Retronauts - 486: Retronauts Episode 486: Return to Monkey Island

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

It's been 11 years since the last proper Monkey Island entry, and more than three decades since series creator Ron Gilbert left Guybrush and company in the hands of others. So it goes without saying fans were more than delighted when mid-2022 saw the announcement of Return to Monkey Island, a proper sequel to 1991's Monkey Island 2—and one that somehow doesn't discount all the installments made in between. And now it's here! On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey and Nina Matsumoto as they set sail for yet another Monkey Island journey; but this time, it's to formerly uncharted waters. Retronauts is a completely fan-funded operation. To support the show, and get two full-length exclusive episodes every month, as well as access to 50+ previous bonus episodes, please visit the official Retronauts Patreon at patreon.com/retronauts.

Retronauts is part of the HyperX Podcast Network. Find us in more great shows at podcast.hyperx.com. This week on Retronauts, we reveal a hidden use for the horse armor. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Retronauts. I'm your host for this one, Bob Mackie. And this week we're talking all about Return to Monkey Island because, yes, we are back with another entry in our Lucas Arts podcast miniseries. And who would have guessed when I started this back in September of 2019 that we'd have a new Monkey Island game to cover? Yes, Return to Monkey Island came out just a few weeks ago as of this podcast launch date. And I think to date, this is the newest game that we've ever covered on Retronauts. I might be wrong about that, but I don't think I am. But yes, we're very excited to talk about this. And joining me is my Monkey Island first mate. She's been with me through all five Monkey Island podcast we've done so far. Who is here with me today? Hi, I'm Nina Matsumoto and I'm returning to Podcast Island. It's true. We are setting sail for podcast Island. I'm kind

of stranded here. I've been here for about 12 years. So I'm like the Elaine in this case where I keep popping in and out of your story. Yes. Really, Retronauts is about my. adventures and that's how it's going to stay but nina nina is joining us today and uh yeah we're really excited to talk about this game it came out i had a few days to play it and then i i went to vancouver to stay with nina for a week and we weren't uh we like for better ourselves from talking about the game so we we are just bustling about to explode uh with opinions about this game and uh really excited to talk about it we kept saying we shouldn't talk about this save it for the podcast And I would say, oh, just one more thing, and then I would, you know, burn off podcast fuel that I need for this episode.

But, yeah, just let everybody know that the first half of this podcast will be us discussing generalities. It's going to be spoiler-free. We're going to keep it spoiler-free. So if you haven't played the game yet, you're interested in knowing what it's about, how it controls, what the UI is like, and just what the general, like, puzzle philosophy is like. We're going to cover that with no real spoilers. And then the back half of the game, sorry, the back half of the podcast, rather, will be a discussion about the story of the game and the themes and the puzzles. And we're not going to cover like every puzzle and every character, but we're going to go over just, you know, the general step by step of how the game plays out and what our thoughts are. But up front, I did want to know general spoiler free thoughts about the game.

And we're going to give our like little reviews at the end. But, Nina, do you want to start us off here? Like, what are your general thoughts about this game? Did you like it? Again, spoiler-free. Sure. Overall, I liked it a lot. I got used to the art style very quickly.

And it was a lot easier than I expected it to be. But that doesn't mean it's boring. It just means it's very player-friendly. And the puzzles make a lot of sense. As you know, Bob, I played this game twice before you came up here to see me. So I was like twice in two days. and then I played it again last night so I played it three times now

and that's because once you know the puzzles it's very easy to blast through just like the first two games speaking of the story definitely retreads a lot of the first game but somehow the first and second games but somehow it doesn't feel like hackish or repetitive well the ending is controversial among fans already

much like the second game we can talk about that way later and overall it just feels like a version of the first first two Ron Gilbert games that's more optimized for the modern gaming experience or for those who aren't used to adventure games. Yeah, I totally agree with what you're saying. I have a few of my own thoughts in that I saw people, when this game released, I saw people saying, and I understand why they're saying this. They're saying, oh, which one should I play first or should I play the whole series first? Well, number one, I will say, don't play Escape from Monkey Island. Never do that. Even if it's a life or death situation, I would just choose.

death at this point after playing the game. I mean, check out our podcast about that. But yeah, people are kind of tying themselves and knots like, oh, what do I have to know? What do I have to play? And I say, if you've never played a Monkey Island game before, if you've never played an adventure game before, you can start with this one. It is built for a modern sensibility. It is not built for the hardcore adventure gamer who has been playing adventure games for 30 years. I am one of those people. But the game also appeals to me for certain reasons. And the ways that it appeals to modern gamers, uh, did not push me away. But I say, this is such a thoroughly modern take on the adventure game experience that it really feels like Ron Gilbert, uh, 30 years after

Monkey Island set out the rules for adventure games. He's sort of like redefining his, uh, like rewriting his manifesto to say, okay, now this is what adventure game should be like. I really feel like it is that revolutionary in terms of, uh, building off of the rules he set out for Monkey Island one. How do you feel about that bold statement, Nina? Yeah, I agree. Although I've seen some hardcore Michaelian fans complaining that it's too easy, I just say, well, maybe the first two games were too hard, and it was better for a time when people had more time to do things like that,

because now we're constantly blasted with other forms of entertainment, and back then you could just spend like a week stuck on a puzzle. and now you can't do that especially with spoilers everywhere there's an easy way to look up the solution of things the game even gives you a way to do that i'm sure that's also controversial the fact that there is a hint book in the game which is i think it's a first for a monkey island game if i think about it yeah there wasn't anything like that entails because it's like a similar system they introduced in thibblebee park by ron gilbert yeah we'll talk more about the details about that later but i mean monkey island too would give you the 1-900 Star Wars number

as a joke saying if you're stuck called a hint line. But yeah I feel like as a guy who's played all of these Monkey Island games who's played countless adventure games I feel like this was I won't say easy but I will say the challenge

was fairly moderate but I was never bored I was never disappointed in the puzzles in fact like it was a very addictive game that I couldn't stop playing because solving the puzzles was satisfying and even though they weren't as challenging as past Monkey Island game puzzles

I think that's because these puzzles are more intuitive and the ways that the past puzzles challenged me were often unfair and the way this game is designed really winnows away a lot of the variables of passive adventure games and makes it a lot easier to kind of try out every possible solution

and of course there's the hint book in the or the hint system in the game which is optional entirely but yeah I feel like if you're tying yourself in knots and thinking oh god i don't know anything about monkey island people are talking about this should i get through the games first i will say no because you probably won't get through the games you'll probably get stuck or like you'll just get tired of playing five monkey island games in a row and then give up i say

start with this one and then play one and two and see where you want to go from there and of course we have our podcasts um our podcasts about the past games you can always rely on those but uh yeah like uh i will also say and i'll uh i'll go into more about this in the final thoughts like i think in terms of design, this is the best monkey island game, period. And this may sound like Sackrelage as a retro gaming podcaster, but these are people who

define the adventure game genre returning to it and showing everybody how it's done. And the 30 years of experience that Dave Grossman and Ron Gilbert have really have added up to like the sublime platonic ideal of the adventure game

experience. And yes, I'm putting that out there right now. This is the best design monkey Island game period. And I mean, maybe it's just because I just finished it and it's fresh in my mind, but I was constantly thinking about all the other games, all the other puzzles. I feel like in terms of design, this one is the best. Yeah, I agree with you on that. The gameplay wise and mechanically, it's extremely solid. It's extremely friendly to the player without taking away the immersion too much. And that's also why I've been able to play it three times now, even though it's been out for just like two weeks because it's easy to go through and it's still

even though you can like blast through it it's still fun going through everything going through the motions because there's nothing about it that's tedious yeah i totally agree they make so many choices that eliminate tedium from the adventure game and we'll talk more about specific examples of those later in the spoilery section but yeah i mean if you're there's also casual versus hard mode and we both played on hard mode yes uh and we'll talk more about what that means but i think hard mode is like a misnomer uh It's just, if you know what an adventure game is, that's the mode you should play. If you're at least familiar with like the mechanics and the grammar of adventure games,

I feel like that's a good place to start off. But I also don't think it's that hard of a game. But if you're wondering, like, you know, it's a 2499 game. I'm sure it'll go on sale during the holidays. You might think, oh, is that too much? It's about a 12 to 15 hour experience, and I think there's a lot of replay value in the game because I started a new game because I played on the switch and now I'm playing on the PC version. I started a new game thinking, I just want to see how the PC version plays.

And I found that just by playing about 90 minutes of it or an hour of it, I was like, oh, this is kind of a new experience. I mean, the general point of the dialogue is the same, but all this time I'm now choosing new options and I'm hearing new conversations, which was kind of the idea from the beginning with Monkey Island. It's like you can choose from like four different jokes. And when you play through the game again, you can choose a different joke for this exchange. And it really pays off in this game as well, I think. Friends, the holiday season is coming very soon and short of petitioning the calendar. under people, there's nothing we can do about it. Let's face it, the holidays are that chunk of the year when time is at a premium. If I had more hours in the day, I'd knock out the rest of my

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that includes a four-week trial, plus free postage and a free digital scale, no long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the page and enter the code Retro. That's Offer Code Retro, R-E-T-R-O at Stamps.com. Yeah, that's a big reason why, as soon as I finish this game, the first time, I immediately started replaying it again because I was like, I want to go back and choose different dialogue options and see what the character says in response. That's one of the first, that's one of the most fun things about the first two games.

There's a lot of replay value because of that And also because of the trivia cards they give you in this game Right, and now because there are achievements You can replay the game just to do the fun side things That reward you just for experimentation And do you have all of them yet? I know you just got the speed run achievement last night I do know that the last achievement is getting all the achievements

So technically I have nine Cheevos to get through still There are a lot, I was surprised Yeah, I was playing on the Switch version initially, and there are achievements in that version. Of course, there are only achievements that work within the game itself because there's no achievement system. And things are popping up. And I was like, oh, these are not like achievements, like push yourself to the test style achievements. It's like, oh, did you try doing this? Like a lot of fun, silly things in the game, which feels in the spirit of what Ron Gilbert wants his players to experience.

I don't think he likes the idea of achievements. I don't think he likes the idea of a lot of modern games. That's why, I mean, this is not a modern joke, but that's why when you pre-order the game, you get an elder scroll-style horse armor. I mean, that is, that is now a dad joke or a mom joke, if you prefer. It's like a 17-year-old joke. But, yeah, that's just, we can tell what his issues are with modern games based on what he does with Retronimoire. I actually like the chills because one thing I loved about the first two games is you can do certain actions that don't really amount to anything. It's inconsequential.

So, like, for example, in the second game, there's someone you can free from jail. And you don't have to do that at all. You can just, like, leave them in there. But, like, something like that would be a Chivo in this game. And I like trying those kind of love actions. And getting more for it is kind of neat. I'm not someone who usually chases Chivos at all. Like, I usually do not care.

But I kind of want to try everything in this game because it just kind of adds to the experience, I think. and there's another achievo for finding all four solutions to a certain puzzle like there's four ways you can complete something and it gives you an achievement for that like a little reward yeah I think it makes it better

that none of the achievements are about performance your performance as a player because it's an adventure game which makes them all like achievable you can see well you can get them all I mean I think there's a game I really like I try to get the achievements

and then I get to the ones where it's like well I can't perform well enough to actually do this unless I train or keep doing this over and over. So I'm not going to do this. But with Monkey Island, it does seem very, very possible. Or it's something like, collect 100 flags. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. Yeah.

Yes. Thankfully, there's nothing like that in Thimbleweed Park. Although there's something like that in Thimbleweed Park, but I think it is a joke. When you're collecting all, like, the dust specs in the game. I don't think there's achievable for that, is there. I got achievements for collecting certain numbers of dust specs. But, hey, this is not a Thimblewee Park episode. That one is around the corner, yes.

