believe that Gilbert _certainly must have_ been aware of Barth's work (and while aware of The Princess Bride as a movie, not sure about him having read the book, either) but still, they are not essential to the argument. What is essential, though, is that Maniac Mansion, DOTT, The Cave and Thimbleweed Park are also part of this metafictional house of mirrors because they all seem to be centred around a few core themes: 1. The more aware we are of the artifice of art, the more we are equipped to deal with the absurdities of life. 2. The worlds we build in our fantasies and imagination are true to us, but might be paper thin for others. 3. Our personal quests are dangerous things to actually attain, because with the end of our quests, we lose something of our sense of self. 4. The human condition is one of always seeking, of finding new adventures, 5. Putting an end to interpretation is impossible, definite answers to find meaning and to stabilise it is a fool's errand. 6. Excursions, digressions, side-paths, getting lost are an integral part of getting where you want to be going. Sooo, they are very postmodern attitudes by nature. For these reasons (and because I would have accepted whatever ReMI would end up being at the hands of Terrible Toybox), I am grateful for the ride, and they way I eventually want to give back to the developers and the adventure gaming community is to continue to interpret, critique, and analyse this game as the metamodernist masterpiece I believe it to be.

They might want to hire a new marketing person at that particular organization...

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.

I really enjoyed stepping into the governor's mansion and having that first conversation with Carla. After the trailer, and remembering her feelings on Guybrush in MI1 and MI4, I figured her governorship was going to be a sore point early in the game. But instead, to have a conversational swordfight with an old co-worker? Borderline old friend? No hostility, but polite catching-up? Man, that was nice. And because it came after the jail scene with Otis and Stan (a scene which unfolded exactly as I expected it to), I think it got extra points for surprising me. (Still very early in the game, I pop around these threads like a minefield and take full responsibility for any spoils I might gain.)

Wow, the site just posted a breakdown of all the possible epilogue variations (10 in all) and honestly it was the icing on the cake for me. It presents a scenario that addressed what could've happened to LeChuck and Lila (basically forever fighting in the pits of hell over a chest, which they don't have the key for, containing a T-shirt while lava slowly rises around them), gives one last bit of closure for the Voodoo Lady and adds some further heartwarming scenes of Guybrush and his family and all the friends he made throughout the series. There's even an actual Monkey in one.

Yeah, the lack of save slots is a real... "real"... issue. Makes it particularly hard for us Mojo professionals who may need to jump back and forth through the game in the name of journalism.

I've just finished the game and I cried and I love it. I don't have coherent thoughts at the moment but my immediate feeling is that it was perfect in absolutely every way.

As little aside, it just dawned on me that the RtMI photo booths put up at GamesCom and PAX have a whole different feel in light of the end of the game, especially the cardboard cutout characters (but also the fake facades).

Thing about the nostalgia as well, is that it is much more of a _critique_ of nostalgia than just pure '-baiting'. Most characters talk about it in more or less subtle ways, like the Voodoo Lady who actively warns against the deleterious effects of nostalgia. It might be fruitful to think about two kinds of nostalgia: reparative nostalgia, in which you simply "want to put back everything as it was, reality be damned", and reflective nostalgia, in which you do not try to erase the passing of time, and you work through the pain, the -algia part of nostalgia, by reflecting upon the passing of time, what good and ill it had brought, and how you have changed as a person.

These are all valid mops! The others can be safely thrown in the fire.

My thoughts can't stop. I'm even starting to think that another interpretation of the Secret in some ways could be that Monkey Island is the epicenter or a convergence of multiple paths, dimensions, timelines, and outcomes. The irony is that Guybrush and LeChuck, most other characters, and us the player, were essentially already aware of this and were a part of it since the first game. They just didn't know/think it was the Secret because it didn't have a label on it like the chest. Thinking further, the pirate from the first game who partially tells Guybrush LeChuck's origin said only LeChuck knows the Secret. Perhaps he did, but LeChuck himself didn't even realize he knew, hence his ignorance when Guybrush asked him about the Secret in previous games. Stan used that to his advantage to create a gaudy and clearly labeled chest to pass as the real Secret as part of a marketing ploy.

