Well. Monkey Island. It’s a series. A very enjoyable series, a truly pioneering one that revolutionized the adventure genre (Ahoy has an amazing video about it), and featured some truly amazing games that not only had interesting puzzles with weird but also weirdly logical logic, but comedy to go along with it. Namely, I find the first 3 games to be just about the best games in the genre.

The third game is also where the first 2 games’ main creator, Ron Gilbert, was out of the picture, with the rest of the series being juggled between different teams, including TellTale back when they actually made games that had gameplay. But Ron is back for this one. Ron did act like a fucking baby when us PLEBS told him that we didn’t like the graphics, and that’s USUALLY a sign that the game will suck when the creators start insulting the fanbase… But this is Monkey Island, and it’s actually the original creator of the series rather than some doofus that wants to just outright ruin it (as was, say, Saints Row), so I figured… it’s certainly worth giving a chance to anyways.

So let’s see if it’s one of the rare good revival of a classic, mostly-dead series!

Developer: Terrible Toybox
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release date: September 29, 2022
Platforms: Switch, PC (PC version reviewed)
Genre: Point and Click Adventure game

Review

And here we go, the worst part of the game! The story! One of the first really shitty things is that the start of the game with the weird twist ending of Monkey Island 2, with “Boybrush” playing around with maybe his brother(?)… friend(?)… Chuckie and coming out of a dark place to end up being in a carnival. After messing around there a bit, pretending the adults out there are their parents and solving the easiest puzzles ever, Boybrush meets up with Guybrush. So Boybrush wasn’t Guybrush as you may have thought (and Chuckie doesn’t have the lightning coming out of his eyes like he did in MI2 so he’s seemingly not LeChuck), so it’s just a reference I guess? I don’t know why this is a thing, but the kid is Guybrush and Elaine’s kid, Chuckie is just… someone. This game already makes no sense. The rest of the “story” is Guybrush telling his kid the story of when he found The Secret of Monkey Island, but actually for real this time.

So in his story… Guybrush decides he’ll find the Secret of Monkey Island, once and for all, and heads to Mêlée to set up an expedition (because originality). With some help by some old friends like Carla, Stan and the Voodoo Lady (I refuse to call her by whatever her name is, she was fine not having a name in the previous games), he mounts the expedition to Monkey Island, while trying to fight against both Zombie Ghost Pirate LeChuck who is back again and Captain Madisson, the leader of the people who replaced the Pirate Leaders. Elaine is around, doing… stuff… She’s not nearly as cool as she used to be. She’s not very important in this game. The rest of the story really is just Guybrush finding things, getting keys, opening locks and trying to get the Secret before anyone else… But there’s A BIG PROBLEM here. And that’s the ending. Before the ending, things are kinda generic but not completely horrible. But there’s a specific moment where everything breaks.

I am SPOILING THE ENDING NOW, because fuck you Ron (skip this paragraph if you want no spoilers). So after the whole adventure, you get what is actually one of the better puzzles in the game (which is also one of the few really cool, not-really-on-the-nose references, to the code wheel), you have finally chased down LeChuck on Monkey Island, who has possession of the treasure box with the Secret in it. You open the door and… you’re back on Mêlée Island on the high street, from the door behind the prison. But the high street is a sham. There’s animatronics of many of the characters, including LeChuck. The buildings are just sets. The key to the chest is just dangling there for you to just grab for free. The Secret of Monkey Island is just a t-shirt (you know the lazy “I found the Secret and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” joke shirt? That’s how unimaginative Ron is now). Turns out, there was no Monkey Island. Or Secret. Or story. It’s all a theme park, so the t-shirt is literally just merch for the theme park. There’s no ending. There’s no big epic confrontation against LeChuck. There’s no double-twist ending like in MI2, it’s just “yeah, this was all bullshit”, told with a straight face (Guybrush just looking into the “camera” for a few seconds as it zooms in on him). Did this happen? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe LeChuck was just never real. Maybe none of the previous games happened. Who knows? Why would you even care, right? Fuck you Ron. I cared. A better Monkey Island game would pull off this ending in a way that was, you know, not shit. In a way that could lead to something. In a way that’s intelligent and clever. The t-shirt is fine, that’s what I expected. A twist ending can work, like how Monkey Island 2 had a twist ending that made you think it was all just kids messing around in a carnival, but then it wasn’t (with Elaine still waiting for Guybrush next to the hole on Dinky Island, and “Chuckie” just being LeChuck in disguise). The credits ran for this shit and I was sitting there like an idiot waiting for the punchline. There’s no punchline. It just brought me back to the main menu. This game sucks.

Do I even want to talk about the gameplay? I mean, it’s a game, where, in most cases, the only important thing is the gameplay, but if that’s good, the story is certainly a nice bonus. But this is an adventure game, and a lot of the enjoyment comes from the story, because this is a case where the story dictates the gameplay. The puzzles are determined by the story, so the logic and progression is based on figuring out what the story wants you to do. So anyways, I guess I’ll talk about pointing and clicking on things for a little bit.

I mean, the gameplay aspect is nearly unfuckupable. Point at things, click on them to get to them and observe them (or talk to people). Some things might pop up a right-click option, usually to pick them up or as a shortcut to use one of your items. Sometimes the object needs to be observed first, and then you will get the right-click option. Obviously that can be very missable, which is partly a UI issue (the left-click option appears over the cursor, while the right-click one appears diagonally right of the cursor which isn’t ideal IMO). You can open your inventory either by clicking the bag at the bottom or pressing I on the keyboard, clicking on an item, then clicking it onto an object or person to use it. If it can’t be used on someone, the cursor with display as an X to show that. Items can also be used on other items in the inventory to combine them, or alter them, such as spice on food. The functionality of this game is absolutely fine. I kinda prefer the classic SCUMM interface, but this works.

