The Legend of Monkey Island (Sea of Thieves)

[demone]

Saw bits and pieces on my lunch break. Really like what they did with LeChuck: they made him a real legitimate threat to everyone, including the Pirate Lord and Elaine. Reminds me of his role in Tales and how close he came to victory. A sea battle and sword fight with him also tops the Davy Jones fight in my opinion. 

 

While it was in some ways a loose retelling of the first game, I really liked the twists thrown in and Guybrush and Kate making amends. Overall, seemed like a really solid mini series. 

[Threepwood4life]

I finished it on Thursday, it was alright although wandering around MI and running all over got a bit tiresome and knowing where certain things were, for some of it I ended up using a video walkthrough just to know where I was going but it was nice to visit familar locales.

 

Spoiler

I thought the final fight with LeChuck back on Melee wasn't too bad, the ship battle under MI was an interesting choice although it was "fun" on how to deal with it when you're playing by yourself lol

 

[anothercustard]

I really enjoyed my time with the 3 chapters. I think playing co-op helped, some things would be a bit unwieldy playing it solo.

 

Gonna do the ranking.

 

MI2

CMI

SMI

 

Legend of Monkey Island

 

TMI/RMI/EMI

 

Obviously less of its own thing and playing on a lot of nostalgia, but I had a lot more fun with it than the 'newer' MIs. I think a Sam and Max style remaster might push TMI up a bit.

 

[Joe monsters]

I personally gave up at Tale 3.

It's frustrating because, even though I love visiting these gigantic and beautiful 3D worlds, I find the puzzle design to be clumsy, and, most of all, the checkpoint system ruins everything for me. Every time I play, I feel like I need to rush so I don't lose my progress.

 

While playing an adventure game, I enjoy taking my time. As a parent, I can't just play with no idea of how I'll be able to save my game. I've also encountered game-breaking bugs.

 

I don't like the fact that we can only hold one item at a time.

 

In terms of writing, it's fine – there's a lot of fan service.

 

It's a shame, really, because the exploration is great. Being able to visit these islands in 3D is like a dream.

 

I just don't think the Sea of Thieves gameplay matches what they were trying to achieve. I might replay it if they decide to create an offline version with a better save system.

 

Otherwise, it will unfortunately be the first Monkey Island game I'll never finish.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Joe monsters

[JacquesSparkyTail]

The first half definitely needed either the cannibals or a few ghost pirates dotted around. Just somebody to talk to and help you out aside from herman. The whole thing just became a boring slog. I wasn’t as enamoured with 3d monkey island as i was with 3d melee island so i was essentially just walking around bored and lost for a long time.

 

I know I can’t really complain about the island being too much of a slog to explore and also complain about everything being too close together but i’m going to anyway. In secret, monkey island was gigantic. After coming from melee, the vastness of monkey really gave the adventure a feeling of grandure as we approached its climax. Here though the monkey head, ravine and hermans camp are all a few steps from the beach. You run the length of the island in no time at all. 
 

I feel like it really picks up once we get to lechucks ship but unfortunately that’s also when it starts feeling less like a monkey island game 😕 it’s much more fun at this point but it’s not why i came. 
 

The wedding scene though is possibly the most threatening lechuck has ever been. Using his magic sword to not only force elaine to marry him but also force guybrush to officiate made him feel truly evil. Not cartoony evil as he’s so often portrayed. This scene was probably the highlight of all 3 parts for me. Not only are guybrush and elaine rendered helpless by lechuck but so are you the player as well as the pirate lord who we know to be incredibly powerful. Lechuck really is a major threat to the sea of thieves here. Chefs kiss. 
 

One great 2 minute scene doesnt really make up for the rest of it though. This was by a looooooong way the weakest of the three parts for me. Loved 1 & 2. 3 just bored me. 

[demone]

9 hours ago, JacquesSparkyTail said:

The wedding scene though is possibly the most threatening lechuck has ever been. Using his magic sword to not only force elaine to marry him but also force guybrush to officiate made him feel truly evil. Not cartoony evil as he’s so often portrayed. This scene was probably the highlight of all 3 parts for me. Not only are guybrush and elaine rendered helpless by lechuck but so are you the player as well as the pirate lord who we know to be incredibly powerful. Lechuck really is a major threat to the sea of thieves here. Chefs kiss. 