There’s plenty about the game I don’t like or wish would have been done in (to my eyes) a better way, but pulling those things apart is infinitely less interesting to me than talking about what worked, what impact it had on me, and why. That’s an easier thing for me to say in this case because the large majority of the game worked for me, so I’m here with that attitude able to talk about most of the game, and I’m fine discarding the minority for the purposes of digging into the good bits on this forum. I think too much of the critical discourse on the internet is dedicated to talking about why something failed, why something is bad, why something was a disaster, and I almost never find it interesting, because the answers are often the same (unless the story of why something failed is truly spectacular). But hearing about why something DID work, or (more specifically) what effect a work had when it passed through the brain and is filtered through the life experiences of any human being outside myself, is almost always interesting. I have sympathy for when something you’re excited for doesn’t do it for you, because that feeling absolutely sucks. And sometimes breaking down why it didn’t work is useful, and commiserating is also often useful as a way to move on from being let down by something you were hoping to like. But telling people who did like it that they’re wrong, and here’s why, is never going to do anything helpful for anyone, especially in an online context. (Maybe if we were good friends and had this conversation over lunch, maybe!)

I have discovered this absurd thing: that option can omit even characters from a scene! 😯 From the article Return to Monkey Island Writer’s Cut Differences and Changes: Now I am especially happy to play the full-text version; there is no going back for me!

My goodness, Ron has praised Mixnmojo in a seriously irresponsible way: (Source with spoilers) Do you have any idea how brazenly the Mojogang will brag about this for decades? The next thirty years will all be devoted to master's theses written about RtMI and dissertations written by Mojo about themselves. We are screwed. I think we could try to somehow exploit the "new/knew" typo to question what Ron meant, but it is a technicality and I am not optimistic about the outcome.

Heh... that's funny. Seems more like a throwaway than any kind of deliberate clue or anything. But it is funny. Incidentally, has anybody tried standing by the SCUMM Bar fireplace for any length of time? Don't want to overanalyze it (too late), but I would note that mixing a little bit of contemporary pop culture (Star Wars) into their pirate story is totally a thing a couple of kids playing pretend would do. Probably just an opportunity to pay tribute to the mothership. But it happens to work well on that level 🙂

So Craig Derrick just tweeted something interesting: https://twitter.com/craigderrick/status/1572142330609831937 Scroll down and you'll see that he tweeted: Apparently it got people so fired up that Eurogamer decided to call it newsworthy: https://www.eurogamer.net/fans-think-lucasfilm-games-is-teasing-a-maniac-mansion-return What do you guys think? After Monkey Island, do you think we'll get another Maniac Mansion game? Or maybe a remake? And do you think Ron Gilbert will be involved?

I forgot to write something in my former post. I was going to write about a theory of mine... Thinking about several Ron's interviews from the past and how he told that it was an error to get Guybrush and Elaine married... I was thinking whether originally Boybrush was going to exist or not. Since Ron didn't wanted Guybrush and Elaine to get married I think that, maybe, the original idea was about Guybrush being a kid in a theme park among the animatronics. I still remember how, in Scabb Island, the bartender ask for an ID to give him grog. Maybe Boybrush has been a product from Ron and Dave accepting the rest of the games as canon. Maybe the original ending of Monkey 2 was going to be explained as Guybrush being a kid imagining adventures in the park... And Guybrush couldn't get married because he was a little boy and Elaine was a worker in the park. And, since Curse of Monkey Island finished with them getting married, maybe Ron was forced to introduce Boybrush to explain the ending. It's clear to me, reading those interviews, that Ron had a powerful reason for Guybrush and Elaine not getting married. I guess he and Dave had to rework many things in this game to readjust everything. Who knows. Just a little thought... but, in the end, it doesn't matter I guess. The important thing is the ending message that Ron gave us. That's what I get overall the rest of the details.

Oh to be sure; I am not saying I am "more qualified" to have an opinion than other people or anything to that effect. Or that others aren't as "practiced" as I am so therefore they are just too blind to see the flaws in the ending or any other statement of massive hubris. I am saying instead that because I went through the "exercise" of doing this process so much in a very arbitrary, institutionalized and fabricated way that I'm legitimately scared that I had such a bad experience that it prevents me from enjoying the same thing you're all seeing in this ending. Like I've just been traumatized somewhere so I check out when this sort of thing happens in media. I mean the farthest thing from "I know about literature, I know what I'm talking about". If anything, getting that degree was a mistake if for me it just sucked all the enjoyment out of everything forever! Haha. EDIT: Ninja edit, though my girlfriend had the literal same exact response as I did so my theory about being jaded by college falls flat. Damnit.

