I just replayed Monkey Island 2 for the first time in over 10 years!

[ThunderPeel2001]

Well, as the title says, I just replayed MI2 for the first time in 10 years... and the first time ever on the PC! Why so long? Well it turns out that part of it was knowing the game so well (I played it hundreds of times on the Amiga) and part of it was the cruddy PC music. After discovering (thanks to s-island) that I could have decent quality music in the PC version, it all of a sudden became incredibly alluring to me.

 

Playing it again I realised just how fantastic the music is (especially on the PC version... it's a near constant soundtrack -- the Amiga version has only a small portion of the music, weirdly). I also took great joy in all the incredible artwork. There's SO many beautiful pieces of art used as backgrounds in MI2, as a player you're really spoiled by it all. You just don't get that kind of feeling in modern games (or indeed any other game I can think of!).

 

I also noticed just how different a game it is to its predecessor. The jokes are... different. It's darker in places, sure, but it's also hit and miss, too. At least one of the puns in the Booty Boutique literally made me groan and there's far too much fourth-wall breaking for my taste. Of course there's also tons of inspired moments, too (Stan! Boy, locking him up in his coffin is still absolutely hilarious). It's not just the jokes though, the entire game's tone is wholly different. MI1 was much more of a straightforward adventure and it's kind of surprising that they sit together (so well?) as part of a series... I think MI2 just manages to pull it off by ultimately using the same interesting mixture of serious storyline and absurd comedy. Otherwise I don't really see what they have in common.

 

I was also surprised to discover just how truly sadistic some of the puzzles are. I'm amazed that more isn't made of the impossibility of some of them. The whole turning off the waterfall puzzle...? Jeez! Using Jojo as a "monkey wrench" was absolutely ridiculously, preposterously, impossible to "solve". What was even more surprising is the complete lack of hints for such an impenetrable puzzle... At no point does Guybrush suggest he needs to do anything to the pump, hint at a connection to the waterfall below, talk of the need of a wrench, or anything.

 

That wasn't the only logic-leaping puzzle, though. Rum Roger's "telescope on the statue to point to the brick on the wall" was equally absurd, but at least more likely to get through trial and error. Likewise, the a spitting contest: There's no hint that you'll get anything as a result of winning the contest or any clue as why you should bother... You just do it and then randomly find yourself with an item that you randomly discover you can sell to the Boutique.

 

Of course this is all probably due to the fact that the "medium" difficulty was taken out of the game. If these puzzles had been in a "mega monkey" version of the game then it would have been fine, but seeing as nobody is going to click on "I've never played an adventure game before, I'm scared" (except maybe your mum) they were just far too obtuse.

 

The game was also a lot shorter than I remember. The four map pieces didn't take anywhere near as long to get as I recalled (possibly because I could remember some of the puzzles I've just mentioned), but I always thought of MI2 as being something like four times bigger than MI1, but actually it felt about the same size. (It may be bigger in terms of locations, characters, scope and artwork -- but not in puzzles, I think.)

 

Finally, as truly scary/bizarre/inspired as the game gets after Part II has finished, the latter parts of the game also felt really unfinished. Sure, the artwork was all there, the music was all there, the conversations are there, but 80% of the things you "look at" in parts III and IV simply fall back on the default "nice" response. Eg. Looking at a sign simply makes Guybrush say "nice sign". I remember this was something that upset me when I first played through the game, but looking at it now, it just feels really unfinished.

 

Despite the many times I've played through MI2 I also realized that I've NEVER fully understood the bone-song puzzle in LeChuck's Fortress... and I think most people just do what I did: Go through the same "skeleton" door enough times until you arrive at LeChuck's throne.

 

Overall though, it's the game world, the sheer polish of the inspired artwork and music, and (of course) the last third of the game that sticks with you. LeChuck in MI2 is truly terrifying, and all the better for it. His speech to you as you're hanging above the pit of acid is still as effective as it ever was, and in a way it's sad that none of the sequels have ever made him as dark as he was in that moment. At its best, Monkey Island has always been an potent mix of serious story and absurd comedy... except in the Special Edition (*thud*).

