Return to Monkey Island

[Goury1]

I've always liked the amusement park theme! Is seems jolly, with just a hint of the creepy LeChuck's theme underneath! When I dreamed about MI3a all these years, I've always wanted it to start with the music!

 

1 hour ago, Rum Rogers said:

Now that you said it, I really hope it starts with an amusement park variation of the Monkey Island theme,

 

This could work great too! 

[Toymafia1988]

Not to risk going off topic but with Disney letting Ron make another Monkey island... do you think this is a one off deal?

 

Or do you think we could see other Lucasarts games get sequels from other developers?

 

Maniac Mansion 3 has been a dream game of mine all my life... maybe Terrible Toybox could make that next... or Maybe Double fine could make another Grim Fandango etc.... maybe get Skunkape to finish Freelance Police.

 

I just think of 2009 when Lucasarts let Telltale Games make a new Monkey Island... it was exciting time but never led to more games sadly... just a couple of remakes...

 

What do you think? Should i not get my hopes up?

Edited April 20, 2022 by Toymafia1988

[Rum Rogers]

It all depends on a couple of things:

• how well RMI does once released
• how much Tim Schafer is interested (I'm referring to Grim Fandango or Maniac Mansion 3)
• how much Microsoft is interested (it would be involved with the deal this time)

As for Freelance Police, the most you can expect is a build of the game leaking, as happened for that World of Warcraft point and click adventure game a few years ago.

 

All in all, what I do find most likely (and I don't find it very likely anyway) is Maniac Mansion 3 from Double Fine.

[Lagomorph01]

I think at the moment, the most likely thing we'll get is A: a Tales of Monkey Island remaster by Skunkape, and B: A Curse of Monkey Island remake by Bill Tiller.

A, because if I was Skunkape, I'd strike while the iron is hot.

B, because Bill Tiller has given hints in the past that this is something he might consider doing, and maybe Disney is listening now.

 

Maybe if these things prove to be succesful, there might be a slight chance of a LucasArts adventure renaissance, though it's still pretty unlikely.

[OzzieMonkey]

25 minutes ago, Lagomorph01 said:

I think at the moment, the most likely thing we'll get is A: a Tales of Monkey Island remaster by Skunkape, and B: A Curse of Monkey Island remake by Bill Tiller.

A, because if I was Skunkape, I'd strike while the iron is hot.

B, because Bill Tiller has given hints in the past that this is something he might consider doing, and maybe Disney is listening now.

 

Maybe if these things prove to be succesful, there might be a slight chance of a LucasArts adventure renaissance, though it's still pretty unlikely.

I think that's probably what will happen. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if a Curse remaster was already in the works. Once Skunkape are done with Sam & Max, they'll need something new to work on, and Tales would be perfect if they're not already working on a new Sam & Max season. I could even see them doing a second season of Tales if the new Telltale pass on it (they seem to still be solely focused on post-Walking Dead style games). I would also love to see a remaster of Escape, even if it's just for completion's sake. It'd be great if the Special Editions of 1&2 got a second pass to fix some of the unfinished art (MI1 melee forest especially) and weird removals of things (opening credits in MI2, vertical scrolling, etc), but I think that part might be wishful thinking. Maybe if they got ported to the Switch I could see them tweaking it a bit and why not patch the PC version while you're at it?  It'd even be worth it just to update MI1 to have voice in classic mode and be able to mix and match the new music with the old graphics (especially in MI2 which not even the Ultimate Talkie Edition can do); basically just adding the features that were put into Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle. 

 

As for other Lucasarts stuff? Give Brian Moriarty his Loom trilogy, and remaster the first one with fully voiced, uncut dialog. Craig Derrick has also wanted to get a remaster of Maniac Mansion greenlit for ages now, so I can see that being a big priority. 

