14 votes

Return to Monkey Island | Launch trailer

17 comments

  1. [8]
    vili
    Link
    Any other wannabe-pirates returning to Mêlée Island tonight? I just downloaded my copy and I'm about to press Play. It's been over 30 years since the mysterious ending of LeChuck's Revenge. Quite...

    Any other wannabe-pirates returning to Mêlée Island tonight? I just downloaded my copy and I'm about to press Play. It's been over 30 years since the mysterious ending of LeChuck's Revenge. Quite excited!

    5 votes
    1. [7]
      hook
      Link Parent
      I'll wait for the Linux port, but super excited!

      I'll wait for the Linux port, but super excited!

      1 vote
      1. [2]
        vili
        Link Parent
        After about three hours of playing, I can say it's worth getting excited about. That's enough for one evening, but I'm very curious to see whether it's going where I think it's going!

        After about three hours of playing, I can say it's worth getting excited about. That's enough for one evening, but I'm very curious to see whether it's going where I think it's going!

        4 votes
        1. hook
          Link Parent
          Nice! Looking forward to it and will try to go in blind.

          Nice! Looking forward to it and will try to go in blind.

          1 vote
      2. mat
        Link Parent
        I fired up Windows for the first time this year only to find that it wanted to spend several hours downloading updates and repeatedly rebooting along the way, while at the same time Steam hadn't...

        I fired up Windows for the first time this year only to find that it wanted to spend several hours downloading updates and repeatedly rebooting along the way, while at the same time Steam hadn't remembered my password and the reset tool was throwing errors, then I got timelocked out for getting my password wrong too many times. Gave up at 1am.

        I reckon if I leave my machine rebooting/downloading (every time it reboots it does so into Debian so I have to manually intervene to get things moving again) all day I might be able to try again to get into Steam this evening and then spend a few more hours downloading before I can finally play the damn thing... It might be quicker to wait for the linux or Playstation version..

        2 votes
      3. moocow1452
        Link Parent
        Supposedly it works well on Steam Deck, so you could probably get the Steam Version going through Proton, but I don't begrudge you if you want to wait for the native port.

        Supposedly it works well on Steam Deck, so you could probably get the Steam Version going through Proton, but I don't begrudge you if you want to wait for the native port.

        1 vote
      4. [2]
        lou
        Link Parent
        I imagine that a game like that will work instantly with Proton, no?

        I imagine that a game like that will work instantly with Proton, no?

        1 vote
        1. Wes
          Link Parent
          Silver rating on ProtonDB currently, though marked as Steam Deck Verified by Valve.

          Silver rating on ProtonDB currently, though marked as Steam Deck Verified by Valve.

          2 votes
  2. [2]
    Bearskin
    Link
    "A pirate I was meant to be! Trim the sails and roam the sea!"

    "A pirate I was meant to be! Trim the sails and roam the sea!"

    2 votes
    1. balooga
      Link Parent
      We'll surely avoid scurvy if we all eat an orange!

      We'll surely avoid scurvy if we all eat an orange!

      2 votes
  3. [7]
    balooga
    Link
    I've never been a day-one gamer but I'll definitely pick this up at some point. I love the old MI games and I'm excited to see where this one goes. I'm particularly excited to see Ron Gilbert at...

    I've never been a day-one gamer but I'll definitely pick this up at some point. I love the old MI games and I'm excited to see where this one goes. I'm particularly excited to see Ron Gilbert at the helm again and with a beloved voice cast to boot.

    Really not digging the art style in that trailer though, yikes. Obviously that's not a dealbreaker for me but uff da does that look cheap.

    1 vote
    1. [6]
      vili
      Link Parent
      Me definitely neither, since games these days are rarely finished until about a year after their release. But with my favourite designers I'm willing to make an exception, in case it helps them...

      I've never been a day-one gamer

      Me definitely neither, since games these days are rarely finished until about a year after their release. But with my favourite designers I'm willing to make an exception, in case it helps them create more games in the future. I actually even pre-ordered this, which I never do. And naturally, I got a totally useless horse armour for my inventory!

      By the way, having now finished the game, I can report that I encountered no technical issues whatsoever. So, this one at least seems to have been released ready and properly tested.

      Really not digging the art style in that trailer though, yikes.

      It's interesting how many people have had a negative reaction to the art style. Ron Gilbert actually stopped updating us about the game after it was announced as he was so disappointed in how hostile some people got about the art in the reveal trailer.

      It's a matter of taste of course. Me, I personally liked the graphics. They worked very well for the game. Clean and modern, but also familiar and fitting for the series. Certainly better than the Telltale game's art style, and the less we talk about the visual presentation of Escape from Monkey Island, the better. ;)

      4 votes
      1. [4]
        Protected
        Link Parent
        All the games have different styles and this is fine. I remember Escape being praised for how it looked, in fact. It was the style at the time.

        All the games have different styles and this is fine. I remember Escape being praised for how it looked, in fact. It was the style at the time.