 

Note: LeChuck destroyed Guybrush's spirit form in his "dream" when his parents showed up and I think it sounds like a great idea for a sequel story: Guybrush chasing LeChuck in order to get his "soul" back (or something). I'm kind of surprised that none of the sequels have used the idea.

[Icebox]

Monkey Island 2 is a difficult thing to discuss. On the one hand it is a definitive masterpiece of story and puzzle design. Your impressions were definitely on target, as a game and work of fear it is unrivaled. But it is challenging to discuss because as of yet, no adventure game has come close in terms of scope and ideas. This is an ideology breaking game, the theories of the critics don't mesh with it, it disproves any and all mindsets. Monkey 2 is both a work of genius and a postmodern wreck, in the best ways possible, and in doing all it does, defies all comparison. It both invented adventure games and destroyed them.

 

And I think one of the reasons it so frequently defies expectations is because it doesn't take the predetermined format of adventure games for granted. Unlike its predecessors, it breaks the fourth wall consistently, denying any illusion of "Role-Playing" which make no mistake, is where adventure games came from. You can mark their progress; Dungeons and Dragons, Zork, King's Quest; once you get to Monkey Island all instances of "Role-Playing" have completely vanished. We are left with a game that takes every chance it has to inform us that the World within the game is separate from the World without, and then turns around and says that the world within the game isn't EVEN real in the context of the narrative. It's a simulation of a simulation.

 

And I think that this is both a good and bad thing; it's good because it shows us that we shouldn't take adventure games so seriously, they are, after all, bizarre offshoots of what was once a definitive science, and arguably closer to movies than most other games. The only problem with this approach is that Gilbert didn't actually get around to finishing his story, so we're left partially in the dark. The real "Secret" we can theorize, but unless Ron's word says so, nothing is surefire. It's ultimately eerie and a bit disheartening. And it means that we can't entirely chart the motifs of the series, how it would have ended now versus then. It's like what would have happened to The Dark Tower if Stephen King had died, or, in Schafer's words "An Unfinished Symphony".

 

I think the main thing we can draw from Monkey Island is that we shouldn't cling to Escapism. MI2 is a very realistic game, it doesn't lie about the materialistic, cruel, ignorant nature of the world. As the Voodoo Lady says, "True Evil Can Never Be Destroyed Completely" But ultimately, Guybrush is forced to live with this, he's dragged unwilling back into the real world, and comes face to face with the cold truth of escapism. Really, all the epic adventures he's had, all the Piratey songs and Rasta Rhythms he's heard are just the by-products of a grand machine. But if we as humans can come to terms with that, we may yet be able to grow.

 

A Balance between childhood and Maturity.

[elTee]

Unlike its predecessors, it breaks the fourth wall consistently, denying any illusion of "Role-Playing" which make no mistake, is where adventure games came from. You can mark their progress; Dungeons and Dragons, Zork, King's Quest; once you get to Monkey Island all instances of "Role-Playing" have completely vanished. We are left with a game that takes every chance it has to inform us that the World within the game is separate from the World without, and then turns around and says that the world within the game isn't EVEN real in the context of the narrative. It's a simulation of a simulation...

 

I think the main thing we can draw from Monkey Island is that we shouldn't cling to Escapism. MI2 is a very realistic game, it doesn't lie about the materialistic, cruel, ignorant nature of the world. As the Voodoo Lady says, "True Evil Can Never Be Destroyed Completely" But ultimately, Guybrush is forced to live with this, he's dragged unwilling back into the real world, and comes face to face with the cold truth of escapism. Really, all the epic adventures he's had, all the Piratey songs and Rasta Rhythms he's heard are just the by-products of a grand machine. But if we as humans can come to terms with that, we may yet be able to grow.

 

A Balance between childhood and Maturity.

 

I think you're right, it's extremely postmodern. It's also able to masquerade as being totally superficial; a straight story adventure game.