I completely agree. I loved how they handled LeChuck's character and how much of a threat he became by the end. I got big "Rise of the Pirate God" vibes with how powerful he was, to the point that even Elaine herself couldn't outwit him without help.

 

It's also interesting though because the main villain of Sea of Thieves is Captain Flameheart and he has yet to really do anything to earn that spot in my opinion. While I understand that they are building him up, it's been years and you now have two villains from other franchises in Davy Jones and LeChuck become huge threats to the entire Sea of Thieves, the Ferryman, and the Pirate Lord. LeChuck even threatened Flameheart and planned to subject him as well.

 

While I have not really played Sea of Thieves, I did explore a lot of the story and mythology and in the course of doing that, I see a lot of valid complaints from players about the main story moving far too slow, especially with regards to Flameheart. He's been resurrected for nearly a year and has not done much of anything beyond threats; a lot talk but not much action to back it up. I think it's time to really escalate that storyline and do something that really solidifies Flameaheart as a real threat, especially after so much buildup and two other villains not even part of the core mythology nearly conquering everything.

 

I even saw some comments jealous of how well LeChuck, especially his lair, and these Tall Tales in general are being treated and wished that more of that was integrated into the main campaigns and their villains. After seeing much of the main story, I'm inclined to agree and think the main story deserves a little more momentum and payoff. 

 

Edited October 1, 2023 by demone

[KestrelPi]

I really enjoyed all of it. The checkpointing thing is a little annoying but once you know it exists then you just need to remember to stop or carry on when you get to one. I completely understand it being this way, it's primarily a game that takes place on multiplayer servers and it's not set up to save the entire world state the whole time, and implementing a completely different save system just instanced stories would be so much work, but I get why it's frustrating.

 

But I just loved the exploration and attention to detail. Something that may be a little lost on those who haven't played Sea of Thieves much is just how big these islands feel in comparison to everything else in the game. They're maybe a little downsized from how they felt in the game, but not a LOT. When you're standing on that rock platform in Monkey Island looking out across the view you realise 'oh, they really did try to go for scale here' in a way they haven't before.

 

I thought they got the feel of the islands down great, I thought the puzzles we pleasantly Monkey Islandy for the most part without being too complex to keep track of in Sea of Thieves. The only bit I thought was overly tedious was the coin collecting in the first part. The music implementation was great including what sounded like completely through-composed custscene pieces, and lots of fun variations of themes we're familiar with. 

 

The implementation of insult fighting was .... a little awkward but I'm honestly impressed they managed it at all. 

The voice delivery was mostly on point and .... dare I say it, I rather liked the choice they made for Elaine. New LeChuck seems to be settling into the role a bit, too.

 

I really liked the little touches like how every screen had a place to sit and look at it. It seems very obvious to me that this was made by people who are real fans of the game and wanted to balance fan service kinds of references and doing its own thing. In fact, I daresay that as a kind of mixture of epilogue to CMI and re-telling of the major events of MI1, this is the first project that meets the promise of the end of ReMI... that is to say, the idea of the MI universe as a metaphorical and sometimes literal fairground of ideas which we can play with, and that it matters a bit less what the 'correct' version of the story is.

For all that Ron wasn't involved in this, this sure feels to me like a Ron-centric idea of what Monkey Island means, to me. 

 

 

[Staple Remover]

If you told me 20 years ago that I would get to play in a fully immersive 3D environment in the world of Monkey Island it would’ve been my dream come true.
 

BUT…If you also told me 20 years ago that Disney would end up owning the Monkey Island franchise and release a game with Guybrush

Spoiler

Sailing on the Black Pearl

I think I’d break my brain comprehending the entire thing. 

[JacquesSparkyTail]

12 hours ago, KestrelPi said:

 

The voice delivery was mostly on point and .... dare I say it, I rather liked the choice they made for Elaine. New LeChuck seems to be settling into the role a bit, too.

 

I really didn’t care for elaines voice in part one but something about seeing it come from the character model in part 3 made it click. It may also have been the heightened emotion granted by the context but whatever it was, i liked it in the end. 
 

