Tales of monkey island opinions so far

[telarium]

Try copying the link and pasting it in your browser.

[s-island]

Hee, yes, sorry about that. I turned on hotlink protection for Mojo yesterday and forgot to add lucasforums.com to allowed domains. I'll do it later today after work. Copying the link into a new window will work fine. though.

[s-island]

Fixed.

[Edward van Helgen]

I really liked the third episode, I got that "Monkey Island feeling" with that one.

The first two episodes didn't really do that for me, I still think they were good though.

 

And I really liked the end credits in the third episode!

[linni_t_mm]

can anyone help me, i'm really trying to play Escape from monkey island on my XP but it wont even install. I just get a not suitable for MS-DOS error message. Can I do anything??

[Giant Graffiti]

^^^

 

You would normally be able to can find an installer solution to your problem at Quick and Easy, but it appears to be down.

[Ascovel]

Hardy Dev's sentence review of chapter 4 is up. Although it's Joe reviewing again and I only commented mercilessly what he said.

[Mafiozi]

First 2 episodes were so so, they were nice but nothing special. But de De cava episode was already much better, and The execution and trail episode is the best so far Looking forward to playing the 5th Don't wanna see any spoilers.

[Edward van Helgen]

I'm expecting a lot of good stuff from the last episode because the third and especially fourth one really deserved the

 

[Melèe1999]

I don't believe it was ever Telltale's intention to make TOMI a serious sequel to the monkey island series. That's why they didn't call it monkey island 5. In my opinion they made it clear from the very start, when this game was in production, that it was not intended to be a big grand "monkey island 5 game", because they didn't have a budget or time to do that.

 

This is what I don't get. I have heard this explanation before and I don't understand why did they have to rush to get the new games out so soon after just announcing them to the fans.

[LordTrilobite]

I finished the last episode. And I think, as a whole it's an awesome addition to the epic series of Monkey Island, and it's far better than MI 4.

 

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I think this last episode was really atmospheric, had some classic MI elements and some news ones. Though it did remind me a bit too much of Loom with the ripping open of worlds.

[Capn_Nacho]

I thought Rise of the Pirate God was the worst episode of the season by a wide margin. I'll need to play through it again, but it just felt bloated and underwhelming to me, compared not only to the older MI games (sans Escape) but also to the rest of Telltale's episodes.

 

The best adjective I can think of to describe the game's pacing is "sludgy", and I was disappointed to see it brought back the tradition Curse started by having an unbelievably lame and abrupt ending. The season as a whole ended up feeling like constant double-crosses and I-knew-more-than-you-thought-I-did epiphanies, as if the writers couldn't make up their minds. It was a really awkward and seemingly jury-rigged conclusion to a great series.

 

I still love you, Telltale. Bring on S&M Season 3...

[Thrik]

For me the episodes actually got better as they came out. If I were to rank them in overall awesomeness it would probably be 5–1, although 4 and 5 are close enough that if you made me choose I'd find it tricky.

 

Regarding the ending, I didn't think it was bad. After all, most of the last chapter was pretty much the ending — a bit like you'd consider the punching around the island part of MI1's ending, the underground tunnels part of MI2's ending, and the rollercoaster of doom part of CMI's ending. The actual ending of all the games has been a bit ****, so I don't expect tear-jerking magic like Grim Fandango's ending from an MI game. It doesn't have the right tone for that.

 

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Okay, maybe it would have been cooler if they went MI2 on us and when Guybrush put the ring on all the huge cavern walls around the crossroads collapsed, revealing themselves as wooden constructions in the centre of a theme park.

[AlfredJ]

I had a lot of fun playing through the entire series, but there are a few things that bother me. Especially the dramatic scenes. I like how they tried to make it more than just a funny series of events, but some of the drama scenes just felt wrong to me. Not all of them - I liked how the fourth episode handled them (you know, those scenes) - but stuff like Morgan's manatee/love-talk in the third episode or her interactions with Guybrush in the last episode felt like something out of a straight-to-dvd Disney movie. I don't know what the problem was, if it was the writing, the acting, the lower budget or a combination of those factors, but they just felt forced and uncomfortable to me. It's not that Telltale can't do emotional scenes (again, I really, really liked them in the fourth episode), but it's definitely something they need to work on some more. That's also the reason that I'm looking forward to another Sam & Max-season more than a possible second Monkey Island-season right now; Sam & Max is pure comedy and therefore suffers a little less from the budget Telltale has. The fact that Monkey Island is more than just a couple of laughs makes it a lot more interesting, but I think it's a lot harder to get right and I think the Telltale engine really needs some more improvements before we reach the point where those dramatic scenes feel a bit more natural.