 

As I've said in the past, I think it's important to contextualise the first two Monkey Island games. Schafer has said in interviews that the dialogue written by the 'scummlets' for SOMI was what they thought to be placeholder stuff - that it would be replaced with the 'real' dialogue when the time came. Ron Gilbert made it clear that, in fact, the jokey dialogue would remain. With the Sierra games (and text adventures) being their only point of reference, in order to parody adventure games, they would in fact be setting a character - Guybrush - loose inside of one of those games. This time, however, they would be able to get into the code themselves and prevent things like dead-ends and death.

 

The success of this game enabled the sequel to go further. Could it be said that, rather than parodying Sierra games, Monkey Island 2 is a parody of its direct predecessor: Monkey Island 1? I think your point about these games having eliminated the concept of 'role playing' is very good, and certainly applies to my own crackpot ideas about it. If Monkey Island 1 says 'we're not going to use those rules', Monkey Island 2 must say 'we're not going to use ANY rules.'

 

This said, I think it's entirely plausable that the reason the ending of the game is so generally disliked is because people weren't ready for a game to be asking existential questions of that nature. It treads a fine line between 'cop out' and philosophy, but the fact is that the treasure of Big Whoop is a profoundly weird thing - so weird in fact, that no-one can really comprehend exactly what it is (although we are of course still talking about it.)

 

It seems to me that at its core - and as you have also said - MI2 is making a statement on the nature of reality, and how it is essentially unreliable. Guybrush's dream sequence is a key moment: you can argue that this is the start of LeChuck's complex voodoo plan that will culminate on Dinky Island (another mystery in itself) or you can say it is purely a dream. However, Guybrush receives the solution to the puzzle of navigating LeChuck's fortress at the same time - so if one aspect is real and another a dream, they must also be interchangeable.

 

On a more literal level, I think the role of the voodoo lady in MI2 is more complex than we generally acknowledge. It's interesting that her character is being explored a little further in the new TMI series - the first games to have extended input from Gilbert and Grossman since MI2, I believe. She is at the centre of whatever mysteries are happening in these games, and it isn't clear whether she is benevolent or malevolent.

 

God, it's clear that I've thought about this way too much. The most important thing I can say about it is, I certainly don't think that these are intentional decisions made by Gilbert/Schafer/Grossman. I think they were goofing around and trying to make a funny game. That said, whatever drove them to make such a great game has to be informed by their influences beforehand - whether that's On Stranger Tides, Leisure Suit Larry, or anything else that had taken residence in their collective subconscious. Understanding the context of the game is probably the key to understanding exactly what they were trying to say WITH the game.

 

(Apologies for the rambling and incoherent nature of this reply, I'm very tired and I probably should have tried to organise my thoughts on this in the morning.)

[Icebox]

It seems to me that at its core - and as you have also said - MI2 is making a statement on the nature of reality, and how it is essentially unreliable.

 

It's funny, looking back, if you take the ending at face value it's incredibly reminiscent of Plato's cave metaphor. At least, that's what I thought when I played it.

 

Also, you're entirely right to say that at the end of the day, it's really nothing more than three guys trying to make a funny game. But I still think there's something about the games' inspirations, "Pirates", Disney World Utilidors, et al, that is a bit spooky just as a general concept, even independent of Gilbert's story. Ron, in making the game, was certainly trying to communicate a bit of that unease and whimsical aura. A lot of it comes from the fact that unlike virtually anywhere else on earth, in theme Parks the line between reality and fantasy, between machine and man, is blurred a great deal more then in society, (although it happens there too, but to a much subtler degree).

 

I don't mind not knowing, at any rate... Monkey 2 was nothing short of an adventure game miracle, and if we don't see anything of its magnitude ever again, it's completely understandable.

 

I'm about due for a re-play. Tried to start it up again for Pirate Day, but got sidetracked with Mid-Terms and Writing Projects. I try and go through at least once a year, but Grim I haven't managed to do for nearly two! I suppose as I get older I'll have less and less time for that sort of thing, but they say the longer you go without playing an adventure game, the more you appreciate it when you finally decide to go through again.