I admit it feels a bit like cheating, but earlier it did occur to me that the very fact we're having this conversation at all sort of proves to me that the game works on the level I think it works. If it didn't, there'd be nothing to talk about. I know I know 'I win automatically, so there' isn't all that compelling, but nevertheless I'm thrilled to an extent that this is the kind of conversation we can have at the end of this game.

That's what art is, though. Creating meaning where there is none. That's what life is. You missed out if you bullshitted all the way through. You've gotta embrace it.

I got the (e?) tickets ending. Note that the people on the blue cards are keyholes, whereas the pink one is the Lucas Arts logo (I think?).

When you go the courtroom and hand out the documents from the guy in the island, then ask the judge to cite a statute, he literally tells you to STFU 🤣 Then Guybrush says "ok I withdraw the question"

Firstly, I just don't agree with the assessment. I think there is depth there. It's not the deepest thing I've ever seen, but I absolutely do believe that it does everything it needs to do to make the 'mindscrew' work. And I also don't think it's never been that sort of thing. Fans have FOREVER talked about Monkey Island feeling like it has layers, how there's something about it that hints at stuff bubbling under the surface. I've had so many conversations about that. ReMI is perhaps the first game to directly look at that aspect of Monkey Island and try to make comment about it, but it has absolutely always been there. But to answer the above question, the way that it expands the world to me, is that before I felt like I would have to shy away from the bits I didn't really like as much. Like, for example, I think the monkey robot/statue showdown in EMI is much sillier than I like my Monkey Island to get. And the whole HT Marley thing. And certain parts of Tales, too, which worked less well for me, and even CMI, which I like a lot, I never liked its avoidance/dismissal of MI2's ending, but even that works fine now in the context of what Return does. Which is that it gives us permission to think of these as stories. Or even as myths, that change depending on who's telling them, and who's listening. And I don't think that diminishes them at all. People still care about ancient greek myths thousands of years later, despite the fact that they're really a disparate collection of stories with a lot of internal inconsistencies and variations. Myths are some of the greatest stories we have. And, freed from the stricture of 'this thing really happened. This thing didn't happen. These things contradict each other directly but we're just going to pretend they don't by not talking about it', I can just think things like: 'Giant Robot ending? Yeah, that's definitely something I can imagine Boybrush and Chuckie coming up with. Maybe that's what's going on there.' When I say it makes the world bigger, I mean it allows me to welcome back in parts of the story that for years I've rather just pretend don't exist, but just decide to view them from a different lens. "But if everything is permitted and there's no right or wrong, who cares, why does any of this matter?" No, I'm not saying that there aren't ways that I like Monkey Island to be which are closer to what I enjoy. But I don't think Monkey Island's world has to be either 'tightly regulated' or 'anything goes!'... I think there's a sensible middle ground somewhere where the more outlandish tellings can happily live in Boybrush/Chuckie Apocrypha or Guybrush's fantastical embellishments, or Stans weird theming decisions, without the world losing its distinctive feel. And all the stuff I do like, well, I can mull over where that all fits in for 30 more years, with any luck. Maybe that's a burden. But I don't feel that way.

Here’s a shot I took the Photo Booth and an extremely Part 5-appropriate look behind it featuring @Dmnkly

It occurs to me that this might also be why I find myself quite willing to accept a sort of weirdly ambiguous ending. An entertainment needs the big finish, the carefully timed pacing, etc. But for something that has more depth — and I think RtMI does — I'm happy to be left with something a little complex to chew on. I think it might bother me if I felt it hadn't *earned* that finish.

Ha! No, there was no misdirection. I knew what was going on. Well... at least the face value representation of what was going on 😄

Oh dang and that actually meshes very well with the idea that these actually maybe aren't just the adventure of guybrush, but just a place guybrush has been returning to for many years and feels a personal connection with him. Of course the curator doesn't think the artifacts are to do with his adventures, from that perspective. They're everyone's. Which has a really nice thematic resonance with the idea that we all, or at least those of us who have been around long enough, have a personal connection with the games, and have come to value different things in them. It's really the themes of ReMI which I think are so well done. It's almost like a fractal, when you zoom in on any one little bit of it it starts to look like a microcosm of what the whole game is about. I might be a little meh on the game's attention to detail in some areas but I can't deny that this is a game that has really thought about what it wants to be about. You get it too when the Voodoo Lady reveals her name. The dialogue is something like: "It was kind of more exciting when I didn't know." "You will find that to be true of many things." Dang, even stuff like Bob. He finishes the book and ends up disappointed that it's over and with each reread it's diminishing returns. Then he asks you to go and get him a book that never ends so that he doesn't have to feel disappointed any more. I feel like the details in the writing really reward repeat viewings.