        3 votes
        1. [3]
          vili
          Link Parent
          Absolutely. They were all doing their best within the constraints that they had at the time. It's also good to keep in mind that debating about Monkey Island's graphics is as old as Monkey Island...

          Absolutely. They were all doing their best within the constraints that they had at the time.

          It's also good to keep in mind that debating about Monkey Island's graphics is as old as Monkey Island itself. When the VGA version of the first game came out (I think some time after the initial release?), I remember having heated arguments with my friends whether the EGA or the VGA version was better. I was very much in the EGA camp. It just felt crispier, moodier, more beautiful and atmospheric.

          I guess that's also why I preferred the first one's art style over that of the second game, which I thought was a bit blurry. A better game perhaps, but a blurry one.

          And when the third one came out, I of course hated its art style with a burning passion. But today, its screenshots fill me only with fond memories.

          4 votes
          1. [2]
            balooga
            Link Parent
            Okay, you guys got to me. I picked up the game and played a bit this evening. The art style is really not as bad when playing, as it looked to me in the trailer. The animations are crisp and...

            Okay, you guys got to me. I picked up the game and played a bit this evening. The art style is really not as bad when playing, as it looked to me in the trailer. The animations are crisp and responsive and everything feels great at 60 FPS. Lots of little details like particle effects and depth / dynamic zooming add richness that I couldn't pick up on in the quick-cut video. Overall I'm quite satisfied with my purchase! And more than happy to pay full price — the whole whopping $25 — to support Ron & Co.

            I will say, it's early yet but already I'm missing Earl Boen as LeChuck and Patrick Pinney as Stan. Both of them are inimitable (though the new LeChuck they cast is certainly trying) and irreplaceable parts of the cast. All the other characters I've encountered so far sound great. It's a treat exploring Melee Island again after so many years, and fun to see some new vantage points of familiar locations.

            It's also worth mentioning that the new contextual point-and-click scheme is pretty decent. Maybe I'm just a masochist who grew up with the classic verb buttons, but I was bracing to hate it. And it is streamlined almost to the point of dumbing down the game, but at least as far as I've gotten it doesn't cross that line. I'm impressed at the way the hover text manages to both guide the player and provide humor of its own. The in-game hint book and tab-to-reveal-clickable-objects are also great QoL improvements over the old system. I'd say on the whole it's way more intuitive than what CMI did, for comparison. Have you played The Cave? Another Ron Gilbert adventure I really enjoyed, which had its own UI innovations, and I so far I like Return to Monkey Island's better than its implementation too.

            3 votes
            1. vili
              Link Parent
              I'm glad you are enjoying it! I'd be curious to hear your thoughts when you have finished the game. I had no problem with Stan's voice, but LeChuck felt a little off. Then again, also Elaine felt...

              I'm glad you are enjoying it! I'd be curious to hear your thoughts when you have finished the game.

              I had no problem with Stan's voice, but LeChuck felt a little off. Then again, also Elaine felt off, even if it was the same voice actor as in previous games, so maybe it's just that I was off. My original instinct was actually to turn off the voice acting and read the dialogue, which is usually my preference. But for some reason, maybe because of the art style for the dialogue bubbles, it felt uncomfortable, so I played with the voices on.

              I too liked the new contextual UI, but I was still disappointed that it basically works as a replacement for the kind of humour you used to get with trying everything on everything and getting funny responses. This made the game feel more restricting to me, although in reality it was probably still better UI design in the end. And because of voice acting, you no longer can write funny responses to everything. I'm not a big fan of voice acting.

              I don't know why I'm mentioning so many negatives -- I did enjoy the game!

              I played The Cave when it came out. After my first playthrough, I wasn't quite sure if I liked it. But on my second, I absolutely fell in love with the game. I'm not sure if it was because of a different pair of characters, because the themes somehow needed a repeated playthrough for me, or if I was just in a different place for the second game. But it was an interesting change to notice in myself.

              2 votes
      2. lou
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I never played any game on this series, just watched the trailer in a 55" TV. I don't like the art style. I'm not an artist, so I don't have the vocabulary to say precisely what I mean, but I'm...

        I never played any game on this series, just watched the trailer in a 55" TV. I don't like the art style. I'm not an artist, so I don't have the vocabulary to say precisely what I mean, but I'm not a fan of the contemporary tendency towards minimalism in animation, and I really don't like the tendency of characters without clear outlines... By that I mean, there are no outer lines defining the boundaries of the character. Feels too childish and reminds me of Peppa Pig. The colors too. IDK. I'm in general not a fan of things that scream "vector graphics", it feels cheap and uninteresting. I'm really showing my age here, but I have a strong tendency to like things that have a hand-made feel (regardless of the actual technique used to achieve that effect). Pixel art certainly scratches that itch, even though it's digital. Of course, that is highly subjective, those are just my personal impressions.

        2 votes