[ThunderPeel2001]

As I've said in the past, I think it's important to contextualise the first two Monkey Island games. Schafer has said in interviews that the dialogue written by the 'scummlets' for SOMI was what they thought to be placeholder stuff - that it would be replaced with the 'real' dialogue when the time came. Ron Gilbert made it clear that, in fact, the jokey dialogue would remain.

 

I must question this point. I've never seen any such interviews from Schafer or Gilbert saying this. Linky? Quotes? I simply don't believe it's true.

 

God, it's clear that I've thought about this way too much. The most important thing I can say about it is, I certainly don't think that these are intentional decisions made by Gilbert/Schafer/Grossman. I think they were goofing around and trying to make a funny game.

 

Got to agree with you here, though. I think the fourth-wall breaking stuff was just attempts at cheap gags for the most part. Interesting discussion, though.

[Thrik]

Regarding the placeholder dialogue thing, Schafer himself said that in an interview in Edge a couple of months back (the one with Microsoft's Natal on the cover) and I've definitely heard it said much further back in time — possibly in the Rogue Leaders book.

 

He says how he and Dave were putting all crazy dialogue in assuming Gilbert wouldn't use it, but ended up loving it and thus led to it becoming a full-blown comedy. That part of the article also goes on about how it was Steve Purcell who started putting all these anachronisms like coke machines in the world, contrary to Gilbert's original intentions.

 

The Edge article is a six-page feature all about Schafer and his legacy by the way, where he talks about all sorts of things things concerning LucasArets and beyond, including him being the one who came up with Stan. Don't know if it was reported on Mojo but 'tis a great read.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Wow, that sounds like an amazing article! How have we missed this??

 

Scans! (Please )

[Thrik]

Hmm I don't have a scanner, but I'll see if my phone can take adequate pictures (5 megapixel so you never know).

 

I'm sure someone more equipped than me has this issue, though.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yeah, that would be awesome! I'm sad that I missed it. I've tried searching online to no avail, either

 

If someone has the time to scan the page that would be really fantastic.

[Icebox]

The Edge article is a six-page feature all about Schafer and his legacy by the way, where he talks about all sorts of things things concerning LucasArets and beyond, including him being the one who came up with Stan. Don't know if it was reported on Mojo but 'tis a great read.

 

I had always figured that was Schafer's idea. I could be imagining things, but distinctly I remember him saying something about his entire character being a riff on Cal Worthington. I vaguely remember the bit about Purcell's drawings and the placeholder dialogue as well. It's been so long, so many years and so many interviews. Good to see Mojo's still alive and kicking after everything.

 

Also, someone should compile a list of these factoids and anecdotes, because a comprehensive account of the game's development is hard to come by. The MI Wiki is worthless in that regard, and Rogue Leaders didn't really cover it too extensively, considering they had a whole 20+years of history to sort out.

[elTee]

I must question this point. I've never seen any such interviews from Schafer or Gilbert saying this. Linky? Quotes? I simply don't believe it's true.

 

Tim Schafer on SOMI:

We started, just to get the thing up and running, throwing in characters and just making them say dumb things that we thought was funny. And we were all four of the original scummlets in this room and we would just write dialogue that would crack us up... And we didn't think it was actual 'game dialogue' we just thought we were writing stuff to entertain each other, and it turns out he's [Ron Gilbert] like 'No, we're using this. This is it, this is the game.'

 

 

From

.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Wow, that's awesome! Thanks for finding the link.

[LordTrilobite]

I was also surprised to discover just how truly sadistic some of the puzzles are. I'm amazed that more isn't made of the impossibility of some of them. The whole turning off the waterfall puzzle...? Jeez! Using Jojo as a "monkey wrench" was absolutely ridiculously, preposterously, impossible to "solve". What was even more surprising is the complete lack of hints for such an impenetrable puzzle... At no point does Guybrush suggest he needs to do anything to the pump, hint at a connection to the waterfall below, talk of the need of a wrench, or anything.

Yes that puzzle was evil, aspecially if English isn't your native language. Actually, both MI1 and 2 require a rather high skill level of the English language. Though changing to your native language is lame.

