Return to Monkey Island

After more than 10 years since the last instalment in the Monkey Island franchise and more than 20 years since the original creators worked on the series, we were blessed with a new Monkey Island game. Let’s get the new art style out of the way first. When I saw the screenshots and trailer, the visuals didn’t do it for me, and I was disappointed. But that changed while playing. The style immerses you in a storybook, puppet-theatre world where brilliant colours and fluid character movements come alive, and that’s when you begin to truly appreciate the game’s art direction. The story takes us back to the pirate world we all love. The opening cleverly makes you think you’ll be playing as a young Guybrush Threepwood, but alas, it’s his son, serving as a tutorial for newcomers. The main story unfolds as Guybrush recounts to his son how he once again set out to discover the real Secret of Monkey Island, a mystery that has eluded us since the first game. Returning to Melee Island is filled with nostalgia. Time has clearly passed, and the island has changed, but it’s still home to our beloved characters: the Voodoo Lady, Wally, Carla, Stan, Otis, and the cook, alongside new faces that almost feel like allegories for capitalism. These additions bring fresh energy to an already iconic cast, and interacting with each of them is pure fun. The puzzles feel more intuitive than in earlier entries. That doesn’t mean they’re easy, but they require less trial-and-error and reward a more logical approach. You’ll face challenges you never expected, steal like a pirate, and even join the dark side, only to backstab your way out of it. All in a day’s work for a mighty pirate. The addition of the trivia book is a delightful extra, though collecting every trivia card feels like an endless quest. Many of the questions span the entire franchise, so your Monkey Island knowledge will truly be tested. Then there’s the hint book, always hovering, tempting you to use it. I’m not convinced it was necessary; players used to complete games like this without hints. Why change that now? The music and sound design transport you straight back to the world of the original games. The whimsy and charm never left, and neither did the excellent voice acting. The original voice of Guybrush returns, and it’s everything you could hope for. The writing is sharp and genuinely funny; you’ll laugh out loud, giggle, and chortle throughout. The only potentially divisive element is the ending. Return to Monkey Island is not just a return to form; it feels like a goodbye. A tribute to its own legacy and to the path it paved for other point-and-click adventures. And maybe, just maybe… the Secret was the friends we made along the way.

Ugly art style unfunny jokes and continuous references to better games, the worst of which is the repeated references to the insult swordfighting from Secret hinting that it will appear later in the game. Spoiler: It does not.

Firstly, let me say this: Monkey Island 1 was the very first game I ever played. My earliest gaming memory is sitting on my father's lap as we played it together on a DOS computer. Since then, I've played each of the five previous Monkey Island games at least five times. I even wrote an academic seminar about Guybrush Threepwood and dedicated my life to game development, with a special passion for point-and-click adventures. Fittingly, I discovered this game while being filmed for a gaming documentary—talking, no less, about Monkey Island. I was torn about whether to give this game a thumbs up or a thumbs down. In the end, I chose thumbs down because, unfortunately, I just can’t recommend it. Do you remember the 'Member Berries' from South Park? That’s what this entire game feels like—"Remember this? Remember that?"—and it gets old fast. The nostalgia feels uninspired, and the whole experience comes off as boring and hollow. I honestly don’t understand the target audience. The game is overly simplified and feels geared toward kids, yet all its content is packed with references to the old games—games those kids likely never played. So who is this game really for? It’s such a shame because I was incredibly excited to hear that Ron Gilbert was returning to give us his own take on Guybrush again. But the game offers nothing truly new. [spoiler] The ending was particularly disappointing. It felt flat and uninspired, revealing nothing we didn’t already know. It left me feeling empty, as though nothing meaningful had been accomplished. [/spoiler] The overarching narrative of Guybrush telling the story to Boybrush is lazy storytelling, and every subplot within the game feels similarly half-baked. And what’s the deal with those trivia cards? They’re filled with ridiculously difficult questions! As a veteran fan of the franchise, even I found myself guessing each time. This franchise should have been the Pirates of the Caribbean of our time, and Guybrush should have been our Jack Sparrow. I was really hoping for a redemption, for something fresh and exciting. But if this is what we get, then maybe some things are better left in the past. In the end, this game didn’t live up to my hopes. It’s a missed opportunity to breathe new life into the series I’ve loved for so long.

