Return to Monkey Island

[Thrik]

4 minutes ago, madmardi said:

 

Sooo... am I the only one that played through MI1 thinking that the "secret" was just that there was a whole system of catacombs beneath the monkey head, which led to LeChuck's secret hideout?

 

I thought Monkey Island hiding LeChuck's lair was a big enough secret, and never thought to look for something more... That is until I went online ~5 years later and saw everyone obsessing over what they thought was the REAL Secret of Monkey Island.

You might want to jump back to maybe pages 20–30-ish in this thread. There was a really meaty discussion about the series’ anachronisms and whether the secret was hell or not.

 

Not to discourage further discussion of it! But you may enjoy reading some of those thoughts. It could even be a thread in its own right, as this stuff gets somewhat buried in here.

[madmardi]

Just now, Thrik said:

You might want to jump back to maybe pages 20–30-ish in this thread. There was a really meaty discussion about the series’ anachronisms and whether the secret was hell or not.

 

Not to discourage further discussion of it! But you may enjoy reading some of those thoughts. It could even be a thread in its own right, as this stuff gets somewhat buried in here.

 

Cool, I'll try to look back at it. This thread is getting ridiculously long!

[Vainamoinen]

1 hour ago, madmardi said:

The grog machine, references to tourism on Meathook's island, the PTA minutes, the door to the cannibal's hut that eventually turned into a beeping computerized door... there's a bunch others that I'm forgetting at the moment, but far as I'm concerned the MI games never did take themselves that seriously and those "charming references here and there" were actually pretty prevalent.

• the T-shirts (invented 1971)
• the Hook Island neon sign (1910)
• the cereal box (1863)
• the grog vending machine (1890)
• diverse printed brochures (1946)
• breath mints (1790)
• glass wine bottle (not in this shape/form before 1821)
• the giant Q-Tip (1926)
• the staple remover (1971)
• gopher repellant spray can (1970)
• wax lips (1924)
• root beer (1876)
• rubber chicken (early 1900s)
• electronic door lock (1976)
• "fuel economy" sign (not relevant until 1960s)
• circus poster (1840s)
• the circus, actually (since 1768, yet not in its modern form, "clown" as on the poster not recognizable until the 1800s)

Things get REALLY wild in LeChuck's Revenge of course.

 

Edited June 1, 2022 by Vainamoinen

[KestrelPi]

I do feel like this conversation has been a little overdone, but I do think there's an extremely noticeable shift in the way they use anachronisms between the first 3 games and EMI.

 

In the first games, they're there - but they are barely referenced in dialogue. You get some star wars and indy jokes, and a few parody moments but the overwhelming feeling is you're in a piratey world where there are a few things eerily out of place.

 

They're there, on the edges of the story but until the end of MI2 - as a deliberate move to introduce a twist, they never ARE the story. They're backdrop, little things that make you go 'huh' but you then forget they exist. They're that moment on the Pirates of The Carribean ride where you momentarily glimpse the mechanism or panel behind the animatronics but then forget about it a second later to lose yourself in the fantasy.

 

My problem with EMI was that it never conceals its hand long enough to let you forget you're in a fake parody of a pirate world. And my secondary gripe is that it's not even very funny about it. Which is more a matter of taste. I remember playing the demo of EMI and wondering why I wasn't laughing. And the reason I know this isn't a false memory is that I specifically remember turning the subtitles on and off, and trying to work out whether the dialogue was funnier with or without.

 

Wrenching this back on topic, I suppose I'm glad they haven't seemed to have really focused on EMI as inspiration, as while I appreciate it has its fans, to me it's become pretty emblematic of the gulf between what people THINK Monkey Island is like in tone, and what it's ACTUALLY like.

[BillyCheers]

10 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

In the first games, they're there - but they are barely referenced in dialogue.

Hmm, I kind of thought so, too. But the root beer is clearly not of that world and is a very important part of the story in MI1. But I kind of feel the same. Strangely it feels more nuanced (dunno why though).

[Jake]

4 minutes ago, BillyCheers said:

Hmm, I kind of thought so, too. But the root beer is clearly not of that world and is a very important part of the story in MI1. But I kind of feel the same. Strangely it feels more nuanced (dunno why though).

I think that’s the exception that proves the rule. It’s the one anachronistic thing that really punches through into the main game meaningfully, and also is the key to ending LeChuck.