Edited April 20, 2022 by OzzieMonkey

[Toymafia1988]

33 minutes ago, OzzieMonkey said:

I think that's probably what will happen. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if a Curse remaster was already in the works. Once Skunkape are done with Sam & Max, they'll need something new to work on, and Tales would be perfect if they're not already working on a new Sam & Max season. I could even see them doing a second season of Tales if the new Telltale pass on it (they seem to still be solely focused on post-Walking Dead style games). I would also love to see a remaster of Escape, even if it's just for completion's sake. It'd be great if the Special Editions of 1&2 got a second pass to fix some of the unfinished art (MI1 melee forest especially) and weird removals of things (opening credits in MI2, vertical scrolling, etc), but I think that part might be wishful thinking. Maybe if they got ported to the Switch I could see them tweaking it a bit and why not patch the PC version while you're at it?  It'd even be worth it just to update MI1 to have voice in classic mode and be able to mix and match the new music with the old graphics (especially in MI2 which not even the Ultimate Talkie Edition can do); basically just adding the features that were put into Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle. 

 

As for other Lucasarts stuff? Give Brian Moriarty his Loom trilogy, and remaster the first one with fully voiced, uncut dialog. Craig Derrick has also wanted to get a remaster of Maniac Mansion greenlit for ages now, so I can see that being a big priority. 

Love  new Sam Max season and I think we need a sequel to Tales to wrap up the cliffhanger.

 

Why haven't we had a Maniac Mansion remake/remaster yet? It is so needed! 

[Goury1]

I still dream about the Sam and Max: Freelance Police uncancellation! Nobody can take the dream away from me!

[Goury1]

2 minutes ago, Toymafia1988 said:

 I think we need a sequel to Tales to wrap up the cliffhanger.

 I agree, after Ron gets to tell his story, let there be Tales season 2!

[Lagomorph01]

Alright, since we've got room to dream...

 

Yes! I would love to see Freelance Police uncancelled and finished! I wouldn't even mind the dated graphics! I was so looking forward to that game in the early 2000's! And it was such a bummer when they axed it!

 

Get Moriarty back, but don't let him work on Loom until he finishes his version of the Dig. I would love to see what he made of it. (The digital antiquarian did a remarkable essay on the development, which was mentioned on the Mixnmojo front page!)

 

I'm not bent on seeing sequels to Maniac Mansion or Grim Fandango, but would rather see more unique adventure games coming from the studio. Remember, they only made the old games cause they had to make new IP's, because Star Wars was off limits! Let's see what they can make without milking the old stuff! (There's too much milking going on anyway...)

Edited April 20, 2022 by Lagomorph01

[Zaxx]

3 hours ago, Lagomorph01 said:

I think at the moment, the most likely thing we'll get is A: a Tales of Monkey Island remaster by Skunkape

Why Skunkape though? I don't want them cutting out random jokes and recasting voice actors (though I have to admit I won't riot if the ToMI Voodoo Lady gets recast to Leilani Jones Wilmore) but I think Skunkape exists very specifically for remastering Sam & Max. At any rate if Lucasfilm or Devolver is interested they should find someone who's not like "well we can change stuff now so why don't we do that?" and understand what the audience expects from a remaster better because I'm sorry (and if you haven't guessed from my avatar I like Larry too) but the German made Leisure Suit Larry games shouldn't do better on Steam than Sam & Max under any circumstance. I don't think any publisher will look at the 100 glowing user reviews Sam & Max season 2 got and go "hey, let's make a new one!"

 

As for other things I somehow think that it depends more on Devolver than Lucasfilm or Ron if they want to do more with the license or not. I certainly hope that they want to do more because Devolver has a good history with taking other people's properties and doing really nice stuff with them, just look at their Shadow Warrior and non-Croteam developed Serious Sam games. They are also not AAA which could be a good fit for adventure games so yeah, I wouldn't complain if there was no 10+ year wait periods between Monkey Island entries from now on.

[Goury1]

20 minutes ago, Zaxx said:

I wouldn't complain if there was no 10+ year wait periods between Monkey Island entries from now on.