Zu schwach, zu woke, zu einfach. Die wahren Sieger sind Curse of Monkey Island von 1997 und Spiele wie "Edna bricht aus" oder die "Unwritten Tales"

I started the game today again. I just can't play it. Finished it on PS5 but PC is where it belongs to. This isn't a game, it is more. I just don't want to see the ending again. This game has the saddest ending of anything I've seen in my life. It describes exactly what happened probably to all of the people who played all of the Monkey Island games in their youth. Return to is a well deserved farewell. Like a Elementary School reunion after decades. Best friends meeting again, being kids for a couple of hours, remembering the foolish yet fun things they've done. Remembering everyones phone number, asking if Jeff can come out to play, buying sweets from our pocket money. Playing Monkey Island panicking about Disc 114. Memories, all the good, all the bad, all the fun ones. Now, we are grown up, showing around photos of our kids and family. Talking about work, the world, all the stress and joy we have. Our last ride ends on a bench, sitting next to each other, talking about that we still stay in contact all of us knowing that this will not really happen, one after another just fades away, all back scattered around the world. You are sitting there alone and think. The good old fun days, let's keep them in good memory. Sometimes we can say Goodbye with a smile on our face. Thank you and we'll miss you Guybrush.

I was very disappointed by Return to Monkey Island given how much hype I've heard about this series over the years. This was my first Monkey Island game and may well be my last. I was told it was very accessible to people new to the franchise, but it felt like most of the game's humor fully hinged on assuming the player had played the previous entries. I could usually pick up what it was putting down from context clues, but none of it was actually funny if you didn't know what it was referencing. The ending especially felt like it must be a reference to previous games and was extremely confusing to me. I was fully prepared for the ending to be disappointing, since that fit into the themes of the story, but not for it to be a bizarre non-sequitur that I had zero context for. Ruminating on it, I think I get what they were going for, but it was so disorienting and alienating to me as a player unfamiliar with the franchise that it retroactively soured the story of the game for me. I also just really didn't like Guybrush as a protagonist. I imagine he's meant to be annoying and incompetent, but I often found myself hoping for his downfall despite the fact that he was the player character because I hated him so much. I have never, ever liked the chatty, inept P&C protagonist trope and playing this game makes me wonder if the success of the original Monkey Island games are why it's so ubiquitous nowadays. I will henceforth blame Guybrush Threepwood for this trope that I hate 'til the end of my days, or until I find evidence otherwise. Difficulty wise, most of the puzzles were either on the easy side or inscrutable nonsense—very few fell in the "tricky but solvable" sweet spot. I will say the hint system was pretty well tuned, and generally gave you just enough information to nudge you in the right direction for the trickier ones. It did have a few especially clever solutions re-using old items and inverting previous solutions that were fun to discover. Overall, the puzzles were generally fine, with a couple notable standouts both good and bad. I did really like the art in this game. The character designs and background art were all super fun. I probably screencapped every unique bird in the game because I just loved how all of them were drawn. Overall, this game is about legacy, both the legacy of the player character within the story and the legacy of the Monkey Island franchise as a whole. I can appreciate their angle but it just doesn't really click if you, like me, are not at all familiar with that legacy. Maybe this game really hits if you're a longtime Monkey Island fan. Unfortunately, I am not, and it didn't hit for me.

Il mio primo videogame mai giocato e di cui ho memoria fu Monkey Island, per anni ho avuto come suoneria il tema principale del primo capitolo e Guybrush è uno di quei personaggi che valica lo schermo e "mi ha fatto compagnia" anche nel mondo reale: questo RTMI serve a farci capire, a me e a tutti quelli che hanno avuto un percorso simile al mio, che son passati più di 30 anni da allora, in un manifesto di delicata nostalgia che serve anche allo scopo di mettere un punto fermo su una delle saghe più importanti sempre. Cheers...al segreto di Monkey Island.

I think the writer got fed up half way through and just gave up.

The artwork is fine, I didn't mind at all. But the story is far from being a MI game. I know people are supposed to change through time, different ideas and point of views as well. However, I was expecting something completely different, more pirate and less infantile. Curse of Monkey Island is so much better and fun than this game. Maybe the good ideas for this game were lost throughout time.