JacquesSparkyTail

Something a little interesting. The video referred to stan as Stan s. Stanman. He wasn’t called this until tales so that’s technically another little tales reference to go alongside the picture or morgan in the original trailer. I think i’m going to enjoy hunting for all the little almost imperceptible references to the wider franchise in the final game.

Loving the music transitions.

with love

Oh yeah… and I don’t think he had those epaulettes in the trailer. Although it’s difficult to tell as his beard is obscuring that area. Maybe i’m reading too much into this (in fact, i definitely am because naval captains wore those too) but to me that just screams admiral. Also i just learned the word epaulette

Well it’s not often that monkey island makes a grand return after being effectively dead for over a decade. I think i can make an exception lmao.

Nah. I don’t make stuff often enough to make it worth it.

Probably something already talked about but it's only just occurred to me... Are the pirate leaders in this game a metaphor for the franchise? It seems that the original leaders have been replaced by new characters and melee island has gone to hell because of it. It also seems likely that Guybrush is to be tasked with ousting the new guys, reinstating the old guys and thus restoring melee island to its former glory. Is this an intentional meta commentary on Ron leaving, 3 games of a perceived lesser quality being released and now Rons triumphant return? I sort of hope not because that feels a little shitty but at the same time, now that I've noticed it, It feels very intentional.

Return characters in the style of curse. Think it's probably important to point out that this is in no way a criticism of the return style (which I love) but just a goofy experiment.

Time i gave up 😂

True but i’d just like to attempt to counter that argument if i may by pointing out that (i believe) this is every instance of bob appearing in the game

I’m afraid so.

not going to lie, that sounds like nonsense. On an unrelated note i’ve just noticed bob’s pegleg has moved from his left leg in secret to his right leg in return so i’m going to go start a few small fires and start a cyber bullying campaign.

I can see the town being the lot. Afterall the circus will have moved on, the dock and stan are now in town making stans previously owned vessels redundant and its perfectly possible they had no reason to got to see meathook. Not overly happy about it but i can definitely see melee town acting as a tutorial before moving onto somewhere more substantial.

And with that i believe we’ve seen the entire town. From lookout to mansion.

What do people make of the website datamine pointing to a 1st of September release? That seems pretty soon to me but I’m totally willing to buy into it.

Also it’s interesting that bob has in his hat what we assume is the symbol of the resistance. Is he strung up here as punishment for defecting to guybrush’s side?

It’s definitely a me problem. I can look at the game intellectually and admit that it’s probably the best one but it has one aspect that’s unique to the series that i can’t get past and that’s navigating between islands. Sounds like no big deal but having to go to the overview of the island, go to a location, find an item, go back to the overview, go to captain dredd, go to another island, go to the overview, go to the next location and then use the item is just too much of a slog for me and it actively sucks the fun out of the other aspects of the game. That one extra step of having to use dredds ship is nothing at all but when you have to do it every 5 minutes it feels like you spend more time getting to places than you do actually playing the game. Glad it doesn’t bother anyone else but there’s something in me that just hates it. Still like the game but that constant minor annoyance knocks it down my rankings. I struggle with day of the tentacle for similar reasons. I think rons said in the past that he recognises it was a problem so i’m not too worried about it happening again in return but the fact that the ice queen of brrmuda has a crown made of keys but the locksmith is in melee is concerning.

Yeah that makes sense. I guess we just interpret those scenes differently. I’m starting to think I’m misremembering revenge. I play through 1-5 every couple of years but always hurry through 2 as it’s my least favourite (I’ll desperately try and justify myself on that another time 😂) But the way i read it is that elaine is clearly very into guybrush in secret. She’s holding those feelings back in revenge because of the way he’s acted but is ready to run back to him when he’s ready to grow up. Then in curse she’s relieved he’s alive and that’s what spurs her on to put up with his nonsense if it means she can be with him. Luckily in the intervening time guybrush has grown up somewhat and is less arrogant than he was meaning that they are finally a perfect fit. The only problem is he then proceeds to turn her into solid gold. That’s perfectly serviceable to me as a love story. It would have been nice if most of the important parts weren’t in curse’s opening cutscene alone but i can get over that because that particular game isn’t trying to be a love story as much as it’s trying to be an adventure story. That being said, if i am misremembering revenge all of that falls apart 😂

Agreed that that would be a better story. Not trying to say curse was a perfect love story. Obviously it’s far from it as that’s not the stories primary goal. But it just feels somewhat disingenuous to see her and guybrush instantly show strong feelings for each other in secret, then see her mask slip in revenge revealing that she clearly STILL feels strongly about him but then to act like her love for him in curse came out of nowhere. It’s pretty clearly shown in the opening of curse that she thinks, or at least fears guybrush is dead. Finding out the person you love has effectively come back from the dead, found you only to instantly “die” in a capsizing ship only to repeat the process would be pretty powerful. I’m a straight man but i’d have said yes too. Again though i’m not saying it’s amazing. Just that it seems to get a disproportionate amount of commentary considering most of the games are equally or more guilty of mishandling her and the relationship as a whole.

Not sure how much i agree with this interpretation of curse elaine. People often talk about curse as the moment she stopped being an independent character and started being a damsel in distress archetype but I don’t really think that’s quite fair. Her victimhood in the game isn’t the result of weakness or incompetence but just the natural result of being in the orbit of the bumbling guybrush. It effects everyone eventually lol. Once freed she’s instantly heavily outnumbered so her subsequent capture also can’t be put down to incompetence and she practically instantly escapes and sets about fixing everything like she always has (off screen, but that was a buget thing not a story telling thing.) I think if we’re looking for poor depictions of elaine there are better games to choose. Revenge depicts her as a stereotypical bitchy ex who, despite being angry at guybrush, is ready to run back to him as soon as he clicks his fingers. I don’t think it’s fair to say that before curse elaine wouldn’t have wanted to marry guybrush when its made clear in 2 that he sort of has her wrapped around his little finger. Then in tales we’re frequently told how competent elaine is but we never see it. She starts the game tied up, goes onto instantly believe lechucks a good guy now just because he told her he was, then she gets the pox and goes on to become hyper jealous, a little rapey and very toxic. Finally she submits to being lechucks voodoo bride and end the game by saying that everything that happened across the five episodes was all a part of her plan because after all of her incompetence we’re now expected to believe she’s actually so competent it boarders on precognition. My point is that I don’t think elaine’s been done justice since the original but, at least to me, curse isn’t an especially egregious example of this.