OzzieMonkey

This is the third appearance of one of those Swordfighting books (From Devolver's Twitter) There's definitely a new mechanic different from insults in this game, methinks (Spoiler tagged for those who don't want to see anymore screenshots)

Man, I'd love to make a Monkey Island themed cocktail. Sadly, I'm not expert on mixing drinks (or is that stirring?). I'd definitely want one called The Ultimate Insult, where it has either such little alcohol that it's insulting to even call it a cocktail (hence the name), or way too much.

Man, it was a stroke of genius to make the carnival part of the giant monkey robot this whole time. Who knew that Guybrush's parents were really Pegnose Pete and the Marquis De Singe? ...Ok, I'll come back when I've ACTUALLY played the game.

What Ron said near the end about the ending having 5 variations...that's REALLY interesting. Guess I'll be playing through it a LOT to see each one

I was considering something similar, but instead having a different drink as I play through each game. Here's what I'm thinking: MI1: Root Beer cause we kill LeChuck with it Mi2: Either a green alcoholic drink or Mountain Dew to represent the spit and the mixed drinks MI3: Lemonade like Kenny's (but without the bottomless mug) MI4: Coffee cause of Starbucaneers MI5: Orange juice to represent the acidic Ichor that Moose drinks

That reminds me...will we eventually get the traditional Memoirs for THIS game? Maybe when there's a boxed release?

On where you get the book: Called it

On that front, I wonder if there will be Steam achievements, like for showing the horse armour to every character or finishing the game without the hintbook.

According to Escape, he had to sell his house to Ozzie Mandrill and was never heard from again, but I like your idea better

Ah, so THAT'S what Skunkape are doing next, I see

I highly doubt we'll get an early release, but if I had to guess, the scrapbook's not a bad one but I also think we might see the hintbook in action. I reckon we'll see Guybrush get it from the Voodoo Lady. Feel free to laugh at me from the future when I'm wrong

If you have an hour to spare, this does a pretty good job of summing everything up

Biggest liars of the Monkey Island franchise ranked: Galeb The Voodoo Lady

I was more of a lurker back then, but I do recall being immensely disappointed that we weren't going to find out how LeChuck's ego was repaired after being blasted by the Ultimate Insult in Escape. Younger me cared way more about these kinda things than I do now.

And now we're debating how this game starts from the ending of MI2 and somehow counts the last 3 games as canon...some things never change

I really want Finn to get a show with something like that happening.

So a couple of things to note about that trailer: Firstly, were they using the Ultimate Talkie edition of MI1 in that footage? It has classic vga with Guybrush's voice and you can hear the SE version of the Scumm Bar music briefly. Either that or there's an extra-customisable remaster on the horizon, god that'd be good Also, I'm starting to get a bit confused about how the scrapbook is meant to function as a recap. Put yourself into the shoes of someone who's never played a Monkey Island game; does this give a comprehensive picture of the story of 5 games, or to them, would it just be a series of images? I wonder if it'll be a narrated scrapbook by Guybrush or if there are pages with writing on them that we haven't seen.

I think the most important part of the puzzles is not how difficult they are, but just that they're memorable. I want the game to have me doing interesting stuff, whether it takes me an hour or 5 seconds to work it out. Therefore I think in the long run I'd prefer a game I can figure out quickly but where all the puzzles have an impact over a tedious game that took me weeks to finish, OR an easy game with unmemorable puzes.

I have a feeling that the Steam version will go live the same time Monkey Island Mondays happen, because Ron has been describing the game's launch as "the ultimate Monkey Island Monday" so around 8am PST.

I have no shame in using the in-game hints, but I'll avoid looking anything up online. For me the story is the most important thing, so I want to see it all as quickly as possible the first go around, then when I play it again I'll probably look for in-jokes and things like that. First time around I'll still be using all dialog choices and looking at everything because I won't know how to solve all the puzzles yet, but given my track record with adventure games I'm usually pretty good at getting through them relatively fast. I finished Thimbleweed Park in about 2 days.

I know this isn't entirely what you're talking about, but I have seen the mere knowledge of a new Monkey Island coming out has resulted in new people doing blind let's plays of the series to prepare for Return's release.

I love Star Wars yet I hate talking about Star Wars, because the discourse gets heated very quickly. I've seen all the shows except Resistance and watched all the movies and spinoffs and I like most of it. I only really dislike Rise of Skywalker and Book of Boba Fett slightly less than that. I love The Mandalorian, The Clone Wars and Rebels and my favourite movie is Empire. I have a softspot for the prequels despite their flaws and I enjoy a good meme from them. I'm looking forward to Andor because I dug Rogue One a lot and I think this is a great opportunity to explore Cassian's journey before that film.

Yeah I agree with this, though one more new island wouldn't go astray. Who knows how big Brr Muda and Terror Island are though, I hope they have just as much to offer as Melee. In recent interviews Ron and Dave have suggested that Melee is dedicated to Part 1 as a temporary stop to for Guybrush to start his adventure and remind players of the classic MI feeling before heading off to sights unseen for the rest of the game until we finally reach Monkey Island. I can imagine seeing the Goodsoup crypt in the scrapbook as part of catching new players up on who Murray is for example, but yeah, full recreations for a few seconds is probably off the table.

If this was just MI3a, exactly as it was described back in 2013, I think I would be expecting to be disappointed. With Return shaping up to be something very different, I'm much more excited and hopeful. I think it's going to be something special, even if the plot goes in directions that are controversial. I don't have any expectations as far as what the game SHOULD or SHOULDN'T do though. I'm only expecting to have a lot of fun, as much as I have with the previous games. I said I was expecting nothing less than MI1 and 2 greatness, but with the idea that it's as good as Curse, because that's my #1 MI game, with LeChuck's Revenge being a close second. I can see it being in my top 3 at the very least, those 2 are tough to beat; I reckon it can easily beat Secret, it's a great game but it's definitely a lot more straightforward story-wise and has a much smaller scope than the others. I also think Tales has the best story so far, so Return's competing with that, but it also has a richer vein to draw from with MI2's ending, the Secret, etc. Reviews will probably do fine, though I fear there will be a number of critics who can't look past their negative bias against the artstyle...I hope that doesn't happen. I reckon we're looking at 70-80. I don't think we can kid ourselves that this will be the best-selling game of the year, or even win GOTY, it's too niche. Best selling adventure game? Probably. Maybe even Ron's best selling game, I hope that for him. It won't be Devolver's best seller, they have too many other games out that aren't as niche as a point and click.