[KestrelPi]

Just now, BillyCheers said:

Hmm, I kind of thought so, too. But the root beer is clearly not of that world and is a very important part of the story in MI1. But I kind of feel the same. Strangely it feels more nuanced (dunno why though).

Well, it sort of is. But the root is just a MacGuffin. They could have chosen ANY method of being able to Kill LeChuck and the story would have been the same.

 

I think that's where I draw the line. For most of MI1 and 2 you could take all the anachronisms out and still basically tell the same story. (If it wasn't a T-shirt it'd still be the same world and story, if it wasn't a rubber chicken... etc etc) And I think the same is true with CMI. But with MI2 and CMI it gets a bit trickier juuust in the final chapter.

 

With EMI, it feels a lot harder because the pop culture is much more integrated into the story. You can't really talk about EMI's story without talking about the idea of modern corporate culture taking over pirate culture, without the idea of modern stuff and old pirate stuff colliding and at war with each other. And I never want things to be that lampshaded in MI, except for specific moments where we're doing a twist or something.

[BillyCheers]

Good point, both of you! 

[madmardi]

28 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

Wrenching this back on topic, I suppose I'm glad they haven't seemed to have really focused on EMI as inspiration, as while I appreciate it has its fans, to me it's become pretty emblematic of the gulf between what people THINK Monkey Island is like in tone, and what it's ACTUALLY like.

*Sigh* I’m too tired to write a proper response, but I guess this is one thing that really bugs me. EFMI IS Monkey Island… as much as any of the others

 

 Whether they use it as inspiration or not doesn’t really bother me, but I hope they at least respect that it’s an important chapter in the series.

[KestrelPi]

Just now, madmardi said:

*Sigh* I’m too tired to write a proper response, but I guess this is one thing that really bugs me. EFMI IS Monkey Island… as much as any of the others

 

 Whether they use it as inspiration or not doesn’t really bother me, but I hope they at least respect that it’s an important chapter in the series.

 

No, here's the thing, because I'm with you to a certain extent. You're misinterpreting what I'm saying.

 

I was NEVER (ever) interested in MI3a, except academically.

 

I was really actually pretty wary of a world in which Ron got to make another Monkey Island but just freely ignored everything that took place after his ones. In my opinion MI has had it PRETTY good overall since Ron stopped working on it. It could have gone a lot worse than one very well loved MI3, one fairly disliked MI4, and one episodic MI5 that people have mixed but generally positive feelings about.

 

So I've NEVER been one to say that we should finally get a 'real' sequel or anything like that. I don't like it being framed that way and I've gone out of my way in the past to argue against that.

 

For example, these tweets of mine from 2017 about what I think about whatever Ron was saying back then about MI:

 

 

ALL I am saying is that I don't really recognise the things I most love about Monkey Island in EMI. And so I wouldn't want them to take too much from it, personally.

[Vainamoinen]

Ahhhh folks, can we not do this right now?

 

At the very least, LucasArt's willingness to revive the Monkey Island franchise this side of Y2K made Tales of Monkey Island possible, maybe even Return to Monkey Island. It certainly made the Special Editions possible. Had Maniac Mansion or Zak McKracken received the same treatment, who knows where these franchises would be right now.

 

At the very least, the composer trinity did stellar and enduring work for Escape. If they draw on their EMI Scumm Bar theme, the lawyers, the peg leg shop for ReMI, come on! That would be great! EMI is definitely a central part of their body of work.

 

At the very least, Escape from Monkey Island found a way to use the insult sword fighting paradigm without reapplying its strict and stale mechanisms over and over again.

 

My rejection is now 20 years old. I played it once and rejected it out of a variety of reasons, none of them strictly speaking objective. When I watch how people see the art style of Return to Monkey Island and instantly reject the game before it's even out, I'm reminded how I rejected EMI's art style.

 

Maybe I should just buy and try it again. Give it another chance. I really doubt it will ever become my favorite, but if I can find some moments in that game that I might have missed back in the day, that's certainly worth it. 🫂

[Lagomorph01]

This topic has been argued to death, but here’s my two cents. I actually really like the fact that MadMardi’s favourite game is EMI, even though it’s not my own. It’s an exciting new opinion!

 

I don’t know who said it, and I’m too lazy to scroll back, but I agree to the fact that I don’t dislike EMI as much anymore as I did when it was the final part of the series. I would’ve hated the series to end this way, but now it’s just another chapter which got a little wonky.
 