 

I would be quite happy if RTMI was the last game in the series, Maybe there could be a second season of TOMI, but afterwards it should definitely be over. There is no point in turning the series into a soap opera. EFMI and TOMI showed that the series already jumped the shark to some extent....

Edited April 20, 2022 by Goury1

[Zaxx]

19 minutes ago, Goury1 said:

 

I would be quite happy if RTMI was the last game in the series, Maybe there could be a second season of TOMI, but afterwards it should definitely be over. There is no point in turning the series into a soap opera. EFMI and TOMI showed that the series already jumped the shark to some extent....

I think a lot of people share your opinion and if more sequels mean more EFMI like games then I certainly do too but it doesn't have to be that way. The way I see it the problem with MI sequels is that basically all of them stay very close to the formula: it's always Elaine getting in danger, LeChuck always returning with Guybrush being out to get him. That's a very limited concept if every entry has to be like that and then games like EFMI happen.

 

But even when you look at EFMI there's actually a lot of interesting stuff in there, I always really enjoyed the whole Ozzie Mandrill plot with the somewhat self-referential commercialization of the MI world, I think that was really smart. The game's rehashing a lot of things and the Monkey Island section is pretty much all terrible but there are some genius nuggets in there, it just falls short because just like Curse it has to follow the MI1 formula for some reason.

 

On the other hand ToMI does a lot of new stuff and it's better for it, I always really liked the plot with the pox, Morgan was a great new character, making LeChuck human was a great idea and there are a lot of those "oh, this is very neat" moments. What hurts that game is the episodic structure (the pacing is bad, some puzzles should have been cut, really less would have been more) and that it was made in a time where being a point and click game wasn't enough. No, the puzzles had to be easier, the inventory had to be form over function and the player needs that janky direct control because for some reason bad controls and bad camera systems make playing an adventure game more engaging. And then there's the merfolk where the joke is that it's hard to decide what gender they are (transphobia, yay) and some other weird decisions that most likely come from Telltale's famous crunch.

 

Nowadays point and click games can just be what they are again though: you don't have to add Resident Evil tank controls or other dump innovations, they can be 2D, have good puzzles, nice writing and all that jazz. There is nobody out there wanting to make the genre mainstream again, it can be niche and that's fine. That's a good environment for new MI games and if they manage to steer away from the MI1 formula and offer new stories then I think there's a lot of room for that even after RTMI (and EFMI and ToMI).

[Udvarnoky]

1 hour ago, Zaxx said:

Why Skunkape though?

 

Because they're the obvious and sole precedent of a studio taking a game developed in an old version of the Telltale Tool and bringing it up to modern standards in a way that both looks/sounds fantastic and doesn't stomp on the spirit of what's being remastered? They're quite clearly the best if not only candidates for the hypothetical assignment of remastering Tales of Monkey Island.

[Zaxx]

23 minutes ago, Udvarnoky said:

 

Because they're the obvious and sole precedent of a studio taking a game developed in an old version of the Telltale Tool and bringing it up to modern standards in a way that both looks/sounds fantastic and doesn't stomp on the spirit of what's being remastered? They're quite clearly the best if not only candidates for the hypothetical assignment of remastering Tales of Monkey Island.

How about these people?

 

Anyway I agree that the Sam & Max remasters are absolutely fantastic on a technical level, I'm just very afraid of the "Skunkape baggage" of a similar controvery hurting the MI IP like it did Sam & Max. I didn't buy those remasters because even after two years I don't have the option to switch back to the Bosco voice I grew up on, have like 5 friends who didn't buy for the same reason and I just don't see a company that can't accomodate basic requests like that as a good choice. You know, if a game has a community where the feedback is that there is a large portion of people not liking something that could be fixed and the developer doesn't fix that issue then that developer just doesn't care enough about it's audience.

