Return to Monkey Island

[Vainamoinen]

They're playing up the TSoMI locations and characters disproportionately right now to lure the nostalgic crowd back on board, I think. Now that I know they're aiming at recreating iconic backgrounds with basically the TSoMI perspectives, I'm pretty convinced that we ain't seen nothing yet. 🤘

 

Take Melee Island: Of all the new content, it was the island they most focused on. We've seen the docks, the lookout, the scumm bar interior, voodoo hut, prison, locksmith, and just a little bit of the governor's mansion interior.

 

What we haven't seen on Melee Island is Hook Island exterior/interior, Stan's brand new Sunken Vessels above/below water, the shop interior, church interior, troll bridge, streets, the extensive woods, overview map, treasure clearing, circus clearing, Carla's old hut, governor's mansion exterior, Ten O'Clock Square, Smirk's hut ext/int., Scumm bar kitchen/back door docks, and probably half a dozen additional places I can't remember right now.

 

I'm pretty sure they'll recreate most if not all of these iconic places/backgrounds and then add some new ones.

 

... and we've seen next to nothing of Monkey Island, Brr Muda and Terror Island.

[MurraySchull]

Yeah, we are seeing an awful lot of returning characters and locations so far (in fact, there are more than I expected since the initial announcement), but we're also seeing a good amount of new elements too. And yes, I think you're right, they're using the nostalgia element to hook us back in. And it's working! But I wouldn't say no to being teased about some of the new stuff too.

 

Hearing music on Melee Island, while it actually maintains the MI1 Melee Island geography is very satisfying! It was actually something that I was wondering might have been updated for the MI1 Special Edition since MI1 has a very limited, disc-space conscious soundtrack, and I was curious if we might've seen, perhaps, an optional "Supplemental Music" toggle for MI1SE, in which Melee Island's music from EMI, for example, plays on Melee instead of just being silent. And then other scenes could be supplemented with music from the other games too (i.e. the Rollercoaster of Death music underneath the fight in the Governers' Mansion, etc.)  But I digress, having canonical music to match these geographical-accurate locations almost makes me want them to be ported over to MI1 more now!

 

I never really understood why EMI changed the layout of Melee/Monkey/The Tri Island Area map so much. In that game it seemed to be done mainly for the sake of it rather than for any plot-related reason. I think for the most part, they could've gotten away with keeping the original geography of those areas intact without impacting the puzzles too much. Maybe extend the town slightly to allow room for the Charles L Charles statue, or something, but I didn't think it was a case where the entire layout of the islands needed to be overhauled!

Edited July 19, 2022 by fentongames

[KestrelPi]

9 minutes ago, fentongames said:

 

I never really understood why EMI changed the layout of Melee/Monkey/The Tri Island Area map so much. In that game it seemed to be done mainly for the sake of it rather than for any plot-related reason. I think for the most part, they could've gotten away with keeping the original geography of those areas intact without impacting the puzzles too much. Maybe extend the town slightly to allow room for the Charles L Charles statue, or something, but I didn't think it was a case where the entire layout of the islands needed to be overhauled!

 

Agreed with that, it was exciting to think about returning to Melee but then the island had very little of the look or even feel of Melee Island to it, so in my mind, it still doesn't feel like we've gone back to melee since MI1 even though we have.

[Thrik]

Oh, but it’s so charming and really captures the hustling town atmosphere…

[MurraySchull]

Wonder if we'll see Meathook/Captain Smirk in this game while we're bringing back Melee Island characters. (And I wonder if Meathook will still be a painter!)

[Marius]

3 minutes ago, fentongames said:

Wonder if we'll see Meathook/Captain Smirk in this game while we're bringing back Melee Island characters. (And I wonder if Meathook will still be a painter!)

Maybe Smirk is the Sheriff of Mêlée Island!

[MurraySchull]

2 minutes ago, Marius said:

Maybe Smirk is the Sheriff of Mêlée Island!

 

And who's Vice Sherrif? Ignatius Cheese!

[ThunderPeel2001]

5 hours ago, fentongames said:

I never really understood why EMI changed the layout of Melee/Monkey/The Tri Island Area map so much. In that game it seemed to be done mainly for the sake of it rather than for any plot-related reason. I think for the most part, they could've gotten away with keeping the original geography of those areas intact without impacting the puzzles too much. Maybe extend the town slightly to allow room for the Charles L Charles statue, or something, but I didn't think it was a case where the entire layout of the islands needed to be overhauled!