Even though I truly dislike the second part of the game with all the pop culture references, Herman backstory, and return to Monkey Island (there I did it), I’m actually pretty excited to play the game again in my MI playthrough’s! Also I’m curious about how I’ll feel about Monkey Kombat. I don’t really remember disliking it that much, but maybe I was too blown away by the Herman revelation to notice.

[KestrelPi]

Like, also I don't mind that people like EMI. It was a lot of people's first because it was on console, and of course it's fine to like it. I think there's a lot to like. I liked it, the first couple of times I played it. As I mentioned, I gave it a quite good review at the time. But the more I played it the less I liked it, while the more I played CMI the more I liked it.

 

I don't want to tell people they are wrong for liking a game, and I want to live in a world where that's some people's favourite. But I've also had a long time to think about EMI now, and even recently I've gone back to it (in the form of watching videos) to see if perhaps it's better than I remember. So I do sort of 'check myself' with this opinion of it regularly, because I'm conscious of the thing where a concensus just overwhelms the ability to form an independent opinion.

 

I also understand the frustration of having opinion that goes against a common consensus. You really want other people to see what you see. I know this as The Longest Journey Disliker, and as the (pre-patching) No Man's Sky Liker. As the person who's second favourite Star War is The Last Jedi.

 

I s'pose what I'm trying to say is that people can like what they want, and while I might sound sometimes flippant when I talk about not liking EMI much because that seems to be in line with consensus, it's also not an opinion that I arrived at lightly, nor do I think it's a universal truth. I dont want ReMI to reject EMI. I just want it to focus on other things.

[Toymafia88]

 

I noticed in the different forums I'm in, you can tell when we're desperate for news as the topic eventually turn into talk about if Escape was good and what the Secret was 😂😂😂

 

Sorry hope that didn't sound rude, just a random thing i noticed.

 

Hope everyones having a good week 😁

Edited June 1, 2022 by Toymafia88

[Marius]

8 hours ago, MPinillos said:

Hey, what if the ghost pirate shown in the trailer is Morgan LeFlay?

Let's remember the after credits scene of ToMI...

 

 

Yes let‘s get back to ReMI theories! I like this one.

I really hope she has a bigger role in this game. Maybe a big one. What if she is LeChucks sister? 😮

Edited June 1, 2022 by Marius
Better emoji

[Trapezzoid]

A few months ago I had a dream that EMI got remastered to lean into a simplified low-poly aesthetic, and it felt more like a hip absurdist Katamari Damacy type of game. That's how I now choose to remember it.

[Remi]

2 hours ago, Marius said:

Yes let‘s get back to ReMI theories! I like this one.

I really hope she has a bigger role in this game. Maybe a big one. What if she is LeChucks sister? 😮

 

In other words, Guybrush's sister?

 

This is getting into Chinatown territory.

 

And I'm into it!

[Jake]

5 hours ago, Trapezzoid said:

A few months ago I had a dream that EMI got remastered to lean into a simplified low-poly aesthetic, and it felt more like a hip absurdist Katamari Damacy type of game. That's how I now choose to remember it.

With the fixed cameras you really could do an EMI demake down to Alone in the Dark style. 

[CalisDraws]

17 hours ago, madmardi said:

 

Sooo... am I the only one that played through MI1 thinking that the "secret" was just that there was a whole system of catacombs beneath the monkey head, which led to LeChuck's secret hideout?

 

I thought Monkey Island hiding LeChuck's lair was a big enough secret, and never thought to look for something more... That is until I went online ~5 years later and saw everyone obsessing over what they thought was the REAL Secret of Monkey Island.

 

Oh my gosh same!! I thought the secret was just the Island in general since no one had ever returned from it. It's only when characters in the game started asking questions like "So what IS the secret of Monkey Island?" that I started thinking "Wait, there's a secret?" haha!

[Vainamoinen]

9 hours ago, Remi said:

In other words, Guybrush's sister?

 

This is getting into Chinatown territory.

 

And I'm into it!

 

Still feels like Star Wars to me.

 

Honestly, I'm so glad Han Solo didn't turn out to be Leia's son.

[ThunderPeel2001]

On 5/31/2022 at 4:50 AM, OzzieMonkey said:

 

 

 

 

So we're finally going to be able to hear a fully voiced rendition of 10,000 bottles of beer on the wall! 

