First, an announcement: Ron Gilbert is my favorite developer, I consider the first two Monkey Island and Timbelweed Park wonderful adventures and perfect examples of storytelling applied to video games. I've been waiting and literally dreaming about this game for thirty years. So if you want to disqualify what you are about to read as an outburst from a hater, you are wrong. I reallyFirst, an announcement: Ron Gilbert is my favorite developer, I consider the first two Monkey Island and Timbelweed Park wonderful adventures and perfect examples of storytelling applied to video games. I've been waiting and literally dreaming about this game for thirty years. So if you want to disqualify what you are about to read as an outburst from a hater, you are wrong. I really wanted this game to be great.
But it simply isn't. It's a total, absolute disaster. Everything is wrong. The first bad sensations had already started from the first teaser, but, out of affection for Ron and the franchise, I defended the game on several occasions on forums and blogs, even if I felt that something was deeply out of tune.
Let's go step by step:
1 - Graphics.
This has been the most controversial point from the beginning. To best discuss this, we need to divide this point into three subcategories: art style, animations, technical execution.
The artistic style, curated by Rex Crowle, is undoubtedly particular. In part it tries to "conceptually" resume the old pixel art, but it produces an alienating effect, which above all affects the general atmosphere of the game. It is no longer a "realistic" environment like in Monkey 1-2, a realism occasionally contaminated by cartoon grafts, here we are shamelessly inside a children's cartoon. The feeling of danger, of mystery, of fear that was breathed in the first two chapters is completely absent.
I have not been able to understand, even after a year of reflections, what was the reason for this so self-defeating choice.
If the Disney management really didn't like pixel art (which by far for a game like this would have been the way to go) they could opt for a style a la Curse.
What's more: such a particular style, in order to be perceived as qualitatively valid, needed top-level animations and technical execution. Instead, for obvious budgetary reasons, instead of animations drawn frame by frame, we opted for poor spline puppet animations, which give the whole an amateur flavor and a Flash game.
Finally, the technical execution of many backgrounds goes from good to mediocre: just look at the backdrops of Melee's kitchen, the fish shop, the museum, Carla's house... for an averagely trained eye it is clear that they have remained at an early stage of production. There are less colors on the screen, the proportions of the objects do not match those of the characters ... in short, a disaster.
2 - History.
I would have accepted all the graphic flaws in the world, as long as the story was engaging and rich, full of mystery and adventure.
But even here ... a huge disappointment. What we all wanted was simply the conclusion of the story as Ron had envisioned it. "Guybrush goes to hell and fights the demon LeChuck". An epic and great story, capable of tying together all the unsolved points of the previous stories (the amusement park, Big Whoop, LeChuck and Guybrush as brothers, the dead parents, the orphanage...). I expected flashbacks, introspection, intricate subplots that would expand the world of Monkey Island enormously.
But... even here, nothing. "They had already done a lot of my idea, casually, in Tales and Curse." Mah. I think that even on this occasion Disney has imposed some of its delusional corporate policies and has forced Ron to change direction, forcing him to give us a silly plot that wearily links some elements of Monkey 1-2. I'll leave out talking about how everything, from a certain point on, seems drawn out: empty islands, puzzles and other islands cut from the game, characters that have no development and just disappear into thin air, no real connection to the old stories , everything seems to happen like this, by chance.
I understand that the upstream intention was to reflect on the "history of Monkey Island", but seriously ... it doesn't work. Regardless of the initial intentions, it doesn't work at all. It is all superficial, empty, devoid of depth and mystery.
Just to make a quick comparison: consider the bookshops of Timbelweed Park: one could also spend hours just reading the contents of those books. This is narrative depth. Take the RTMI library: four books of which we only read the cover. In Monkey 2 there was a whole filing cabinet...that's not design "progress". It's putrefaction. The old verb interface had the advantage of creating a direct bridge between the game world and the gamer. It had the ability to hide many games and phrases, as well as making you feel directly in control of the character and that world.
The new control system eliminates any complexity in exploration, certainly making everything more fluid, but also less interesting and alive. It's like watching a -bad- cartoon with some minor interaction.
Puzzles of an embarrassing ease. Here I think Ron got influenced by Grossman and his bizarre mother-in-law proof design ideas. But...the target audience is not mothers-in-law. RTMI is garbage.… Expand
Return to Monkey IslandYour Score0 out of 10User Score