 

That wasn't the only logic-leaping puzzle, though. Rum Roger's "telescope on the statue to point to the brick on the wall" was equally absurd, but at least more likely to get through trial and error. Likewise, the a spitting contest: There's no hint that you'll get anything as a result of winning the contest or any clue as why you should bother... You just do it and then randomly find yourself with an item that you randomly discover you can sell to the Boutique.

As far as I remember the telescope puzzle isn't actually needed to finish the game. I think you could just find the brick that you needed to push/pull. Which was actually easier I think. As it's simple pixel hunting instead of a mindboggling puzzle.

 

Despite the many times I've played through MI2 I also realized that I've NEVER fully understood the bone-song puzzle in LeChuck's Fortress... and I think most people just do what I did: Go through the same "skeleton" door enough times until you arrive at LeChuck's throne.

Once you get the hang of it it's actually really easy. just look at the "... is connected to the ..." and go through the door that matches this discription, do this in the order of the song, and you get to the end.

[SyntheticGerbil]

Nice post.

 

 

(I had to, I'm sorry.)

[ThunderPeel2001]

As far as I remember the telescope puzzle isn't actually needed to finish the game. I think you could just find the brick that you needed to push/pull. Which was actually easier I think. As it's simple pixel hunting instead of a mindboggling puzzle.

 

Didn't work for me. I tried that in this playthrough.

 

Once you get the hang of it it's actually really easy. just look at the "... is connected to the ..." and go through the door that matches this discription, do this in the order of the song, and you get to the end.

 

It still doesn't work because of the way the song is structured...

 

x is connected to the y

z is connected to the a

b is connected to the c

 

So do you look for a door with

 

xzb

 

or

 

yac

 

or

 

xyz

 

and for the next door which ones to you look for?

 

This time I got through them all by just ignoring the the bones on the right hand side from each verse (so xzb and then ignoring yac) and it worked.

 

But this "puzzle" is also dependent on you randomly looking at the spit-encrusted paper.

[elTee]

Yeah - there were two puzzles I didn't 'get' originally in MI2, and that was the spitting contest/wind thing, and the bones.

 

The spitting contest is actually logical and makes a lot of sense, if you're clever enough to notice the flags blowing in the breeze. If anything I missed it because it was almost more intelligent than I thought the game was capable of. For years I assumed the solution lay in some arbitrary sequence of the phlegm-dialogue options.

 

But the thing with the dancing skeletons is, it's a cutscene. And Guybrush goes 'hey I'm going to write this down!' or something, and I thought it was just a gag - like, he's digging the song or something. I suppose it makes sense when you realise you still have the spit-encrusted paper (which you evidently no longer need) but there's nothing to indicate that that's the paper he's written the song down on. I think you'd have to be high to make the connection between the skeletal bones of your parents and those skeletel murals in LeChuck's fortress. But that said, I can't really say it's a problem with the game or a design flaw, it's just stretching SCUMM-game logic to its limit.

 

Picking up the dog, also, is a bit of a stretch. It's the only 'large' item you can put in your inventory, and whilst I can't actually think of an example, I'm sure there are other items of a similar size that you can't pick up during the game, but that you could use to solve a puzzle if you could.

[Giant Graffiti]

The spitting contest is actually logical and makes a lot of sense, if you're clever enough to notice the flags blowing in the breeze.

My problem with the spitting contest was that you had no idea that you were supposed to mix the drinks together.

[Bagge]

It still doesn't work because of the way the song is structured...

 

x is connected to the y

z is connected to the a

b is connected to the c

 

So do you look for a door with

 

xzb

 

or

 

yac

 

or

 

xyz

 

and for the next door which ones to you look for?

 

This time I got through them all by just ignoring the the bones on the right hand side from each verse (so xzb and then ignoring yac) and it worked.

 

But this "puzzle" is also dependent on you randomly looking at the spit-encrusted paper.

