Lagomorph01

Wow, Aaron. You’re really working hard on this. I’m sorry I don’t have the time to test all (or any) versions, but I just want you to know I appreciate your incredible work and I think it’s wonderful! Thank you!!

What?! Where are the seven different editions, one for each kid, with exclusive goodies per package, buy 'm all if you want your collection complete?

Sorry!! I used the wrong word here! I meant “badly edited”, in dutch the word for text editing is “redactie” or “redigeren”. That’s where the mistake came from. 😅 I’m referring to the Monkey Island anthology where they put the logo’s in the wrong order and, if I remember correctly, delivered a book which had some questionable spelling and grammar.

I hate that physical releases have come to this… I just want a nice boxed version like in the old days. Not some overpriced, belated, badly redacted fanbox with some poorly made trinkets…

It seems to cover more adventure games than Rogue Leaders, so that's a plus, but I agree with Sopabuena on the amateuristic translations and I'm not too fond of the cover art as well.

Thanks for the replies everyone! I'm glad to hear he's so well remembered, and that I'm not the only one who thinks he's irreplaceable as LeChuck. @Dmnkly, here's hoping you're still wandering these forums from time to time. I was wondering, were you ever able to meet Earl, and if so, do you have a fond memory of him you'd like to share?

I've been a bit down since I heard the news... His LeChuck was something that immediately clicked with me, first when I played the demo of CMI. I remember the announcements of RtMI and constantly hoping he'd be returning as LeChuck! I was a bit bummed when I heard Jess Harnell took over the role. I like his take, but it's no Earl Boen... I'd like to give a special shout out to his role of the Butcher in Psychonauts! It's a pretty small part, but he's sooo brilliantly terrifying in it: (spoilers below)

https://nypost.com/2023/01/06/terminator-actor-earl-boen-dead-at-81/ Sad to hear of the death of Earl Boen, a.k.a. the fantastic voice of LeChuck. He gave life to a dead character, which is an incredible accomplishment. Appearantly he was diagnosed with phase 4 lung cancer last year, which probably explains his absence from Return to Monkey Island. Rest in peace, Earl. You’ll be lovingly remembered.

On topic: I kinda dislike how good the trailer feels. It gives me goosebumps seeing Indy on a new adventure again, and the setting looks fresh, inviting and very true to Indy. Harrison Ford at 80 is doing fan-tas-tic! I don’t know how he does it, but I believe every punch he throws and every action he’s in! Even de-aged Indy I think looks pretty good, even though I dislike the technique with a passion. The only thing that bothers me is the “clean” look the digital filming process gives it. It’s a huge difference compared to the 35mm film the original 3 films used. All in all I’m still really sceptic about this film, but the trailer gives me good vibes.

Thanks for the info! I’m after the Dutch versions myself. It’s great that they’re on Steam, but I’d like them to be on a console version, so I can play them with my son in front of the tv. But it’s great that they’re at least still available.

Wasn’t that “In Diana Jones”? 🤔

I agree that these slower games are much preferable to the constant flickering screens and sounds of most games, especially the free to play kind. We’re living in a society in which a lot of kids are diagnosed with ADD, but a lot of people don’t ask themselves why… It’s a shame that they don’t have the dubbed versions available. I would love for my kid to be able to play Putt Putt and Freddi Fish in the future, but playing them in English is a bit much to ask and would defeat the purpose.

Did anyone know about this? https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/11/humongous-classic-collection-receiving-limited-run-physical-switch-release Appearantly six Humongous games are making their way to Switch, with a physical release being made available by Limited Run (who else?)

Dial M for Mediocre.

Oops! And I see I even commented on it myself! 🙈 I just saw it again today and I noticed the “smudginess”, by lack of a better word, your older restaurations have. But I guess that’s because there’s not too many sources for that poster, right? I’d love to take a look at the original painting, I love it to bits and pieces!

You’re on a roll there, Jan! It’s looking fantastic, like artwork that’s from a brand new game! The colours especially turned out beautiful! What I love the most about your recent restaurations is that the smudginess is gone, (I think that had to do with a photoshop filter you previously used?) They look so bewilderingly sharp, it’s unbelievable! I know we’re spoiled rotten over here so no pressure, but any chance of you giving the Edisons portrait by Steve Purcell another go? Or are there too few sources for that one to make a sharper restauration?

In short... if you want subdued colours, just print the damn thing! 😉

Whoa! This is great work! Thank you! I never noticed the smoke coming out of Zak's head before!

"Can One Brilliant German Designer Put An Impossible Loaf Of French Bread In Front Of A Logo?" Yes. He Can! Looking really crisp! I can't believe how good Purcell's artwork looks through your restauration!! Thanks again and keep up the good work!