 

Compared to that there's Postal 4 which is an absolutely dreadful video game if you look at any other review. Fans didn't like that Jon St. John is voicing the Postal Dude in the game, they wanted Rick Hunter back... so the developers brought back Rick Hunter AND Corey Cruise, another fan favourite voice actor from the franchise. See, it's easy, you just add an option for all 3 and it just works:

Now what would happen with Tales of MI? The Voodoo Lady's voice actor is a white lady in that game so she obviously has to go. That could work for MI fans if the new voice actor is Leilani Jones, if it's anyone other than her? Backlash, less sales, an army of trolls review bombing and warning people who'd want to buy everywhere, people calling each other racists or nazis in the community just because some people happen to prefer the old voice actor etc. I saw that once, it was really stupid, I'd rather not watch the rerun thank you very much.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Zaxx

[Goury1]

36 minutes ago, Zaxx said:

But even when you look at EFMI there's actually a lot of interesting stuff in there, I always really enjoyed the whole Ozzie Mandrill plot with the somewhat self-referential commercialization of the MI world, I think that was really smart. The game's rehashing a lot of things and the Monkey Island section is pretty much all terrible but there are some genius nuggets in there, it just falls short because just like Curse it has to follow the MI1 formula for some reason.

 

On the other hand ToMI does a lot of new stuff and it's better for it, I always really liked the plot with the pox, Morgan was a great new character, making LeChuck human was a great idea and there are a lot of those "oh, this is very neat" moments. What hurts that game is the episodic structure (the pacing is bad,

 

Good points, I agree! EFMI would have been quite fine if not for the abysmal Monkey Combat/ Giant Monkey Robot/ Herman Toothrot revelation in the last section.

 

TOMI was quite captivating and innovative! I really like Morgan... Yet TOMI suffered from the episodic format - the locations were limited and rehashed, so it lacked the feeling of being a huge piratey adventure, like the others were. 

 

I'm quite afraid that Ron might make RTMI too easy and mainstream in order to reach a broader audience. I want RTMI to be chalanging and difficult...

[Asterothe]

I have yet to find an easy Ron adventure, so I have faith in RTMI that will be satisfactorily difficult.  

[elTee]

3 hours ago, Zaxx said:

Anyway I agree that the Sam & Max remasters are absolutely fantastic on a technical level, I'm just very afraid of the "Skunkape baggage" of a similar controvery hurting the MI IP like it did Sam & Max. I didn't buy those remasters because even after two years I don't have the option to switch back to the Bosco voice I grew up on, have like 5 friends who didn't buy for the same reason and I just don't see a company that can't accomodate basic requests like that as a good choice. You know, if a game has a community where the feedback is that there is a large portion of people not liking something that could be fixed and the developer doesn't fix that issue then that developer just doesn't care enough about it's audience.

...

 

Now what would happen with Tales of MI? The Voodoo Lady's voice actor is a white lady in that game so she obviously has to go. That could work for MI fans if the new voice actor is Leilani Jones, if it's anyone other than her? Backlash, less sales, an army of trolls review bombing and warning people who'd want to buy everywhere, people calling each other racists or nazis in the community just because some people happen to prefer the old voice actor etc. I saw that once, it was really stupid, I'd rather not watch the rerun thank you very much.

Man, reading this just made me feel impossibly old and sad. I cannot relate to this at all, and it just shows how much the world of gaming has changed in the last twenty years or so.

 

When I grew up it was normal for games to receive changes. All of the early LucasArts games were changed multiple times. Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken were both replaced, during their original lifespan, by different versions. Loom has more versions than I can even count without a reference. The Secret of Monkey Island was released in EGA, then a few months later a VGA version came out with completely new art assets throughout. They released the same game on CD a few years later and made changes to it. They made a further edition of it in 2009 which had further changes. None of this was considered sinister or oppressive. It was a company taking an existing product and trying to give new buyers a reason to purchase it.