 

 

 

But the thing with the dancing skeletons is, it's a cutscene. And Guybrush goes 'hey I'm going to write this down!' or something, and I thought it was just a gag - like, he's digging the song or something. I suppose it makes sense when you realise you still have the spit-encrusted paper (which you evidently no longer need) but there's nothing to indicate that that's the paper he's written the song down on. I think you'd have to be high to make the connection between the skeletal bones of your parents and those skeletel murals in LeChuck's fortress. But that said, I can't really say it's a problem with the game or a design flaw, it's just stretching SCUMM-game logic to its limit.

 

I thought the skeleton puzzle was pretty straight forward. Your parents specifically tells you that they have some important information for you in the form of a song. Then Guybrush says he needs to write it down and you see him do so. The only blank piece of paper in you inventory is the spit-encrusted paper - which Guybrush mentions is blank if you look at it before writing down the song. When I first played the game at the age of 8 or 9, I kept wondering where this information would come in handy as I played thorugh the second part. When I got to LeChuck's fortress and saw all the different bone structures on the doors, it was very logical that this was finally where I got to use the "important information" from your parents.

 

As for there being four skeleton parts in each verse of the song, and only three on each door, I agree that that is a bit unintuitive, but any door that contains three skeletal parts connected in the same order as three skeletal parts in the correct verse, is a correct door. Pretty simple.

 

My problem with the spitting contest was that you had no idea that you were supposed to mix the drinks together.

 

The only characteristics of each of the three drinks is it's color - it's even implied in the name of the drink (Blue whale, Yellow Beard's Baby), as well as the name of the items when you put your cursor over them in the inventory (blue drink, yellow drink). I don't feel like it's a leap of logic to try to combine two or more out of three brightly colored drinks in your inventory in an adventure game.

[elTee]

Yeah it all hinges on whether you take 'important information' seriously. I guess what blindsided me about it was that it turned out to be a seemingly irrelevant song - and it's a comedy game, you know? I just figured it was a joke. But you're right, if you spot that it must be totally logical, it's just a subjective puzzle I suppose.

 

As for the drinks - you're right again, there's no indication that you should mix them. The way it occurred to me was, Largo's spit was green - and you can mix a green drink out of those cocktails. Tenuous on its own, but when you make the green drink he does say that it makes his spit thicker, which is a huge hint that you're on the right lines.

[SyntheticGerbil]

For what it counts, I'll make a more serious post in this thread, since it is very interesting.

 

The "nice sign" responses that got more frequent as the game ended really bothered me as well, even on the first play through. I also had the feeling the last third or more of the game was rushed, but I guess this was sort of confirmed by the stuff we know was cut out, like Guybrush and Wally on a boat. But it is also funny that Guybrush will blow you off by calling everything nice that's not exactly important at the same time... sometimes.

 

The dream logic spilling into the "real world" atmosphere in the game, now that Eltee mentions it, really strikes me as one of the wonderful things I loved about the game as well. Things like the repeating Booty Island background remodeled at the end of the game as well as the underground tunnels you go through early on, only to find them reappear in a more sinister matter when you face LeChuck was not only confusing but exhilarating.

 

Now that I think of it, adding in the broken Grog Machine and having access to the Employee's Only door on Melee, really make it seem like Guybrush's world was splitting at the seams only made the game really bleak, which is probably where a lot of the horror-lite™ comes from. That's why to this day, I still don't feel that the explanation of Guybrush being a kid trapped in a fantasy world is the most suitable explanation. Plausible, but not fully fitting, since there is so much fantasy/reality overlap and uncertainty of what exactly happened in the game. Whatever the MI2 team was really trying to achieve with the proposed Gilbert third game in mind is still really mysterious to me.

 

I don't agree that MI2 is too much of a stretch from the first game or that they are too different tonally, but I do agree Secret of Monkey Island was much more straightforward and more traditional. I think the later half of MI1 was more in sync with the second game as the voodoo talk and magic got more odd and absurd as well as the underground caverns under the Monkey head. Herman Toothrot especially started to make the game more off the wall than earlier characters, with him being your only companion for the last portion of the game.