It's great to see that there's still so much dedication for such an old game! Congratulations for finishing this remake! Looks like you put a lot of work into it! I just can't help but notice that Razor might be washing her dresses a little bit too hot...

As you might expect from my above comments, right now I’m not too eager for a sequel. But if they did, I’d rather like it not to have this narrative structure. It’s very specific for this game and especially the beautiful ending it sets up. I don’t know, I think we can’t go back (there’s the Twin Peaks link again) to a plain old pirate adventure with modern day elements. A next Monkey Island game would have to do something drastically different, like hopping between fantasy and reality. Maybe a kind of Day of the Tentacle like mechanic where altering something in Guybrush’s fantasy will change something in reality.

I understand that it’s not the same thing, because multiple games haven’t even touched upon the secret. I do think, being what it was, the secret retroactively was a goose with golden eggs. Without knowing it, it gives room for all these adventures, while knowing it makes it an “it was all a dream” sort of desillusion. Either way you look at it, it’s gone now, every new game will be reduced to “Guybrush is making up another story”, and every old game will also bear this mark. The way I look at it at this moment, the secret was worth much more as a secret than it is now. Somehow the treasure of Big Whoop, a pirate curse, the Pox and even the Ultimate Insult to me are more interesting than a guy on a bench being an unreliable narrator.

I know this was always Ron's intention, I just don't think he should've revealed it to be (in an ugly word) "canon". I know TV shows, movies and games are made by writers, directors, actors etc., I just don't want them to acknowledge that the world is fictional. At least not as definitively as RtMI now has. I like how Monkey Island on more than one occasion has been compared to Twin Peaks, because it was exactly that! The difference is that David Lynch never puts his cards on the table (except when forced to, see Twin Peaks season 2). By giving away the mystery of what made Monkey Island special, the whole thing is reduced to "it was all a dream". All those Islands, people and treasures were just theme parks, animatronic's and merchandise... Monkey Island has always walked a very thin line by hinting at this, but not throwing it in your face. And the brilliance of it was that, even with Ron not helming some of the sequels, the writers kept those hints intact without even knowing it. Now that the cat's out of the bag... there is no mystery anymore. I don't care if Guybrush is a delusional orphan or if Elaine is suffering a mental brakedown hunting for limes, just like I didn't care for James leaving Twin Peaks or Cooper hunting for Windom Earle. Everything was held down by one secret, and now it's gone. The goose is dead. The ending is a work of beauty, and my reaction to it was very personal. It just destroyed the whole world that was build upon it with it. And to me, right now, that just feels like too high a price to pay. (The interesting thing is that I completed the game about 2 weeks ago, and that my stance on it is still changing a little bit every day. I guess that shows how brilliant the writing really is... So maybe I'll change my mind about what it has caused too. Right now however, I'm just saddened by it.)

Thinking back on the ending and the reveal of the secret I agree with Ron wholeheartedly, "the secret is better left a secret". Which is why I'm a bit surprised by the fact he decided to reveal it anyway. For me, in retrospect, it totally ruïns the suspension of disbelief. When I didn't know it was all played out in a theme park it was fun thinking about it. Now that it's been proven to be just that, it kinda sucked the fun out of it. It's like the "it was all a dream" ending some tv shows used to do when they wrote themselves in a ditch. You come back from the experience thinking "why did I go through this if it didn't mean anything?". Except that it smudges that feeling across the entire series. If you listen to David Lynch talk about the original mystery of Twin Peaks, he describes it as a goose that lays these golden eggs. As long as you feed it, it will continue to give you riches, but if you kill it (by revealing the mystery) you have nothing left. (I'm paraphrasing.) That's the kind of feeling I get from the ending of RtMI. The goose is dead and everything I've lived through for 30 years has been a lie. The questions the ending raises sadly aren't enough for me to go back to the mystery. I dunno, maybe it's all to fresh in my mind now and I'll have different thoughts about it in a while. But at the moment, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Don’t let a time frame tell you what you like or not like. If something clicks, it clicks. Rose tinted glasses is a way of telling that someone cannot see the truth because of a certain emotion. It’s a strange expression, because it suggests there is one ‘true’ way of looking at it which you cannot see because of said glasses. On the subject of art or entertainment (take your pick) I think that’s nonsense, because everyone can interpret something in their own way or have a certain element that clicks with them. It’s ALL emotion! Saying something hasn’t aged well is also a sentiment, a collective one perhaps, but still a sentiment. I can still enjoy a Marx Brothers movie or a silent film even though they’re a hundred years old. They might’ve been made differently today, but that’s not to say they aren’t beautiful or funny in their own right.