Return to Monkey Island

Revisiting the franchise; the characters, the story-telling, the puzzles, and the humour, filled me with child-like glee upon returning to one of my favourite video game franchises of all time. However, the unexpected turn in the final hour, reflecting on nostalgia and appreciating the journey, not the destination, allowed me to really appreciate Return to Monkey Island growing up with me. In this sense, it allowed me to retroactively appreciate the precursor games more, and the third instalment elevated the franchise to quite possibly my all-time favourite franchise. For first time fans, enjoy the swash-buckling adventure for what it is: a game filled with puzzles, humour, and most of all, fun. For longtime fans, I really hope you will enjoy the walk down memory lane, but find the game growing up as we all have.

Return to Monkey Island feels like a greatest hits of Monkey Islands past. The overwhelming sense of familiarity is both a blessing and a curse, but ultimately if you’re a series fan, you’re going to enjoy swashbuckling with Guybrush once again.

Whether you are a veteran or new to the series, Return to Monkey Island is one of the best adventure games you can find on Nintendo Switch. This last journey of the legendary pirate Guybrush Threepwood has marked us with a story full of nostalgia and very funny moments. Of course, some of its puzzles are not too inspired, and not all of its jokes are funny, but certainly, it is an outstanding game. Everything that fans have been waiting for years is fulfilled here.

Return to Monkey Island lives up to the near thirty year long wait with a modernised take that feels fresh, unique and brand new. Nostalgia naturally fuels a major proportion of its endearing qualities, but the new puzzles, the sumptuous music and the glorious performances bring the series back to life in ways we couldn’t have imagined. An absolutely stellar return for a franchise we thought we’d never see again.

Return to Monkey Island is an energetic installment not to be missed. Not only does it keep you engaged with a hilarious narrative that maintains the franchise's essence from beginning to end, but its graphic design is lovely, its soundtrack does an incredible job of immersion, and the mechanics are clever enough.

Return to Monkey Island is a love letter to the Point & Click genre, as well as a great graphic adventure, both narratively and artistically, keeping the essence of the Monkey Island saga. It brings freshness and a new and intuitive game system.

Return to Monkey Island is an enjoyable game that I will definitely be telling my nephews and niece to play. It left me wanting more and now that the introduction is over, the next installment should provide the story progression that I was hoping for with this one. If nothing else this game will serve as a reminder to never say never. Ordinarily when a small company is bought out by a multibillion dollar conglomerate it usually goes quietly into the night never to be heard from again. The fact that this game was made at all is a truly remarkable accomplishment. Terrible Toybox and Devolver Digital have overcome the impossible and opened the door for more. Until then might I suggest playing through the entire original series as well as befriending the three headed monkey that’s behind you.

With all the wit and charm that you would expect from Gilbert and Grossman's writing, Return to Monkey Island is a decades-long reverie made reality and absolutely essential for fans of the series.

Return to Monkey Island is profoundly nostalgic and relentlessly funny, and I'm once again a kid, laughing at Guybrush's umpteenth last-ditch efforts to distract his opponents with, "Look behind you, a three-headed monkey!"

With the right amount of nostalgia and plenty of great characters, Return to Monkey Island is an awesome addition to legendary series, that can entertain older players of originals, and newcomers as well.

Return to Monkey Island ably delivers the charm, humor, and sharp puzzles the series is known for, while offering a few tweaks to make things less intimidating for new crew members. A reluctance to try anything too daring in terms of design or storytelling dampens the proceedings a bit, but longtime Monkey Island fans ought to enjoy the voyage even if the series’ sails are getting a bit well-worn.

Return to Monkey Island is a triumph in almost every aspect, yeah sure - the backtracking dating to the quests of old is still pervasive and annoying, but the game has charm, excellent writing and fantastic voice acting that push it forward and make is a joy to play.

