LuigiHann

Maybe someday Violin Skeleton will get a cameo in a future game, like how Return to Monkey Island had

Oh, that's nice of them to make that afforda.... Oh. And yeah, I don't quite get what "redacted" means in this context, but I have to kind of agree with at least some of the sentiment. I'd rather have a nice-looking throwback PC game "big box" with a couple of nostalgic paper feelies and a sturdy game case within, compared to a lot of these extravagant collector's editions where the game itself starts to feels like an afterthought. The Monkey Island anthology set came with a lot of cool stuff, but I really do wish they could have packed the statue and book outside of a more reasonably-sized display box to show off on a shelf... because the box we did get is literally too large for any of my shelves. The RtMI box pictured on the Limited Run site looks like it's probably about the dimensions I'd picture for a retro PC game box, but I'd be nervous to make assumptions after I so underestimated the size of the Anthology box. Seriously I hate to complain about that set because it's such a nice tribute and it's full of such cool stuff but it is literally sitting in the corner of my living room floor because where else am I gonna put it. And it's funny because this happened to me twice: the amazing interactive Linking Book box that Cyan put together for the Myst series 25th anniversary collection was also about twice as big as I thought it'd be. At least that one fits snugly into a bookshelf. Ah well.

Yeah, hm, the five different keys being represented across different editions of the game is both kind of a cute idea, and also kind of an insult to anyone who might want to collect all of them. Any one person who wants all of them would have to buy an absolute ton of redundant items to get them. The listing does explicitly describe the keys as something to collect, so I suppose they're tacitly expecting that people would trade or sell things amongst each other?

Loved this guy. Truly sad that he's gone, but I'm glad he had a long and presumably happy retirement. Loved him in Terminator 2 but he was also a key part in Terminator 1. I'll even say that while his part in Terminator 3 wasn't especially well thought out, I'm still really glad he was there. Also a bummer he was already retired when they were making the Sarah Connor Chronicles tv series, since that had a much more interesting take on a post-T2 Silberman that would have been delightful to see Boen perform. I also wouldn't have objected if they had shoehorned him into Terminator Salvation. But alas. I agree he was also an irreplaceably perfect part of the cast of Curse of Monkey Island, and I'm glad they brought him back whenever they could. Jake mentioned in another thread that it seems like the two developers weren't really privy to the details of each other's projects until they were officially announced. My guess would be that the Tales team took for granted that Boen was fully retired so didn't ask, but the remake team went ahead and asked anyway.

I really love that art style. From the thumbnail I thought it was the actual pixel art at first, so seeing it zoomed in and so fully detailed is quite fun. If they put it out as a standalone poster I might grab that.

To be fair I think the comparable word from the last movie would be "Kingdom" which is... fine

Like so much else in the game, it is and it isn't. The reveal of the Melee Facade is decidedly and clearly deliberately a narrative anticlimax, but I agree the last string of puzzles do represent an acceptable final confrontation, even if it isn't The Final Confrontation

Love that sort of breakdown. It did puzzle me once or twice that RtMI had Guybrush pull a non-inventory sword from nowhere in a couple of scripted sequences (surely there are places where he could have used that instead of the knife?) but it is interesting to remember that it's been handled that way several times now.

That's fun, I like it. Reminds me a little of the Frozen fan theory where... It makes just enough sense to be interesting to think about.

Plot-wise I would call Curse a classic "soft reboot," in the sense that continuity is maintained but it's written and marketed to be consumed by fans and newcomers alike. The kind of fresh start that means people don't need to do homework to enjoy it. In theory all of the MI sequels are designed to be like that on some level, with Guybrush expositing to get people up to speed quickly on the few crucial narrative threads directly connecting the games. In terms of shared gameplay structures and mechanics, the rearranging and one-upping of gimmicks from the first game is pretty typical fare for game sequels. I do agree it's interesting to look back at MI2 in the context of the whole series, as it's the only sequel that totally leans away from rehashing elements of the first game, where the sequels generally lean way in. Certainly there are still shared characters and elements across MI1 and MI2, but since MI1 hadn't become legendary yet, there was no incentive to specifically recreate the feel of the first game. By Curse, MI1 had become a legacy sort of game, so they had to weave their own inventions into a concerted effort to feel familiar. Personally I also find Escape fascinating, because it apes so many settings and plot elements from the first game, but nonetheless probably "feels" the most different. Overall it is a fun series to observe as a whole

Yeah, they shot them back to back after expanding one big script into two films My headcanon is that once the time-ripple-effect catches up to our Marty, he gradually becomes the Marty that was raised by confident parents, and thus his insecurity has taken a different form

BTTF1 is an unparalleled work, a masterful screenplay filled with precise setups and callbacks, so no follow-up could truly do it justice. And really there was nowhere else in time that could really match the impact of a then-modern-day teen meeting his own parents specifically when they were his exact age. So I'm glad they didn't try to rehash that by meeting them again in a different but ultimately-less effective era. But I appreciate the way that the sequels mixed and matched between trying new things to broadly explore the time travel gimmick (visiting the the future, alternate timelines, avoiding crossing paths with yourself, and visiting the distant past basically cover the bases), and also remixed the first film's setups and payoffs to create a sort of unique grammar that makes the first film, on rewatch, feel like it's been setting up even more. The sequels definitely don't surpass the original, but I do think they enrich it. Some early drafts of BTTF2 are readable online or otherwise well-documented... so it's known that the 1955 revisit was a late-ish change (originally that segment was written to take place in 1967) and the wild west segment that became the whole of BTTF3 was going to be the final act of BTTF2 until they decided it would be too many characters to introduce that late in the film. Revisiting 1955 is admittedly efficient in terms of both casting and storytelling, and I guess you could see it as cynical but it seems pretty whimsical to me. And BTTF3 has grown on me as well, but I feel like when they expanded it from a single act to a full film, they went through and added plenty of what had become "cliches" of the franchise there as well. The chase, the dance, the punch, the manure, the climactic race against time. Even the "waking up with Lorraine in the dark" scene was there, arguably much more awkwardly shoehorned in. Part of what's charming about BTTF3 is that it shuffles roles within the now-familiar structure, where sometimes Doc has become the Marty, and such.