 

But don't let all this complaining fool you - apart from those scenes I loved pretty much everything ToMI gave me. I had a blast, and the developers certainly deserve a lot of praise. I can't imagine anyone who would be better suited to continue the franchise.

[Capn_Nacho]

Perhaps it was my issue and not the games', but the home stretch of episode 4 and almost all of episode 5 failed to arouse any particular amount of interest out of me. I thought they were very well-produced for the most part, and the music in episode 5 was pretty brilliant. I think I agree with jp-30's review for the most part, where some dreary puzzle design lets down what may have been an intriguing (if clichéd) plot.

 

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In particular, I thought the reversed Feast for the Senses fetch quest was a lame addition. I guess I see what part it had in the narrative, and the rhyming lines they wrote for the clues were cute, but the puzzle was downright lame. Most of the items involved were just lying around the environments. No offense to the Telltale guys, whom I will continue to insist I love, but it seemed as if they threw it together at the last minute.

 

And regarding the ending, I suppose you're right, Thrik. I guess my issue is that I really enjoyed the punched-around-the-island bit and the chased-through-the-tunnels-bit; not so much the rollercoaster-of-doom bit and the new punched-around-LeChuck's-ship bit. I just thought the whole affair seemed kind of dull, though I should mention that I adored being dropped back at the crossroads with nothing but silence and a defeated Guybrush, I thought that was pretty interesting.

[KestrelPi]

Funnily enough while I had huge problems with the pacing of chapter 4, I had hardly any with chapter 5. I was actually glad the diet of the senses part was quite quick as I thought the feast in the previous part seemed far tooo contrived and long and pointless, and I don't think it was particularly slower or more weirdly paced as a whole than any other part. It was probably only topped by 3 as an episode, to me.

[Thrik]

I was a big fan of that too. I was expecting a really long haul with the whole sponge undo process and let out an audible groan as the instructions appeared on screen, but then I actually did it in like 10 minutes.

[Losun]

I just finished part 5, and let me tell you my random thoughts of Tales of Monkey Island.

 

I was so happy when it came out, and every episode was a huge thrill for me to play through. The audiovisual aspects of the game vere magnificent, and that goes for the voice acting too.

The puzzle design was a bit simpler, but that was because of the episodic design, I think. The new characters were interesting, and fun.

I said these simple sentences about the game to show that it has been a positive experience for me altogether, and that what I will talk about in the following is not necessary negative.

 

These games were just not that funny. While playing SOME:SE, it somehow occured to me that the original game was so extremely funny. And that it contained so many hilarious jokes, and memorable scenes, and that it was extremely-lighthearted, even with the terrifying stuff in it. I particularly love Elaine's line: "LeChuck is a bozo" which showes that even though he is the arch-nemesis, he just can't be really taken seriously.

I could talk about the subsequent episodes, but the first one is the one with the greatest difference.

 

SPOILERS!!!!

LeChuck actually seeems to be a threat. He seems to have enough brains to manipulate the situation. He really behaves like an arch-nemesis, who can actually defeat the protagonist.

 

I don't say that making the series less crazy is a bad thing and TOMI actually contains dramatic scenes too. Compare the ending scene of TOMI:ROTPG and the scene where Guybrush rescues himself from drowning in SOMI and meets Elaine. Both scenes deal with the love between them, but TOMI takes it serioulsy, while SOMI makes fun of it.

The main source of comedy in TOMI were the Guybrush's comments. Climbing into his brain and listening to his toughts can be very funny. But I have to say that the previous Monkey Islands had somehow more absurd situations. Situations which were normal to the people in it but crazy to the players outside. Like in a Zucker brothers movie.

The only absurd, yet very Monkey Island-y thing in the last episode was that the thing they done to his corpse.

 

I have questions about the ending too: What happened to Lechuck after he got to the crossroads? Shouldn't Guybrush be there with him?

