Click and point adventures were once a prevalent genre of games. They were simple to play and almost every computer back then was able to run them as they didn’t use the advanced tech and fancy graphics that other video games were using at the time. You didn’t even have to be good at video games to enjoy them. Almost every action and command was done through the click of the mouse, and the real challenge wasn’t platforming or combat but rather figuring out what to do. With a lack of gameplay and any major player interaction, how did click and points adventures hook players in? Two words: good writing. The developers knew the limitations of the genre, so they had to substitute for good writing and characters. These games contained some of the most lighthearted humor in gaming and it’s hard to come by humor such as this these days. They were appealing and that’s why many click and point players recall these games fondly. I think it’s also because they were young, didn’t have money to afford a console, their parents bought them these games to play on home PCs, and it formed their childhood. There were many memorable click & points, but none were more legendary than Monkey Island by Ron Gilbert and Lucasfilms.
Remember when Lucasfilms made games that weren’t mainly Star Wars related? Anyways, the Monkey Island series was directed by Ron Gilbert and made by a small team of developers close to around the same age as him. For the time they were young adults with outlandish humor, and they wanted to make a game that capsulated their childlike imagination. Monkey Island was just as it took the dream of being a pirate and plugged in the sense of humor children possessed. Both young and old people could enjoy it as the jokes were goofy, but didn’t just appeal to children. This was when game developers weren’t so worried about what could and could not be approved by their publishers. The first Monkey Island and its sequel are considered two of the best in the genre. Two of the best PC games ever made and thankfully they aged like fine wine. The series was a bombastic success, and Ron Gilbert was proud of what his team made.
Things did get complicated for Monkey Island as the years went by. Three more Monkey Island games were made since then, but the team was struggling on where to take their franchise next. As technology leaped forward they tried to modernize and this brought mixed reception. Each new game would receive a graphical upgrade, change in artstyle, and so on. Not saying that these were bad moves and tainted the soul of Monkey Island. The games still maintained their wit and positivity, and while future entries were criticized they were still pretty well received. Fans of the original were a little harsh and wondered what direction the developers would go next. Another problem was that click and point games were starting to get old. The thriving popularity of click and point was starting to finally die down. It’s a product of its time and it was best left alone. Monkey Island tried carrying the genre and it wasn’t for the best.
Criticism was starting to pile high with the most recent entry to that date, Tales of Monkey Island, and it was aimed towards how the game was split into episodic releases rather than having a full game to play at launch. The hateful comments towards Tales made a few members of the dev team uncomfortable. Should they continue making passion projects and confront the backlash of what isn’t like the originals, or should they just quit? Then Lucasfilms, the company who owned the franchise, was bought by Disney and Ron Gilbert no longer had possession over the property he made. If Gilbert wanted to make any more Monkey Island titles he would have to take legal actions. Monkey Island was left dead and everyone forgot about it since. Dreams of a new Monkey Island were lost, for better or for worse.
Flashforward to 2020. Gilbert and everyone who once worked on Monkey Island are full grown adults with kids, spouses, and lives to attend to. Gilbert still makes games, but misses the days of when he was working on Monkey Island. He thought about all the legal restrictions and criticism of the fans holding him back from making a new game and he said, “Screw it.” He called up his old pal Dave Grossman and asked if he wanted to make a new Monkey Island in secret. They both agreed and for the next two years they assembled a small team of programmers to help make a new entry. Gilbert posted a Reddit post on April 1st, 2022 saying that he was making a new Monkey Island and no one believed him. Three days later Devolver Digital, a company well known for supporting indie devs, announced that they would publish Return To Monkey Island. They went through the legal actions with Disney and Lucasfilms, and helped regain the rights to Monkey Island. There were a good chunk of fans that were happy and some weren’t, but Gilbert blocked the negativity out and kept working. Return comes out and it’s a surprising success! It’s not a big bang, but players were delighted with how much effort put in. Everything that made the series great was there and better than ever.
I never played any of the other Monkey Island games, but I was eager to try out Return. I thought it looked cool and it would offer a break from the many challenging action heavy games I usually cover. Second semester of college has begun and things have been hectic. I needed a game that would cool me down from all the stress rather than add more stress.. This is also the 200th game I’m covering and I wanted to do something special. Return To Monkey Island seemed like a good choice, and I’m so glad I chose it because this is one of the happiest games I’ve played. Is it for everyone? No, but I had a lot of fun with it and it may be one the best surprises to come out of last year. I loved Return To Monkey Island and here’s why I loved it so much.