You look more like a Forza playtester

I do agree that a "distract the judge" step would have made the fish swap make a bit more sense. Maybe they didn't include that aspect to avoid overlapping with the algebra one.

I actually liked the pepper fish puzzle. The limited interactions available during the contest nudged me towards sneaking something onto my plate, and since I didn't currently have any non-peppered fish in my inventory, I had to think about how I'd resolve that next time. I definitely chased a few wrong answers before I came to the right one, but I thought the correct solution was logical enough, and actually a bit less complicated than I was thinking about. I didn't realize the fish reset based on your inventory, that's a bit silly. I didn't check especially often so I just figured it reset when you left the building.

Oh yeah, the "prove you're the accountant" puzzle was probably the trickiest legitimate puzzle for me. Very clever. The final puzzle at the end definitely stumped me for a long long time, because I was so certain I had the correct solution that I thought I must just be entering it wrong. I'm sure it was intended to be tricky, but it comes across as one of those "legitimate answer not accepted by the program" situations, which are otherwise nearly nonexistent in this game.

That was really well done. I don't remember them explicitly mentioning the rubber trees in Return (until you see the hover description on the stump) so I think that must be a very different emotional journey depending on how well one remembers the first game. And unless I'm misremembering, I think the cliffside is interactable when you first explore Monkey Island, and Guybrush will comment on how sturdy the cliffside is, messing with anybody hoping to trigger a reprise of that bounce.

Love those examples, makes me want to replay it again as well. And to say it "felt right" is quite correct. I think Escape is ironically both the one that leaned the hardest into the modernish touristy theme-park aesthetic and also the one that landed the furthest from "feeling right" in terms of Monkey-Island-ness, so I do think the softer touch of Curse and Tales was the way to go. Though I do, again, feel like Escape also laid enough groundwork for the in-universe theme park to square with the ending of RtMI without too many compromises or leaps of logic. The world all still fits together whether you choose to take it literally or not.

I thought Curse's approach was fun. Not only did they follow through with the tease at the end of MI2 (whether we like it or not, whether Ron liked it or not, MI2 ended with the implication that Guybrush was under the effects of LeChuck's curse), but they had LeChuck's theme park ride recount bits of the backstory and both games' events, and even had LeChuck explicitly answer endless questions to tie everything together. I feel like it was as tightly-woven as any sequel to anything could be. And they didn't drop the anachronisms, we've still got vending machines and fried chicken restaurants and tri-county areas, just slightly more integrated into the piratey setting than in previous games... and that could be chalked up as much to art style and screen resolution as anything, since they're forced to fill in gaps that would previously be left to the imagination. And I think it's nice that that setting laid the groundwork for the ambiguous timeframe of RtMI's frame story. There's always going to be a difference in output between a newcomer attempting to paint within the lines established by an original creator, versus the original creator returning and getting to go as far from the expected template as they want, because the true "essence" of the series exists in their own mind. One detail I really loved in Tales was that the distant walls of the giant tunnels of the underworld were styled with the same rivets and textures as the endgame tunnels of MI2. Just the right kind of ambiguous hint that works whether MI2's ending was really unearthly or if Tales is just taking place in real-life Guybrush's subconscious, and had super-interesting implications either way. Always kept an eye out for that kind of nod, didn't catch many others.

As somebody does a 3-5 minute track for Brr-muda that I can stick on my Christmas playlist, I'll be happy. (I suppose I can always cut one down myself) I really do hope we get an official album for this one, if for no other reason, then because it'll be interesting to see how the composers choose to arrange these dynamic themes themselves.

If I'm leading a third-party team without Ron Gilbert on board, I'd probably play it safe and do a story set after the main story of RtMI, not really addressing the frame story. If in this scenario I'm working with Ron, I'd probably pitch a game set some years after the frame story, with an aging Guybrush who has largely moved on from Adventuring being called back into action one more time. Have Boybrush appear, older now, and maybe hint at an eventual passing of the torch.

Yeah, I wasn't terribly bothered by how the ending played out, but I did feel like there could have been one more real interaction before it ended, to make it feel like a finale. Even if getting the key (or getting the key to the chest) was a simple puzzle, would have been nice

It took me a bit to get it, but I think the intention is that the missing item was a memento relating to whatever the secret is, so the fact that we don't get to see it makes sense

If we read into the retcon that, regardless of how much of the stories actually happened, the games themselves have thus far visualized them as filtered through the lens of Guybrush's storytelling combined with Boybrush's imagination... it tracks that since Boybrush doesn't know what Guybrush's real parents look like, he'd just envision an old couple, and he's probably seen that old couple around before.

I do feel like every game post-Curse treats LeChuck as some sort of Ghost Zombie Demon Pirate, so the best methods for dealing with him are anyone's guess at this point. And yeah, the intro background change is fantastic, I didn't notice when it happened, but just gradually noticed that it didn't look like I remembered