 

I guess we all have one specific version of a game that is the one we played first. That's the "correct" one in our own little subjective world. For me and Monkey Island, it's the EGA PC version with the internal speaker soundtrack. That's not the "best" version or the "canonical" version or any of that guff, it's just the one I experienced first, it's the one I'm nostalgic for. The existence of all those other versions doesn't invalidate it. If I want to revisit it, I can revisit it. But that EGA version I played also had an adlib soundtrack that I didn't get to hear the first time I played it. I heard that music later, and it's objectively "better" than the PC speaker equivalent. I enjoy that version of the theme music too.

 

If we're going to talk about re-releasing old games then it's important to ask the question of whether the company should cater to me. There's an EGA version of this game with a PC speaker soundtrack, so surely it's no real work or effort on their part to add a toggle for those modes, is there?

 

Well, setting aside the obvious fallacy that anything in game development is "easy" or involves "no real work", why should those modes necessarily be supported? Is the objective of a re-release to simply emulate the original? Which version of Monkey Island 1 is the original in this scenario, anyway? I mean, EGA was released first, but LucasArts themselves replaced it with a VGA version. So which one is the "original"? If you first played the VGA version, you might make the argument that the VGA version is "obviously better" because it has more colours. But that's a subjective opinion!

 

The simple reality is that the game I'm nostalgic for still exists. I can still play it. I don't need them to re-release it, I already own it. And where does the nostalgia end? Is it still true to the original experience if I don't have to type DOS prompts in to start the game? Is it really the same without the copy protection?

 

My opinion is that the objective of a re-release should be to bring something new or to update the art and the music in a way that might appeal to gamers who weren't lucky enough to be there the first time around. It's never to "replace the original". Fans of the original version(s) might love a re-release or they might hate it, but so what?

 

You said yourself that Skunkape has done a "fantastic" job "on a technical level". Skunkape has also made the original versions of the games available. If this isn't enough for you, I wonder what is? It almost sounds like what you want is a version of the game that keeps the graphical improvements, because you've deemed those to be acceptable, but that also lets you choose which other aspects of the game are "original" or "updated". That's fine if that's what you want, but let's not pretend that's an objective desire for "the original". That's what YOU want. And again, it's okay to want that. But why do you expect to find it in anything except your original version that you fell in love with?

 

I guess the above is the part that makes me feel so old. The part that makes me feel sad is the words you use here. "Backlash, less sales, an army of trolls review bombing and warning people". This is INSANITY. It's a video game. The people who made it are real human beings with feelings just like the rest of us, and I'm fairly sure they are doing this as a labour of love, a genuine good faith effort to re-release an old game to a new community, and they want everyone to be free to enjoy it in the most inclusive way possible. How are these things seen as negative?

 

Some of the other things you have said allude to the problems in this discourse. "The Voodoo Lady's voice actor is a white lady in that game so she obviously has to go." "people calling each other racists or nazis in the community just because some people happen to prefer the old voice actor". These are not rational video game points of discussion. It's just a sad reflection on how successful the white supremacist propagandists have been in the last ten years. I'm not saying this about you, here, I just mean broadly across society. I think a lot of kids get introduced to concepts like this by extremely malicious individuals with a nihilistic bent who enjoy watching good people start to spout divisive rhetoric, because they've found a way to sell these concepts that is prima facie reasonable. Of course, it doesn't hold up to any real scrutiny. But this isn't the place for that debate, and if anyone tries to take it there they can expect to find this discussion diverted back on track quite sharply.

 

We're all tired of these arguments. You said it yourself - "I saw that once, it was really stupid, I'd rather not watch the rerun thank you very much." I honestly think that this kind of comment is something people only really say when they're immune from the real-world negative consequences. When they are so hard-up for actual oppression, so far away from being a victim, that the only place they can find it is in a video game.

 

I'm not trying to say anything bad about you, this isn't personal. Like I said, I'm just old, and I'm really, really sad.

[Laserschwert]

It should be noted that at least one founder of Skunkape is also a core member of the Mojo community, so shitting on them like that on these forums isn't the best idea. Not because you don't have the right to express your opinion, but because many of us here know them personally, know how they busted their asses to make these remasters happen, and know them as amazing people.