Lechucks voice was such a huuuuge step up from return. I didn’t hate him in that but i did think he was far too cartoony. He felt so unthreatening. Here though, i can here jess harnells voice and it’s doing its own thing but it’s still giving me strong earl boen vibes. In otherwords, exactly what i’d want from a replacement. I think in that dominic armarto interview a few posts back, he says at one point that its the same voice director (although its very likely I’m misremembering that.) If that’s true then the improvement must just have came from hard work and understanding the character. So bravo to mr harnell. 
 

Unrelated but i’m pretty sure that lechucks ship here is the ship from the beginning of curse but with colour scheme of the ship from secret. No idea why they’d do that and i have even less of an idea how to feel about it. 

[Lagomorph01]

I haven't played any of the chapters, but I understand that Elaine's voice has been recast? Anyone know who it is? Any word on why Alexandra Boyd returned for ReMI, but not for this?

[KestrelPi]

I'm not CERTAIN but it sounds a lot to me like the same person who does the Baldur's Gate 3 narrator, Amelia Tyler. That was my first impression, and when I looked her up she has done a voice for Sea of Thieves before so it tracks.

 

She's great, check out her Baldur's Gate 3 outtake videos if you get the chance.

 

 

[Laserschwert]

Has anybody here tried to rip the music from the three LoMI chapters? I know there are a few rips on YouTube, but ideally I'd like to have them not-recompressed. Since I don’t have the game (nor do I want to), I hoped someone here has done it.

 

 

[demone]

With regards to LeChuck's ship, I love that it's a mishmash of his ships from Secret and Curse. All three tales were a love letter to the series, more focused on the first game's locations, but there were so many nice references to the other games as well. In terms of lore, I think this is either the same ship from 1 since it was never destroyed or a new one, since it seems LeChuck has captured countless ships during his reign and made a fleet. 

 

In Escape, Herman mentions LeChuck sailed away on a ghost ship after destroying his carnival of the damned, so it actually fits well since Legend takes place right after that timeframe, not that canon matters too much since the series is essentially an amalgamation of memory, embellished tales, unreliable narrators and imagination. And I love that - really frees up the series. 

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by demone

[KestrelPi]

2 hours ago, demone said:

In Escape, Herman mentions LeChuck sailed away on a ghost ship after destroying his carnival of the damned, so it actually fits well since Legend takes place right after that timeframe, not that canon matters too much since the series is essentially an amalgamation of memory, embellished tales, unreliable narrators and imagination. And I love that - really frees up the series. 

 

 

Yeah, definitely that was what I was getting at. ReMI really sort of freed this from having to worry about exactly where and how this fits, so if you like this can be the absolute accurate account of what Guybrush and Elaine got up to on their honeymoon, or otherwise you can just think of it as a fanciful story Guybrush tells, and one that neatly ties into that era of him becoming (slightly) less self-centred. Or if you like you can imagine it as a Monkey Island story created through the lens of the imaginations of Monkey Island fans who also like Sea of Thieves. 

 

The more I think about it the more I don't care if there's an answer of what they did on their honeymoon. I'd rather 10 distinct honeymoon stories if it means I get to enjoy the world and its characters for a bit longer, (even if some of those are duds). This little tale makes me realise how at peace I am with ReMI's ending. I think whatever itch I've had to understand what is canon has ebbed away in the last 10 years, and now I just want talented folk to spin me yarns with characters whose antics I am invested in. 

[demone]

Agreed, though I will admit I do like when the chronology of games is handled with some degree of care, since those references add a lot of charm, but not to the point that it takes away what would be a great experience and story. Both Return and Sea of Thieves did this perfectly. They set the stage, but didn't sweat the details either. 

 

For example, I don't need them to tell me how the end of these Tales leads into Escape. My head canon has already done that and their team did more than enough in setting it up. I suspect they are also very deliberately leaving themselves some wriggle room in case this isn't the last we see of Guybrush in Sea of Thieves. 

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by demone

[demone]

20 hours ago, Staple Remover said:

BUT…If you also told me 20 years ago that Disney would end up owning the Monkey Island franchise and release a game with Guybrush

  Hide contents

Sailing on the Black Pearl

I think I’d break my brain comprehending the entire thing. 

Honestly, I'm a little surprised Disney even allowed that lol, given how strict they can be. I think the lines about it being simply a ship painted black by Stan were added as a middle-ground, but still was an awesome sight in the opening moments. Sea of Thieves made a crazy "what if scenario" of POTC and Monkey Island existing in the same universe actually possible and yes, to your point, that is pretty mind blowing. Perhaps Guybrush and Jack interacting isn't too far-fetched. Not anytime soon, but who knows, maybe at some point in the future. 