I find the items overall to be pretty unremarkable. Monkey Island usually has some pretty wacky shit in there alongside the standard stuff, here it’s pretty much all normal stuff. The most unique item, as far as usage, is probably the photo frame (though it’s pretty under-used and one of the puzzle solutions using it is not telegraphed at all). Like, the knife you get early on is just the solution to a bunch of stuff. Find something that a knife could be used on? Well, you have a knife right from the start and you keep it the whole game. There’s not a lot of the puzzles that are really, truly, clever. It’s just “use this thing in the way you would normally use this thing”… Heck, there’s one puzzle I thought would be clever and would require a bunch of items to build, but nah. Some items just straight up have no use unless there’s some secret shit to do I just didn’t find. There’s cases like with the Staple Remover in the first game where the item is there as a joke that you can’t actually use on anything, but that’s actually a running joke in the game, rather than just being a useless item in your inventory that just sits there. There’s also a bunch of items that literally do nothing, as far as I can find. There’s a few things in the first chapter that have literally no use beyond getting thrown into a fire for no reason at all (I seriously have no idea why, it’s not even really a joke, unless I just didn’t find other things to throw in the fire to get a real result, but it certainly wasn’t required). Doing that didn’t progress the story, it was just… throwing things in the fire. Why even let me pick those objects up? There’s a lot in this game that just… happens.

Speaking of pretty bad puzzles… There’s the one I noted with the photo frame, not really making it clear that you can combine something with it, unless you just try stuff for kinda no reason. One puzzle that was really stupid is that you can get a second monocle, but the game gives no indication that there may even be a second one, unless you pointlessly wander into the shop that has one, for no reason at all (because otherwise this one place runs out of usefulness after a visit or two, and maybe you didn’t think to grab the monocle the first time). It’s something that happens if you just run out of options and notice there’s another one there. One puzzle requires you to use something in your inventory, while the characters are telling you specifically to grab that same item from a bucket… but I guess none of the people watching you in that room actually care where it comes from, so it’s a bit of a stupid solution. There’s one solution that actually does make sense for one of the puzzles involving lighting a lantern, but if you don’t get the line of dialogue about said specific fire several chapters before (pretty sure it’s missable), you might completely miss that it’s a solution. It’s just not very well telegraphed. Oh and the fizzy drink puzzle is a bit dumb but I figured it out pretty easily. Oh, and the feather pen is a stupid item. You start with it. It’s only needed to be used once (IIRC) but you have it in the inventory throughout the game, and the use for it is not quite obvious (you can try to use it on your to-do list, which I tried many times, and it never did anything, same with a few documents you could fill up… why give me the option?).

There is a hint system that almost gives you the solution to everything (it’s an item in your inventory), I’d recommend not using it because… think for yourself. I used it once because of one of the puzzles I named above, and the hint wasn’t just “use this on this” so at least it’s not completely terrible… but I find it a bit weak that it’s even a feature at all.

Also there’s no fun mechanic like insult swordfighting or insult arm wrestling or ship combat. Eh.

Of course I do need to talk about the graphics before I end this review. Because holy shit. Actually, I will praise it a little bit, it’s not all bad. The environments are mostly solid and pretty much look in line with what the other games had, most places look pretty cool. The characters though… Other than LeChuck, everyone looks lame. If you’re familiar with “corporate memphis”, this is what this game uses. You may know it, pretty simply, as corporate art. It’s lifeless, ugly and boring (but all over the place nowadays, because fuck talent). This game has a take on corporate memphis that tries really hard to have a personality, but can’t, because it’s corporate memphis. Like, with close-ups and moving the black dots characters have for eyes around a bit, there’s almost the illusion of emotion in one or two spots of the game… but, for the most part, no one looks like they’re really… there… Which I guess makes sense. I dunno, it just feels like there was effort required with the graphics in the previous games. Because of the character design, the game looks fucking ugly. You should’ve listened Ron. Seems people still haven’t learned from the success of the Sonic movies. Listening to what the fanbase wants, instead of just insulting people when they’re not happy about something, can lead to good things.

At least performance is okay, this can probably run on the most potato machine ever. It used a whole 1% of my GPU’s power and at most 10% of my CPU. The framerate is locked at 60fps, and I assume the Switch doesn’t struggle with this at all either.

Overall

I was not happy with this. It ignores Curse (other than Murray existing), it ruins 2’s cliffhanger ending for kinda no reason at all, and it doesn’t even have an ending of its own… in fact it doesn’t even have a story, and makes it possible that none of the previous games even happened. It just decides “you know what? Fuck Monkey Island, and fuck you for liking it”. Starting with the end of MI2 but changing it is so fucking weird . Who the fuck is THIS Chuckie? What kind of insane coincidence that Guybrush’s kid is friends with a kid name Chuckie that looks just like the Chuckie from Big Whoop… Okay I need to stop.

Not only is the story ass, but the writing is kinda boring (I didn’t even talk about the comedy because the story itself is so bad, but a lot of it is pretty meh, I got a couple chuckles), the graphics are ass, and the puzzles are not very imaginative.

I’d feel legitimately bad if I recommended this game. Do no buy. Ignore as hard as you can.