madmardi

I bought the MI2SE years ago, but I only finished playing through it recently. Before I ask my question (which somebody here can hopefully answer), I just want to put it out there that I really enjoyed the special editions for both MI1 and MI2, and can't see anything but good things about having those games revisited and re-released in way that could appeal to new audiences. In fact, just today I found out randomly that one of my co-workers, who is mainly into GTA type games, had bought MI1-SE for his phone years ago, so it just goes to show you that if you keep making these games available, and keep people talking about them, then new players will continue to buy them. Anyways, I'm prefacing my question like this because I don't want this to become a thread for ranting about all things that were changed from the original game(s), and the things that people didn't like about the updated graphics, interface, music, voice-acting, hair (for the record, I have no problem with Guybrush's hair in either special edition), etc., etc. Okay, so here's my question: When I played MI2SE I remember that along with everything else they updated the map of SCABB Island. For the first part of the game that's fine, but during the Four Map Pieces you could still see Dread's ship in the bottom left corner, even though his ship was also now anchored out near Woodtick at the top right. From what I recall, if you switched to Classic Mode you can see his ship near Woodtick, but not on the peninsula, due to the low resolution/lack of detail. In fact, I believe that someone posted something about this to Twitter a few weeks ago noticing the same thing. Okay, so far as I know, that's an oversight in the SE. But what I ALSO noticed, and this is where I want to know if I'm wrong or not, is in the original game you could return to the peninsula and the background art had been changed, removing Dread's ship. The location was pretty pointless as there was literally nothing you could do, but I thought that it was a nice attention to detail to see the same wooden docks, now with the ship missing. In the SE I tried going back to the peninsula but it had been removed as a location from the SCABB Island map. So... can you actually return to the peninsula in the original game, and they removed that in the SE to save on art, or am I just imagining that and my memory is shot?

Those covers are great! Love the fan art too.

Very well said KestrelPi. In fact, after reading your post and looking at that screenshot again it made me even more excited! It most likely will be a shock, but that's really a part of the series as every game looks and feels a little bit different... yet they are all still Monkey Island.

Yea, that's exactly how I felt - all the meta-humour fit nicely into game and didn't seem out of place. I was surprised as I didn't think I'd really be into it that much, but by a few hours in I was really immersed in the story and invested in the characters.

I'm not going to respond to everything you wrote, as it seems like we both experienced the game very differently. However I will say that I think this is a bit harsh. IMHO the characters have fully developed personalities, and I became invested in their personal stories as the game progressed. It is also worth noting that when I played the game I rarely had them converse with each other as it was, but rather felt I grew to know the characters through their interactions with other NPCs and interacting with the environment. Regardless, I do think Ron learned some valuable lessons from TWP, so I'm hoping that RtMI will be even better received.

Soon as Return was announced I started my own Monkey-a-thon (great name btw!) and finished a few weeks ago. As it was over ten years since I've played them (maybe more like 15 for some?) it was a great trip down memory lane. The first four were pretty strongly etched into my brain, but with Tales it almost felt like I never had played it before. My guess is that's just because I only played through Tales once when it first came out (compared to countless times for the others)... but on a positive note it felt like a whole new game! If nothing else, I'm grateful that the announcement of the new game inspired me to go back and replay these gems. Love them just as much as I did when I was a teenager.

I just realize that my first two posts to these forums in over 14 years were about Thimbleweed Park and had nothing to do with RTMI. Sorry for being off topic, but I feel like everything has just been overanalyzed and I'm dying for new information. A few more screenshots, a gameplay video, or something would be lovely!

This I have troubles understanding - I don't know how you can say "the story was completely jettisoned at the end". That was the story... that was the story they came up with and had planned from the beginning. And knowing that ending, everything before that fits into it really nicely. It wasn't like they ran out of time or something. Anyways, nothing wrong with people not liking a story, but I guess I just don't understand the comments that make it sound like the story was going great and they just drove it off a cliff. As for the dialog between characters, Ron did admit that was something he should have thought about and included much earlier - my thoughts are that it was simply an oversight since doing full dialog trees wasn't something that was decided from the beginning. IMHO, Ron and Gary knew their characters so well having designed them and redesigned them countless times that they made the mistake of forgetting that the player doesn't know them as well as they do. I think Ron realized that it was a missed opportunity to develop the characters deeper... which is why he quickly patched it into the game.

I don't know... I just played it for the first time and I loved TP. In fact it made me wonder where I've been for the last few years... Really wished I had backed it from the beginning. When I started playing the in-jokes were turned off by default, so about an hour in I turned them on. And to be frank I thought it was strange that anyone would have complained that there were too many in the first place. Isn't that the type of game they were going for all along? It really does fit in with the story. I wish they were turned on by default, seeing as that was the way it was originally meant to be played. And speaking of story, I really liked it. I grew on me as I progressed and by the end I thought they did a great job planning it all out. And to give it a bit more context, I'm not normally into mysteries, murder plots, or generally any story that is a bit dark. I always loved Monkey Island (as it was fun and funny) and I really enjoyed DOTT (as it was also funny and cartoony), but I would initially stay away from serious or dark stories, such as The Dig or Grim Fandango. Eventually I ended up giving all of the LA adventure games a try, and was very pleasantly surprised, but it usually took some time for me to get into them.