MurraySchull

Still nothing on the Anthology Upgrade for me. I enquired about a month ago and got the standard "according to the website, it's still in development so it's not shipping yet!" Apparently the standalone editions (at least the PS5 version) has been shipping for a while now, but Limited Run groups all of your items into one order and withholds sending any of your order until everything is ready. Which makes sense I guess, but it's still been over a year now!

Yeah but relatively it was a short enough gap that I’m willing to let it slide in order for the rest of the rock-solid theory to pan out! 😉 Speaking of theories, I like to think that Guybrush/Elaine got back in their ship, sailed back into the real tri-island area, and the mystical fog or portal or whatever made them lose their memories of everything that happened in SoT ( and maybe the portal got all confused both times and made Elaine’s voice go all screwy, which may canonically explain her different voices in SoT and Escape ) that way, this SoT chapter could still fit comfortably enough in the series. The dream-like state of these episodes also make it easier to be more flexible on canon too. Yeah I know ReMI made it so that wavering canon isn’t as big of a deal in this series, I’m just trying to make some kind of effort to piece it all together logically!! P.S. Are @Jake and @Marius planning to continue playing SoT anytime soon?

Finally got a chance to finish the game! (Was out of town for a few weeks so was only able to begin recently.) Overall, though there was a lot that I enjoyed about this third part (for the same reasons as the first two parts, the music, the atmosphere, the environments, etc.) I found this part the most cumbersome to play. Most of the puzzles were really quite clumsy largely due to them being so spread out, particularly the telescope puzzle, which unless I missed something, didn't really establish itself as something that needed to be carried out. In a MI game, you can talk to other characters to gather an idea on what to do next. This felt like much more trial and error, which also felt a lot riskier given how spaced out the island was. Steering Kate's ship in the right corners of the lava tunnels was also a nightmare. I also encountered more glitches this time around. TWICE I emerged from the water in a cave in an area that I clearly wasn't supposed to discover (and I dropped one of my items down there, so that was fun trying to recreate the glitch to find it again!) and there were a few mismatched dialogue/character labels in the climax (i.e. LeChuck delivering a line, but the subtitles read "Kate Capsize" etc.) A few music tracks, sound effects and VO lines also didn't play / play correctly near the end either, namely during the LeChuck fight and as we were sailing away, which again kills the illusion to a degree. And as always, that checkpoint system is the worst. It doesn't suit the "casual gaming" style that I'm forced to play games in nowadays. But yeah, everything I said before still stands. This game has the best atmosphere and immersion of all of the Monkey Island games. The orchestration of the music is also absolutely stellar, and exploring these locations in 3D is an absolute dream. But yeah, story and writing wise, it's pretty weak when the content is not lifted directly from the original games, and the interface is still very awkward for me as well. I think this is definitely the MI game I'd go back to the least for all of those reasons, so I'd probably rank it at the bottom of my list, but I also don't want to undersell the areas that the game really does excel at. I'd really be interested to know if this expansion was a hit or not. It really didn't seem to get people talking that much online, even among these forums, but being a free DLC, I suppose it'd be difficult to judge. Maybe they'll just gauge how many people played all three episodes to the end and determine if it was a success based on that. As a side note... has anybody noticed the pattern that Monkey Islands' returns seems to be following? MI1/MI2 *6 years later* CMI/EMI *9 years later* TMI / SE's *12 years later* ReMI / SeMI Based on all of this, and assuming another three years are added to the next hiatus, Monkey Island's next return should be due in 2038! Mark your calendars for another two games from then! (Followed shortly by a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Secret!!! )

Great interview! Great to hear some insight into what to expect with Episode 3, and Dom’s future in general! Annoyingly I won’t be able to play the episode for another couple of weeks but I’ll be back to report on it once I’ve finished playing!

Finally finished Part 2! Some spoiler-ish thoughts below: I still think the "checkpoint" save system is a garbage way of playing a tall tale, pretty much making it very difficult to play the game casually as I'm forced to do at this time of life! Every time I load the game, I need to sail into that stupid portal and watch the LeChuck scene again. Wish there was an option to just pick up directly where I left off and bypass all of that. (Plus, I lost all of my swordfighting progress after finishing the treasure trial first and then closing, which irked me!) But yeah, on the other hand... I *really* cannot stress how GOOD the music is in these games. They absolutely nailed the "Deep In The Caribbean" atmosphere that CMI/EMI had. As good as the other games' soundtracks were (the SE's, Tales, Return) I don't think they quite had the atmosphere and instrumentation down the way those other two games did, and they don't quite invoke the same "piratey, caribbean, tropical" feeling as those soundtracks, but this game brought it all back. Of the main series canon, Curse probably has the strongest atmosphere, but even then, I think SeMI (if that's really what we're calling it!) has topped it. I don't think I've ever been as enriched in Melee Island's visuals as I have here. Everything from the ambient sound effects, the fog, the birds, it really feels like a living, breathing world where the other games, even at their height, still felt like you were playing a game. I'm just gonna say it. This is the real MI1 Special Edition. 😎 Really hope they get the chance to do this with MI2's storyline down the line as well. It's difficult to gauge at this point if this tall tale is finding an audience or not, and if the typical SoT player / MI player really does cross over as much as they're hoping.