Sorry, it's been a while, so I play that one. I can't wait to play that game again after playing this game. They're five years apart. I really want to see what I want to remind myself of what Braun-Gurber was doing in Timblebe Park because I remember really enjoying that game. But I do like this one more. I want to talk about generalities. Okay, we're still in the spoiler-free section,

but I want to talk about like what the UI is like, what the gameplay is like. Then we could talk about, you know, the graphics, the music, the voice acting. But I played on the switch first, and then I played it on the PC, and the PC version controls exactly like you would think it was. You point and you click. and it's very straightforward in the console version

you just move guy brush around with the control stick and as you get close to things you can interact with little circles will appear and you can use the control pad or the L&R buttons to highlight those circles I think I mean obviously the PC version is better it plays in a higher resolution and the screen is not littered with those little circles

I think it's a much cleaner presentation but the switch one is perfectly playable and I think they did a great job of making it a console-style experience without making it feel like it's being hamstrung by the limitations of not having a mouse. But obviously, the keyboard and mouse setup is ideal for this experience,

but you're not really missing anything if you play it on Switch. Yeah, I've heard it's really gone Switch too. I just can't play stuff like this on a console since I grew up a PC gamer and this is a point-and-click game. It just feels wrong playing it any other way. I'm sorry.

now it's a steer and push game in the switch version so yeah that I mean that's straightforward you click on things you move guy brush around by clicking on areas around the screen in the switch version you hold down a button and use a control stick

for him to run in the PC version you just double click and he'll run there like in passive adventure games walking across the screen could take a very long time and even in the old Monkey Island games and this one like moving around is so easy and you're never bored moving to the end of the screen. It's all very fast and snappy and very little time is wasted and

moving around. So that's very good to see. Now, one of the more revolutionary things in this game is that there are no verbs, which kind of shocked me at first because when I interviewed Ron Gilbert 4th and Will We Park back when I was in the press, he was like, oh, Adventure Games, we lost something when we lost verbs. And I'm bringing back verbs. And he really was attached to the idea of verbs. And I was really surprised to not see them here. But then again, This is a modern experience, and I think verbs in the experience like this are really a thing of the past. So, yes, no verbs you click on on the screen to build sentences. You don't even get like a coin or like an icon.

Like in Curse of Monkey Island, there's a coin that pops up, and it's like taste, touch, use, look at, etc. That's the same as in like full throttle and Sam and Max. It's usually called like the verb coin or whatever. In this game, it's way different in that every interactible thing naturally has a, look-at function built-in. So, like, one mouse-click will be the look-at button, or one button push on the switch will be the lookout button. And oftentimes, there'll be another way to interact with it that is usually specific to

that item on the screen. So you can't choose from a list of verbs and then decide, like, okay, I want to push the door. I want to, you know, hit the door. I want to try every verb on this door. In this game, it'll be, like, look at the door and then open the door. and those will be the two things associated with it on the screen. And I think that really does a lot to eliminate all of the unnecessary variables

that can make an adventure game, like, difficult in a way it doesn't need to be. Because just the game won't let you try everything on everything. And that was usually the way to, in a very tedious way, brute force every puzzle in adventure game. Like, I'm going to rub every item on everything I see. I'm going to try a reverb on everything I see until the game lets you progress. Well, your options are much more limited. which means the game is much more intuitive, I think,

and in a very smart way. I do miss trying to put my mouth on everything, though. That is true. I did like the fun interactions that came out of, like, just trying an unlikely verb on an object. But that also led to a lot of adventure games being, the one line of dialogue you would hear is, I can't use these things together,

like 3,000 times throughout the course of a game, and they eliminate that entirely because one other thing they do in this game is that you can, can't use every item on everything you see. If you pull out an item from your inventory and try to use it around the screen, you'll notice that most of the things you can interact with will now have a little cross sign through them, which means, no, you can't use this item on this. I really appreciate it. Which I think is like, okay, yeah, I mean, that saves so much time. And often

you'll be able to use an item on something and that won't be the solution, but that will lead you in the right direction. It's like, oh, you can use this item, these items together. but the item you're using it on needs to be in a different state first or something like that. And I thought that was very, very smart. There's not a whole lot of combining of items in your inventory in this game, I've noticed. Yeah, me too. Like they will talk about the prolog, but they train you how to do everything in the prolog. And one of the things they train you to do is combining items in your inventory.

And I think that's really only used for maybe like three or four different puzzles in a game with like 100 puzzles in it. I really feel like that's a minority in this game. Maybe that's just because it's unintuitive. It's something that people aren't thinking about doing combining items in their inventory. And I think maybe that's why it's not featured heavily in this game. And there's not anything like, and we're going to bring this game up a lot, I think, Escape from Monkey Island, where you can pick up a bunch of useless prosthetic parts and put them together for no reason. Yes.

I mean, we're going to bring up escape. And I don't think we have any big Escape fans out there. but it shows you a possible path for adventure games that I'm glad that we never took and it also shows why this 2D version is so much better and why we didn't need the the grime engine and where that was bringing us. But yeah, everything is just so much more intuitive

and I mean it is 22 years later and things should be more intuitive. But yeah, Escape from Monkey Island will be like the Donnie Don't of the Monkey Island podcast from now on. Oh, for sure, yeah. like escape is escape versus return is like

don'ts and do's I think escape used the Lua system which I don't know if they've used that ever again since I'm not sure what this new one is called

do you remember it's called the the dinky engine okay right yeah and it is created by Ron Gilbert and somebody else yeah it works

very well and yeah very impressed by that I'm thinking about other things with the UI that they've done with this game

most of the interactions in a given area this game is really about economy I think and there's very few rooms in which there's like a dozen things to look at and absorb all the text like that can be overwhelming an adventure game like I'm in a new room and I know I enjoy getting flavor text but that means clicking on 20 different things

and kind of camping out in this room for 25 minutes like they are about economy in this game and there's not a ton of interactable objects within any given room and most of the interactions are you asking someone in the same room about the object. I've noticed that instead of just a look at

command, oftentimes it'll be like you asking someone in the same room like, what is this or can I take this? There's usually like a question associated with that object, not just give me a description. It's usually in a store so it kind of makes sense. Yeah. And one thing I didn't notice is that

one thing I didn't mention is that like the look at command for Guybrush it's not like inspect object or look at blank it'll often be like his immediate thoughts on the object like yuck or what is that like they they really dress it up to make it more interesting it would be very boring if it was just look at sign look at parrot to look at pirate things like that they really tried to give you his inner monologue through the commands you're clicking on yeah and and there's only i think two puzzles where you're stuck in one room or one location that you cannot or one really small location and you cannot leave. But getting out of there, it's pretty easy to figure out. Yeah, I really enjoyed the bottle puzzles in this game where, I mean, Monkey Island 1 and 2 did it,

where you're in a room, you can only use the things in the room, and it's kind of like a little escape room, like how do you find your way out of here? Other things in the game, the presentation I didn't want to highlight here because we talked about this in our little preview discussion of the game

in the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Adventure Game podcast but yes there was a lot of hate for the look at this game initially

really upset Ron Gilbert and I can say like I was not seeing it then and I know it existed and I'm definitely not seeing it now like I'm reading threads about the game now as I finished it

I'm reading discussions about the game on like Reddit and message boards not one person has said like oh man I love the game but I wish the graphics look different like that really is not brought up because I think

even if you had a negative reaction to what the game looked like. And I was a little put off. I didn't hate it, but I was like, can I get used to this? Yes, you will get used to it because you end up realizing like the advantages of art style like that. The backgrounds are very beautiful.

And I think the main appeal for me, or one of the biggest appeals for me is like, I've never seen a 2D adventure game with accurate lip sync on the characters, and this one has it. And I think that actually adds a lot to watching little bobbing heads yacking back and forth at each other. like minutes on end. Maybe you weren't looking at the rate spots because I went on the Monkey Island subreddit last night and I saw a lot of hate for the art style still.

Oh, really? Okay. I was not on the Monkey Island subreddit. I was on something awful. Oh, okay. In the adventure game thread, they're very, you know, they're very complimentary about the graphics. But what did you think about the graphics? And did you have any issues with them? One thing I really like about them is that it changes up the visual language of an adventure game where adventure games are usually about just staring at a fairly static screen. But with this art style they often do close-ups of faces they'll often do cutaways to people handing you things or taking things from you or showing you things i think the graphics uh really kind of mix up the visuals to keep everything very interesting that you're staring out on the screen well people are spicier on reddit so maybe that's why yeah i also i like the art style i got used to the animation quickly i said in the the preview i guess the preview podcast about uh this that we did I said I didn't like how they kind of like swayed and undulated as they were standing there. Some of the floatier animations, kind of puppety animation I was a big fan of.

And it took me a little bit to get used to that, but once I was fully immersed in the game, it was not a concern of mine at all because I was still, I was just like more concentrated on actually playing the game itself. The colors, I feel, were very reminiscent of Monkey Island too. like the big chunky angular exaggerations reminded me of games like David Tenicle. So it felt like a mashup of the two styles and it worked really well. I think one minor complaint I have is they're not very expressive in the face. Maybe it's because the previous game was Tales of Monkey Island and that was very expressive.

There's a whole puzzle based on facial expression. So I think that's why it was like that. And now we're kind of back to what it was like in the first two games, which I normally don't mind. Like, I like the look of the first two games. The second one is, like, my ideal version of Monkey Island in general. But I think when you add voice acting to it, which the first two games did not have initially, of course, it feels weird when the voice acting is big,

but you don't see much change in the faces. So I felt kind of a disconnect there. yeah it's uh i i agree with you in some parts that uh like the like the like the visual language of tales of monkey island was like the language of film and tv like the way conversations were shown to the player was as if you were kind of watching a movie where there's like reverse shots and things like that in this the visual language is that of an adventure game where you're just watching two little characters talking back and forth and the downside of that is like the faces everybody's got very tiny eyes and very small features in their faces and those aren't as expressive as they could be but i think think the body language goes a long way and the puppety nature of the characters even if it puts you off a bit at first it lets them do so many unique animations that would be just too time intensive to create if these were all sprites like guy brush can do so many unique things that could only really be done on this scale uh through these puppety characters and i think that really goes a long way um just seeing all of the unique animations that go with certain actions that could never happen in an old monkey island game i actually didn't like the close-ups very much. It really put me off at first. They're kind of randomly placed which I can't criticize

too much because it's like that in the first game as well. You see a lot of close-ups in like the scum bar and then after that they just kind of forget about doing close-ups for some reason unless you see something like Elaine or Carla the Swordmaster. And in this

like, so the cool thing about the first game, you see the close-up and you see the details in the face. You see what the characters are supposed to look like. It's especially helpful with Elaine because you're supposed to fall in love with her. But in this, when you see a close-up of the face, it just looks like you zoomed in on the Sprite artwork. There's not like a whole lot of extra detail there. So it made me think, why are we doing this? I will admit that it can be awkward sometimes when you're not expecting it, just to see it like a giant face and then they cut

away from it, but I think they were trying to think of ways to make the visual language of this kind of experience more exciting. It often doesn't work, but I did enjoy a lot of the cutaways to like, not even the face stuff, just, you know, hands grabbing things and taking things or them showing you a close-up of an object. Yeah, like the faces aren't, don't often work because there's so little detail in the faces themselves. So it's strange to see them that big on the screen. Especially since I played on, I played the PC version. And it's like huge on there. and it's just like big blocks of color mostly and especially you don't see it coming

it can be really jarring I guess it can be hard to like immediately read a face in how the is it Rex Crowell is that his is that the name of the the art designer on this game the visual designer Rex Crowell oh I think so yes let's just say it is and I'll look it up later

but his work I mean it's very expressive it's very unique but I think if you're just presented with like a close up of a face in his style it could be hard to immediately parse it, I think. And I don't think there's a good solution to that really, because I don't think this