Story
We follow Guybrush Threepwood, pirate extraordinaire who has gone on numerous daring trips across the Carribeans to stop his nemesis LeChuck and find the secrets of Monkey Island. The island itself is full of history and ruins of a once thriving civilization, but even to this date no one truly knows what secret treasure the inhabitants stashed away. At a younger age, Guybrush did whatever he could to be approved as a pirate and gain the funding he needed for his exploration. He did, but then he met undead Captain LeChuck who was not only trying to find the secret as well but still Guybrush’s crush Elaine Marley. Once the proud governor of Melee Island and now a fierce adventurer herself. LeChuck has made countless attempts to kidnap Elaine and find the secret, but each time Guybrush manages to beat him and impress the woman he was in love with. After their last daring adventure, Guybrush and Elaine confess their love for each other and get married. Settling down and having a kid they named Boybrush.
Years pass and now they’re just a simple family enjoying an afternoon in the park. Boybrush was busy running around with his friends and getting caught in shenanigans until he met up with his father, Guybrush. He asks him about his story of Monkey Island, the many tales he spun in the previous game. Guybrush recollects all of them fondly, but his son mentions how he never told the story of when he finally found the secret. Guybrush thought it was finally time to tell his last story, and he buckles his boy down for what was his last tale. Few years after the events of Tales, Guybrush learns that his old nemesis LeChuck had obtained another map to Monkey Island. He had a sinister plan up his sleeve, and Guybrush needed to stop him before it was too late.
He heads to Melee Island to get approval from the Pirate Leaders, but when he arrives he finds the three men he once reported to be replaced by three younger pirates. Turns out the old men have retired, and the new leaders had new ideas for pirating. No longer was pirating about going on expeditions and adventures. Now it was about plundering, stealing, and robbing for what you wanted. Guybrush doesn’t really like the new methods of pirating, and when he asks for the fundings to afford a new ship and sail out to the hidden Monkey Island the new leaders laugh as they find Guybrush’s dreams and efforts over the years unbelievable. Guybrush storms out of the tavern they were drinking out claiming that he would find it. He would prove them wrong and that at all his work over the years was truly worth it. LeChuck’s ship was stationed nearby, but they weren’t threatening people. They were hiring new sinister crew members to help them, and Guybrush comes up with the idea to sneak aboard the ship and steal LeChuck’s map. He then starts figuring out how to do so while meeting some old friends across Melee Island. Elaine is there passing out flyers to raise scurvy awareness, and she’s a bit concerned about her husband’s latest endeavors. Guybrush is determined though, and goes out to relive his old glory days.
Gameplay
The story of Monkey Island is rather simple at the start, but give it some time and the complexity of it shall increase. Crazy scenarios, bizarre puzzles, and characters you’ll have to negotiate with to get the items you need to progress. It’s a click and point and adventure, and if you have played any of these types of games before then you know the drill.Use your mouse to click to a point you want your character to move towards, and click on anything that is interactable to get a few lines of dialogue out of Guybrush or someone. What they’ll say or hint towards may give you an idea of what to do next, and certain interactables once you figure out they are items can be stored in your inventory for future purposes. Maybe it’s a trinket you have to equip, give it to another NPC, or use it on another interactable by dragging it out of your inventory towards what you need to use it on. Some puzzles will require basic knowledge while others will require you to get a little bit creative. Obtaining the item you need to progress or solve another problem at hand can be difficult and require extra steps. For example, in Part II you need to give a bored NPC a joke book to entertain himself but the only joke book in the area is being held by a guy who won’t give it to you unless you cook him his favorite dish. The cook of the ship you are on won’t cook it for certain reasons and so on. You’ll just just have to mess around until you find the solution, and if you’re playing on hard mode you’ll have to mess around longer as there are more puzzles.