 

Agreed 100%. So glad Melee looks like Melee again.

[KestrelPi]

In many ways I could have been okay with them changing the layout if it had even felt a little bit like the same place. Like, had a similar vibe, or SOMETHING. But going back over it and looking at the scenes it's hard to believe it even IS Melee Island. It captures nothing of the vaguely eerie night-time vibe from MI1, where everything sort of washes into the same colour palette and so the rare exceptions (like the circus tent) really stand out. I feel like even if they'd significantly changed the layout for the new game, it would have been instantly recognisable as Melee.

 

...but, I'm glad they kept the layout the same too, because the idea of walking along that dock again and going to the SCUMM bar (and having it actually look like the SCUMM bar inside) makes me very pleased.

 

There;s no shame in getting joy out of nostalgia, I suppose - we'd be in trouble as a site if there was. But I am glad it's not all there's going to be to the game.

[demone]

I think the way Melee Island was presented in Escape was indicative of my main issue with that game overall. While I very much enjoyed the game and still do, I found it to be overall way too lighthearted. There were no real spooky or creepy locations or moments (the closest would the swamp on Lucre Island and that didn't do anything for me). Guybrush also had zero edge in that game; something that every character wasted no time in reminding Guybrush and us the players over and over and over again throughout the game.

 

For most Monkey Island games, it you were to leave out all the crazy puzzles and dialogue and just tell what the overall story is about, it's pretty serious. Love, revenge, abandonment, betrayal, atonement, sacrifice and other similar themes and concepts are all pretty well ingrained in this series. With Escape though, the story itself is so over-the-top with a Giant Monkey robot, a talking monkey, Monkey Kombat etc., that it's almost impossible to take it seriously. Yes, other MI games have done crazy things to a certain degree, but always with a hint that something just wasn't right or adding up, implicating a very disturbing layer to the story.

 

I think now, I see Escape's story as endearing and what gives that game its unique charm, but I will always prefer the more creepy stories not afraid to hint at something much deeper going on. It looks like Return, based off everything shown and spoken about, will have that in spades and that makes me so excited.

Edited July 20, 2022 by demone

[Udvarnoky]

My guess is that EMI running roughshod over established geography and playing things loose with canon in general wasn’t an issue of carelessness or the team not doing their research. I think they knew what they were blowing up, and simply thought it was fair game to do so in the fourth installment of a ten-year-old series.

I think they honestly misjudged how sacred fans hold some of these things. Stemmle and Clark brought a certain amount of Sam & Max flavor to EMI, and maybe it was underestimated how awkward a fit the more irreverent mentality would be. Maybe it took EMI going a little too far to find out where the limits were.

 

Consider also that Day of the Tentacle was exponentially more irreverent toward “The Maniac Mansion Universe” (if we must) and that the game didn’t merely get away with it, but was rewarded by being the one the majority of people seem to associate with that property. There’s not much of a common denominator in the art style, mansion geography, or overall tone between DOTT and Maniac Mansion, but there’s not much complaining about it either. EMI, just the opposite. It’s sort of interesting to ponder why.

 

[Jayel]

The lookout point on the peak of the hill with the winding path down to the docks is such an iconic imagery (it's the first thing you see when you launch the original game) that I can't believe they decided to do away with all of it in EMI. But I do appreciate some of the changes they made - for example how they decided to make every location easily accessible. In the first game, to reach the governor's mansion from the map screen you had to go through the docks (which is like 3 screens wide), through the town, then through more town and a cliff path (also like 3 screens wide). It probably takes no more than a minute to traverse in reality, but when I was a kid it felt like a journey.

[Marius]

Hey, I just stumbled upon this header image of the Terrible Toybox Twitter account. That is new, isn't it? Exciting that we have to unlock the Monkey Head again. 😍

 

[OzzieMonkey]

37 minutes ago, Marius said:

Hey, I just stumbled upon this header image of the Terrible Toybox Twitter account. That is new, isn't it? Exciting that we have to unlock the Monkey Head again. 😍

 

I love the glow peeking out. Seriously, this game's use of lighting in general has just blown me away so far. I've tweeted about this briefly, but I imagine that the game will freely ignore the giant robot blowing it up in Escape. I will be very surprised if they try to explain it. Just one of those "canon can get in the way of a good story" moments that Dave Grossman alluded to, I think. 

