Return To Monkey Island - MI2 sequel from Ron Gilbert

[Great Deceiver]

I think one of the most strange things until the release of this game was the zealous defense of this game against all odds. Whenever you critiziced it, you were blasted by the usual -"ist" insults to the point no discussion could be made. Now that the game has been out for a while and the ending has been proven without doubt that is shit and incoherent (or bad and incoherent due trying too many things at once at best), the discussion regarding this game is mostly gone.

There's nothing strange about it - it's standard operating procedure now across all industries, including film. If you criticize #Product on its own merits, you're a racist homophobe and literally Austrian. A few months down the line when #Product is completely forgotten and relegated to the trash heap of history, those responsible just pretend nothing ever happened.

#Product isn't beholden to the profit motive anymore. ESG grants and funny money financing ensures that no one is ever held accountable for anything. The future is bright.

What was funny about this one, is how quickly the insults and accusations started flying over the art style.

This wasn't about any of the normal bugbears - criticism wasn't about gender roles, or trannies being in it, or the writing being done by a woman, or that a character was blackwashed, it was literally about the art style - which should have been entirely safe ground to critique - and they still ran the same playbook because they know they can.

I disagree that this is standard operating procedure in all industries right now, it's still a play only run when the criticism revolves around lighting rod topics. I think they intentionally throw in those lightning rods when they have a shit product to galvanize attention - i.e. black hobbits in that shitty LOTR show - but it's still focused on the racial aspects - not criticism of the overall product.

But gaming, being one of the first industries to succumb to the woke infection, is on the cutting edge. What happened with gaming companies and gaming 'journos' spread pretty quickly - so I fully anticipate when Disney puts out some shit film where the criticism is devoid of anything to do with social topics, but just that it looks like shit, they're going to run this play.

The end result is the same - deflecting legitimate grievances with an all-purpose shield built out of victimization and resentment. Btw, I agree that it's an intentional tactic employed by modern corporations to throw in those 'lightning rods' into shitty products, but it's getting really tired and even normies can see through it by now.

In the case of this game, although the initial object of criticism was the offensively terrible art style (and later on the ridiculous writing, nonexistent puzzles, lack of soul, regurgitation of previous material, etc.), the creator employed the exact same tactic as if the ostensible audience were voicing concerns about any of the sacred cows du jour. He vilified the people who built up his career and his brand because he got a little check from Disney and his brain has sloughed off due to extended exposure to SJW garbage juice.

It used to be that someone producing garbage would be met with some sort of fallout after said garbage flopped, but now many - especially those at the very top - are shielded from market consequences and continue to 'fall upwards'.

Why do you think Kathleen Kennedy or Jennifer Salke have retained their positions after such astronomical, colossal failures as the ones they've been responsible for?

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

all in all, it's pretty fucking sad that MI ends up forgotten like this

 

[EccentricLecher]

Did they really think this new artstyle was any good? It looks terrible compared to the Disneyesque style of Escape from Monkey Island and the soulful artwork of Secret and Curse of monkey Island.

Spoiler

I always hoped that that old guy would eventually hit the mansion if I just stood by and watched him operate the catapult. I was sad when it didn't happen in spite of how long I waited.

 

[Great Deceiver]

When people are reminiscing fondly about Escape from Monkey Island, you know Ron fucked up beyond belief

 

[Darth Roxor]

escape from monkey island is unironically a good game

 

[Rincewind]

escape from monkey island is unironically a good game

Should try it one day. I stopped at Curse.

 

[Rahdulan]

escape from monkey island is unironically a good game

Negatives weigh too heavily for my taste. Like how you're constantly fighting the controls because they were determined to sell the game on consoles which necessitated it worked with a gamepad. Less said about Monkey Kombat the better.

 

[Falksi]

escape from monkey island is unironically a good game

Should try it one day. I stopped at Curse.

Escape falls into that "it's so much shitter than the others, but there are still enough remnants of what made them great for it to worth a once-through" category for me.

It's not a patch on the first three, nowhere near. But in rare moments it does hit the spot. There is one section around half-way through the game that is genuinely good enough to be in the first 3 games.

 

[HeroMarine]

all in all, it's pretty fucking sad that MI ends up forgotten like this

This shit is best forgotten.

 

[Beastro]

The animation in this is annoying as hell. All I can think of is this this watching it:

 

[talan]

https://grumpygamer.com/unions

"Thimbleweed Park was the first game I ever saw anything from. I am getting something from RtMI but it's small. I've created a lot over the years and only made other people rich."

Unless Gilbert is joking (I wouldn't put it past him) it looks like RtMI wasn't a big success after all

UPDATE: fixed the success part of my post since it's obvious from his words that RtMI wasn't

Hmm is this really true?

He was one of two founders of Humongous Entertainment, which were massively successful with millions of copies sold.

I get he wouldn't get a persistent cashflow from it a few decades later, but surely there would've been a boatload of money at the time.

 

[Outlander]

https://grumpygamer.com/unions

"Thimbleweed Park was the first game I ever saw anything from. I am getting something from RtMI but it's small. I've created a lot over the years and only made other people rich."

Unless Gilbert is joking (I wouldn't put it past him) it looks like RtMI wasn't a big success after all

UPDATE: fixed the success part of my post since it's obvious from his words that RtMI wasn't

Hmm is this really true?

He was one of two founders of Humongous Entertainment, which were massively successful with millions of copies sold.

I get he wouldn't get a persistent cashflow from it a few decades later, but surely there would've been a boatload of money at the time.

He's probably just lying.

 

[El Pollo Diablo]

Finally gathered enough courage to play this.

Well, we got one decent chapter (chapter 4), and if this was any other game I'd call that a win since it would be one decent chapter more than most "modern" adventure games manage to deliver. But since this carries the name of Monkey Island, as a fan of the series (as you can tell by my username), I expected more.

The art direction makes the game look cheap, but for me the most important aspect by far are the puzzles. I do appreciate the two difficulties and on the higher difficulty some of the puzzles are indeed more difficult. However, while in the earlier games I always got the feeling the hard mode was the way the game was intended to be played and the easier mode was hard mode with some puzzles *removed*, here I get the opposite impression. I repeatedly stated I will gladly take moon logic over "logical" (read: trivial) puzzles, but I just get the impression not a lot of thought want into the "hard mode" puzzles here. It is as if, at some point towards the end of development, Ron realized "Oh shit, I need to add some puzzles for the people who actually like playing Monkey Island" and just tacked some on quickly.

The writing and overall design, while serviceable is also unmemorable. The Curse of Monkey Island gets negative sentiment sometimes from the fans of the first two, but compared to this one, it oozes charm with original characters such as Murrey or the singing pirates. I asked myself what will I remember fondly of this game a year from now, and unfortunately, nothing comes to mind.

So, while it does have some merit, as the Monkey Island game it doesn't escape the the mediocrity of Escape or Tales and doesn't approach the greatness of the first few games.

 

[Ivan]

might pick it up on a rainy day sale

 

[Viata]

Man, that nose really looks like a dick. I refuse to believe the artist didn't see that dick nose.