 

This is such great news because it makes it clear that this is a huge and proper Monkey Island game. Not just a retro throwback. This is going to be epic!

 

What were the line count for all the other games? Does anyone know? 

[ThunderPeel2001]

On 5/31/2022 at 2:22 PM, madmardi said:

First time through I just really enjoyed it - the story, humour, graphics, puzzles, music, ending - all of it. Nothing bothered me, and in many ways it seemed to be the next logical step from COMI. Sure, you can pick it apart if you want, but none of those things that kept coming up bothered me in the slightest.

 

Totally agree that EMFI did a lot of things right. (It fixed Elaine's voice for one thing.) I also remember really enjoying it when it came out. I don't think it deserves the reputation it's got. It's funny, well made, and has some great puzzles. I should play it again really.

 

I do think when I step back and examine more critically that it that it got some things wrong for a Monkey Island game. I think Kestrel summed up the differences in tone perfectly regarding the anachronisms, for example. The world just got a bit too broad for my tastes. And I was bored stupid by Monkey Kombat. 

 

But I'm really glad that someone loves EMFI. Like I said, I do think it got a lot of things right.

 

And Ron and Dave have made it clear that they're trying to be respectful to all the sequels, so I don't think you've got anything to worry about. (Just don't expect Herman to be Elaine's grandfather )

[OzzieMonkey]

14 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

 

So we're finally going to be able to hear a fully voiced rendition of 10,000 bottles of beer on the wall! 

 

This is such great news because it makes it clear that this is a huge and proper Monkey Island game. Not just a retro throwback. This is going to be epic!

 

What were the line count for all the other games? Does anyone know? 

Looking at the wavebanks for the Special Editions, MI1 has 4551 lines, MI2 has 7157. Apparently Curse has around 8500 lines, and Escape has over 10,000 lines. Using the Telltale Extractor, Tales has around 7-8000 lines. Bascially, this is gonna be the most densely packed game in the series as far as dialog goes.  

Edited June 2, 2022 by OzzieMonkey

[ThunderPeel2001]

Edit: Actually, moved it to its own thread..,

Edited June 2, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[madmardi]

22 hours ago, KestrelPi said:

No, here's the thing, because I'm with you to a certain extent. You're misinterpreting what I'm saying.

 

I was NEVER (ever) interested in MI3a, except academically.

 

Actually, that's not what I meant either. My *sigh* was just from the frustration at the feeling a need to defend being a fan of a LucasArts adventure game on a LucasArts adventure game fan site. 

 

Now, to be clear that tiredness is not directed at you or anyone here. In fact, I have generally found the group at Mixnmojo to be much more clear/verbose in their reasoning, and although I don't necessarily agree with some of the points, I respect them as valid reasons for not liking EFMI (or not liking it as much). Generally it's been a pretty robust debate, rather than some of the things I've seen in other MI fan groups on FB, such as "anything after Curse **beeping** sucked!". In fact, you seem to have a pretty informed decision, so I definitely respect it. You've played it multiple times and although I find it sad that your opinion for EFMI has gone downhill, opinions change. In fact, this time playing through them again my opinion of MI2 changed slightly for the worse as well.

 

I also recognize that this is what fans do - they pick apart their favourite games/movies/tv shows/songs/etc., compare them with each other, and basically overanalyze them to death. And just because you're a fan of one doesn't mean you are a fan of all. Maybe you liked it but there were just some things that didn't seem right... or simply that one did suck for you for some reason.

 

Anyways, the negativity that surrounded EFMI online, a game that I dearly loved when I first played it, was my first introduction of the negative or 'dark' side of fan communities back in 2000, so I guess I'm just sensitive. With the reaction to RtMI's graphics recently, it brought back a lot of memories of the fan reaction to EFMI.

 

But to address your other points more related to RtMI, I also am relieved that Ron isn't just ignoring everything after MI2... but strangely I don't think I would have been that upset if he had. I guess I don't think it's my place try to influence creators when they are making their art (especially when they've been working on it for 2 years already!), so seeing as Ron created MI, my thoughts are that he can do whatever the *beep* he wants!

 

Anyways, sorry for the long rant, and please know that nothing in here is directed at you. I've just been feeling a bit sad at all the negativity in the LA/MI community recently, so I've been debating whether I should disappear (again) for a while when RtMI is first released.