[ThunderPeel2001]

elTee makes better points than me, but quite frankly the logic of the complaints towards the Remasters seems reflective of so many other hyper-emotional fanboi rants that seem to bleed out from Reddit.

 

To me they are the product of groupthink -- ideas supported and bolstered by a group existing in a vacuum. And when they're challenged outside of that vacuum there's an inability to defend them without resulting to circular logic or side-stepping. Or just a plain old hyper-emotional response.

 

In the case of people complaining about missing lines and recasting in the Remasters. Hmm. Lines were changed between versions of MI. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes by mistake. (Some of them have only just been restored in ScummVM.) And the special editions made even more changes, cutting lines.

 

I don't recall anyone getting seriously upset any them.

 

Same goes for recasting. TellTale games would sometimes recast roles between episodes! Sometimes people missed the originals, sometimes they preferred the new takes. Sam & Max themselves have been recast countless times throughout their many iterations!

 

Again, I don't recall anyone getting seriously upset about that.

 

I know elTee suggests this is purely a generation thing, but honestly I can't say I'm convinced, because when someone is recast for reasons which could be described as "woke" (reasons for which I wholeheartedly applaud and support), strangely then it's a huge issue.

 

Changing a line like "take our complimentary goggles designed for special needs children!" is treated as a crime against culture!

 

Sorry, I just don't buy it. 

 

I do prefer the performance of the original Bosco actor, but I also understand and agree with why it was changed. Same goes with the line alterations. 

 

And believe me, I'm someone who has gotten bent out of shape when other remasters have gotten things wrong. It drives me crazy when something I really care about is changed for bad reasons (like the "Golo Flake" label oversight in Grim Fandango which makes the puzzle harder to solve -- after DoubleFine promised a "Criterion Edition" level remaster).

 

But the changes made to the S&M Remasters weren't done for bad reasons... So if that still bugs you then I think it's less about the changes themselves, and more about the reasons for the changes.

 

Recent example to illustrate my point: Earl Boen isn't going to reprise LeChuck in Return to Monkey Island and so the role is going to be recast. Fans accept this unfortunate turn because of the reason (Boen has decided to retire).

 

So I think it's actually all about the reason for the changes. Either you think the reasons were justified, and so you are disappointed but understand. Or you think they were unjustified, and so you refuse to buy the product and blame the developer for making them.

 

I know this makes me sound old, too, but this sort of reaction (and the blind belief that everyone, everywhere agrees with it) makes me worry about the future. *shakes old man cane*

Edited April 21, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[Zaxx]

3 hours ago, elTee said:

Man, reading this just made me feel impossibly old and sad. I cannot relate to this at all, and it just shows how much the world of gaming has changed in the last twenty years or so.

 

When I grew up it was normal for games to receive changes. All of the early LucasArts games were changed multiple times. Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken were both replaced, during their original lifespan, by different versions. Loom has more versions than I can even count without a reference. The Secret of Monkey Island was released in EGA, then a few months later a VGA version came out with completely new art assets throughout. They released the same game on CD a few years later and made changes to it. They made a further edition of it in 2009 which had further changes. None of this was considered sinister or oppressive. It was a company taking an existing product and trying to give new buyers a reason to purchase it.

 

I guess we all have one specific version of a game that is the one we played first. That's the "correct" one in our own little subjective world. For me and Monkey Island, it's the EGA PC version with the internal speaker soundtrack. That's not the "best" version or the "canonical" version or any of that guff, it's just the one I experienced first, it's the one I'm nostalgic for. The existence of all those other versions doesn't invalidate it. If I want to revisit it, I can revisit it. But that EGA version I played also had an adlib soundtrack that I didn't get to hear the first time I played it. I heard that music later, and it's objectively "better" than the PC speaker equivalent. I enjoy that version of the theme music too.

 

If we're going to talk about re-releasing old games then it's important to ask the question of whether the company should cater to me. There's an EGA version of this game with a PC speaker soundtrack, so surely it's no real work or effort on their part to add a toggle for those modes, is there?