his style would work very well if he added a bunch of extra details to it. It just works best as like a scene from farther away, like a full figure of a character. So maybe they shouldn't, they just shouldn't have done it, is what I think. Yeah, yeah. But I do like

the hand. It doesn't happen that much. I do like the hand close-ups though, because one thing I really like about this game is everything feels very dirty and like grimy and corrupt as a monkey alien setting should be

and the hands kind of add to that every time you see close up with a hand usually like the fingernails are cracked and dirty or the object itself is disgusting like the scurvy dog and the prologue for example it was like really gross

yes yeah the close up of objects are very nice and I like in the beginning when I mean they even they even do that for jokes where in the beginning when you talk to the three pirate leaders this is not a spoiler by the way because it's a monkey island

there are pirate leaders one of them is like just like carving something in the table and when they start laughing at you they cut to her carving ha ha in the table which is something that'd be much harder to do in like a sprite art style like everything past the first two games

felt too clean I think except for maybe Curse like curse still had like hand-drawn artwork so they could add a lot of details there but all the 3D ones even though I like tails a lot like it didn't feel as cluttered or dirty

because that's just like way way more work like making a lot of modeling a lot of objects is a lot of work and they didn't add like a ton of I guess grunge texture to things and then like the islands they went to themselves or like more rich I guess like curse had Perotopoyo

escape had Luker Island and in this game the settings just felt more like what a pirity setting should be there's like there's stuff everywhere things are filthy I mean you're never in one place for too long I think and that really helps mix things up

and more spoiler-free thoughts here so we could talk about some general things about the game You mentioned trivia cards earlier, Nina. How did those work? Because it's a little fun side game within the game. What are trivia cards and how do they function? They just spawn randomly throughout the game.

You pick it up. Well, first of all, you pick up a trivia card book. You need that to start the trivia game pretty much. The cards spawned randomly throughout the game and you have to keep picking them up and answering them in order to get new cards. So you can't just accord them. The trivia is all about Like stuff from the past games

About the characters, the lore Some of it is about Behind the scene stuff Like questions about Ron Gilbert And LucasArts You answer One of them was that One of them I got right

Because I do this podcast was When did David Fox start working at LucasArts Well see I see questions like that I'm like I don't know I don't remember these things You should ask your retro gaming podcast Having Husband I'm not going to cheat

Well, I've gotten a few cards wrong already, but don't worry if you get, if you answer wrong, it doesn't matter. There's no Cheebo to answer everything correctly without getting anything wrong. Because also, like, the cards are going to keep responding. And there are more questions than there are cards you can collect. So don't worry about that. I saw some people getting upset that, you know, once you like lose a card, like it's gone. But no, it will come back because the questions are also. random. So it might cycle back to a previous question yet missed. And also, this did happen to me where I answered a card wrong. And then later I got the same question. Some of the answers were different, actually. So I think eventually you can figure out what the correct answer is through process of elimination pretty much. Well, I mean, I wasn't expecting cruelty in a wrong Gilbert game, but I was afraid of what would happen if I got one wrong. And I only found out like way too late that oh nothing really happens you should just keep trying to answer them so in my in my current replay i am trying to uh get all the trivia questions or at least get all the

achievements for getting like 50 of them correct or whatever yeah there's there's no way you can get at least i don't think there's any way you can get all the cards in one play through which adds to the the replay value of this game and you can't save scum you can't like save and then answer and if you get it wrong like reload your game because it's it's all saved in a in a separate file, I guess. And when you restart a new game, as soon as you pick up the trivia book, all your previously answered cards are in there, so don't worry about that either. Yeah, I wasn't afraid of answering Ron because I didn't think I would be punished for it. That's not what Ron Gilbert does.

So Monkey Island, Return to Monkey Island is a rogue-like because there's that feature and also Guy Brush. He is a rogue. That makes sense, I think. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. There are also a few random puzzle solutions in this much like the past games like you can't just use the same map or like the same I guess password in some cases but getting them is not a tour like like say the solution to monkey combat and escape yes again no they would never do anything like that and that was uh to be to be honest like we talked about the pot we talked about the game on the podcast but that is not the worst thing about that game, which is shocking.

I actually, I think I had fun figuring out monkey combat compared to like the sushi puzzle or whatever. These are all terrible memories of the pandemic. Well, history will probably agree with you and not me. But yeah, there's also, we talked about this up front. We hinted at it a bit. The quiz, the hint system, rather, in the game, very much like Thumbweed Park. I did not have time to look into this because I thought I would need it at some point.

I think I used the Thimbleweed Park one a few times, but this one, there were a few moments where I was stuck for about 30 minutes to an hour, but I never resorted to using it. But for my understanding, it is very much like the Thimbleweed Park one, and that it is like a chain of hints. Like the first one will be like, have you looked in this area or like try asking this person? And then as you work your way down the chain of hints, it will eventually tell you what to do specifically. And it's very smart about knowing where you are in the game and what you need to do. And I think that's, again, we talked about this in the preview podcast, but Dave Grossman said, when you're playing with a kid, if they don't get a answer in two minutes, they're going to go to the internet to look it up. So we want to have our own in-game internet lookup system. Otherwise, people are going to be leaving the game too much.

Yeah, please don't use a walkthrough online. Just use a hint book. It's very good. I actually did use a hint book twice. It both happened in Act 4, which is a very long act. There's lots of things to do. I used it once to confirm I had the right idea of battle puzzle because I was trying something.

It wasn't working, and I thought, like, am I at least kind of on the right path? And I used a hint book to confirm that. And the second time, I actually went too far and I ended up seeing the solution to the puzzle. So if there's one thing I would fix about the hintbook system is it should warn you, like, hey, the next hint is actually the solution. We're just going to tell you what you do. Are you ready for that? And I would have said, no, let me figure it out.

Yeah, thankfully you're not punished or mocked for using it. It's very nice and friendly. It's not like the baby book or whatever for dummies. It's just like, hey, we want you to get through this game. Because if you don't, the internet exists, you're going to look it up anyway. So just stay in the game and, you know, here's a rewarding way to kind of steer you in the right direction. I think it's very well done. A few other non-spoilery things this game doesn't want to talk about is I didn't use this feature much because I was playing on the switch and I would just put my switch to sleep and then pick it up again.

But if you exit the game, and this is optional, when you restart it, due to the framing device that we won't talk about until the spoiler section, there's a framing device in the game. And if you leave the previously on feature on in the game, when you restart it, you will have, characters sort of going back and forth as to what happened so far and what you currently need to do. And that's not completely necessary, but I did it once and I was like, oh, they're being very specific about where I am in the game and what I have to do. So they probably wrote a lot of extra dialogue just for these recaps that most people probably won't even see and some might even turn off in the options menu. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, I also had that feature turned on, but I didn't need it so I never saw it. I thought they would just give you like a text summary of

what you lasted or something. That's cool that they made it actual dialogue. That was taking a lot of work. Yeah. Yeah, I'm tempted to just keep restarting and exiting the game just to see how much dialogue, because there has to be like over an hour of dialogue just recapping things that you've done or need to do in the game. I'm wondering now how long you have to lead the game alone for before they give you a summary. Because I went back to a save file from like a week could go and it still didn't give me anything like that. That's really strange because I just tried to, you know, end and restart my game, you know, just to try it out and they give it to me immediately.

I think it's intended to be used like whenever you exit the program and then restart it again, I think they give you that recap if you have it turned on. Hmm. Maybe somehow I've constantly been in the game for like the last two weeks. Maybe. No, I think you're just like slamming your way past that. If you're playing on Steam, yes, I have to assume. you're not like turning off your computer.

the special writers mode in the game. And that is turned off by defaults. And you might be wondering, what is this? You might even miss it if you just jump into the game when you play it initially. And what that is, I haven't seen much of what that adds to the game, but I have seen enough to know that it's not necessary, but it is really cool for a second play-through

because I mentioned it before. What I like about this game is it's all about economy. They're not taking anything away from you, but they're trying to make a very streamlined experience where characters say just enough, you're not constantly in these branching dialogues with people. It's not overwhelming just to hear everybody talk. But when you jump into the writer's mode,

you'll immediately notice like, oh, this person has more dialogue, and oh, these characters are introduced before I would see them later in the game. And what they add isn't necessary, but I think, like, for a second playthrough, it is really cool to see, like, what they thought, they wouldn't need and what they assume would just be flavor that might be a little too much

for a player up front. Yeah, I played it without that mode on the first time. Then I turned it on to play it the second time. I didn't notice too much of a difference. So I would say to first time players, just play with it on so you don't miss anything. Yeah, yeah. I mean, nothing is being taken from you if you have it off. But if you want to get like the most out of everything they wrote for the game you can leave it on but it's a neat that they have that off initially just to be like well here is the ideal experience we realized that we were self-indulgent we gave this person too much to say or you didn't need to see this character here first and i like them uh kind of taking a second pass at their work but letting you see the rough draft first i think that's really cool

a couple other things about the game system there's a to-do list which is uh taken from thimbleweed park uh i didn't use it past uh the the tutorial part where they kind of tell you to look in there and complete all the tasks you can complete in there because because I blast it through the game but it is a good way to remind you of what you were doing last and what you need to do still yeah I really I really enjoyed it actually I didn't really use it until chapter four which again no spoilers is a very big chapter with a lot of locations but I mean Ron Gilbert's usually giving a really good to giving you like here are three things you need to do here are four things you have to

need to do. Here are five things you need to do. And it's all like a tight collection of related things that are independent on each other. And the to-do list just lets you know, like, the tasks associated with those, with the more major tasks. And they, and like I said, in chapter four, I did rely on that just to be like, there's so much to do. What haven't I done? And I think one of the unchecked check marks was one of the things I forgot the game told me I needed to do. I was like, oh, right, I have to go see him again. Okay. So in that case, the to do list did help me. added like 20 minutes to my gameplay if I would have been like, all right, I have to go to all these locations again and talk to everybody again and see who I'm missing or who I forgot

I needed to help. And also casual versus hard. So I did a speed run kind of of this game just to get the achievement. That's you have to finish the game in two hours or less. I did that last night. And I played it on casual mode because obviously it's faster that way. It definitely gets rid of a lot of puzzles like in order to avoid spoilers of actual puzzles i'm going to make some up like let's say you have someone you have to give someone a hot dog uh you acquire the hot dog and you give it to them they might say hey there's no ketchup or mustard on this i need both of those you have to go get them but in casual mode they would say oh wow thanks for the hot dog good thing i had the condiments already yeah there is actual like um extra dialogue recorded um

in that way and like let's say you have to pick up an you want to pick up an item but an animal is guarding it like in casual mode the animal just wouldn't be there so if you really want to just see the story if you really want to just take in the lore casual is good but otherwise I would just say playing on quote unquote hard mode because it's not even that hard

yeah the casual mode kind of takes away some of the fun of the game I think yeah I think so it feels like the puzzles were designed first and then casual mode was them taking away steps of the puzzles. For something like Curse of Monkey Island, it feels like the game was designed first and then they decided to add steps for a harder mode.

In this case, it feels like the puzzles in the hard mode are designed as intended, but something like Curse, it feels like the hard mode in that game is like you just overcomplicated these puzzles to the point where some of them aren't as fun as they used to be.

Yeah, I was surprised by how much was taken away in casual mode. But it's good for getting the speedrun achievement. Yeah, and especially if you just want to see the story, if you just want to see the characters. But again, we both think the game is not difficult, but it's still very satisfying. And especially if you have played one of these games before, or you at least know what a adventure game is, I think you won't be lost or in over your head because all of the ways this game doesn't like to hold your hand, but it also makes things very intuitive.

