With the amazing announcement that a new entry in the pirate themed comedy horror adventure series Monkey Island was being made (released on 17th September), I just had to replay the others in anticipation. This new game is only taking the first and second games as canon, ignoring the events of the third, fourth and episodic games (though apparently keeping some story beats and characters as canonical). The Secret of Monkey Island is a classic 'point and click' game that first came out in 1990. Back in 2009 it enjoyed a re-release and re-make, a game that let you swap at will between the beautiful pixel graphics of the original, and the ugly, uncompleted in feel look of the remake.
Guybrush Threepwood has arrived on the Caribbean island of Meleé with one goal in mind, to become a pirate. The pirate elders there give him three tasks to complete in order to become one. While exploring the island he comes to learn of a fearsome pirate named LcChuck, who was so infatuated with Meleé island's governor, Elaine Marley, that he returned from the dead as a ghost pirate to continue trying to win her heart. After Elaine is kidnapped by LeChuck and taken back to his base on the mysterious Monkey Island, Guybrush decides he must recruit a crew, find a boat, and go and attempt a rescue mission.
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge is one of my favourite video games of all time. The Secret of Monkey Island is nowhere near as good a game, yet it is a pleasure to play through, despite being far simpler. I played these games back before the internet had become a mainstream thing, and so when I became stuck in the games I was really stuck. I would spend entire evenings playing these, trying to figure out on my own how to proceed. Because of this I have a deep affection for the series, the original game giving me large does of nostalgia. After about a fifteen year break I still mostly breezed through this. There were times when I was jumping ahead of myself, trying to solve puzzles that I wasn't yet actually able to do with where I was in the story. The game is split into chapters, each with a clearly defined goals. From completing the three tasks to become a pirate, to sailing to Monkey Island and hunting down LeChuck.
Playing this using the original version of the game not much has changed, the pixel graphics and animations still look great today, while the music is as brilliant as it always was. Unfortunately with this remake and re-release being together, there is no way to mix and match parts of them. I played through this with the remake graphics, this was due to wanting to hear the new version of the music, and for having the game be fully voiced. It wasn't possible to play the old version of the game with added voice work (something that became an option for the remake of the second game). There is no way around it, the graphics for the remake are ugly as sin. There appears to be frames missing from the animations, characters faces become more static and less full of expression, all in all it is one ugly game, which static images do not show. I did want to hear voice actors rather than read text from a screen and so I was stuck with this bafflingly inferior looking version.
The control scheme has also been messed up. While traditional point and click can be done with the older version, the newer version hides all the commands in the L2 and R2 buttons, making it a trial choosing the correct buttons for the correct moments. It was especially annoying if you wanted to use an item in your inventory, having to first try and find the command you wanted and then heading into your inventory to try and find the item. There were some moments (such as when you are transporting a liquid substance in rapidly dissolving tankards across town) where I found it far easier just to switch to the original game to do this.
The game is as full of fun characters and a great story as ever. It is far more simple for the first game, but LeChuck is a fantastic antagonist. This is pure comedy horror, with Guybrush being full of amusing lines of dialogue, and LeChuck's attempts at being evil easily thwarted. Meleé island is set at night, so it is a breath of fresh air when the second half of the game sees you on the titular Monkey Island, an isolated paradise full of beaches, jungles and mountains. There are plenty of memorable characters, such as the cannibals, oddball Herman Toothrot, and Meathook at his talking tattoo Murray. The story isn't as involved as later games, but I enjoyed the pacing, I have always felt the final chapter was all a little to brief, that hasn't changed in my mind. I also felt there were some moments on Monkey Island that involved a little bit too much travelling slowly back and forth around the island (a few locations can only be accessed by rowboat).
The Secret of Monkey Island is a classic, while it doesn't hit the heights of the sequel, it was a great place to start the series. If you can make do without voice actors then play it as it was originally meant to be played. While the updated music and characters fully voiced is a good thing, it is at the cost of visually being very basic and bland. I still find it weird how the graphics of a game released in 1990 are somehow much more attractive than a game released seventeen years later. I've already started playing the remake of the sequel and can confirm that both graphics and control schemes are a whole lot better.
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