 

What a year it's been for Monkey Island.

 

Edited October 3, 2023 by demone

[Kroms]

Discussing where Sea of Thieves fits into the "canon" is deeply bizarre to me.

 

Also, ReMI is great, even if I have my quibbles.

[demone]

4 hours ago, Kroms said:

Discussing where Sea of Thieves fits into the "canon" is deeply bizarre to me.

 

Also, ReMI is great, even if I have my quibbles.

Yeah, bizarre but fun. The way the tales were first overviewed by the development team themselves was that it takes place after Curse, so it was already set and it's a cool little detail to discuss on how this can fit, even if it is a crossover spinoff, and not necessarily to be taken as an absolute. 

 

And yeah, one of the great things about Return is how it opened up the series to allow multiple stories and interpretations without sweating on the details that much. 

 

Edited October 3, 2023 by demone

[MurraySchull]

Finally got a chance to finish the game! (Was out of town for a few weeks so was only able to begin recently.)

 

Overall, though there was a lot that I enjoyed about this third part (for the same reasons as the first two parts, the music, the atmosphere, the environments, etc.)  I found this part the most cumbersome to play. Most of the puzzles were really quite clumsy largely due to them being so spread out, particularly the telescope puzzle, which unless I missed something, didn't really establish itself as something that needed to be carried out. In a MI game, you can talk to other characters to gather an idea on what to do next. This felt like much more trial and error, which also felt a lot riskier given how spaced out the island was. Steering Kate's ship in the right corners of the lava tunnels was also a nightmare.

 

I also encountered more glitches this time around. TWICE I emerged from the water in a cave in an area that I clearly wasn't supposed to discover (and I dropped one of my items down there, so that was fun trying to recreate the glitch to find it again!)  and there were a few mismatched dialogue/character labels in the climax (i.e. LeChuck delivering a line, but the subtitles read "Kate Capsize" etc.)  A few music tracks, sound effects and VO lines also didn't play / play correctly near the end either, namely during the LeChuck fight and as we were sailing away, which again kills the illusion to a degree. And as always, that checkpoint system is the worst. It doesn't suit the "casual gaming" style that I'm forced to play games in nowadays.

 

But yeah, everything I said before still stands. This game has the best atmosphere and immersion of all of the Monkey Island games. The orchestration of the music is also absolutely stellar, and exploring these locations in 3D is an absolute dream. But yeah, story and writing wise, it's pretty weak when the content is not lifted directly from the original games, and the interface is still very awkward for me as well. I think this is definitely the MI game I'd go back to the least for all of those reasons, so I'd probably rank it at the bottom of my list, but I also don't want to undersell the areas that the game really does excel at.

 

 

I'd really be interested to know if this expansion was a hit or not. It really didn't seem to get people talking that much online, even among these forums, but being a free DLC, I suppose it'd be difficult to judge. Maybe they'll just gauge how many people played all three episodes to the end and determine if it was a success based on that.

 

 

As a side note... has anybody noticed the pattern that Monkey Islands' returns seems to be following?

MI1/MI2

*6 years later*

CMI/EMI

*9 years later*

TMI / SE's

*12 years later*

ReMI / SeMI

 

Based on all of this, and assuming another three years are added to the next hiatus, Monkey Island's next return should be due in 2038! Mark your calendars for another two games from then! (Followed shortly by a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Secret!!! )

[demone]

22 hours ago, MurraySchull said:

As a side note... has anybody noticed the pattern that Monkey Islands' returns seems to be following?

MI1/MI2

*6 years later*

CMI/EMI

*9 years later*

TMI / SE's

*12 years later*

ReMI / SeMI

 

Based on all of this, and assuming another three years are added to the next hiatus, Monkey Island's next return should be due in 2038! Mark your calendars for another two games from then! (Followed shortly by a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Secret!!! )

Yeah, Dom also mentioned this during his most recent interview with Laura Cress. I think we might get another game a little bit sooner though (still not for several years though), simply because I think that, despite the series not being the money maker of other franchises owned by Disney, I think the last year has demonstrated just how passionate some internal groups in the larger company, as well throughout the industry, are about this series and I think that might enable more frequent entries. The last year proved Monkey Island has a strong enough fan base to warrant a game every now and then. 