A new addition to Return to Monkey Island is an accessibility option the developers put in for those unfamiliar to these sorts of games or struggle to solve the harder puzzles, this being a hint book. Normally I believe puzzle games don’t need hint systems because they detract from the eureka moment for when you finally find the solution, but in the case of Monkey Island it’s an exception. These games have you wandering around for minutes and as tasks pile onto your to-do list it can feel confusing on where to go next. What tiny little detail to look at to find the item or piece to the puzzle you need. The hint book is great as the hints it gives you nudge you towards the right direction, but don’t flat out tell you what to do unless you ask for more hints. You can choose to either ignore the hint book entirely, or use it when you truly feel lost. Other than that, it’s Monkey Island. These games don’t have the most complex gameplay in the world, but that’s the point as we explained during the intro. They are made to easily appease players and what drags them along for the ride is their wacky writing. Hopefully you can beat that dastardly LeChuck yet again, find the secret of Monkey Island, and see what a lifetime of work has led to.
Thoughts
Return To Monkey Island is a truly lovely experience. It’s not only a tribute to what games came before it, but a reminder of simpler times in gaming. When developers weren’t so worried about what would be cool to their players or what would relate to each generation, but instead making games that would entertain and give off good vibes. Monkey Island is always presenting me with new scenarios with funny solutions or unforeseen outcomes. Every joke made me chuckle, every character had their own unique personality and background, and I was engaged to see where the story would take me next. If you were to summarize the main plot of Return To Monkey Island without mentioning any of the in-between bits and charming humor then you would have a rather boring and simplistic story. You need those in between bits, because without it mechanically and gameplay-wise the game is rather boring. As I mentioned, click and point adventures redeemed themselves by having good writing. I pushed forward not to see what would happen, but to see the interactions and funny dialogue.
You will grow to love these characters! Guybrush isn’t your charming wisecrack who is perfect at everything and wins over every person around him easily. He’s physically weak, isn’t good at fighting, and needs to think of unique solutions to solve problems. I love how they occasionally dabble into Elaine and Guybrush's relationship. How one of them went on to become an activist, and the other is still stuck in the childish mindset and seeking adventure. How Elaine questions whether Guybrush will be pleased or disappointed when he finds the treasure he was looking for all those years ago. They even have a subplot where LeChuck, longtime nemesis, is aided by a crew who wonders why he keeps searching for the treasure. Reason why is because he’s jealous of the man who keeps beating him, and just for once he wishes to win. Which makes his crew doubt him more as such an immature rival is what’s fueling him to pursue a treasure that should have been forgotten. This whole game is about growing older and moving on. The Pirate Leaders being replaced and the old traditions being thrown out the window. Guybrush seeing his friends move on to better careers and jobs. Seeing how Gubrush’s adventurous mindset brings down the world around him. It’s not your Uncharted 4, but it’s still done really well here. The developers even left a note at the end of the game where they talk about growing older and that Guybrush himself has to grow older as well. He too as a character has to move on to better things in life.
Moving away from the story and writing there’s a lot of other aspects I love about this game. The soundtrack is one of them. It’s not the best soundtrack I've listened to, but I really enjoyed it. It’s calm and quite therapeutic, which is good because it makes solving each complex puzzle not so stressful. That’s something you want in every puzzle game, calm music. I know a lot of people didn’t like the art style for this game. They went for a style that was colorful and simplistic, but fans acclaimed it looked too simplistic and at times appealing mainly towards children. Certain fans even sent threats to the creators when footage of the game was revealed. First, “What the hell is wrong with you?” and second the artstyle fits the tone of the game really well. The game has a goofy nature and the artstyle does just that. Everyone around Guybrush and Elaine look rather silly and it matches their personalities. I will say though, the animation isn’t the greatest. It looks very rigged, but it’s understandable as there are limitations with what they can do with the style they choose. The environments are very nice to look at, but they reuse some of them in later chapters. Probably to make things smooch easier as the development period went on.
How is the game itself? It’s a click and point adventure, so depending on who you are you either really love these games or hate them. Not everyone is going to love Monkey Island and the many problems older click and points had. The amount of backtracking, how movement feels, puzzles ranging from easy to incredibly difficult, and just having to wander around aimlessly until something in your head clicks. These games don’t hold you by the hand, but that’s kind of the point. The eureka moment for when every piece to the puzzle is put together and you exactly know what to do. The hints they give you in game are good enough to give you a good start on what to do, but even if you struggle there’s the hint book. Some old school players may not like this new addition as it removes the point of solving puzzles on your own, but it’s still a choice. It’s better to have one rather than not at all, and honestly I bet some of these players looked up the answers for older entries. Besides that I don’t have any real complaints. Enjoyment depends on who you are. I’m someone who is fine with slow paced games, and this was right up my alley.I give Return To Monkey Island a 9.5/10 for excellence at best.
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