And it eliminates a lot of just, like, rubbing against things and just trying every option because it won't let you try every option. And I think that leads to a very playable game. Some other things we need to cover before we get to the spoiler section is that this game has a really, really good soundtrack. And it's written by the only three people who can do it. And that's Michael Land, Clint Pajan, and Peter McConnell. And, yeah, I will say that, like, I didn't really notice. it while playing too much. And I think that really speaks to just how perfectly it fits in. Like, I feel like if anyone else were to make the music for this game, it would sound off to me.

But upon my replay, I was really taking notice of the songs. And yes, some of them are remixes. Of course, you're going to get that in a Monkey Island game. Every one of these does it. But there's a lot of very good original tracks, too. And they do their own, like, primitive version of iMuse and that, you know, different areas within a larger. where we'll have variations on that area's theme and they don't have the sophisticated tools they did with Monkey Island 2, but it still is pretty effective

and not a lot of games do that. We're here to announce a special deal for all of our retronauts listeners. If you've had your eye on any of the pink variance of HyperX gear, you can save 15% off during the month of October by using code HXPN over at HyperX.com.

Get yourself an elegant white and pink cloud two or a metallic pink ally origins 60, or any of the other pink peripherals on the site. Once again, head over to hyperX.com and get 15% off all pink gaming products with code all caps, HXPN. I was so happy to see that return. It is still, like you said,

it's not like exactly like how it was with the IMU system in Revenge, but it was still a nice touch, and I really appreciated that. The part where that's most, noticeable is when you're in the scum bar and you go see the three important pirates you get a bit of like the guitar version of it that's where I notice it the most other parts are more subtle I think yeah they're definitely subtle and it feels like within the game

they're playing like two tracks at the same time but they decide like which one to raise and which one to lower completely that's really the extent of the music system here and it does like I forgot to look at the credits again it does feel like this is live recorded music or they do a really good job of faking it because I was playing it with really good headphones and listening to the music and you can hear like the breaths taken in before someone blows

into an instrument on the tracks and you can hear like fingers on frets and stuff I was playing like really good headphones on and maybe you can fake that now you probably can fake that and then that's great but it's like it does sound like a real performance and yeah these guys they always do a really really good job at Monkey Island music

and I'm happy. Do you think you can fake that stuff now just like auto add someone taking your breath before blowing to their wood instrument i'm sure yeah i'm sure they probably figured it out like 20 years ago just like we have 10 000 procedurally generated uh inhales we can add before this woodwind starts blowing but hey you know what it sounds cool and uh i liked it but yeah these guys they knocked out of the park and when selecting music for this episode i was able to listen to it you know without being distracted by the game and i was like oh man this is so good and i'm so glad you there's another Monkey Island soundtrack

because even with Escape take a shot, we mentioned it again the one redeeming feature of that game is like really, really good soundtrack that I can just listen to while I'm writing or doing something and not think about playing Escape for Monkey Island. So yeah, kudos to the composers on this.

And finally, okay, one more thing before finally. You're allowed to. Go for it. I can't think of any new songs though that stand out to me. Like if he asked me to hum a new song from Return I can't think of any at all

I think it's because the old themes were etched into our child minds and now nothing sticks But Tails had a couple of new tracks That stood out to me And I'm not getting that at this time It's not a complaint or anything It's fine

I just can't think of anything other than Like the themes we've heard before That really stood out to me Yeah I mean No area No song in any area so that I was like bad to me like oh this is not a good song like it all like blended in so well I didn't really notice it and I think that really speaks to how well these guys know how I mean think about these three they've had to make like 500 songs like Caribbean sounding songs in their career there's only so much you could do within within that like framework of you know instrumentation and style of songs so yeah I like I feel like they're still doing it and it must be very difficult to still come up with new material on your six Monkey Island experience here.

Yeah, that's fair. I'm just happy to hear the old things again. I think that's what we're all expecting. Nostalgia's here, although I will say this game is not entirely relying on nostalgia, and I'm very happy about that. We can talk about that more later in spoilers. But finally, voice acting.

We get returning actors, of course. Dominic Armato is Guy Brush. There's no other Guy Brush. We couldn't have anyone else to play him. And I will say my thoughts on this performance is it is his best Guy Brush performance. He actually does not do a ton of acting. He was doing a moderate amount of acting in the late 90s early odds. He really dropped out of acting to pursue other interests. He only is coming back to do Guy Brush. And I think this is his best take on the role so far. He knows the characters.

Every intonation feels right to me. And he feels very, very confident. And yeah, that's my thoughts on Dominic. So he does a great job in this game. Yeah, he's good. I've always thought he was great as garbage and this game is no exception. The cast in this game, like the cast of characters is a lot more diverse in the other games and there's especially more female characters. I really

noticed that and as a result there's more female voice actors. So I thought that was cool. Yeah, that is cool. I mean, it was always a fairly diverse game even though it stars a white guy, like more diverse than most adventure games. But this time around also I noticed it's like all the

all the casting based on what I saw and the names I looked up it all seemed like the person if the person is a black person they're played by a black actor and if a person is played by if there's an Asian character

they're played by an Asian actor it's all like racially appropriate casting which was not always the case there are Asian characters there are Asian characters finally they're Asians I don't I can't remember if there have been any in Monkey

have there been any in Monkey Island any Asian characters I don't think so I really don't think so I think I would have noticed if there were. Yes. Yeah, there's at least a two Asian characters in this game. Yeah, I mean, I was pleasantly surprised to see that, you know, the racially appropriate casting was in place. And we also get a lot of other returning people like Alexandra Boyd as Elaine. She is our proper British Elaine. She's not doing a lot of acting lately, but she will come back to be Elaine. And again, the American Elaine was the fluke, the Escape from Monkey Island flute. Someone decided like, make her American, which always felt wrong to me. And I like her. Her raspy, playful voice in this game, she's great. And we have the best version of Stan, which we did bring up in our preview podcast about it. But I was happy to hear him.

And this might be the best version of Stan ever. Gavin Hammond as Stan. He was only Stan in Tales of Monkey Island. So so far there have been like four Stan actors. And unfortunately, like the guy who played Stan and Curse was just doing what he was told to do. doing the voice the directors wanted him to do but unfortunately they placed that version of Stan in the remakes of 1 and 2

so he's like the dominant stand voice but Tales of Monkey Island went with a very different approach as did escape and I think those are better but yeah he is a great stand and I'm glad it's not the game show host voice stand from Curse in the 1 and 2 remakes Introducing the new HyperX Cloud Stinger 2

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Available online at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and of course, hyperX.com. And we also have a new Lechuk, and that is Jess Harnell, a very, very, very experienced. voice actor. Earl Bowen was Lechuk for everything until now, except for part of Tales. We'll talk about that in a second. But, yeah, Earl Bowen was retired when they made Tales of Monkey Island. They basically got him for the last chapter. He was not Lechuk before that, but he does play Lechuk in the last chapter. And I think they approached him for this. And he's like, yeah, you know what, I'm too old for the role. I really like doing it. But, you know, I'm retired now, but you have my blessing to recast. So they at least approached Earl Bowen.

and a great character actor. And, like, Jess Harnell, most famous for playing Wacko on Animaniacs, although he's done a million things since then. My only complaint was, like, he sounds too young, but it's a good performance. But then I looked it up and he's like, oh, he's actually older than Earl Bowen was when Earl Bowen was cast as Lechuk. Oh, really? How much older? Yeah.

He's like 58, and I think Earl Bowen was like 53 or 54. Wow. So technically, yeah, Jess Harnell, I mean, if you look at it. at him. He looks like he just stepped out of a motley crew van. He does not look like a 58 year old man. I was surprised why he was with him. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, he is older than Earl Bowen. I think

Earl Bowen just grew up in an era where everyone was like smoking and just the chugging whiskey all the time. He's got that really deep, raspy voice that's made Lechuk sound a lot more terrifying. But yeah, Harnell, a good choice. I think a good replacement. You really can't get someone like Bowen again, but I think

it's a good replace in front of a voice actor who knows what he's doing in the game. game. You definitely notice that Lechuk sounds different in this game and it took me a little bit to get used to it. But now I'm like totally okay with it. Yeah. And yeah, we have to get to the spoiler discussion. But those are just a few of the notable ones. Any other ones you want to highlight Nina? I mean, everyone does a good job. No one sounded off to me. And yeah, I think this was a very well-cast game. And like the people you would expect to return and do return. Like Danny Delk is, yes, Murray's in the game. that's not a spoiler he was in like the preview teaser of it um but yeah like they they tried to find

the right people they even got like uh very small roles uh cast as they were cast for the remakes over a decade ago like rob paulson plays the lookout i believe as he did in the uh the monkey island remix from the early 2010s also returning is neil ross as wally and he also does a good job although because naturally he's much older now I first heard him on the Spider-Man animated series in the 90s as

Norman Osborne slash the Green Goblin and Wally just He sounds a little green goblinish I think Oh really? I don't have that connection in my head I was happy to see Wally again and maybe this is a spoiler I'm sorry I mean this is the return to Monkey Island

you're going to see a lot of characters you've seen before but yeah while it was good to see him again because I don't believe he was in Tales but they got the same actor again because he just did Monkey Island 2 and curse and this one I think I don't think he was an escape although I've again blocked out most of my memories of that game so any other thoughts about the generalities Nina before we leave the spoiler free section no I'm ready to talk spoilers because that's mostly you want to talk about awesome let's do it Previously on Chowd of the Wild.

But what we have to do is there are these seeds in these little holes that we have to put specific water on to make them grow up. up and we get the Mario sound effect for the vines going up. What exactly is the sound effect for Mario that they use? Can you guys just do that simultaneously again?

Blu-bl-l-lop! Thanks. Chat of the Wild, breaking down Zelda and Zelda-like games one dungeon at a time. Wednesdays on the HyperX podcast network. Take a time machine back to

to before the world went to hell around the year 2000. The 80s and 90s were so rad. The movies, the music, the TV, the games, that's what I want to talk about. If you're cool enough, join us and listen to less than 2000, because that's all we talk about.

Adam and Chad live, less than 2000. Now part of the HyperX. Podcast Network. So here we are on the other side of the other side of the podcast, and now you're in the spoiler zone. We're going to assume that you finished this game. And if you haven't finished it, please do, because it's only about 12 to 15 hours. So very, very digestible.

Yeah, it's pretty short. Yes. Although I think it's the perfect length for an adventure game. By the end, I was like, okay, I'm ready for this to end, and it did. And I was happy for the experience. What's the biggest spoiler bomb you want to throw out there, Nina? The biggest spoiler bomb is you start off as Boy Brush, who turns out to not be young Guy Brish, but Guy Brish's son. and the whole game is framed as Guyber's telling his son

this story of him finding the secret of Monkey Island Yes, it's not a, it's not really giving you a resolution to the Monkey Island to ending And that's what people really wanted a lot of this A lot like the beginning and ending of the game Are really Ron Gilbert being a little stinker in a way I kind of like Yeah, I understand that people are mad though They are mad they're mad about this

Well, on Reddit. On Reddit, they're mad. Yeah. Yeah. In a way, I understand. In another way, I'm like, let's just chill out everybody. Because this is, like, I feel like, compared the storytelling and the themes and just the sense of design in this game, I think, like, Tales of Monkey Island, even though Dave Grossman worked on it, it does feel like a very sincere take on the series by fans. And it largely was created by fans. And a lot of fans worked on it. this feels like and it is people who created it coming back to it and saying don't take it so seriously guys we're just having fun here and that's what the beginning and the ending feels like uh because they they don't have the distance uh from the game that we do they're they're very close to it because they're the creators of it and yeah um the intro of the game is okay yes this is where the second game ended um somehow guy brush and lechuk are children now uh what happens next. Well, what happens next is like, no, that's, there's another rug pool here. You find out after a little tutorial prologue, this is Boy Brush. Chuckie is his friend. It's not Chuck as a child. And you do a lot of little tasks that teach you how an adventure game works.