 

Well, setting aside the obvious fallacy that anything in game development is "easy" or involves "no real work", why should those modes necessarily be supported? Is the objective of a re-release to simply emulate the original? Which version of Monkey Island 1 is the original in this scenario, anyway? I mean, EGA was released first, but LucasArts themselves replaced it with a VGA version. So which one is the "original"? If you first played the VGA version, you might make the argument that the VGA version is "obviously better" because it has more colours. But that's a subjective opinion!

 

The simple reality is that the game I'm nostalgic for still exists. I can still play it. I don't need them to re-release it, I already own it. And where does the nostalgia end? Is it still true to the original experience if I don't have to type DOS prompts in to start the game? Is it really the same without the copy protection?

 

My opinion is that the objective of a re-release should be to bring something new or to update the art and the music in a way that might appeal to gamers who weren't lucky enough to be there the first time around. It's never to "replace the original". Fans of the original version(s) might love a re-release or they might hate it, but so what?

 

You said yourself that Skunkape has done a "fantastic" job "on a technical level". Skunkape has also made the original versions of the games available. If this isn't enough for you, I wonder what is? It almost sounds like what you want is a version of the game that keeps the graphical improvements, because you've deemed those to be acceptable, but that also lets you choose which other aspects of the game are "original" or "updated". That's fine if that's what you want, but let's not pretend that's an objective desire for "the original". That's what YOU want. And again, it's okay to want that. But why do you expect to find it in anything except your original version that you fell in love with?

 

I guess the above is the part that makes me feel so old. The part that makes me feel sad is the words you use here. "Backlash, less sales, an army of trolls review bombing and warning people". This is INSANITY. It's a video game. The people who made it are real human beings with feelings just like the rest of us, and I'm fairly sure they are doing this as a labour of love, a genuine good faith effort to re-release an old game to a new community, and they want everyone to be free to enjoy it in the most inclusive way possible. How are these things seen as negative?

 

Some of the other things you have said allude to the problems in this discourse. "The Voodoo Lady's voice actor is a white lady in that game so she obviously has to go." "people calling each other racists or nazis in the community just because some people happen to prefer the old voice actor". These are not rational video game points of discussion. It's just a sad reflection on how successful the white supremacist propagandists have been in the last ten years. I'm not saying this about you, here, I just mean broadly across society. I think a lot of kids get introduced to concepts like this by extremely malicious individuals with a nihilistic bent who enjoy watching good people start to spout divisive rhetoric, because they've found a way to sell these concepts that is prima facie reasonable. Of course, it doesn't hold up to any real scrutiny. But this isn't the place for that debate, and if anyone tries to take it there they can expect to find this discussion diverted back on track quite sharply.

 

We're all tired of these arguments. You said it yourself - "I saw that once, it was really stupid, I'd rather not watch the rerun thank you very much." I honestly think that this kind of comment is something people only really say when they're immune from the real-world negative consequences. When they are so hard-up for actual oppression, so far away from being a victim, that the only place they can find it is in a video game.

 

I'm not trying to say anything bad about you, this isn't personal. Like I said, I'm just old, and I'm really, really sad.

There are a number of great points in there though I think you sort of misunderstood me. The only things I'm genuinely sad about is that - as you've said - I wasn't catered to and that it was kind of soul crushing to see the discourse on the internet about it. Even when it comes to the review on this very site I'm supposed to be a member of the Proud Boys for missing the old voice performance, I think that says everything. There's this belief that you're a secret bigot if you don't like the changes, for a while I cared about arguing against that but I don't engage nowadays. (To clarify: I 100% agree with the reasoning behind the changes and I think they are coming from a good place, I just don't agree with the changes themselves.)

 

Is me wanting to be catered to entitlement? Sure, I think it absolutely is but I think that one of the biggest benefits to modern gaming is that smaller or bigger groups of people can be catered to. For example just today id Software has updated their Quake remaster to include accessibility options, that's crazy good and without current practices we might not even know that there's a need for these.