One note, was posting late as hell at night after finishing the game and reading responses, as such I said YOU when I meant "we" as in MI fans in general. Not trying to single you out and on rereading I see how that might have come across. Because I am not trying to say that you are wrong for liking it, even if I do not as much. Glad you loved it. I definitely did not and I absolutely did not go into the game wanting to be a negative nancy. Less than 24 hours later I am honestly liking it less the more I stew on it. Endings being endings and understanding that coming back to something 30 years later was never going to be perfect in the first place. Gilbert was in a different place in 2020 when he started this, which was also obvious even NOT reading the letter at the end of the scrapbook. Being a gurmpy old man today instead of the wide eyed kid who played MI1 likely also changes my views as well. I have trouble getting over the generally flat characters, the downright boring new islands, and the shaggy dog retread. Whether or not the ending here was always the original ending will be debated for a long time. Either way it feels cheap, not deep and not especially interesting. The lack of any great LeChuck interactions near the end bothered me too, along with the disappearance of the three new pirates. Whole lot of build up and very little payoff. I dropped an opinion. MIght be right, might be wrong. Could say much the same to you here as well. Could it be that you are so happy to get any sort of MI game that you're ignoring some fairly obvious flaws? Doesn't matter either way. Recency bias IS a real thing. It isn't going away because we know about it, it's part of how our brains work as a whole. Having a new Monkey Island that is pretty good in a lot of ways is going to tickle certain parts of the brain especially with hardcore fans. And let us not forget the corrolary to it, which is if something doesn't feel right for whatever reason to a crotechty old bugger like myself, then being a fan there is also a tendency to be hyper critical. I like to think that I am not being so, but who knows? And of course that doesn't mean people who did like it will stop, or vice versa. You like it more the more you think about it, great. But I was speaking in generalities as I said above. As in, where will this be a year down the line? Two? Another few decades from now when I'm in diapers? Maybe by then I will come to love it as much as MI2, I doubt it, but it's possible. Maybe the fandom will still put it on a pedastal. But 2 days or so after release it's impossible to say one way or the other because we aren't there yet. In another note: After having gone radio silent since the release announcement, apparently there was also some sort of pre release controversy of some sort that I had zero idea about which had people in teams even before release. Which is likely to make discussions nothing but sunshine and roses with from here on out .

I believe the amusement park fantasy is the original, and that is the meaning of the plaque. The tshirt is your reward for finding the secret, and is a fun callback to the three trials. I don’t think the tshirt would hit as hard without the passage of time, the pent up desire, but the amusement park fantasy thread has always been there.

Indeed, this is what is being suggested. Today the secret is just this stupid shirt, not just the reward for finding the secret. But the whole amusement park, the original one, is the one ESTABLISHED by Gilbert in 1989. which could be a word pun: established in the sense of "founded in 1989" or in the sense of "decided it was THAT in 1989"?

It's interesting how even the opinions on the Ron's original secret seem to differ. I've read several times now that it seems to be the T-shirt. To me, that's just a gag that refers to MI1, while the real secret is the whole amusement park. The game also hints in that direction in my mind, as the plaque that reads "The Original Secret by R. Gilbert" is on the other side and ultimately applies to the entire room. Either way, I still think it's so well done, because Ron has kept his promise - AND has given us more on top of that. He doesn't just say "Here's the secret you've been asking for all the time. No shut up." He (or he and Dave) have continued to think about it and develop it further.

I'm pretty sure the PS3 version has Boen at the start. I kind of prefer the Harrington version though... it gave me a sense that LeChuck was sort of unraveling at the seams in Chapter 1, after all the years of deaths, resurrections, repeated transformations... Are you a zombie demon something right now? What's this monkey scheme even about? And then, at the end of Part 4 when Boen returns, it was like he was able to get straightened out with a "fresh" start again on the voodoo.

This channel is slowly adding new tracks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmfrI5_WjHGNB6jp3GqsMUQ/videos

Something I've noticed, that's not related to the content of the game, but how it was programmed, is the fact the game perfectly scales from 2.35:1 (which is not quite 21:9) to 4:3. I've noticed this in window mode when rescaling the window. Very, very cool! Also, the pause menu music is a minor key version of the Lookout music from SoMI (which is played in major key there). So good!