 

I think we've seen several times now how that passion can sway or even override the corporate/office politics at work. That being said, I'm pretty content with where the series is. With there now being 6 official entries in the series, with the last one being the one so many were waiting for, an entry overviewing Ron's vision for how the series continued from the end of 2, and a spinoff crossover. I would rather a game come out when it has a story worth telling that can expand the lore and mythology in a meaningful way and a team that understands and respects the themes of the series. 

 

I think that every game in the series has done just that up until this point and Return does serve as a nice conclusion, but also opens up the series to allow many other paths/stories to be taken. It can be easy to use the storytelling nature of the series as a crutch though to throw in any random element, so I would prefer for any future game to have a degree of self-control. 

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by demone

[Niemandswasser]

On 10/12/2023 at 12:53 PM, MurraySchull said:

As a side note... has anybody noticed the pattern that Monkey Islands' returns seems to be following?

MI1/MI2

*6 years later*

CMI/EMI

*9 years later*

TMI / SE's

*12 years later*

ReMI / SeMI

 

There was a 3 year gap between CMI and EMI, which feels like no time at all now but seemed agonizingly long back then. As I recall it was that gap, with its long dearth of any new information, that birthed THE CONSPIRACY. 

 

[MurraySchull]

9 hours ago, Niemandswasser said:

 

There was a 3 year gap between CMI and EMI, which feels like no time at all now but seemed agonizingly long back then. As I recall it was that gap, with its long dearth of any new information, that birthed THE CONSPIRACY. 

 

Yeah but relatively it was a short enough gap that I’m willing to let it slide in order for the rest of the rock-solid theory to pan out! 😉

 

Speaking of theories, I like to think that Guybrush/Elaine got back in their ship, sailed back into the real tri-island area, and the mystical fog or portal or whatever made them lose their memories of everything that happened in SoT ( and maybe the portal got all confused both times and made Elaine’s voice go all screwy, which may canonically explain her different voices in SoT and Escape  ) that way, this SoT chapter could still fit comfortably enough in the series. The dream-like state of these episodes also make it easier to be more flexible on canon too.

 

Yeah I know ReMI made it so that wavering canon isn’t as big of a deal in this series, I’m just trying to make some kind of effort to piece it all together logically!!

 

 

P.S. Are @Jake and @Marius planning to continue playing SoT anytime soon?

Edited October 14, 2023 by MurraySchull

[Jake]

17 hours ago, MurraySchull said:

P.S. Are @Jake and @Marius planning to continue playing SoT anytime soon?

We keep meaning to but life has gotten in the way. It’s be fun to hang out in melee again so we should do it soon. 

[Didero]

I finally managed to get some time to play through Chapter 3.

 

My criticisms from Chapter 2 still stand, sadly. It's all clearly made with a lot of love, but it's all just very tedious.

They wanted to make the island feel large, but the walking speed and the fact that you can only cary one item at a time just makes the size annoying rather than impressive. I looked up the solution to one or two puzzles online because I just couldn't be arsed walking all around the island trying stuff. Which is sad, because it should be exciting to get to solve puzzles!

 

I also had to play it over two sessions, and even though I quit right after it said it saved a checkpoint, it still undid a lot of set-up, like the stands and stuff at the stockade (though it at least saved the two idols I had found).

 

Everything just felt too long. Too many puzzle steps, too much walking, tunnels too long, bossfight(s) too long...

And the latter two don't really give an indication you're progressing either, so with both I started wondering whether I was doing something wrong.

The shipfight at the end was clearly made for crews instead of solo players, which again made it tedious and annoying, instead of exciting, with little feedback if you're making progress or not. At least Guybrush and Elaine help out a bit...

 

It feels a shame to be so negative, since like I said, it's clearly made by fans who love the series. I guess Sea Of Thieves is just the wrong game to make an hommage in.

 

I don't think I'll be replaying this any time soon...

Sorry for being so negative, I'm glad other people enjoyed this more than I did!

[Staple Remover]

Ok I finally finished it. My new rankings are: 

1. MI1

2. ReMI

3. CMI 

(honestly the first 3 rankings are all a toss-up)

4. TMI

5. MI2

6. LMI

7. EMI