 

In all it was a great experience to play, and I wish it could have been a much longer one (like eternity)

[Edward van Helgen]

After the credits there's another cutscene which shows what has happened to LeChuck.

You should really watch it, it's shows something quite interesting about Morgan and the Voodoo Lady too.

[daltysmilth]

I've been thinking, and I can't seem to recall any Star Wars references anywhere in TOMI. There were a couple of Indiana Jones references, but no Star Wars references that I recall. Whereas all the previous games always had a couple. It's nothing that ruins the game, obviously, just something I thought I'd point out.

[Gabez]

Is it possible that this was because it's not developed by LucasArts, and there would have to be extra legal wrangling?

[elTee]

Star Wars is a very valuable license. I don't think Lucas would let anyone use it in a video game that wasn't a proven critical hit.

[s-island]

Yeah, we're still playing Bombad Racing 10 years on.

[daltysmilth]

I doubt copyright infringement was the reason for not including Star Wars references. You can make a reference to anything you want as long as it's not slanderous or libelous (whichever word would apply best to content in a video game). There was dialogue in the first episode that was clearly meant to be a reference to Star Trek, but I doubt Telltale wrote to Paramount and asked for permission to include Star Trek references in their game. And even if it was an issue, any reference to Star Wars that appeared in a Monkey Island game would clearly constitute parody, which is protected under law. None of that means that George Lucas couldn't sue Telltale if he so chose, because under the U.S. legal system, anyone can sue anyone else for virtually any reason they choose, but his likelihood of winning such a lawsuit wouldn't be assured.

[Snugglecakes]

Just finished the whole lot I must say I think it was superb. I've been a real critic of LucasArts in general, and of the shambles that was EMI, but even I must concede the TMI was a truly memorable experience. Well done Telltale!

 

I really enjoyed just about all the puzzles, finding them fresh and clever for the most part, and like you guys have said the characters and story are great. It was funny too! Maybe not quite as funny as the first two, but what is? The music is great and the graphics really do work. 3D has finally reached a point where it can successfully lend itself to adventure games of this type. Grim Fandango did it right due to its nature, but EMI was a disaster. What they can do now really works for Monkey Island though.

 

It did seem to get better as the episodes rolled by, with 4 and 5 probably the best, but honestly I enjoyed all of them just about equally. The characters especially got better as the series went on. It was probably the start of episidode 5 that clinched it for me, it had a really nice feel, that music in the background, beautifully put together, and some refreshingly different characters. I said to myself then, yeah this is as close to Monkey Island as we've seen in a long long time.

 

It kicks EMI's butt completely (obviously) and it would be better than CMI except for one thing. I'll quote Sabretooth:

 

Tales has been entertaining for me, but it doesn't match up to the originals because it's nothing like them in quality, or even theme. Monkey Island, for all its wackiness, still felt like it was firmly set in our own world. Tales feels too "far-out".

 

As far as quality... I don't agree entirely. I think Telltale did a fantastic job with some great attention to detail. But again I wish Monkey Island was more like the original two ie. Not a big bouncy cartoon. Yes I realise the originals were pretty "cartoony" in terms of what the characters got up to, but the artwork was "set in our own world" as Sabretooth says. This modern take on Monkey Island just doesn't give me that connection that the originals had, the sense that it was all a bit more serious, a bit more scary, and even a bit more funny. I was, and still am just a bit scared of LeChuck even when I play the originals now. Modern LeChuck can't do that.

 

If Telltale could do something like this:

, not necessarily the open-ended walk-anywhere world but the style of graphics, then I would have no hesitation in giving it a 100% rating. The originals were, in my mind, much more like this fabulous creation by Guy.brush. Of course I'm not sure if this would generate the sales that this modern take of MI will, which is sad, but whatever makes it work is ok by me.

 

But besides that, TMI was a great experience. I don't get it when people say the puzzles were stupid or the ending not good enough or the pace slow. In fact that last accusation is far, far off. I loved it, and really hope Telltale are working on more! Telltale, I am your fan. They're not even the new LucasArts, they're better. Miles friendlier. I wish them the best of luck and thank them for putting many smiles on my face while the old lumbering dinosaur that is LucasArts slips away further.