Tales of Monkey Island is a third-person adventure game, in which our hero, Guybrush Threepwood (mighty pirate), must collect items and manipulate his surroundings to foil evil plots, find hidden treasure, and engage in witty banter with his fellow pirate brethren. For those who have never played a Lucasarts adventure game, the interface is simple—you explore the area that you are in, talk to citizens, collect random items, and then use those items on people and puzzles to progress through the story.
Long-time fans of the Monkey Island series will know oh-so-well that, at times, hero Guybrush Threepwood, and his entourage of aspiring pirate wannabees, encounter certain situations that can only be resolved by combining a banana with a parrot, or putting a parrot through a hole, or any other such arbitrary combination. In these highly implausible situations, as quirky and lovable as they are, it seems the only road to salvation is to resort to random item combinations. Many will empathize when I say that at certain points in the series, solving puzzles in a Monkey Island game left me thinking, “Oh…really? I guess that makes sense.” Or, “hmm…wait, what?” This being the case, Monkey Island games are still some of the easiest Lucasarts adventure games to comprehend. Sam & Max, The Dig, and did I mention Sam & Max, are notoriously more cryptic.
That being said, the newest installment to the Monkey Island franchise, Tales of Monkey Island, thankfully follows a much more solvable, and intuitive puzzle structure. The item combinations are woven better than ever into the theme and ambience of the world you inhabit, as each item tends to exist for a purpose in the world. It is easier to formulate a possible purpose for each item because they are introduced and mentioned in dialogue. If an item is crucial at a certain point, it will be thoroughly referenced. The puzzles just seem to be more creative and premeditated, with solutions that can be extrapolated once the player knows what they are trying to accomplish. In previous installments, solutions to puzzles were often unclear, whereas in this game, a reasonable amount of talking to strangers and exploration leads the player to their intended goal. Seasoned swashbucklers may be thinking that the game sounds easier, but don’t get me wrong, the game is complex and considerably long.
What really makes Monkey Island stand out from other adventure games is its witty banter, amusing item combinations (and use thereof), and the beautifully drawn worlds, each so imaginatively conveyed. The departure from 2D, artist-rendered backgrounds and characters, to a 3D graphics style failed miserably in the fourth Monkey Island game, Escape From Monkey Island. The game was clunky, unrefined and glitchy, and lacked the same artistic charm that the 2-D games had. It was a first attempt—there was room to improve. But with TMI, the technology has finally caught up with the artists’ vision. The characters are well defined, funny, and suitably voice-acted. Each has a vital stake in the storyline and becomes actively involved in the plot at some point. The environments are even more fleshed-out, with vivid colors and very distinct themes to each area. This game sucks you in to the pirate universe; it is alive and thriving. This game truly feels like it’s a part of the series, a sentiment that I cannot express about Escape From Monkey Island.
One of the most interesting, and innovative, aspects of TMI’s release is that it's split into five individual, downloadable episodes, all of which were released in consecutive order a few weeks apart. The previous games were organized in chapters, each at a key moment in the plotline. This time around, the game has been released episodically, each chapter its own entity. This gives players the opportunity to complete the game in a chapter-by-chapter saga, which gives a sense that these are stand-alone games, each with a beginning, middle, and end. This may sound like the fluidity of the storyline is disrupted, but the game does a great job of keeping homogeneity between each segment. There are cliffhangers at the end of each episode, and thematically the story ramps up right before the break, so there is a heap of expectation.
One of the more unexpected benefits of the episode system is that it relieves some anxiety to speed through the game. For completionists there is a sense of accomplishment from finishing each episode, and also a relief that you haven’t just zipped through the game. It gives the series even more of a leisurely, casual feel (an element the previous games became famous for) without taking away from the excitement and intrigue of the story. Don’t get me wrong, the game does not feel disjointed; its story is possibly the smoothest and best told of the whole series. However, the game doesn't have the strongest ending, and diminishes the satisfaction that the episode system fought so valiantly to create. With a strong, epic ending (dare I site Full Throttle) this game would have been truly excellent.
Monkey Island 5: Tales of Monkey Island, raises the bar for excellence in level-design and puzzle-design in the adventure genre as a whole. Where many other new adventure games have created unique spins on the adventure gaming genre, namely Limbo and Machinarium, by creating a new game mechanic for the player to use, TMI does stick to the tried and true methods for which Lucasarts set the groundwork. That being said, they blazed the trail into point-and-click stardom because their game design was evocative and addicting. This game has taken that core, rewired it for 3-D and really sown an original tale--one truly worthy of the Monkey Island namesake.
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