The Legend of Monkey Island (Sea of Thieves)

[anothercustard]

Yep, really looking forward to getting back into this!

[Threepwood4life]

Finished it yesterday and personally i thought it was better than first part, exploring all of Melee Island was decent and the puzzles seemed straight forward but it was a nice pace but one thing i can say is theres no pieces of eight to pick up everywhere this time thank goodness lol

 

Spoiler

Just a heads up though, it looks like Alexandra Boyd is not back as Elaine as you find these logs written by her in some areas but its not her voice.

 

[TimeGentleman]

Is it 

Spoiler

Charity James

?

[Threepwood4life]

39 minutes ago, TimeGentleman said:

Is it 

  Hide contents

Charity James

?

Spoiler

No she has a british accent i dont know who it is

 

[LuigiHann]

50 minutes ago, TimeGentleman said:

Is it 

  Hide contents

Charity James

?

 

Spoiler

Mild shame that they don't bring her back occasionally. I think I would have liked her more than Boyd as the judgmental ex-girlfriend Elaine in the Monkey Island 2 SE (though Boyd was solid in the first game's SE and perfect in Tales/Return as the patient supportive Elaine). Like the different takes on Stan, there are strengths and weaknesses to the different performances.

 

Listening to a youtube video of the new journals, the actress they chose does do a pretty good job bridging the gap, as a snappy hypercompetent Elaine. Feels like a balanced performance that could have worked in any of the games. But I do think James's take on a perpetually exasperated Elaine could have worked for these lines as well.

 

[neoncolor8]

My graphic card is dying, I can still play, but the colors are all wrong... So I'll wait for Jake and Marius to play it!

 

[anothercustard]

Had a blast with this! Finished in about 4 hours with 2-3 other players. Some general random light spoiler things / thoughts

 

Spoiler

My circus time only got down to 24.75, but I know I can do better!!

 

I wish we got to see Murray do more with a body

 

Finding the Monkey Island 2 map made my heart flutter, I really hope we got a Monkey Island 2 Sea of Thieves thing

 

This game can be really pretty

 

Loved the Beast and how it used the Sea of Thieves music playing mechanic

 

Loved digging up treasure and getting more directions to follow each time

 

[Threepwood4life]

14 minutes ago, anothercustard said:

Had a blast with this! Finished in about 4 hours with 2-3 other players. Some general random light spoiler things / thoughts

 

  Hide contents

My circus time only got down to 24.75, but I know I can do better!!

 

I wish we got to see Murray do more with a body

 

Finding the Monkey Island 2 map made my heart flutter, I really hope we got a Monkey Island 2 Sea of Thieves thing

 

This game can be really pretty

 

Loved the Beast and how it used the Sea of Thieves music playing mechanic

 

Loved digging up treasure and getting more directions to follow each time

 

Spoiler

I think it took me 4-5 times to finish the circus course as jumping to the circle platforms to ring the 3rd bell always seemed off even with a controller but I was glad I did as I played the episode all by myself.

 

Although I wouldn't mention the Circus course to ATMachine as he absolutley did not like that particular area from the  comments I've seen on various socials lol.

 

[anothercustard]

On 9/2/2023 at 9:51 PM, Threepwood4life said:

  Reveal hidden contents

I think it took me 4-5 times to finish the circus course as jumping to the circle platforms to ring the 3rd bell always seemed off even with a controller but I was glad I did as I played the episode all by myself.

 

Although I wouldn't mention the Circus course to ATMachine as he absolutley did not like that particular area from the  comments I've seen on various socials lol.

 

Spoiler

I thought it was a fun little thing, a little bit of competition to see who could get the sub 25 run first!

 

Haven't seen any of their social so dunno what issue they had.

 

[sparklecloud]

I finished it this evening.  I found it much more substantial than the first chapter.

 

Spoiler

The swordfighting did drag on a bit for me but I still found it so much more enjoyable and less frustrating than the root beer fighting in the first episode.

 

The circus performance took way more attempts than it should have done as I had no idea what the commands were for shooting yourself out of a cannon in Sea of Thieves!  I was looking for a fuse and all sorts.  Had to look it up eventually.

 

Mêlée Island felt much creepier being able to explore every inch of it!

 

I did find the graphics a bit too dark - things were sometimes difficult to find as a result.  Looking forward to the presumably-in-daylight Monkey Island in the next chapter.

 

[MurraySchull]

Finally finished Part 2! Some spoiler-ish thoughts below:

 

Spoiler

- There's kind of an "easy way out" of this game being moreorless a retread of MI1, being that the premise is that these scenarios are based on memories. The jury is still out on weather the game could still be canon-compliant, but based on what we've seen so far, I think it could just about be if they play their cards right! Looking forward to how the story ends.
- Really impressed with how many of the original voice actors from MI1 SE returned. There's a few random ones missing, but it was an absolute delight to hear Captain Smirk and Meathook again, their voices sounding just like they were straight out of 2009.

- Really strange that Alexandra Boyd didn't return as Elaine, especially given that she appeared in Return last year. Maybe they couldn't justify bringing her in for the small role she had or something. This one is fine, but all it made me think of was that it wasn't the original!
- Man, I miss Earl Boen. Harnell is fine, but Boen was just irreplacable.

- A few cool scenarios that would've been nice to see in the original series. Carla and Smirk fighting side by side! At last!

- The circus challenge was a bit of a pain but once it got done, I felt good about it!

- I have NO clue what that "look down at the six flags" part on page 3 of the treasure map was supposed to be. I guess it was referencing the six flags at Stan's shipyard, but when looking from the end of the Meathook zipline, which it told me to go across, I couldn't see them at all. So I just swam towards them, hoped for the best, and carried on finding the treasure from there!