Return to Monkey Island is a love letter to fans of the franchise. The game makes us enjoy fun situations and at the same time makes us solve puzzles without any hint. The style is a bit different and many fans of the game will not like it at the beginning but it deserves the opportunity.

Return to Monkey Island feels like a bridge linking some of the absolute best point-and-click adventures of gaming’s younger years with the sensibilities of the modern world.

It’s been a long time coming, but Return to Monkey Island is an absolute treat for fans of the series. It looks wonderful, it sounds wonderful, and its combination of excellent puzzles and expert writing will keep you transfixed from start to finish. Our only real complaint is that newcomers may find this a difficult starting point – but that’s easily rectified by jumping into the originals.

Return to Monkey Island is well worth the wait. This is a quest for booty you don't want to miss.

Return to Monkey Island reaches into your heart, rips out your desire to know THE SECRET, and clenches it in front of your face. As hard as it would be to concede that The Secret of Monkey Island™ might always have been a McGuffin, it’s agonising to contemplate that your 30-year longing for the Monkey Island 3 might be just the same. Delighting as you tremor, Return presents to your transfixed gaze a phenomenal point-and-click adventure, bubbling with passion and fun. All the way through, you will hope, achingly, that the big reveal is coming – and then…

A hugely successful reboot for the beloved point ‘n’ click adventure, that achieves its comeback without sacrificing either its sense of humour or some enjoyably tricky puzzles.

Its graphic touch may have changed drastically (rightly), the Monkey Island saga retains all its shimmering and sassy aura in this episode, in particular thanks to a writing that is still as clever and a really fantastic soundtrack. Return to Monkey Island is a fresh, modern adventure that strikes a good balance between nostalgia and novelty.

If you can look past its controversial art style and some lukewarm jokes, you will find a good adventure game that captures a lot of what made the originals so great in the first place.

As a final word, even as a new person to the franchise, I have to say that Return To Monkey Island would be an experience that fans of the franchise are going to totally enjoy. I had a pretty gratifying time, even if I didn't understand all the references to past adventures of which I have no immediate recollection.

It's not perfect, it's not the best Monkey Island, even. But you can't deny its charm as a love letter to everything we adore about graphic adventure games. RTMI is a fun, nostalgic experience.

Despite the many years on his shoulders, the saga created by Ron Gilbert still seems to have a lot to tell. With Return to Monkey Island, the videogame author packs a nostalgic work, but deeply immersed in the contemporary world, which he tells with the usual dose of sagacity and irony. With excellent writing quality, the graphic adventure gives point & click lovers a fun and puzzle-packed experience to be solved using imagination, logic and careful observation. Between new and familiar faces - with special mentions for Murray and Stan - this anomalous sequel has given us about ten hours of unshakable good humor: not even a good mug of grog could have done better.

Thirty-one years on from LeChuck’s Revenge, and Return to Monkey Island is confident about what it is, why it is, and who it’s for. This is swashbuckling point-and-click shenanigans of a most splendiferously convivial complexion that everyone who ever stuck a cue-tip in a stone monkey’s lughole or took a ride around Big Whoop, delighted in asking about Loom or half-inched a hairpiece to fashion a voodoo doll, will adore. It’s fan service that doesn’t forget to make itself half-approachable to beginners, and while its 20th century roots are showing there won’t be many rookies who’ll fail to step in time with its distinctive rhythms. While its puns might sometimes elicit a groan, so cordial is this game’s atmosphere, so genial its eccentric cast, that Return to Monkey Island can’t be received as anything less than a wholesome triumph for wannabe me-hearties everywhere.

A wonderful love letter to Monkey Island fans that left us with a tear of joy at the end.

Return to Monkey Island is no high flyer, but a good classical adventure game, far away from disappointment. Essentially it is fan service pure. That's a huge benefit for lovers of Guybrush's adventures, but series beginners don't really profit from the mass of allusions in any area. The great puzzle design or the top voice-over do not change anything about that.