 

Breaking the fourth wall in games seems really tired to me now, and I don't think it's very funny anymore, but when I was a lot younger, all of that stuff had me splitting at the seams. Simon the Sorcerer did it a lot as well, making the game very likable to me on my first play through. Maybe had I been over 20 years old when I first played Monkey Island 2, I wouldn't have found it very funny to break the wall, but also suspect it's somewhat of a joke that's been completely played out by now.

 

As far as the difficulty, I really recommend that most people start on regular mode for both MI2 and CMI and playthrough on hard when they are done. MI2 definitely tended to be harder for the sake of being hard if you chose Mega Monkey by adding a lot of somewhat illogical puzzles with not many given hints.

 

When I originally played the game, I did start on Mega Monkey, but found myself switching over to a medium difficulty saved game whenever I would get stuck on hard mode. That's probably a cheater way, but it did help me finish the game much faster as well as narrow down some of the more obscure puzzles in hard mode. I did end up beating easy and seeing the ending through there first, though.

 

If you avoid Mega Monkey, then you don't deal with the waterfall puzzle, the drawn out solution to finding Rum Rogers' trap door, the Spitting Contest, and unfortunately miss the whole skeleton song. While I did get the waterfall puzzle almost instantly, being well accustomed to adventure game logic even in the 4th grade (and a citizen of the US (No "spanners" here, Beneath a Steel Sky)), the spitting contest was finished by me with "luck" by trying to figure out why I noticed my spit would go much further sometimes, maybe in a similar way to the "Tuesday is Cat Hat Day" puzzle in Grim Fandango. I can't really fault either puzzles, because they are well thought out and both require you to pay attention to things you wouldn't normally in an adventure game. The cat hats being announced in the background audio, and the spitting contest requiring you to pay attention to the flag poles.

 

That said I agree with mixing the drinks portion of the puzzle, as that was obscure. I remember just mixing them for no reason at all (which to me is bad design without an initial reason) until I saw the "this makes my spit thick" hint.

 

Also I navigated through LeChuck's maze the first time on hard mode by trial and error since I also did not know Guybrush wrote down the song lyrics on the piece of paper until well after that part. I also did not have a saved game ready to go back to that part. Definitely not the way you want to do it.

[elTee]

The dream logic spilling into the "real world" atmosphere in the game, now that Eltee mentions it, really strikes me as one of the wonderful things I loved about the game as well. Things like the repeating Booty Island background remodeled at the end of the game as well as the underground tunnels you go through early on, only to find them reappear in a more sinister matter when you face LeChuck was not only confusing but exhilarating.

 

Now that I think of it, adding in the broken Grog Machine and having access to the Employee's Only door on Melee, really make it seem like Guybrush's world was splitting at the seams only made the game really bleak, which is probably where a lot of the horror-lite™ comes from. That's why to this day, I still don't feel that the explanation of Guybrush being a kid trapped in a fantasy world is the most suitable explanation. Plausible, but not fully fitting, since there is so much fantasy/reality overlap and uncertainty of what exactly happened in the game. Whatever the MI2 team was really trying to achieve with the proposed Gilbert third game in mind is still really mysterious to me.

 

I think you've made a superb point there. It really does feel like Guybrush's world is splitting apart at the seams, it's a more powerful final third than it initially appears. And I fully agree about the 'kid in a fantasy world' thing - totally plausible, but it just doesn't feel fully correct to me. And I know Gilbert wouldn't admit it even if it were true, but for what it's worth he reckons the secret is still out there to be discovered.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yeah, I've never been a fan of that explanation as it requires you to take one thing that happens extremely literally and then treat everything else as a "joke". It just doesn't fit.

 

Guybrush says things like "This isn't Monkey 1" and "What's this doing in a pirate game?" and a ton of other fourth-wall busting stuff. It seems absurd to me that we're supposed to take the countless comedy anachronisms as some clever "hint" that it's all a child's fantasy... but then ignore the "I'm in a computer game" type stuff.

 

My personal explanation was that the closer Guybrush came to discovering Big Whoop, the more unhinged his world became... presumably from the weird-ass power of Big Whoop itself.