It looks like people like your stuff, so it might make sense to move it to a dedicated thread, so it doesn't get buried in this one.

Maybe? I don't mean to be glib about it, but from my perspective, introducing ambiguity about on which level various parts of the story are operating is the opposite of a burden to us, it's a gift. And I think the game lays out a very clear and well-thought-out case for why it's a gift and not a burden. But perhaps it'd help to consider it from another direction. A week ago, we were all still wondering and disagreeing about what the ending to Monkey Island 2 meant, and exactly where the lines of reality are drawn in the Monkey Island universe. We'd in fact been talking about it for 30 years, and are no closer to having a firm, precise solution to it. Few of us hated MI2 for that. Many of us loved it that much more for it. ReMI gestures at some possible answers to that question, but it deliberately stops short of answering it absolutely and definitively, so while we might have more material to work with now, in many ways we have no more closure than we did a week ago. We might even have more questions than we started with. But the one emphatic thing it says that that cuts through all that which I think is important is: 'That's not been so bad, has it?' I don't think it's mocking you for caring about it, and of course it's all subjective, but if you could have been said to make any mistake I think it's in assuming the game is taunting you for wanting to know the answer. I don't think it's trying to taunt you all the times it alludes to being careful what you wish for and the like. I think it's trying to mentally prepare you for an ending that actually isn't about answers, but is instead about a different sort of closure.

Terror Island: other than the three pirates from the box art of Monkey 1, were there any other Easter eggs? It was an odd location, with at least one area that had no interactions, and several areas with just one or two. I felt like I missed out on something there.

I painted the cover for the Spanish version of this book , but I still haven't read it as it's still at the print.

When Guybrush tells the pirates in the SCUMM Bar, that he’s after the Secret of Monkey Island, one replies: “Ha! It’ll turn out to be a T-Shirt or something.” Great foreshadowing! 😂

Finally... It comes next week. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thirdeditions/monkey-island-book-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-saga

Funny you mention this; my girlfriend (who also greatly disliked the ending) and I were discussing why we were so bothered, and I said "Maybe it's because I have a literature degree. Not in the sense that 'I know what I'm talking about and everyone else's opinion is wrong!', but rather because I have spent SO much time being literally graded on how well I'm able to extract meaning from someone else's work." All of my upper division courses were basically "okay we just read something, let's collectively come up with 10 theories that all work as to what really happened" and essentially you can either go in the camp of "well, this is what's actually on the page, soooo that's just it" or "but this was written in Germany in 1947 so clearly this is all about the Holocaust" and another kid says "well I think it's about dinosaurs and unicorns" and all of these interpretations hold equal weight because everything's made up and the points don't matter. To not be bored I would just come up with the most outlandish theories possible and be maximally convincing to sell my garbage idea, only to get an A from the professor. Inside I'm screaming "no, you idiot! I'm just bullshitting you! You're rewarding me for grasping at actually nothing!" That's why I never rush straight to a game's Steam forum after I've seen the interpretive ending to find out what wild theories people have about what they just saw. It just puts me back in school in the worst way possible 😂 So is it a theme park? Is it all real? Being told it doesn't matter and I get to choose what I believe just makes me check out. I'm just completely soured on that entire process and I think as a result I've never been able to enjoy those kinds of endings ever since.

