Tales of Monkey Island is a point-and-click style adventure game with classic humor and some serious nostalgic appeal. After the success of the new Sam & Max Season One, we’re seeing several new adventure games being broken into episodes including a second season of Sam & Max. I have an affinity for this type of game, as my personal path through the world of gaming began with the Sierra Quest games in the 80’s, especially the Space Quest franchise.
Monkey Island was, purely by chance, not one of the franchises I ever got into when it first appeared on the scene. For whatever reason, it simply never appeared on my radar at the time. I think I must have been too busy with Final Fantasy and Super Mario 3 that year. This, then, is my first exposure to the Monkey Island story.
I wish I had played the earlier games, as I would probably get more from the jokes, some of which seem to be sort of insider gags at times. However, my lack of previous Monkey Island exposure did not take away from the overall experience. Episode 2: Siege of Spinner Cay is out now, and I’d like to tell you about the first two chapters.
Guybrush isn't always the sharpest cookie.
Pursuit
Guybrush Threepwood is traveling the Caribbean on a quest to end a curse that he accidentally brought on the other pirates in the area, including his wife. He’ll do that by sticking odd things together and solving obscure puzzles–classic adventure game stuff. The serialized format works well for this type of game, I think, for several reasons. Foremost, it makes the game itself seem less daunting and time-consuming, by dividing it into manageable chunks. If you don’t count the time spent staring at the screen trying to think of what to do next, each episode only takes a few hours to complete. It’s not inconceivable for even someone who isn’t familiar with the conventions of adventure games to finish an episode in two or three sittings. It also makes the cost seem more manageable. Charging for each episode individually means that if you decide you don’t like the first few hours of the game, you don’t have to pay for the rest. Of course, the new Wallace and Gromit game doesn’t let you buy just one episode, but that’s another article altogether.
Guybrush navigates the carribean by pointing to places on the map
The puzzles are intuitive and straightforward–for the most part. They were challenging enough to give one a sense of satisfaction for figuring it out, but not so difficult that they became frustrating. There was only one point in episode two that got me frustrated, but as soon as I finally remembered the basic adventure game rule, “When stuck, return to every past location to see if anything has changed”, I got past it just fine, and felt clever for doing so.
However, where this game really shines is in the writing. The characters are colorful and likable, and the dialog is strong and witty. The only issue I have with the dialog is that it is sometimes misrepresented in the choices offered. I know it’s done for comedic value, but when I’m given a list of things to say, and I choose one, I’d rather the character actually said the thing I chose. Sure it creates some funny moments, but it serves to break the “fourth wall” of the story a bit, and it certainly wreaks havoc on the game’s immersion. I can’t become really attached to a protagonist who doesn’t really follow my commands all the time. Some dialogs are off more than others, but almost every singe piece of dialog that the player has to choose from is at least slightly different from what Guybrush is actually going to say when you click. For example, you might choose to say “You are a stinky pirate.”, then Guybrush actually says “Your pirate stink offends me.” It’s usually minor, but still unessential and unexplainable, and the game would be more immersive without this disconnect.
Every character has a colorful personality.
Panorama
The graphics are lovely. The entire environment is cell-shaded, and full of interesting and colorful details, without many noticeably repeated pieces of artwork. The graphics are widely scalable.
The scenery is often impressive.
Noise
The voice acting is better than I expected. Sometimes games that are intended to be witty can be ruined by using voice-talent who have little sense of comedic timing. Luckily, all of the talent used for this title know their trade well. The music and sound effects are all sufficiently piratey, and none of the repeating tunes get annoying.
No pirate story is complete without a ship-to-ship battle of wits.
Reins
The controls are on par for the point-and-click course, with one exception. In many such games, the player clicks on the ground or the edge of the screen to move the protagonist through the environment. With this game, the movement controls hearken back to the early days of the graphical adventure game, when the player had direct control over the character. I support this decision, but the default controls for this game are a bit flimsy. To move Guybrush, the player clicks and drags the mouse, moving the mouse in the direction that they wish the character to go. This system is unwieldy, and for me at least, quite error-prone. I never suffered a set-back in the game because of it, but it did get frustrating at points. Luckily, one may also use the WASD keys for control. After spending a couple hours wrestling with the mouse controls, I spent the rest of the time with one hand on the keyboard.
Encoding
I found no errors that weren’t on the list to be fixed for final release. The interface is simple and easy to navigate.
Last Word
Tales of Monkey Island is entertaining for all the right reasons. Despite its few quirks, if you enjoy the point-and-click adventure genre, this is a series to pay attention to.
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