[KestrelPi]

7 hours ago, Udvarnoky said:

My guess is that EMI running roughshod over established geography and playing things loose with canon in general wasn’t an issue of carelessness or the team not doing their research. I think they knew what they were blowing up, and simply thought it was fair game to do so in the fourth installment of a ten-year-old series.

I think they honestly misjudged how sacred fans hold some of these things. Stemmle and Clark brought a certain amount of Sam & Max flavor to EMI, and maybe it was underestimated how awkward a fit the more irreverent mentality would be. Maybe it took EMI going a little too far to find out where the limits were.

 

Consider also that Day of the Tentacle was exponentially more irreverent toward “The Maniac Mansion Universe” (if we must) and that the game didn’t merely get away with it, but was rewarded by being the one the majority of people seem to associate with that property. There’s not much of a common denominator in the art style, mansion geography, or overall tone between DOTT and Maniac Mansion, but there’s not much complaining about it either. EMI, just the opposite. It’s sort of interesting to ponder why.

 

 

Yeah, whenever I rag on EMI it's within the context of... Sean and Mike are experienced. They know what they're doing. And I actually like a lot of what EMI is trying to do as a game. I like when adventure games have unique, set piece puzzles with weird mechanics, and the original MI has a lot of that (grog jailbreak, treasure map, insult swordfighting, following the storekeeper, negotiating with Stan, head of the navigator) and if I had one critique of MI2 it would be that it was a much more standard adventure game puzzle design, with a few minor exceptions that made up a much smaller portion of the game, or at least it felt that way (lechuck maze, gambling club, arguably some of the library book stuff, acid pit, etc ... wow there are actually more of these than I thought but still, it's so much a bigger game over all)

 

I liked that EMI seemed interesting in exploring the possibility space of what adventure puzzles could be, even if not all of its experiments were completely successful. It's one of the parts of my initial review of the game I completely stand behind - aside from having to wrestle with the UI (which thankfully is less of a problem for a remastered Grim Fandango) I really appreciated the playing of it for the most part.

 

Aside from feeling that the plot skewed a bit too 'wacky' and a bit too 'anachronisms as parody rather than as flavour', the main thing for me is that the comic style just didn't work for me and in particular the way Guybrush is written, I just really don't agree with the choices. The Guybrush of MI1 was rather naive and came across wimpy, but he had a little bite to him, and his wit was pithy, snappy. In MI2 this grew into a slightly self-absorbed, callous side which was really interesting, and I think CMI fell somewhere between these. From EMI onwards he seems to have become sillier in how he's written, his 'weakness and ineptitude' is very on the nose now where before it was just one aspect of a more complex character. And I'd include tales in that. I like most of the writing of Tales but I don't really like how Guybrush is written, sometimes.

 

Er, there was probably a point to this...

 

Anyway, as for MM/DOTT my thinking is that MM is simply less popular than Monkey Island was. I don't know, butI suspect if we were to give a show of hands on this forum and find out if people played DOTT or Maniac Mansion first, the majority would say DOTT, and also that they first payed MM on that computer in DOTT. Monkey Island was a lot of people's introduction to adventure games (including mine)

 

But ALSO the mindset was different then. People expected sequels to be different, especially as technology was evolving so fast. I'm sure I noticed when I played MI2 that the backgrounds looked a lot different to MI1, but I don't remember finding it weird. At most I probably thought 'well yeah, it's the sequel'

[KestrelPi]

1 hour ago, OzzieMonkey said:

I love the glow peeking out. Seriously, this game's use of lighting in general has just blown me away so far. I've tweeted about this briefly, but I imagine that the game will freely ignore the giant robot blowing it up in Escape. I will be very surprised if they try to explain it. Just one of those "canon can get in the way of a good story" moments that Dave Grossman alluded to, I think. 

Oooorrrr, they find a way to say that it both happened and didn't happen. When I read between the lines, that's where my mind keeps going.