I'm still processing the ending. I'm still not sure if it's an ending I fully like or not... But it's clear for me that Ron and Dave have had a lot of discussions, philosophical talks and work behind the game. I think the game itself is mediocre in almost every point. I don't fully like the art. I know there is a lot of work behind it, but (and this is a personal choice of taste) I don't fully enjoy the new aesthetics. There is something in the art that didn't fully get me inside the world of Monkey Island, it's like I haven't felt the breeze, the beauty of the night or the feeling of being there in the same way I did with the other games of the series. But, as I say, it's a personal opinion, nothing else. Characters, story, puzzles and even music (it's mostly a rework of the old tunes) seem not special to me. I think everything is below the standard level of a Monkey Island game. But... BUT! (Important "but", hehe) I agree with some people here. I think the message of the game and the feelings that left me after the ending were so important and deep for me that I can forgive everything. I agree that one of the most important things that Return to Monkey Island does is to lift all the titles of the series and bind them in a unique way. As if we were Guybrush having his moments of dreaming in the park, we can always escape from our reality and go back to the Monkey Island world with another story. I think the feelings the game left me were marvelous and I can't stop thinking about the whole series now. I feel that the whole series is even more special now, after that gorgeous ending. But this is a personal opinion too, not everybody is going to feel the same because every person is unique and feel things differently. You know what they say... "Not everybody reads the same book... although the title on the cover is the same". And I feel that it has been very important for the series to let go the secret topic. It's important to let it rest because the series is free now. The players are free now too, we don't have to search answers anymore if you understood the message that Gilbert and Grossmand sent us. And this is marvelous, because we will be able of enjoy (maybe) new Monkey Island titles in the future with totally fresh and new adventures without worrying about the secret or trying to explain the dark points of former games. As I said in the beginning, I think Dave and Ron have talk a lot about this and they shoud have think a lot about it. I see a lot of work behind, because they thought all the possibilities and understood that it was very difficult to please the players. They were worried about us and about the whole myth constructed around the secret. So... they sent us a sincere letter to us (the players)... but this letter had the form of a videogame. And that is Return to Monkey Island, a sincere conversation between the creators and the players, closing the secret topic once and for all. And, as any good conversation, you have to do your part too. The game ask you to look inside yourself and explore what do you expected to get from this game... or from the series itself. And I think it's a great exercise to stop for a moment in this fast and crazy world and ask to ourselves many things about this series. Maybe some of us will find what we are looking for... Maybe others not... But this is something personal and everyone will have to live his own journey with his own finale. Anyway, I would like to say that I'm enjoying this thread very much and that it has been an absolute dream to be able of playing this game at last. If you are reading me, thank you very much, Ron and Dave (and Dominic and the rest of the team). The ending really hit me in the heart and I can't stop thinking about everything. Great job!

I think it's fair to consider it a burden but I do think it argues for itself being a gift. I think it is saying 'this ambiguity is a great place to live in, so come in. Have 30 more years of things to ponder over. You're welcome.' And when it says that to me I respond 'great! I'll make myself at home' ... but I think I see how someone might respond... 'but I can't relax here.'

The TWP take could just be me to be fair, I don't disagree with what you say about the game. Some of the not-lucasarts references felt rather self-congratulatory to me, but admittedly it's been some time since I've paid the game any heed. The codewheel was a cute touch, and on reflection I think you've hit the nail on the head for what in particular jars me - it's the lampshading of callbacks in general, particularly when there is a lot of them. The moments that really jarred for me was the shipyard, and the aforementioned Sea Monkey - which while arguably appropriate in context felt still obnoxious to me in the moment. I get what you're saying, but it feels like a cop out to me all the same. I absolutely agree that nostalgia as a theme plays a large role in the metanarrative, but it shouldn't (in my opinion) come at cost to the actual narrative.

Re: recency bias, I usually feel like I feel like I get a pretty good handle on whether I'm going to appreciate something longer term at this point in my life. When I was younger I had the capacity to want to like something so much that I could go days and weeks trying to convince myself that I enjoyed it more than I did. I know that it's a tired one to bring up, but I had that kind of experience with EMI. But these days I feel like just... experience helps me recognise how I feel about something sooner. Heck, if you read my reactions to it here I think it's fair to say I've been mildly critical of a few aspects of the game. I know when I really like something though, I know the feeling that I get, of feeling more rewarded the more I think about it, and I get that feeling with this game. I'm sorry if you or some other people aren't enjoying it in the same way - you're allowed, but rather than imply that if our judgment wasn't so clouded we'd feel like you do, could you just... Believe us?

So, I don't remember reading about a 25% of dialogues, but the "cutting" topic made me think of this Thimbleweed Park post: https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/cutting.html It turns out that Ron did mention "25", but he was referring to the number of deleted rooms. Is it possible that you were referring to this?

I just thought about it, and I think you're exactly right. They do look the same. And I think Lila talks about having a tarantula... which Dee also says earlier in the game. This makes everything even more confusing now! I mean, one theory would be that old Guybrush is just inventing a story based on his son and his friends, I guess. Or, again, Boybrush only exists in old Guybrush's mind, and therefore Chuckie and Dee are his friends from his past. I feel like we're getting to a point where every story is a reflection of another story. It's not linear, it's parallel in a way. That's crazy though... I feel like that the more I think about the game, the more I discover new things.

They had to cut her to avoid the game getting an “M for Mature” rating. They said her character brought in too much violin-ce.

Giving myself a BIT of credit: