BaronGrackle

Yes, by "CD version" I'm referring to the Monkey Island Madness CD which was basically just the disk version, as I understand things. I know it removed the option to play Lite Mode in the process of removing copy protection. I had not realized the cut text was unique to the amiga but had thought it was specific to all the original releases. I see, now. EDIT: It's funny that EGA MI2 version doesn't include certain songs like Campfire or Woodtick, but it's understandable.

Were they actually added, or was it something that couldn't fit on the originals? I ask because: 1) People once told me that the MI2 CD version added Elaine's ending line hoping Guybrush wasn't under some terrible curse. But now, I hear people saying the line was in older versions but wouldn't show up because the screen-fading technology wasn't supported. 2) I've seen people play an EGA version of MI2 (apparently not a different product, but an option for running the game), and it doesn't even include every musical track.

It's okay, Stan. I still love your technically-still-first theme song. And I look forward to maybe someday having another dialogue puzzle against you related to a major purchase, preferably with different possible price outcomes.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa . . . I could haggle all day to that song. (And I did, on at least one particular Friday in my memory.)😛 EDIT: Either get all the extras for 5000, or get the porthole defoggers and burgundy wine casket elevator for 3000, or else Stan has beaten you.

The red bandana? Headband? In EGA, Carla has nothing in her hair for the sprite or the closeup. In VGA, her sprite looks similar but her closeup has the headband now. Continuity oof! She keeps the red headband in Escape, and the Secret Special Edition adds it to her sprite. She also still has it in Return.

(I can allow myself to talk about the art in previous MI games.) What is the punchline to saying the EGA closeups are more definitive than the VGA closeups? I still see realism here. Mancomb has some exaggerated features, but they're exaggerated features that could be on a real guy. Look at Estevan. If you want to tell me EGA Estevan is more beautiful because the tragedy flows on his face, go ahead. If you want to tell me EGA Estevan is more cartoonish, as if he's the same style as Bart and Fink from MI2? I can't see that. And Cobb? He's the exact same art as Cob in Loom. Are we to also see Loom as cartoonish instead of realistic or semi-realistic? I don't see any of these guys being comparable to Governor Phatt.

If it's related to the stump joke or to Carla's headwrap, then sure. Otherwise: when Ron designed the dream sequence in MI2, did he or did he not have Guybrush look at himself from his time in MI1?

Some of you have expressed displeasure with the institution of marriage and its role in Monkey Island games, particularly MI3 and MI5. You have said that as you've grown older, your opinion on marriage has soured, and therefore you're not as keen to see it elevated in these games. My suggestion: when playing these MI games, try to visualize marriage as an elaborate voodoo spell. It has wild magical power in the same way that a voodoo doll or recipe to Monkey Island. Related to this: try to read Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides if you get the chance. It was one of Ron's inspirations, right? And if you go from On Stranger Tides straight to The Secret of Monkey Island, you can almost imagine that LeChuck's goal of marrying Elaine could have more to do with the governorship of Mêlée than with anything related to the incel life. In which case, score a point to MI4's gubernatorial seal.

Late joke: Didn't we already have the Execution of Guybrush Threepwood? . . . In regards to EGA vs. VGA "canon": I don't believe there's enough distinction between the two to say that one is more definitive than the other. If it were a big controversial issue and Ron hated the VGA, then he could have created a MI2 that didn't reuse the same sprites for the major characters including dream Guybrush. Estevan's closeup is a work of beautiful tragedy in both versions. And I don't see the argument of saying that Guybrush and Elaine's VGA closeups create more disparity than their EGA closeups. Exceptions: The missing stump joke and Carla's sudden headwrap are marks against the VGA.

I see that foreshadowing dress and hook. Maybe this game will be the tattoo?

Oh, "similar in the same way" makes perfect sense. I'm one of the ones who think MI has three art genres so far: Semi-realistic (MI1-2), Cartoon (MI3-5), and Scrapbook (MI6-?). Those model ships by the new pirate leaders... do we think they're ACTUALLY paper, in-universe? Or do we think they're wooden or something, and the paper appearance is just...? But that's enough about art from me, at the moment. The last time I dwelled on the art, I left my discord and de-wishlisted the game from my Switch. You guys can answer me if you like, and you have enough information on me to deduce my answer, so I'm going to try again to step back from that. . . . I wonder if the upcoming game will confirm that the Secret of Monkey Island is the exact same thing as Big Whoop.

That never fully sticks when it's thrown at me, since Elaine is the exact same sprite as her VGA Secret version, Stan and Voodoo Lady are recolors, and Guybrush can stand next to his MI1 version in the dream without it feeling like a fourth wall break. Yeah, I know the backgrounds are completely different things. I know certain characters like Governor Phatt have exaggerated features. But none of that makes the main character sprites disappear from my mind's eye. EDIT: Also Herman, right?

Curse was a major change, but... it came after Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle. There was a full trend of pixel games shifting to something else. Similarly with Escape, which came at a time when most games had already gone 3D. They weren't major artistic statements; they were sort of following the normal, expected path of the culture. Ron didn't want Return to look "expected". "I wanted the art in Return to Monkey Island to be provocative, shocking, and not what everyone was expecting." Do you think he was exaggerating, in this blog post? When he gave that talk and said he didn't want to make puppies; he wanted to make something that half the people loved and half the people hated, do we believe him? The choice for music is a puppy. The choice for familiar voice actors is a puppy. The choice for 2D is a puppy. The large amount of returning, familiar characters as evidenced by the trailer is a puppy. And if Ron had wanted to make whole thing a puppy, he could have gone with advanced pixel art... people like me would've shrugged because we've been used to better graphics, and people like the majority here would've shrugged because maybe they'd want something more unique (the same way I susspect we're all shrugging a little at the large anount of returning characters, plus Mêlée and Monkey Island again)... but we would've both recognized its continuity with MI1 and MI2, and we would have recognized it was the version Ron told his blog fans to expect... we would have recognized the puppy, I think. We can recognize that this art is sonething bold and something with message, and it is not a puppy. But there's value in recognizing that the non-puppy creates far more drama. If anyone believes the MI2 ending has brought more conflict than the MI1 ending, then I don't think you consider fan backlashers to be inevitable.

I'm sorry, but I just can't be convinced that "you couldn't satisfy the pixel art fans, or the Curse of Disney Island fans, or even both". I think believing that is a rationalization mechanism to reduce people's frustration by thinking that a toxic fan backlash was inevitable. Risks were NOT taken for the chosen music. Risks were NOT taken for the choices in voice acting. Risks were NOT taken in terms of having a 2D point and click design. Risks WERE taken in using an art style that is remarkably d I stinct from any of the art styles before it and us instead more in line with games outside the franchise (e.g. Knights and Bikes). A lot of people love the art, but they love it because of the distinction and the risk. This game is going to be heavily defined and remembered for its art style, moreso than for its less risky choices, similar to Windwaker I suppose. Ron could have chosen a route that avoided fan conflict and backlash, but he chose the route that was shocking and has risk. Fans of the decision should support and appreciate that.

Every instance of the word "sailor" must be heard in Anemone's voice.

Unpopular opinion: I like LeChuck's monologue in Part V and listen through it every time.

Ending it with Guybrush and Elaine watching fireworks. Kind of sublime. EDIT: I'm going to choose to believe this influenced the final dialogue options in Tales, as you sailed into the sunset and had a few line choices that mirrored the ones at the end of Secret.

I'm studying this in my own brain at the moment. I feel like it is a "hunt for sour grapes". For some of us, there's an inner battle over whether we want to experience this game. It would be easy if we loved everything or hated everything, but it is hard because we love so much of some things while hating so much of other things. For a hater like this, at some point the fox realizes he can't get the grapes. That sucks. It would be a lot easier if he thought the grapes were sour. Thus, you might get a situation of "the hunt to find something to complain about". The hunt for sour grapes. That being said, I can't speak for other people. Maybe I'm just wrong, and their minds are somewhere else completely. EDIT: One version of a personal hell is to have such strong contradictory feelings about a silly video game eat at you for a prolonged time. If you can resolve those contradictory feelings one way or the other, then the personal hell should disappear.