 

The ending itself leaves open all sorts of questions... was that really LeChuck in the corridors with him? Was it just BW messing with Guybrush's mind? Did LeChuck finally arrive to capture Guybrush just as the chest was broken and sucked them both into the twisted world of Big Whoop? Or perhaps LeChuck REALLY did transport Guybrush into another dimension on that first try... and everything that follows was part of that?

 

It's an inspired ending that can leave you with so many questions and not quite feeling ripped off

 

Also: Why does Governer Phatt say that LeChuck looked "perfectly healthy"?

 

SG: What extra stuff do we know of? Wally in the boat is all new to me...

 

Also, also: In MI2 there was no "regular" mode. It was only Easy or Hard. Medium got culled and I think Ron acknowledged it was a mistake, but they thought the Easy game would open it up to more players. Thankfully something they rectified with great success in CMI.

[SyntheticGerbil]

Guybrush says things like "This isn't Monkey 1" and "What's this doing in a pirate game?" and a ton of other fourth-wall busting stuff. It seems absurd to me that we're supposed to take the countless comedy anachronisms as some clever "hint" that it's all a child's fantasy... but then ignore the "I'm in a computer game" type stuff.

 

I agree, it seems most of all of the anachronisms are there more for comedy than it having meaning pertaining towards Guybrush being a kid lost in a fantasy land.

 

And also, so if we do go by the explanation that Guybrush got lost at a carnival, that means his parents wouldn't have found them for years while Guybrush was having some prolonged fantasy after he killed LeChuck, dated Elaine for a while, broke up, grew a beard, befriended Bart and Fink, and then went searching for Big Whoop again.

 

Of course I guess it's his imagination for that explanation and that time can go be as fast or slow as anyone could want in their fantasy world, but all of that stuff just seems like there was a bit more going on with what the game designers were shooting for.

 

The ending itself leaves open all sorts of questions... was that really LeChuck in the corridors with him? Was it just BW messing with Guybrush's mind? Did LeChuck finally arrive to capture Guybrush just as the chest was broken and sucked them both into the twisted world of Big Whoop? Or perhaps LeChuck REALLY did transport Guybrush into another dimension on that first try... and everything that follows was part of that?

 

And Elaine was shown after Guybrush appeared as a child, wondering what became of Guybrush next to the hole in the ground. There was no little girl version made of her. What she said did greatly help the CMI team go on their explanation, but I can't help wondering what Ron Gilbert may have meant by that quick scene with Elaine showing up in the credits.

 

SG: What extra stuff do we know of? Wally in the boat is all new to me...

 

This is the only page I can find as a source and it doesn't say much about the games "5 large cut scenes," but I swear I might have heard more detail about some of the unproduced scenes besides Wally dropping his monocle in the water. If anyone can find anything else on them or where World of Monkey Island got this from, that would be awesome.

 

http://www.worldofmi.com/features/trivia/trivia.php?game=MI2&s=1

 

But I was wrong, they were going to be on a raft. But since there's not really a place in the game where both Wally and Guybrush are on a raft, I would guess there would have been more game between LeChuck's Fortress and Guybrush reaching Dinky Island.

 

Also, also: In MI2 there was no "regular" mode. It was only Easy or Hard. Medium got culled and I think Ron acknowledged it was a mistake, but they thought the Easy game would open it up to more players. Thankfully something they rectified with great success in CMI.

 

Ah I see, I hadn't heard that. I just figured there was no "easy" mode and you were just playing "regular" mode. Makes sense, since at points in the game, you basically do nothing and the story progresses, especially when Wally puts out the candle for you in LeChuck's fortress.

[Jake]

Ah I see, I hadn't heard that. I just figured there was no "easy" mode and you were just playing "regular" mode. Makes sense, since at points in the game, you basically do nothing and the story progresses, especially when Wally puts out the candle for you in LeChuck's fortress.

 

We're meant to assume he pees on it, right? For some reason that's what I remember thinking, but I haven't played MI2 on easy since 1991 or something.

[Sven_Q45]

Yes if I play MI 1 and than MI 2. It´s very different!

MI 2 is deeper. MI 1 seems a little bit less...