 

As for adding the option being "easy" I'm sure it would take time and resources to implement something like that: they'd have to remaster the original recordings, figure out how to implement that from programming to UI design, roll it out in a patch etc. What I meant by saying it's easy was that the concerns that were very real in the past don't exist now: you don't have to fit on a disk, you don't have to be concerned about how file size relates to people's internet limitations that much etc.

 

"The simple reality is that the game I'm nostalgic for still exists. I can still play it." - This is exactly why I didn't buy the remasters. I figured that the new voice is affecting my enjoyment so I'd rather just replay the originals if I get the itch. I might change my opinion on this, I might not.

 

As for the "graphics changes are the same as any other" argument I strongly disagree with that but telling why would be way too lenghty for this already offtopic conversation so I'll just say that I like having options. Your favorite version of SoMI is the EGA version with speaker sounds? Mine is the Ultimate Talkie Edition which is a mix of the remaster and the VGA CD version, it is a fanmade version that was put together for people who wanted to play the SE with the new music and voice acting but with the VGA graphics. That's awesome if you ask me.

 

And I will talk about only MI from now on, sorry for the derail.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Zaxx

[OzzieMonkey]

Do we know if Ron or anyone representing Terrible Toybox will be at PAX East tomorrow? I know Devolver are there but they don't seem to be indicating that Monkey Island is one of the things they're showing. I REALLY hope we get something though, that would be the perfect time to get a lot of eyes on the game. Otherwise the next big convention is Summer Game Fest which I believe is all online and we don't even know if the game will be out before or after that. I'm just starved for info now, even though it's only been 2 weeks since the announcement 😂

[Toymafia1988]

Isn't it weird to think we now have a Ron Gilbert trilogy and a Curse style trilogy. 

 

Wait... so Curse of monkey island is now the 4th game in the story by canon 😂 that is so strange but interesting after years of it being the 3rd game.

 

So weird after years of debate about what is canon, Ron is now settling the debate and marrying it all together. 😁

 

Also anyone notice we have 'Return' and 'Revenge' in the titles just like Stars Wars. 😃

Edited April 21, 2022 by Toymafia1988

[Toymafia1988]

10 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

Do we know if Ron or anyone representing Terrible Toybox will be at PAX East tomorrow? I know Devolver are there but they don't seem to be indicating that Monkey Island is one of the things they're showing. I REALLY hope we get something though, that would be the perfect time to get a lot of eyes on the game. Otherwise the next big convention is Summer Game Fest which I believe is all online and we don't even know if the game will be out before or after that. I'm just starved for info now, even though it's only been 2 weeks since the announcement 😂

I really hope so, i need to what Guybrush looks like 😬😬😬

[Goury1]

1 hour ago, Toymafia1988 said:

Isn't it weird to think we now have a Ron Gilbert trilogy and a Curse style trilogy. 

 

Wait... so Curse of monkey island is now the 4th game in the story by canon 😂 that is so strange but interesting after years of it being the 3rd game.

 

So weird after years of debate about what is canon, Ron is now settling the debate and marrying it all together. 😁

 

Also anyone notice we have 'Return' and 'Revenge' in the titles just like Stars Wars. 😃

 

That's right! We will have two trylogies once RTMI releases! How cool! Though, i would wait with placeing the game in the series hronology, at least until it releases. Ron wasn't very specific when asked where does RTMI takes place hronologically. We only know  that it starts at the amusement park, but we don't know where it ends. I wouldn't juge if it is the "true" MI3 or MI6, I would need to play through the game to asses its place in the Canon.

[Zaxx]

52 minutes ago, Goury1 said:

Ron wasn't very specific when asked where does RTMI takes place hronologically. We only know  that it starts at the amusement park, but we don't know where it ends.

Well, Tim Schafer did say that it was Ron who came up with the idea of time travel in the original concept for Day of the Tentacle so I guess we can't rule out anything at this point.