Everyone is different, indeed. I think I enjoy things whether spoilered or fresh, but in different ways. My play order was VGA Secret (1993 or 1994, I think), followed by Curse in 1997, and eventually Revenge in 1999 when I was in high school. And I think this contributed to Revenge being my favorite MI game for many years. To me, Curse of Monkey Island's manual and in-game dialogue hyped the everliving heck out of Revenge. I opened the instruction manual and saw the Guybrush I knew from Secret standing on one end, and I saw this new Guybrush (a cartoon version of Secret, almost) on the other end, and between them was the Guybrush I wanted to be - looking like he did in Secret, but with that cool successful pirate coat. Throughout the game I'd hear references to Big Whoop as this dark mysterious force... and Guybrush couldn't quite remember what had happened, just like I didn't quite know what happened. I was right with him in that bumper car when Curse began. Then I went on the internet, and it was filled with a similar reverence and respect for the ending of MI2, arguably at the height of fan obsession with the mystery of what "the true secret" of MI would have been. So I went into LeChuck's Revenge already knowing the premise, most of the in-jokes (because I went to these Lucasarts websites and checked the in-jokes for every game), Wally's and Largo's existence, the detailed fate of Marley's crew (I got joy from seeing the same stories in the library book that LeChuck had already told me in Curse, and in seeing Rapp Scallion's reanimation without the memory bubble) , a vague notion of the island names, and the knowledge that I was going to end the adventure standing in Mêlée's alleyway and, eventually, as a child trapped in an amusement park while possibly or possibly not being LeChuck's brother. I was spoilered to the major beats, but not the minor details, and that unique blend definitely left a positive impact.

Try using your mouth on that bottle.

Tangent: Elaine went "woof" at Human LeChuck. Did she see him as "woof" when he was alive?

It's funny, because you said something earlier in this thread that kind of blew my mind and questioned my perspective on Elaine in Curse, in connection to Elaine from the previous games: "Elaine likes Guybrush. But Guybrush isn't ready for a relationship, and that was the central takeaway of LeChuck's Revenge. Most of us have probably tried to worm their way back into Elaine's heart back in that infamous party scene. Which was a game of trial and error, one that always ended in failure. Eventually, Guybrush would choose Big Whoop over Elaine for us and in spite of us. It was a line in the sand that we could not cross. Sure, he'd take Elaine AND Big Whoop, but if he only got ONE, well ... sorry Elaine, pirate here." If we follow that thought: Elaine likes Guybrush and is ready for a stable relationship. The only reason they aren't together in Revenge is because Guybrush is not on that same page and not ready to make the choices toward getting there. Elaine is there; Guybrush had to catch up. And so (if we give CMI more credit than it likely deserves), CMI is the action of Guybrush catching up. Giving Elaine the cursed ring is arguably an apt metaphor for Guybrush's entire approach to their relationship thus far... flawed, lazy, and destructive. Literal objectification, right? Guybrush has to undo all that, and approach it the proper way. In Revenge, Guybrush chooses treasure over Elaine. In Curse, Guybrush chooses Elaine over treasure... literally. He literally chooses Elaine over treasure to the extent that he changes a golden treasure in his possession back into Elaine.

Related: The Lost Diamond of Blood Island almost has as much lore as Anakin Skywalker's final lightsaber. It arguably *stirs together* the historic family lines of Marley and Goodsoup. Also Guybrush is there. EDIT: Unrelated?: So far, the only on-screen kiss in the Monkey Island Saga has been when Minnie Goodsoup rubbed her ghost lips against Charles DeGoulash's skeletal teeth.

So "El Carlo" is just the Spanish version of the French "Le Chuck", right?

Tangent: It was only last month that I first played EGA Secret of Monkey Island. Experiencing the Stump Joke for the very first time was almost magical... it's a crime that people entering the franchise from 1992 onward only knew ABOUT there being a stump joke, once upon a time. And it's a shame they didn't grab Dominic's voice for it in the special editions. I didn't even know about the Mêlée sunset until this year. Or that there's a comment for Turn On or Turn Off the grog machine. Or that, in any version, you can beg and receive 2 pieces of eight, if you learn about Otis's breath but have no money. I've learned... so many things about the Secret of Monkey Island games this year that I never would have if Return hadn't been announced. I learned about the bugged Porthole Defoggers that keep Stan from selling his ship for 2000 (so the best deal you can get is 3000, plus porthole defoggers and another extra of your choice). I learned about swordmaster multiresponses - that the true ultimate comeback is "I'm glad to hear you attended your family reunion" - and the mystery of her refusal to use "long sharp lesson" in the special edition. (LogicDeluxe seems to have fully dissected Stan, and the speedrunner community made multiresponses known, but apparently MI fan communication was so disconnected that neither of them learnex the other's discovery until this year.) I've recently seen deleted scenes that folks like you have probably known about for decades. I'm rambling and don't really have a cohesive point. But maybe I can end my thoughts with: 1) When you refer to "the memory of the original games", be aware there are probably other people like me who have had even STRONGER experiences replaying/rediscovering those games in the past few months than our memories remembered. Revenge was my favorite before Return was announced, but Secret has replaced it in the time since then. 2) It is amazing how Return has breathed life into so much of this saga by the simple fact of existing.