And then you catch up with your dad. And it's a very Princess Bride style telling a little kid a story kind of set up. So they never say Boy Rush in the game. You have to turn on the captions. or the captions that show you the names of the character speaking at least, or I guess the script, because you can go back and read the script at any point in the game, which is also a good accessibility feature. That's a feature we didn't mention. That feels like it's taken from Japanese adventure games.

I've only seen them in Japanese adventure games. Boybrush isn't like a nickname. Do you think it's literally his name is Boybrush? I think it is. And I think they named him that because if you look at the text before you meet Eyebrush, if they called him something different you'd be like well if his name is like

Alan or something this isn't Guy Brush what's going on but if they call him Boy Brush you could be like well he this is boy Guy Brush that's their little joke but then you meet up with Guy Brush at the end of the prolog and you're like oh no this is his boy I'm literally Boy Brush did you

did you see that twist coming because I didn't I did not and I was smiling when I saw I was kind of disappointed in Guy Brush for becoming a dad I'm like oh no they did this you too. Every

you know what? This is... It's true, but I think this is the one dad game where it's tolerable because A, the dad loves his wife who B is not dead. That's true. So I feel like it's the one tolerable wife, sorry, dad game. And I think a lot of it is because I don't believe Ron Gilbert has children, but Dave Grossman became a father between Tales of Monkey Island. and this game and it feels it feels a lot of like very observational i feel like a lot of this is coming

from him it also helps that um like you do see flashes of boy brush uh throughout the game when it cuts back to the framing device but it's not like he's prevalent throughout the game and it's not like you play as boy brush that that would have disappointed me no no yeah it's not like metal gersela too you play as boy brush until you find out you're not you're not guy brush that's very smart but i mean the prolog we can just skim through it really quick this is not going to be like us doing a like a talk through let's play of the game but uh this is for people to teach them how to play an adventure game it's like here's how you move the character here's how you run here's how you use items here's how you talk to people uh here's what the to do list is uh basically

you the first thing you do is get a scurvy dog to eat with chuck chucky your friend and then you meet a little know-it-all little girl who's your annoying friend and she gives you a list of things to do. And by doing that list, you learn how an adventure game works. And I think it's not the most exciting way to play this, to start off a game if you are a, you know, veteran adventure gamer. But it is exciting at first to be like, well, what's going to happen now? How are they going to follow up the Monkey Island 2 ending? And then you find out they don't, but it doesn't matter. Well, I like that they give you a to do list at the very beginning there just to teach you that it exists. But you don't have to do everything on the to do list. It's totally optional. We can just like blast through

to the next screen and meet up with actual Guybrush. I did. I thought you had to do everything. So I guess if you're a season of venture gamer, you're like, I get it, I get it. You can skip all this. That's really good to know. I only know this because when I first played it, I tried to leave that area without

having done everything. And Chuckie says, are you sure we want to are we sure we've done everything you want to do here? We may not be able to go back. Now I thought, oh, shoot, I guess I better finish the to-do list. But yeah, it's totally optional. Um, I like that, um, they give you like a huge, um, rambling from, uh, the, the girl character, I think D.D. I think her name is. Uh, about an anchor or just anchor history just to teach you the mechanics of skipping, uh, dialogue. And it turns out all those anchor facts are fake. None of it is true. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. Because, uh, when I, when I played it again, I actually listened to all of it. I'm like, I guess this is true. I don't know. No, but I was hoping I get like an achievement for listening to it all, but I didn't.

So that's just a tip from you guys. You can skip her dialogue. But yes, you as Boy Brush, you were asking your dad like, oh, tell me about the time you found the secret of Monkey Island. You won't, you'll never tell me it before. I want to hear about it. And that's how Guy Brush launches into the story of his return to Monkey Island, which if you look at the scrapbook that is on the menu screen, it does, it does tell you like all of these things happen. before this Guy Brish adventure, but it is not really relying on continuity, which I really, really like. Because with some of these Monkey Island later games, the stories get too convoluted.

They think about continuity a little too much. And this one is just like, let's just say Guy Brush has done all these things and now he's doing other things. And all that you need to know is that some of the people he's met you meet on this journey he's met before. This game, I think, go ahead the scrapbook feature is very good but it's i like that it's it's like totally optional you don't need to know all the things that he went through at all and i like how somehow lichuk has returned they don't explain like why he's there why he's still like um in zombie mode kind of or is it demon lechuk no it's more like a zombie lechuk because at the end of tails they didn't come up with a new Lechuk form for him in this game.

At the end of Tales, they destroy his physical and spiritual self. But then Morgan retrieves the spirit or essence of Lechuk and takes it to the Voodoo Lady. And that's when you last see Lechuk. And they don't say, like, oh, the voodoo lady resurrected him or anything like that. He's just back. Yeah. And I mean, Guy Brush mentions characters that don't appear in this.

So it's all canon. But at the same time, this is not, I mean, it isn't and isn't a game for Monkey Island nerds. It is a game for Monkey Island nerds in that you're happy to see the characters you like and you're happy to hear the music you like and you're happy to be in the setting you enjoy. But if you don't know anything about these characters or the previous games, you can still enjoy it as like meeting all these people for the first time because this game is not full of like elbow nudgy moments for Monkey Island fans. It's not relying on that at least.

Yeah, they bring back a bunch of characters, but not all characters. There are some characters I was hoping to see in here that didn't make it like MeatHook and Captain Smirk, especially Captain Smirk, because you don't see him past the first game ever. I assume he's dead. I just kind of assume that. It just would have been cool to see him again, just because he's never brought back. They were very selective with who they chose to bring back. And, yeah, I mean, the story is very simple in a way I enjoy.

It's like Lechuk is launching a voyage to Monkey Island, and you hear about this. And you're like, no, I'm the guy who goes to Monkey Island. I'm going to do this. And that's essentially the point of the game. It's just like, okay, do the things that you did before, but different. And the first chunk of the game is essentially, well, this game follows the same kind of formula as Monkey Island in that. It's like in the beginning of Monkey Island, you have to find a map ship in the crew, although you find different things in this one. And then the second chapter is you inside of a ship in like a bottle puzzle solving puzzles there.

and the third chunk of the game is basically you on Monkey Island but then it goes beyond that so the fourth chapter is essentially their own little mini version of Monkey Island too and then the fifth chapter is like

another Lechuk bottle puzzle that usually ends most of these games so they are relying on previous structures but they're doing new things with them yeah like I mentioned earlier it does feel like mashing up the first two games together which is cool

but it also slightly disappointed me that it was such a retread of those two games I was just hoping for something a little bit different I think it did enough in that it asked different things of you and just the ways you got around were different and it was also much easier to get around because if it was just like okay find a map a ship in a crew

and you did that you did the sword fighting trials again you did all the same things but different I think that would be really disappointing but they find new things for you to do And in fact, I mean, this is a spoiler section. There is no insult sword fighting in this game. And it would have been perhaps a little tacky if they were like, yeah. I mean, that just shows you we're not going to do everything the same again because it might be a little tediously.

Well, here's our new take on insult sword fighting. You've done it five times before. But here's a new thing we come up with. And they kind of make you think they're going to do that. It's like, well, the new version is like a comeback to a comeback and they could build off of that. But they realize like, oh, we've. done this before and we don't need to do it again. Yeah, when Lechuk pulled that on him, I thought, oh, cool, this is a new system we're

going to have to learn, but then it didn't come back. I was slightly disappointed that there was no sword fighting, but whatever. I was okay with it just because they had done it so much, and it's like, why beat yourself up to come up with the new version if it might not be better just to do it? And yeah, I mean, the first chapter is basically you need to, instead of getting your own ship, you're going to sneak onto Lechuk's ship in order to, you know, go to Monkey Island, get the crew to mutiny and, you know, disrupt Lechuk's plans. And the main things you need to do on, to get on the ship, it's like, it's like a puzzle of twos, although there are many things you do within that chain to get the things. You need a mop and you need an eye patch to transform you into like an undead looking guy so they'll let you on the ship because Lechuk does not want to hire a guy brush.

And those are essentially the two things with many puzzles dependent on them. for you to get those two things. And I think it wasn't a puzzle of threes it starts off with. Instead of a map, you get a mop, which I thought was kind of funny. And yeah, like all your friends on melee are there and most of them. And I love the nighttime setting of melee, even though yes, we're returning to melee again, it's much better than the return to melee in Escape from Monkey Island, which is where that game begins.

And that was even a nostalgia piece in 22 years ago. The mop is the thing that has four different solutions. There's four items you can use as the head of the game. the mop. You can use any of them. It's fine. Oh, okay. Because one of the solutions is very easy to find. If you go out on the little dock area behind the kitchen of the scum bar, there's just a tangled mess of ropes. And I was like, do I need to do anything more to these ropes in order to make it the mop head? And you don't.

And I think that's one very good thing this game does. Often there will be one extra step you need to do, but it never feels like it's one too many steps. And I was kind of expecting that throughout the game, but it never really hit me with the puzzles. There are some random objects I picked up in the first act, which later turned out to be other things you can use as the mop had. And I did wonder while playing it, like, what do I do with these? I haven't used this yet. But those items disappear once you're on the ship. So they don't make you carry them throughout the entire game as red herrings. So that's, that's cool with them. Yeah. Chapter 4, the Monkey Island 2 chapter is really when they give you a ton of

items, but that's kind of the point of that chapter. And I don't know if I mentioned this before, maybe I did. We've been recording for a while, but there are no verbs, but some of the items in your inventory are really consistent and they kind of act as verbs, like the knife. Like the knife is kind of like its own verb, use on many things. Like you'll end up using the knife on many things, the monocles on many things, the pen on a lot of things. It's kind of a cheat to get around not having verbs, but there are some consistent things

you will use for several puzzles in this game. Oh, and back to the mop, though, the way you get the handle of the mop, that seems to it was upset a lot of people, like a lot of fans, at least in the Reddit. They were like, that's just a step too far. Like, this felt too cruel to them. I thought it was hilarious. Yes. There are some mazes in this game, but they're very simple.

And just like in all the Monkey Island games, they're all like little tricks. And you have to find the mop tree to get a mop handle. And you could easily just break a branch off. there's a extended cutscene where Guy Bras basically like destroys this beautiful tree and all the happy animals that are once around it are now just like sad and crying and it is a big joke to show you like

this is adventure game protagonists are destructive and they'll do anything for their own means and we don't think about it as a player but maybe seeing all the crying you know disturbed animals was too much for me too I don't know I thought it was funny because garbage is rarely that dumb it felt like a real like Homer or Fry move for him to carve the entire tree

and not just hack off a branch That is true I think previous games might have made him too dumb But this game That might be the one instance Where he was just a little too stupid And thinking I have to whittle away

The entire tree Instead of just breaking off a branch But it is like maximum destruction Exactly Maximum destruction is the The MO of any adventure game protagonist It's like whatever I can destroy the most That's the way I'll do

what I'm doing. And yeah, a few other things I want to mention. It's like Elaine is in this game and they have a very good relationship. I like the Elaine Guybris thing and that they love each other, but it's not boring. And it's not like the angry wife kind of character she was in curse and escape. I think they went the wrong direction with that. And it was the 90s and that was kind of the humor at the time. But it's nice to see like a loving couple in a game when the joke could be a lot easier

to write if they weren't so love. loving with each other. I really like their relationship, but they're very positive and supportive of each other. I thought Elaine was kind of boring in this game, though. First of all, I was hoping

we would get to play as Elaine in one section. It almost seemed like that in one of the preview clips before the game came out. It turned out to not be the case. She's off doing her own thing again, and she's very nice and sweet. But I almost feel like

this happens a lot with a female love interest characters in cartoons like say on The Simpsons you bring this up a lot when a guest actor plays a female love interest they're afraid of like assigning any kind of negative traits to that character so she just ends up being very bland and Elaine in this game kind of felt that way to me I thought I think the lost on the edge entails She doesn't have to be mean like an escape Yeah I mean maybe a bit

But it was still nice to see like a good relationship In this kind of fiction When that normally isn't the case But yeah I mean Playing as her would have been fun for like a section or something Or learning more about her But it's like she does seem She's so busy doing her own thing

And being a couple that was separated by a border I do understand Guy Brush being sad when she leaves And she has to do her own thing That's true. I love when he first runs into her. He says, I was hoping I ran into you in this story, like a very meta thing to say. And then there's a bunch of dialogue options for parting ways after he runs into her in there. One of them is like, oh, okay, well, I'll let you get back to your work. And then she's like, oh, you say goodbye first. She's like, no, you say bye first. And you go through that back and forth. And then when she goes, okay, bye, he's just like, so sad when she actually leaves. And he's always excited to see her. Yeah. He's always excited to see her and he's always very sad to leave. I mean, I'll be moving to Vancouver soon, but I have to say goodbye to you a lot.