 

Yeah and I was gonna say, that little bit of light and the snarl expression it creates is very good. I think there's so much detail and atmosphere in what we've seen that I'm honestly confused at what people mean that say the art style feels sterile or simplistic. I think taken as a whole it's some of the most detail we've seen! Maaaaybe MI2 could challenge that, but then I think about the animation details...

[Vainamoinen]

14 hours ago, Marius said:

Maybe Smirk is the Sheriff of Mêlée Island!

 

I'm not saying I want Fester Shinetop back, but ... I want LeChuck's shape shifting abilities back. It's something that was just used once in TSoMI, but never again. Like Guybrush's being shot out of a cannon ability.

[Thrik]

Just now, Vainamoinen said:

 

I'm not saying I want Fester Shinetop back, but ... I want LeChuck's shape shifting abilities back. It's something that was just used once in TSoMI, but never again. Like Guybrush's being shot out of a cannon ability.

What about the beloved EMI we were just talking about?!

[Marius]

8 minutes ago, Vainamoinen said:

I want LeChuck's shape shifting abilities back. It's something that was just used once in TSoMI, but never again.

Charles L. Charles reading this with a tear in his eye.

 

9 minutes ago, Vainamoinen said:

Like Guybrush's being shot out of a cannon ability.

Zombie Guybrush from the end of Tales reading this with a tear in his eye.

[OzzieMonkey]

43 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

Oooorrrr, they find a way to say that it both happened and didn't happen. When I read between the lines, that's where my mind keeps going.

 

Does this have anything to do with that theory about Guybrush and Chuckie going home from the carnival to read a pirate book and arguing about how the story goes? 

[Laserschwert]

2 minutes ago, OzzieMonkey said:

Does this have anything to do with that theory about Guybrush and Chuckie going home from the carnival to read a pirate book and arguing about how the story goes? 

Something along those lines is still what I believe. The narrative framing à la Guybrush telling MI2 to Elaine. The scrapbook concept in the trailer just supports this even more.

[OzzieMonkey]

4 minutes ago, Laserschwert said:

Something along those lines is still what I believe. The narrative framing à la Guybrush telling MI2 to Elaine. The scrapbook concept in the trailer just supports this even more.

That's definitely an interesting idea, though I've never truly been on board with the whole world of Monkey Island being imaginary in any context. Also, if we take what Ron said about how "we're not saying anything in those games didn't happen" at face value, then I feel like this theory invalidates that...but maybe it could still work? Like Guybrush has been in control for 3 games and LeChuck wants to erase it all and go back to when he had his brother right where he wanted him, and that was the carnvial. So it happened...right until it didn't. Idk, I think that'd be a tough reckoning with a lot of people (myself included), but it depends entirely on how it's done. 

Edited July 20, 2022 by OzzieMonkey

[Marius]

I'm sure this theory has been mentioned before: Monkey Island is surrounded by a "voodoo mist", right? So, what if you get to different versions of the island, depending on the voodoo spell you are cooking to get there.

[MurraySchull]

2 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

I imagine that the game will freely ignore the giant robot blowing it up in Escape. I will be very surprised if they try to explain it. Just one of those "canon can get in the way of a good story" moments that Dave Grossman alluded to, I think. 

 

You know, I never even considered the potential inconsistency Monkey Head being destroyed by the robot! (And I like EMI!)  Yeah, I have a feeling that perhaps they'll ignore that, or come up with some weird throwaway explanation for why it's still here. (Then again, EMI turning the caverns of meat into a robot control room is an inconsistency in itself!)

 

Yeah, looking at the overhead Melee image on the previous page, I think it's largely the music, and the audio in general, that saves a lot of EMI for me. Looking at the image on it's own compared to the other games made me go "ew" , but thinking about it with the soundtrack that plays in that scene made me go "ooh!"

 

Also very curious now about how "poignant" the game is apparently going to feel, as it's been referred to a number of times by a few people on the team. Wondering if it's more along the lines of a general sense of bittersweet nostalgia, or if they're gonna "Toy Story 3" us at the end. Of all the games, Tales probably has the closest to what I'd call "emotional moments" with the death scenes, Morgan's sacrifice in Episode 5, and Guybrush's pained deliveries in the climax. Even the final "puzzle" of Guybrush being alone in the crossroads, and the scene being completely silent, is very striking atmospherically after all of the audio in the rest of the game.

[Thrik]

 

https://imgur.com/Jz1Hed6