New trailer for Episode 2! In particular, a sneak peek at some of the returning characters. Loved that pirate leaders line! https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cwh99jsq1nP/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== There was also an earlier posts that confirms Carla (she shares a voice actress with the Voodoo Lady, so it was probably a safe bet that she’d appear, but it’s cool to see it confirmed!) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cwh5B-0NKkp/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Next Tall Tale coming 31st August! https://www.instagram.com/p/CwUr0j8OTv8/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== Am very curious if voiceover for Part 3 was able to be completed before the actor strikes began. The fact that Part 2 is coming so soon makes me hopeful that it was.

Okay, after all of my hassles in working out the interface, questbook and checkpoints, I FINALLY was able to get through the chapter! It’s rare that I struggle with a games’ interface like I have with SoT (maybe I took the SCUMM interface for granted all this time!), and maybe on consoles it’s fine, but it’s a pain on PC. Had a number of glitches that wouldn’t let me speak to characters too, which I would later find out weren’t gamebreaking, but still annoying. BUT… the good stuff. Yeah, atmospherically this game is something else. It might even capture the “piratey” atmosphere in a way that many of the official games didn’t (save for perhaps Curse) and it absolutely has the production values to pull that off. Environmentally too, this was clearly made with love. The music is wonderful too. If MI1 had more ambient music, it’d probably sound something like this. Wish there was a way to integrate the new music into SMISE. Was also pleasantly surprised how many of the SMISE voice actors came back too (in particular the pirate leaders, who I THINK were recast for ReMI, but all keep their original VA’s here.) And YES to more Jess Harnell as the storekeeper! Kate Capsize’s voice was definitely recast but I wasn’t a big fan of her MI2SE performance anyway. Her SoT voice definitely seems like a better fit for her. Otis also had his ReMI voice actor again. I’d guess his original actor retired or was unreachable for these new games. I like his new voice but I did love his SMI/EMI voice more. So I guess Corina was just messing with Guybrush in particular about her name all these years. Elaine knew it already! XD Murray having a working body and being unable to keep it under control was hilarious! In a strange way, it never really bothered me when Melee Island was redesigned in Escape (despite it being moreorless done for the sake of it than any narrative reason) nor when the majority of the side characters didn’t appear. But seeing them return in ReMI and this game, and keeping their designs and geometry intact, it does retroactively feel more important to keep those elements familiar when returning to them. Also turns out there actually was a clever way that this could fit in alongside the series with this world being a dream-like state. In that sense, even when removing the “telling a story to my son” element, this plot could still work in the timeline. And yeah, despite my grievances with the interface itself, once I found out what did what, it WAS fun to play. I enjoyed finding the different things I could do with the different object I had (i.e. the banjo and the accordion). I don’t know if I’ll ever have the time to play SoT for the main story but it’s a fun game to muck about in! Yeah, very short and could probably be easily done in one sitting, but for a free DLC especially, I got exactly what I was expecting upon announcement. Looking forward to more!

I must be a total idiot because I genuinely can't see any log book on my ship. Only a book that I can use to "Cancel The Tall Tale" which I'm scared to press. I can open my "Quest Book" in my inventory to reveal a drawing of Scabb/Phatt/Booty, but if it's supposed to be useful to gameplay, then I've got nothing. Also maybe the interface is easier on consoles, but on PC it's a real chore. Really makes me appreciate ReMI's interface all the more.

Yeah, I lost all of my progress the first time, then got a little further and ran into a glitch where I couldn't use the second interaction/talk key with specific key characters (which worked the first time I played it). I had some minor glitches like that when I first played the other day, but interacting with another object first usually fixed it, whereas todays' glitch remained constant even after dying. I was told that my "quest book had been updated with a checkpoint" or something, so I restarted the game hoping it'd load where I left off, and it put me back at the beginning of the level again with no sign of my progress. I AM really enjoying the atmosphere, the returning voice actors, the environments and the MUSIC (I wish there was a way to put this supplementary music into the MI1SE!) and it's undeniable how much love and effort went into this DLC, but yeah, between the glitches and the lack of saving/loading options, in terms of progressing through the story, it's pretty much unplayable as it is. The glitches were probably a freak accident and don't affect everybody, but they didn't exactly give me the best first impression of Sea of Thieves. If saving/loading REALLY works like that in the standard Sea of Thieves, that's pretty damn abysmal imo.

Um... there's a way to save your progress, right?... Am really enjoying the atmosphere and exploring the environments, but I'm not seeing any save/load options anywhere...

SoT is currently down for maintenance (presumably while they're loading Legend's assets into the servers) but we have a start-game screen in the meantime with some new details! (And a new version of the main theme!) Yeah, what a great deep dive! A ton of love and passion obviously went into creating the expansion and it confirms some awesome things that I was hoping for! Love what they've done with the "iMuse" like effects in the Scumm Bar too. If Monkey 1 had been made a year later with more music capability, it would've probably done something like that.

New promo video for the first “tall tale.” Some first looks at the characters. In particular, the storekeeper! After the false start we got with his lack of appearing in Return, he seems to be finally featuring in this game. Can only hope Jess Harnell still voices him and gives is some more hilarious reads. In general, every character seems to be faithful to their SMI classic mode designs as opposed to the special edition.

At least we know LeChuck isn't telling the story. Dead men tell no tales.

Or maybe it's his kid telling the story this time... 🤨