And I felt that. So, uh, yes. He's still, I mean, uh, I, I'm attached to the source material so I can't see Elaine being boring. I'm just like, oh, they love each other. And it's so nice to see. We have to move on chapter two, though, because chapter two, you get on the boat. Uh, I love this chapter so much. Uh, you're disguised as an undead swabby and you,

basically have to solve all the puzzles within one little area with what you have. And just like in Monkey Island One, you have to come up with the magic concoction in order for you to get to Monkey Island. But in this case, they've done all the work so far. You just need to get one item to drop in to make the concoction to go there. Yeah. So even though I complain that this is too much of a retried of the first two games, at least you don't make you go through the pains of getting a map or collecting all the potion ingredients it kind of reminds me how in dragon ball they they bend over backwards to collect all the dragon balls the titular dragon balls but then in dragon ball zed like they just recollect them over and over again

like it's like nothing to them that's what this felt like it's like okay let's just go to monkey island and they can do it like especially elaine she's like oh you made a potion to get here i just took this other way she doesn't reveal what it is because that's a joke but still yeah it turns out nobody ever needed the potion but i did like this and i liked all of the lechuk crew members because it seems like uh they don't like lechuk very much uh there's this fun running commentary through the game as to like why why is guy brush doing this why is he still doing this and then even lechuk's crew members are like god i really wish he was not so obsessed with this monkey island idea we should be doing other stuff so

I think they might be doing a meta-commentary on like people thinking like oh Ron Gilbert doing another Monkey Island game really can he just make his own thing but I do like the fun relationship because his crew members aren't just afraid of him like in past games they're just like this guy with his Monkey Island bullshit

again alright let's figure it out they really don't want to go I enjoy the return of the lazy crew and having to get convince everybody to vote to go to Monkey Island that felt like having to get a vote from the crew in Tales of Monkey Island and that was one of the favorite parts of that game so it was cool to see that used here because even though a

lot of the puzzle and stuff felt like the first two games this this part felt like tails right like a lot of the puzzles do feel similar in ways that I think might have been accidental but the puzzles that seem similar are good puzzles that I would reuse like this one is really great because you need to get everyone to vote for to go to monkey island and everyone kind of of needs one item to convince them based on what they're into and they're all interdependent on each other like any of these good puzzles and uh what i like uh i haven't mentioned this before but like some puzzles are simpler than you think they would be and that's kind of refreshing like um the uh one of the people on the ship lost faith in lechuk and she's like yeah i'm not going to vote i have no faith

in this organization anymore and all you need to do is give her the pamphlet you got uh uh the orientation pamphlet that you got and that's it. That's all you need. And it's like, I kind of like that some puzzles are like, oh, there's one more thing you need to do, but a lot of them are like, no, it was as simple as giving someone the obvious item. We're not going to overcomplicate this. There's a few puzzles like that I think are really refreshing. Halloween is almost here and I'm going to be honest with you. It's well beyond time you retire that Nathan Drake costume of yours. For the past 10 years, you've just been going to parties as a regular looking guy with sloppy shirt tails. No one's impressed. No, it's time to go back to the real classics by cutting a couple of eye hole

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Thank you, Miracle Brand for sponsoring this episode and our costume upgrades. And I like the new characters on the ship, too. Well, there's one returning character who is a Bob, who's called Apple Bob in this for some reason. I don't know why they added that there. Was that always his name? I don't know. Bob? Yeah, he was in the first game. Okay, I mean, no, Apple Bob. Was that always his name?

Oh. yeah i don't know why maybe they just felt they did a bit of a flare to his name because just plain bob is too boring for them i think and he is hanging upside down for most of the uh for the entirety of the game actually but uh yeah like um this is a very good a chapter i did enjoy this and we have to move on to the next chapter and one thing i wanted to note is that um i noticed that some people were a bit disappointed in how uh some elements of the story didn't pay off and i will agree with them there in that I was looking through my notes and it's like oh there's Captain Madison she's the leader of the new pirate trio and there's a lot

of business between her and double crossing Lechuk and have her having her own spy on Lechuk's ship and if you want any of that to pay off it really really doesn't and I think a lot of people are disappointed in that and that also like Captain Madison's influence on Mealy Island I thought there'd be more to more done with that but that's really just a thrown away line a few times. in the beginning of the game. And it's like, oh, right, Captain Madison has a huge amount of influence over the island, but they really don't do much with that in the game.

Oh, speaking of, like, all the businesses being shut down on Malay Island really hit home because so many of my favorite businesses have been shutting down. And I'm sure you felt this too as well in Berkeley. Yeah, it's not just because of the pandemic. It's just like, well, this business does not need to be in a building anymore. This can be an online thing, you know. I wasn't thinking about in pandemic terms. So I was thinking about gentrification in general.

Well, yeah, it's that too. It's just like any number of reasons like economy, pandemic, the fact that like a lot of businesses are just online now or online things are cutting into their profits. It's it is it. There's a bit of more melancholy to visiting Malia Island this time just with so many things shut down. And Wally is a little traitor, but then he pays for it. Yes. Yeah. But he, one thing I do like to, I don't want to go back to chapter one that often,

but I do like that he now has a box of monocles. You could just take one instead of stealing his monocle and leaving him blind for the entire game. He's like, people are going to steal my monocle. I'm just going to offer them like little promotional monocles. So, yes, this game does reach out a lot of territory. One thing I really like about it is that when you return to Monkey Island, when you actually go back there, it's not the most annoying part of the game like it was in the first game. I love Monkey Island one, but man, I don't like that section because getting around just takes so long. And I think the puzzles are a bit tedious compared to what preceded them in the game.

I think we probably talked about this when we talked about the first game. But I love the scale of Monkey Island when you get there. It just feels so huge. And you kind of lose some of that in this game. But other previous games have done this already, like returning to Monkey Island. And it's the same every time. It's like if you just feel so much smaller, I kind of miss how it felt going to Monkey Island the first time in the first game. Yeah, it's like multiple maps.

overhead maps and guy brushes like three pixels you're steering him around with the way they present the maps in this game it's like everything fits on one screen and guy brush is like about an inch tall on your screen he's not like three pixels that you can just you know make him go around the screen so yeah the sense of scale is different but i think that does lend to a more playable game it's easier to get around in this and that uh this is a puzzle of threes and uh you have the map i believe is this how this works oh yes you have the real map lechuk has a fake one and you need a bunch of info about lechuk to decode the map um in order to do this like ceremony to decode the map and that's his catchphrase his theme song and his favorite food and you get most of these by going back

and forth between monkey island and lechuk's ship and uh yes classic ron gilbert puzzle of threes i did like this one um the song part of this is really neat because you have to basically pick up all the skulls you find and like place them all on pikes, and then Murray is the final one you place on the pike, and you have to play Lechuk's theme on the skulls. Okay, he's there to begin with. Okay, he's there to begin with. Yeah, and when you hit him, he says

Fah, so that kind of gives you a hint as to what you're supposed to do. Right, right, yes. And that's the most fun part of it, just trying to figure that part out. But again, it's very, very intuitive. Like, you don't know how to have to read sheet music in order to solve the puzzle. Yeah, here's

a tip if you're speed running it. you only have to pick up five skulls because you don't have to pick up the last two skulls you don't use those notes and you don't even have to get the sheet music either if you know the solution to the puzzle you can just stick the skulls on there and play it so i appreciate that yeah i guess you don't need all the notes there yeah geiber shouldn't say like oh i don't know what to play like i don't have the sheet music it's like no if you just if you know the solution just go ahead and do it although um you can't get the catch you do have to get the chuck's diary to get the catchphrase but it's on, like, it's random every time, but it's on the same page every time. Yeah, and that's just the matter of, you just read all the new cat choices he's coming up with,

and then at the last page, it's like, I'll think I'll go back to what I did on Tuesday or something like that. Yeah, it's always on page 17. That's just another tip for speed running this. But yeah, this chapter is fairly short, and I like how it makes the most tedious part

of Monkey Island one fairly breezy and fun. There's a little maze, but like the forest maze, it's like you have to know three directions to go, and that's it. and it's fairly obvious based on the instructions are given. But yeah, really nice. I really like this part. And this is when obviously

you're double crossed by Madison and the trio of pirates. Guy Brush is horribly injured briefly. And Lechuk goes off because it turns out the Secret of Monkey Island was always in the Voodoo Lady shop. That's the map, the real map that you decoded is pointing to this treasure chest that you can see in or shop

the second you walk in in the game when you start playing. Which is why in Chapter 4, Things get complicated, and that's true because this is the longest chapter. It's probably like a third of the game, I'm guessing. And this is the Monkey Island 2 style chapter. In Monkey Island 2, you had to get four pieces of a map, I believe. In this game, you have to get five keys for this giant chest in the Voodoo Ladies Hut, or store rather. And, yeah, this is when you go to like a lot of little islands, there's a ton of puzzles.

We can't go into all of them. but I really liked how this made the Monkey Island 2 kind of sense of design a lot more playable, a lot less frustrating, because I would get stuck and then I would go, oh, I think I'll go back here. And then I usually find some new direction. And this is a time in the game where I would get stuck maybe like 20 minutes at a time, but I always found my way out of it. And if you're stuck on getting one key, but there's usually always another thing you can be working on or trying to figure out. So yeah, this, I really like that. this part of the game. This was the first time Geibrish was steering his own ship. He didn't have to like charter anybody to get around an island. That's true.

There's no crew. You actually, in the third chapter, you actually horribly rebuild the sea monkey that canonically you exploded in Monkey Island 1. I kind of wish Scurvy Island and Terror Island

were a bit more fleshed out. Like in revenge, Booty Island had a lot of places to explore and even like Fat Island there's not a whole lot of different locations there but at least the city the port city part of it you can

walk around a bunch in comparison some of the locations in this game felt a bit sparse but I guess that also helps you stay on track and not get too lost I do agree with you and if an area felt too shallow

or like not enough locations it ultimately led up to a more playable experience for me because it's like well there are fewer things for me to check and it doesn't feel like there's not enough to do in this chapter like if terror island had like four more locations uh sure it would be fun but i i liked that it was very brief and really it's just about like well here's a cave you can go into and figure your way out through this cave well i thought it was weird how terror island had a bunch of little locations but

there wasn't much to do in each spot you just pick up an item and that was it yeah i mean it was very i like the atmosphere in terror island yeah but i feel like again If these little islands were bigger, when I would be stuck for 20 minutes, it's like, okay, I have to visit like eight locations in each island. This is going to be a pain. I think they were thinking of that, too. Like, how much do we need to give the player to do on each island? How many things can be available on each island? And there is so much to do in this fourth chapter. But again, like all the puzzles work together so well. I like how so many are dependent on each other in very smart, in interesting ways. The one puzzle I like the most, I think, is Bermuda. is this like basically ice island that's the pun burmuda and uh you have to become the queen of bermuda by beating the queen in three contests to earn the right to be queen and by the way the queen has a giant key in her crown and that's one of the keys you need and it's a very uh ron gilbertie puzzle of threes there's an eating contest there's a like kind of basically like staring contest and there is a math contest and i really liked how all these played out and i did feel smarts even though

they weren't incredibly challenging. I felt smart for figuring all these out. Yep, I like Bermuda as well. It's a very different location. You don't expect to see like an icy, snowy, an island in a game like this. Odina played by Jennifer Hale, who's very, very prolific voice actor. She did a good job. I kind of wish you could have talked to the people there.

