There are excellent, very good, good, average and very bad games. Within the first, there are some that are considered true works of art, but there is also a category that falls somewhere in between and that is the iconic games, those that fully represent an era, we could even say that a way of feeling or seeing things Within this group is Monkey Island, a marvel of the graphic adventure genre which marked an entire generation who accessed it on their 386 and 486 PCs loading floppy disks and a command, engraved forever in our minds, from MS-DOS.
Return to Monkey Island brings to life all the essence of the first two titles in the saga with the return of creative duo Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman, this time accompanied by art by Rex Crowle, which some may remember from the standalone title. Knights and Bikes.
This new episode continues the adventure of what happened in Monkey Island 2 and puts us back in the shoes of the very dear Guybrush Threepwood, even if we will do the introductory part with his very nice son. Veterans of the saga will feel at home with this new opus, while those new to the series will not feel left out, even if many references will be lost.
In Return to Monkey Island we will accompany Guybrush in his quest to obtain, once and for all, the secret of Monkey Island, something that has always been waiting. In this analysis, we board this ship (pirate) of nostalgia to meet endearing characters like Elaine, Stan, the cook, the protagonist himself, LeChuck, Murray the skull and many others. Join my team in these lines and you will see how in the end we will end up sharing stories in the Scumm bar with a good glass of Grogg.
Subscribe to the GX channel on Youtube
technical part
since the first was seen teasing, the magic of anonymity on the internet let people freely complain about the graphic style that the title presented, even Ron Gilbert himself had to shut down his years-old blog due to threats from a group of misfit cowards who in their madness wanted the game to be made in pixels and they didn’t consider any other possibility. I would have liked to see their faces as they could enjoy Crowle’s art that modernizes everything without straying from the magic of the classic.
Mêlée Island continues with its dark blue streets and yellow windows, with its colorful characters in familiar places, like the Scumm bar, the prison, the governor’s mansion, the harbor where the second-hand boat shop was located of Stan, and even the observatory, this mythical place. where we started the original title. Graphically, then, we could say that the title is impeccableand the art suited him much better, in my opinion, than the 3D of the fourth installment.
The soundtrack is sometimes a tribute to the original work, with the opening music in mind, and sometimes a majestic orchestration by Peter McConnell, Michael Land and Clint Bajakian, who had also worked on the original titles. .
The voices of the protagonists (always in English or German) are another truly remarkable aspect with the great Dominic Armato accentuating Guybrush’s personality at all times and giving him the life that the great script marks.
Great job localizing into Spanish from Europe by Conch Fernandez, a fine connoisseur of the field who has been able to bring another of Ron Gilbert’s games closer to our language: Thimbleweed Park and who affirms his experience with this title loaded with double-meaning sentences and very difficult jokes to achieve. Unfortunately, the title has not been localized into Latin American Spanish.
gameplay
Return to Monkey Island was a PC and Nintendo Switch exclusive title that eventually came to Xbox and Xbox Game Pass without interruption. Transferring from PC to consoles can be a little difficult on the controls, especially in strategy and graphic adventure games, but in this case the adaptation to the Xbox controller is excellent and feels good at all times with a button designed to open the inventory. , one of the triggers arranged to accelerate the passage of Guybrush or the ship in the last stages, and a button that takes us directly to the available map. With him to stick on we will scroll the screen not missing the days when we had to do it with the mouse.
The title offers us two difficulty modes: “casual” and “difficult”, the first being more designed for players new to this type of development and the other aimed at veterans. The difference is in the difficulty of the puzzles, but it is important to note that even in hard mode you will encounter something too illogical As was customary in the saga, those who used a chicken with a pulley will understand what I mean.
Even in the most difficult mode, we will also have at our disposal at all times a book of clues that will give us advice on how to solve certain situations. Although it can be useful, I recommend that you minimize its use because the game loses some of its fun if you give us everything you have understood in advance.
As for the story, It’s been a long time since I laughed so much at a game, which speaks of the quality of the scenario which has nothing to envy to the classic deliveries. Each character has something unique that makes them lovable, even the fearsome LeChuck and his crew of ghost pirates.
Nostalgia plays a big role but it’s not the game’s epicenter, although it does have some real gems in the form of characters from the original episodes that reference it directly and indirectly and in truly impeccable detail, like the character of Cobb in the Scumm bar who always has the pin that says “Ask me about Loom” and who we can convince to tell us about this LucasArts title like in the original episode of Monkey Island.
Duration
I did this analysis on the hard mode of the title and it took me about 10 hours to complete, although I explored every corner several times to marvel at the scenery and relive the feeling of being again on Melee Island and Monkey Island. In any case, the game invites you to replay it several times to find all the trivial cards. These are 100 letters that we are going to collect and which ask questions about the traditions of Monkey Island and which will appear randomly in all the places of the game. By answering the questions correctly, we will keep the letter, while a mistake will mean losing it to find it elsewhere.
I think this point is a great way to invite players to revisit the game multiple times, which is not common in the graphic adventure genre.
On our side we also have an achievement in which we must pass the game in less than two hours, so if you want to put yourself in the role of speed racer you will also get a reward.
conclusion
Back to Monkey Island a sublime work that uses nostalgia not as a core but as a vehicle to spice up a dramatically written story. This production is a clear example that the magic of graphic adventures is still alive, it only remains for the industry to bet more on titles of this style that can attract the most diverse audience, as we have well seen.
If you have never enjoyed a game of this genre, try Return to Monkey Island now, and if you are a fan of the saga and you were afraid that this title would ruin your childhood/adolescence, I assure you that it has won’t, though it might remind you that the first episode came out in 1990 and we’re pretty old already.
Published by:
Terrible toy box
Price :
$22.99
Gabriel Fuentes
Good
- The story is simply impressive.
- The soundtrack is worthy of the saga.
- We returned to Monkey Island, with all its magic.
The bad
- The ending left me with a bitter taste.
Table of Contents
