Return to Monkey Island?

[VideoGameCritic]

Anyone in the mood to Return to Monkey Island? I hear it's coming out for the Switch.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/06/ ... nds-story/

[Stalvern]

I'm happy about it, but I'm not really excited. The original games all did something new each time, while this just looks like an exercise in nostalgia. Remember Monkey Island? It's nice to have a new adventure game from Ron Gilbert and David Grossman, but I don't need a new game to remember Monkey Island.

[matmico399]

Original games, I thought it was just an original game. If there were sequels I have never heard about them. I had it on my Sega CD years ago. I remember enjoying the game but I didn't think it was really anything special. Is there that much hype for a slightly above average title?

[Stalvern]

The sequels didn't get console ports. The first one was revolutionary in 1990 and almost single-handedly set the standard of adventure games for the rest of the decade, and it's also just a silly little cartoon about pirates, but it's also a very charming, heartfelt cartoon that makes a major impression if a certain kind of person (Monty Python–loving nerd) plays it at a certain age (14). I wasn't enough of that kind of person to be totally swept away by it, but I can see why others were. As lightweight as it is (even compared to Monkey Island 2 the following year), it does what it does perfectly, and what it does was perfect for a lot of people.

This new one feels very conservative from what's been shown. Lots of locations and characters from the first game, mixed with the overt jokiness of the third one (embodied in Murray the skull) – I didn't see a single unfamiliar thing in the trailer. It's disappointing to see Ron Gilbert play it so safe with this comeback instead of picking up from where he left off in the relatively ambitious second game, the last one he worked on. Maybe there's something special and new hiding behind the marketing, but I'm not going to assume that it's there.