They just kind of like grumble. And there were like so many people I wish I could have talked to you. and found out more lore about this island, but you don't really get much of that. Yeah, I mean, I feel like, again, all of the sense of economy in the game, it didn't lead to a worse game, and maybe, does the writer's cut have any more to them?

No, I was actually really hoping that in the writer's cut, you could talk to these people, but no, they just kind of grumble at you. Hmm, okay. I mean, I feel like there was enough people to talk to. Again, I don't want to repeat myself a million times. I never felt like there was a lack of content in this game. And I think Dave Grossman and Ron Gilbert were more into the mechanics instead of, you know, telling a story.

Because this is not really a story-focused game. It's more about characters and the puzzles, I think. Oh, how did you feel about the scurvy deniers that had to have been influenced by the pandemic, right? Yes. You know what? It was minor enough for me to think it was clever. If this dominated the game, like the Aussie Mantral stuff dominated monkey-carus scapeer. for Monkey Island, I would have been like, okay, this is too much.

I get it. You guys are very clever, very nice, but yeah, there's a, there's a bit of a COVID denialism joke, uh, in this, uh, especially because they hate science. Yeah, they hate science and you need to appeal to them through like crass commercialism in order

to get them to eat limes. And, uh, yeah, it's about quarantine. It's definitely this, this could not have happened without COVID. It would still be a clever and funny idea if COVID never happened and they came up with this independently because there were, you know, vaccine deniers before COVID obviously but they were not as in the news

as they were post COVID but yeah I when I first ran into this I was like oh no I don't want to be reminded of this I don't want jokes about this not that I think the jokes are inappropriate I think they're very cringy but yeah it was fine it was it was brief enough and I think

they realized like we're playing with fire here and we think we're very clever let's just leave this to be a very brief section of the game yeah I'm glad it was like pretty much quarantined to that one quarantine ship you don't keep running into scurvy deniers throughout the game or anything like that yeah and uh we were talking about um the story of the game and like just breaking it down it's so simple it's like uh guy brush needs to go to monkey island okay he does he gets on he goes on the truck ship

he goes there um once he gets there he realizes the secret is actually on maliion so he goes back there and then he's got to find five keys and then he finds the five keys and when he opens the chest to find the secret it's actually a different chest is inside the chest and he has to go back to monkey island to open the chest that's the extent of the story that's all that happens and one of the ways of getting the key is like a lot more simple than you would think that's the one where the locksmith who's a new character her name was literally locksmith her grandmother had it or her mother had it and you have to go to court in order to get it because she She thinks it was destroyed.

But no, you just go to the court and say, hey, I need this key. And they're like, okay, here you go. And they give it to you. I was like, wow, that was surprisingly easy. Yeah, it's another one of those cases where I thought, like, would it be this easy? And it was. And there's like two, that's one of two keys that are very easy to get. The other one is it involves something you might have done before in that if you're, like, when you're on LaChuk's ship, you can feed the chickens in the ship and one of them poops after you feed it.

When you come back to the room, you can see that it's poop. It's below. And when you revisit the ship later in the game in Chapter 4, you see that chicken has a key inside of it. And you're like, oh, is it as simple as feeding the chicken and leaving and coming back? And it is. So that key is relying on something you might have done in the past. And if you haven't,

you can still experiment with the thing in the room with one of the items in the room and the chicken. And this is why I think everyone should play in hard mode, not casual. Because in casual those two keys are even easier to get. In casual mode, you go to Locksmith and say, hey, I heard your mother had the key. She's like,

yep, and here it is. And she just hands it to you. You don't have to go to court or anything. And to get the key on Lechuk's ship, which is called the ship, which I enjoyed, you don't have to get, you don't have to find the chicken and get it to poop or anything like that. It's just like lying there. You just take it. No puzzle anywhere. So the puzzles are already like very player friendly enough. You don't have to like take away all the challenge, I think, unless you want to speed run it, like I said. I don't think casual is really worth it Yeah, unless you just want to rush through it

And get the characters in the story and the dialogue But I think it might be unsatisfying Because it does seem like it might be too easy But I'm glad they give an option for like little kids Or whatever if they want to play this And they're not smart enough to actually solve all these puzzles on their own But again, Rod Gilbert designed games for children So I think this is really an all-Ages game

There's one damn in the game at the end That's really all I noted it. Oh, really? I didn't notice that. Yeah, La Chuck just says damn once, and I think that could be. I mean, I didn't go through all the dialogue because that would take like multiple playthroughs, but I think I just counted one damn. Could be. It's, I think it's an E for everyone game. This is the act where Herman Toothrock comes back, and I'm pretty sure they retcon the whole being Elaine's grandfather thing. Oh, absolutely. I mean, Ron Gilbert tweeted about that, and when Elaine

meets up with Herman Toothraught, she's not like, Dad, what are you doing? down here. God. So, yeah. I'm glad he's back to being a crazy old coo. Yeah. I mean, anything else about chapter four,

I say this about every chapter. I really like this one. I really like that one. This one does feel the most classic monkey island to me, but in a modernized way. In Act one and four,

those are the only acts that has a time-based puzzle. And that's the one at the museum, the locked-discipline. play case. I'm glad it's the only one that has a time puzzle and they give you lots and lots of time to figure out what to do. Yeah, and they make it easy to re-attempt the puzzle too because, I mean, you play this if you're listening, but the parrots, you need to feed the parrots are the alarm system. We need to

feed them a cracker before you can open up the display case without them, you know, attacking you. So many parents. More birds than any other Monkey Island game. But in case you run out of time, and they give you a lot of time, by the way. To re-attempt it, you just, as soon as you, as soon as highlight the pair and just like feed another cracker you don't have to go into your inventory and drag a cracker out it just includes that within the possible things you can do which is not i think a few puzzles are like that it's like we know you're going to try this again you want to go into your inventory here here's the option same with unlocking it you just like you don't have to take the key and put it on on the lock or anything like that they're just like oh

you want to unlock this again just one click away and i like that they give you almost a comical amount of time because the guy's just like well just got to fold this really nicely now Got to fold it very carefully. It's like, why are you taking this long to do this? I don't like that you have to see that cutscene every time of him noticing when the parrot starts squawking. But I guess you can figure that out quickly anyway, what you're supposed to do there. Yeah, it didn't bother me that much. I mean, if this was a Tim Schaefer game, they probably wouldn't give you much time.

Then you wouldn't know if you were doing it the right way. I'm kidding. I don't actually like Tim Schaefer's adventure games that much I'm learning from doing this. doing this podcast series, although he's a fine man. I have no problems with him as a human being. But you were reading some review that was like, oh, it's missing Tim Schaefer. And when I played this game, I didn't feel that at all.

I feel like the sense of humor was the same. And I said this to you before the show, like Dave Grossman does not get enough credit. Dave Grossman worked on so many great games. He worked on so many of the telltale games that were very good. And he's back working on this. designed by Ron and Dave. And I think Dave Grossman is better at designing adventure games than Tom Schaefer. And I mean, that's why Tim Schaefer does not design adventure games anymore,

not because not just because they weren't as commercially viable. I think that's not really his calling. Yeah, but going back to the time puzzle thing, it's just so much better done than say the sushi boat puzzle and the Rolling Rock puzzle and Escape. Yeah, or look at a better adventure game. Most of the puzzles in full throttle are timing based to the point where, I mean, we did a podcast about it, but to the point where it's like, am I doing this right or am I not doing it quick enough? And, like, that was always a question with so many of the puzzles in that game. And that's why it kind of irritated me.

And there's a few like that, and even in Grim Fandango that I didn't like. Future podcasts, by the way, I'm putting it off. Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm glad that there's only one. And the second one is just like that, the same one, but with an extra element to make it a bit harder. And we do have to the fifth chapter beneath Monkey Island. And yes, it is a Lechuk showdown, but not in the way you think it is.

Because once you get in a certain area, you're really locked down. And it's all about solving, again, more puzzles of threes. But to cut to the chase here, we can talk about the puzzles if you want to. But to cut to the chase here, there is no final encounter with Lechuk. Lechuk and Guybrush barely meet face-to-face in this game. I mean, you can talk to Lechuk as the disguise swabby. there's not an ultimate confrontation and that might be disappointed to some people because Lechuk he he needs to go through this door at the end of at the center of Monkey Island and

once he does you're left behind and you have to do the same thing you have to solve the same puzzle he solves but you don't there's never an encounter with him at the end of the game first of all I think Ron said that he wasn't allowed to murder anyone in this game or show a murder, which is why, like, Captain Madison, I guess, is presumed, killed, but they did it in a way where I thought she was going to come back, because it's, like, very, very loosely implied. And her hat stays behind, I think. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's implied that Lila betrays her and kills her, but they don't actually show that.

So I kind of miss that dark element from it, especially after coming off of tales and seeing actual full on murders and that. and I was someone who was disappointed by the lack of like a final confrontation with Lechuk like I wish he just gave us the satisfaction of beating him while still keeping that same ending because revenge also has the strange ending which this game is implying you know is strange as a result of boy brush and Chucky recreating it but at least you get to defeat Lechuk before the weirdness happens and in this one you chase Lechuk through the final gate and then all tension is dropped because then the final twist of the game or the story rather is revealed yes

and we can talk about that in a second here i think what they might be trying to say is that like guy brush does not really care about lechuk and lechuk does not really care about guy brush they're both driven to find the secret and multiple times throughout the game uh lechuk is like i could kill you but i won't i'd rather get to the secret before you and you have to live with me getting it before you could touch it. So I think maybe that could be why there's never a confrontation, although I still would like to see one. And then we get to the ending, which Ron Gilbert's being a little stinker in a way that I kind of like, because it did kind of hit me, because you leave, you go through the same door with Chuck goes through. And I want to know all of our listeners what they think about

this, the once you finish the game, and I hope you've finished it if you're listening this far, is that when you leave through the same door that Chuck is, has left through, you're now back on Melee Island for some reason. And it's a theme park. version of Melee Island. And Stan works there and you give you the keys and tells you to shut down for the night. And Elaine is there too. And it's very, very strange and you're not sure what's happening. And then you cut back to, you know, a boy brush. And he's like, well, that story doesn't make any sense. And Guy Brush tells him basically, well, I think I chose to have Guy brush tell him. Well, it's about the journey, not the destination. And there is a real, I mean,

even if you don't like the ending, there's a very nice moment where Elaine comes to get, brush and she's like oh i've got a new map uh we're going to go on another adventure and he's like oh i just i just want to sit here for a moment and then or something like that and then the camera kind of lingers on him as he just sits and has like uh i wouldn't say a wistful look but that's kind of the way i read it and then cut to black credits and i did like that moment like guy brush kind of sitting and thinking and being wistful and thinking about what his life is like now and being happy and uh yeah i think that made up for the ending that i wasn't a huge fan of um It was all a theme park kind of thing, which Ron Gilbert has done before.