- Length was good! A lot longer than Part 1. Felt more comparable overall to the length of a standard MI chapter.

 

I still think the "checkpoint" save system is a garbage way of playing a tall tale, pretty much making it very difficult to play the game casually as I'm forced to do at this time of life! Every time I load the game, I need to sail into that stupid portal and watch the LeChuck scene again. Wish there was an option to just pick up directly where I left off and bypass all of that. (Plus, I lost all of my swordfighting progress after finishing the treasure trial first and then closing, which irked me!)

 

But yeah, on the other hand...

 

I *really* cannot stress how GOOD the music is in these games. They absolutely nailed the "Deep In The Caribbean" atmosphere that CMI/EMI had. As good as the other games' soundtracks were (the SE's, Tales, Return) I don't think they quite had the atmosphere and instrumentation down the way those other two games did, and they don't quite invoke the same "piratey, caribbean, tropical" feeling as those soundtracks, but this game brought it all back.

 

Of the main series canon, Curse probably has the strongest atmosphere, but even then, I think SeMI (if that's really what we're calling it!) has topped it. I don't think I've ever been as enriched in Melee Island's visuals as I have here. Everything from the ambient sound effects, the fog, the birds, it really feels like a living, breathing world where the other games, even at their height, still felt like you were playing a game.

 

I'm just gonna say it. This is the real MI1 Special Edition. 😎

 

Really hope they get the chance to do this with MI2's storyline down the line as well. It's difficult to gauge at this point if this tall tale is finding an audience or not, and if the typical SoT player / MI player really does cross over as much as they're hoping.

[Scummbuddy]

For those not playing along at home, and cannot wait for the Jake-Marius playthrough, here is episode 2 by Outside Xbox.

 

 

 

 

[Mintopia]

Replying to Huz's comment about something.

Spoiler

The Vociferous Carmichael is definitely a On Stranger Tides reference. I absolutely loved seeing it there - such a subtle reference for those who have read the books. I'm not sure if there's any other On Stranger Tides references in Sea of Thieves.

 

[OzzieMonkey]

For those who prefer the more classic look I whipped up a more traditional SeMI logo. Do with it what you will
 

[Thrik]

God, just so much better.

[Didero]

Maybe I was just in the wrong mood when I played it, but I felt kind of disappointed with this chapter. It's clearly made with a LOT of love for the source material, but that might also be the problem, since it's basically just SoMI again, except clumsier since Sea Of Thieves isn't really made for this kind of gameplay.

 

The island was well-made, but being able to run around it in a few minutes made it feel a lot smaller than it did in the main MI games.

 

The Insult Swordfighting dragged on too long, since it somehow managed to combine the frustrations from the original implementation and SoT swordfighting. Plus, you need to lose a few fights to gather insults and retorts, but the game treats it as if you've done something wrong, which could confuse people not used to how this works. At least the list of insults and retorts you had to gather here wasn't too long...

Then again, I've felt for a long time that Monkey Island games should drop the Insult mini-game.

 

Spoiler

The puzzle to get Stan out of the way wasn't very intuitive either though, I just got Meathook's ship because it was a thing to do, and that somehow got Stan to try and upsell me? Didn't help that the interactions glitched out once Stan got into the cupboard, though I could still solve the puzzle.

 

Like I said, maybe I just wasn't in the right mood, since all of you seemed to like it. I'm still curious about th third chapter though, since that's probably harder to copy 1-to-1 from a previous MI game.

[Scummbuddy]

Did anyone else notice that the map seen on the table next to Kate Capsize as you begin your Legend of MI Quest, is a slight remake (rip) of a World Of Monkey Island map of the MI islands, from 2002? I can't seem to find the artist but I assumed it was a Paco Vink piece but I could be wrong.

 

 

 

Am I way off here?

[ThunderPeel2001]

This was all over Facebook last week or so. I assumed it had made its way here, but maybe not. Apparently they got permission from the original artist (or maybe it was just that the original artist was cool with it being included after the fact, I forget which). Either way, apparently everyone involved was OK with it.

 

So it's a deep cut for fans... or Rare can't tell fan-made materials from the real deal 😬

 

(Also, at the risk of being pedantic: Fans tend to forget that Disney automatically owns the copyright on all derivative works and so can do whatever the hell they want with them. Such is copyright law...)

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by ThunderPeel2001

[Junaid]

On 9/12/2023 at 4:19 AM, Scummbuddy said:

Did anyone else notice that the map seen on the table next to Kate Capsize as you begin your Legend of MI Quest, is a slight remake (rip) of a World Of Monkey Island map of the MI islands, from 2002? I can't seem to find the artist but I assumed it was a Paco Vink piece but I could be wrong.

 

 

 

Am I way off here?

 

Yeah it's Paco's. It was already in the Pirates of the Caribbean Monkey Island easter egg bit. I tried reaching out to the Sea of Thieves people on Twitter because it seems like they accidentally traced something they thought was official but no response. 

I couldn't find it in these ones so I thought they fixed it. But okay, apparently it's still in there 

[Scummbuddy]

It includes islands that, as of SeMI is concerned, don't exist yet.

[OzzieMonkey]

What do we reckon are the chances of a shadow drop of the third Tall Tale on Talk Like a Pirate Day?

[Scummbuddy]

They were close to ITLaP Day.

 

The third and final installment of The Legend of Monkey Island will arrive on 28th September.

[demone]

Haven't watched this yet, but Laura Cress interviewed Dominic Armato again, this time specifically on Sea of Thieves. 

 

 

[MurraySchull]

Great interview! Great to hear some insight into what to expect with Episode 3, and Dom’s future in general!

 

Annoyingly I won’t be able to play the episode for another couple of weeks but I’ll be back to report on it once I’ve finished playing!

[Huz]

Launch trailer for Episode 3 is out!