Yeah, in a way, this game had an emotional climax, and that made it satisfying enough, despite the lack of actual conversation with Lachuk. When it turned out to be a theme park at the end, I was like, okay, I see what they're doing here, especially when it turns out that Guy Brish is kind of like Ron Gilbert or the dev team talking to Boy Brush, who is like the audience surrogate. And I like how, I don't know if you did this, but there's a plaque next to Elaine, which you can read. Did you read the plaque? I think so, but I don't remember what it said. I wrote it down. It says, Historic Landmark, the original secret of pirate adventure park established 1989 by R. Gilbert, which makes me wonder, like, was this actually the original twist at the end? He was hoping to work towards, which he can't really use anymore because all these other games were made.

So now the secret is whatever you want to make it out to be, I guess, is what is implying. Yes. No, I did like that touch. I'm conflicted about the ending because there's an emotional payoff at the end with adult guy brush, older guy brush on the bench at the end. I think it's very poignant and it works very well. At least it worked on me. But there's no narrative payoff at all, especially if you're expecting like, oh, Captain Madison and what happened to the all the characters i like and what's lechuk going to do that all is irrelevant when you walk

through that door it doesn't none of it matters anymore although didn't you have fun uh up into that point with all those people and and i think uh guy brush is right in that the secret could never live up to uh any of your expectations because they revealed the secret of monkey island and curse of monkey island it's already happened the secret is it's a gate to hell and that's the secret you were you were already told it even if they redefined it could it be better than that be, I mean, it could be worse than that. But yeah, I feel like they painted themselves to a corner by just 30 years of buildup. They can't actually deliver a answer to that, which is satisfying.

But they might have been able to deliver a narrative payoff that was satisfying. That didn't necessarily answer that question. Yeah, this is basically just Ron Gilbert telling us, look, I know I suck at endings, okay, but who cares? You still had fun, didn't you? And we did. Yes. I made, yeah, I made an exciting adventure game. I made a fun adventure game and you enjoyed that.

Don't let these last two minutes ruin it for you. And yeah, like I don't want to repaid myself, but yeah, emotionally, really rewarding. Like, I'm not going to say I cried, but I did get a little goose bumpy. And then when I, after I finished that, the game, I watched the credits. It was great. It was weird seeing Walt Disney in the credits. I'm like, oh, right. I forgot about that.

And then I went to the scrapbook. Yes. I went to the scrapbook and I was like, oh, I didn't read the scrapbook before I started playing the game and I'm going through it. And I'm like, oh, neat. They update the scrapbook as you play. And then once you finish the game, there's a little letter at the end. You have to keep pushing the button to break the wax seal.

And this did make me very wistful and emotional. It's a letter from Dave Grossman and Ron Gilbert saying, this is a time capsule. It's June of 2020. We're embarking on this. When we started Monkey Island, we were in our 20s and we had something to prove. And then Monkey Island 2 was, you know, how do you make a sequel? That's what we're trying to explore. Now we're well into our 50s.

and were returning to this and what it was going to be. And I was like, boy, this, this is hitting me too. It's like these people who have had so many adventures in the past 30 years and not just in game design in their life. And I'm also thinking like, oh, June 2020 was an incredibly dark time to be alive. And there was some bit of hope in their lives by making this project. And that made me feel good too. So, yeah, I feel like the one two punch of the guy brush silent ending and the letter at the end did, it really got to me. And it made any sort of lack of narrative payoff kind of a run.

relevant. I don't want to keep bringing this up, but on the Reddit, it seems like a lot of fans interpreted the ending. You need to stay away from that Reddit. I know. I wanted to see. I wanted to see the reactions. I was surprised by how negative people were about it. Maybe I should have been surprised because it's Reddit. But it was interesting to see because all the critic reviews were like very happy with this game. And then I went to the Reddit. I'm like, oh, shoot, people have lots of nitpicks about this. One of the things people on there took away from this is, oh, this just means all these other games we played are just

Guy Brish telling a story to his son, that it just negates all of them. And it was like all by an unreliable narrator. And I thought, well, that doesn't necessarily mean none of this stuff happened, though. Like, you could take it as he was telling all these stories to his kid,

but I think these things still happen to him. Yeah, yeah. Like, when you start the game, and it's the big reveal, like, well, no, this is not really Guy Brush as a little kid. He meets up with, you know, adult Guy Brush

and Guy Bruch is like, oh, were you acting out my Monkey Island two adventures? You always come up with the silliest ending. So these adventures all happen. And Guy Bruch has told the stories to his son. And I think the scrapbook in the game is not just to let the player know, here's a reminder. It's also let them know like this all matters and this all

counts. All of these things are valid. And this is something that's happening after all of these adventures. Although now that we know that the ending of Michael N. 2 was just Boybush and his friend Chuckie acting out the end of the story. We don't know what actually happened at the very end of that story, I guess, what truly happened. That's for Return to Monkey Island 2 to answer. What other thoughts do you have about the ending, Nina? A couple more things I want to point out.

The three people who go through the gate at the end are Lechuk, Lila, and Guybrush. and they all resemble the kids at the beginning because there's Boy Rush Chuckie and Chuckie's friend Didi who is a little Asian girl So I think it kind of looks around Yeah I noticed that she looks like Lila The Pirate Lila when he restarted the game And also there is a secret faster way to end the game

Which is also a Chivo You can skip past this if you don't want to know But at the very end When you go through the gate, you find out you're in a theme park, you get the keys from Stan which, by the way, you're not some random worker,

you're a flooring inspector, which is a callback to the first game in the Outlook. You look more like a flooring inspector. You can take those keys, go back through the door, and leave the monkey head, and that ends the game. Oh, cool. So this is sort of like a bad ending. Sort of, yeah, yeah.

And that's a way of another way of speed running the game. It's just ending it that way. Okay. Any other final thoughts, Nina, before I give you my final thoughts. I was trying to figure out, in my head, my rankings now, now that all these games are out. I'm kind of torn between Tails and Return as my third favorite. I think I might like Tales a bit more. Because Tales' story and settings are better, and I like how different the structure is compared to the other game. The Return is really good, but it's just a little too nostalgia base for my.

my taste and the meta ending was a bit unsatisfying whereas tales's ending felt like an ending and it surprised me with how poignant it is narratively not just meta-wise but then then again i'm also more moved by couple stuff than parent and child stuff so maybe that's why and also elaine does a lot more in tales so even though i think return is mechanically a much better adventure game uh tales tells this story I like more. So I think they're tied in my head as my third favorite in the series. Yeah, I guess rankings. I don't want to lay them out here.

But again, like I said, up front, Return is the best design game in the entire series. I think narratively, tales might be my favorite, although it is building off of a lot of things are written ahead of time. But yeah, I think in terms of puzzle design, it might be like return, curse and then tails

I think oh really yeah and then one two escape well two is way down there for you mechanically yeah I'm not a huge fan of I mean like there is a huge

drop between two and escape let's say two in terms of puzzle design is seven out of ten escape is like two out of ten in terms of puzzle design I think Okay, well, I didn't think about ranking it, like, in terms of mechanics. So I'm not, I'll have to steal on that for, I think about that for a bit, I think. But in terms of, like, gameplay plus story, everything else, my ranking is revenge, secret, tales in return are tied, and then curse, and then way, way, way, way, way at the bottom is escape.

Yeah, it's down in hell where it belongs. Yes. We really have to wrap up, though. I will say final, final, final thoughts as we hit hour two of this podcast, that I, we could, Ron Gilbert could do another one of these, I think, and maybe not be as reliant on nostalgia, although I think it's not super reliant, but it's part of the experience. And it can't help but be part of the experience because it's a guy returning to this series after 30 years. But the ending, does not end with a tease, but Elaine's like, oh, we can go on another adventure.

and it's just like well this is his life now and like can we see more of his life and i think uh ron can just and dave and whoever else they can just make new adventure games and hopefully this can be a successful game for them and there might be a follow-up who knows i can see that happening in a few years uh i i i there's been six of these and i i'm not sick of it and i kind of want to see more especially uh one design this ball and if ron gober doesn't make another monkey island game he should make more adventure games because he's getting better and better at it he's like the guy he's the guy and future adventure games should take a look at this in what it does because it's the best one I've played in terms of design period I think

at the end of the Tales podcast I said I'd be satisfied with this as he last monkey Allen game and then return came out and now I would like to see more Michaelin games although like I said at the end of Tales I don't need to see more Lechuk I'm kind of tired of it I think all that has been done has been all that can be done has been done, which is why in this one, they just bring him back without explaining why he can came back. And he doesn't really do a whole lot, really. I don't know, like, can they do a Monkey Island game without Lechuk? I think they'd have to find a new compelling villain, but Tales of Monkey Island, most of the game, Lechuk was not the villain. And I thought that

was a fun subversion, even though he eventually became the villain at the end. Maybe they could try something like that again, or like the son of Lechuk or something, who knows. But I trust them to make a fun game regardless of their creative choices. I would like to see Ron Gilbert make more. It doesn't have to be Monkey Island. He could use this system. The dinky system, did you say? Yeah, the dinky engine.

Yeah, the dinky engine. And make another one and keep this art style too. That's fine. Like, I want to see more from him. Yeah, I would not be surprised if this is not the last we've seen of this engine. I feel like there will be some other uses for it. And I really hope there are. But we have to wrap up.

It's been a long two hours, and I hope everyone enjoyed this podcast about Monkey Island. Hopefully there will be another Monkey Island podcast. Like I said, was not expecting to make a sixth podcast when I started this in 2019. And yeah, very, very satisfied, very happy. And again, yes, please post in the comments what you felt about this game and this podcast because I'm not seeing enough discussion about this game.

And I hope people aren't avoiding it because they think it's a cheap cash in or they need to be an adventure game fan to play it. I hope people are giving it a chance, and I hope it sells very well. Also, it's only 25 bucks. Enough of your never paid more than 20 bucks for adventure game quips. Like reverse inflation, 25 bucks was $11 back when the first game was released. And that's like nothing.

Yes, yes. And hey, you can afford it, but just don't cancel your Patreon subscription. We really need that. But yeah, let's talk about you, Nina. Number one, you got a lot going on. You're working for fan gamer. You have stuff going on in bookstores like the Spark series and other things like you're even doing art for for Rift Tracks now, some of their covers. Can you please talk about where we can find you and what you're working on right now?

Yeah, I'm on Twitter. Space Coyotero. You can go to Space Coyote. Oh, Space Coyote is Space Coyote with an L at the Ns 7E. SpaceCoyote.com. Go there to see my art. Go to sparkscom to learn about my children's graphic novel series Sparks. You can go to fangamer.com and sort by collection and click on my name to see all the video game merch I've designed.

Awesome. And as for me, you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. This has been an episode of Retronauts, by the way. You can support us online by going to patreon.com slash Retronauts. You can get all of these podcasts one week ahead of time and add free for three bucks a month. For five bucks a month, is what we really recommend. You get that, you know, advanced podcast feature, but also access to two full-length. episodes every month that aren't available on the free feed. We've been doing that for, I think, nearly three complete years now. So there's quite a few podcasts, full-length podcast. You haven't heard if you're not on the $5 level. And there's also a weekly column and podcast by Diamond Fight on that level as well. So a lot of content is waiting for you at the $5 level. If you sign up right now,

you get access to all that immediately. And yeah, we think you'll like it. And also, since I'm releasing this podcast like two days before I, after I record it, there we go. By the way, thank you very much to my editor, who's doing me a huge favor by turning this around quickly. You can see me at Portland Richard Gaming Expo. There's going to be a promo in the feed in case you forget, but I'm going to be there Saturday at 11 a.m. for a Retronauts panel. So if you miss me at Pax, I'll be there with Jeremy and Gary Butterfield talking about fast food mascot games, or rather just food mascot games. It's going to be a fun video version of a discussion I've had before. It's going to be a lot of fun. Right before the lunching hour, it might

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