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Episode 12 - Return to Monkey Island
4.8k Plays6 months ago
The album of the year is finally out, and let us be the first to tell you that T.S. did NOT disappoint with her newest release, 3D MARIO. Best Nintendo-themed, 3-D album yet.
We did not play Harold Halibut yet, but Matt did play an Adventure/RPG set in 1905 Poland and Roses played with her cat. We talk about Return to Monkey Island so much that we get kind of emotional?
We also forgot to mention that we are part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network, which you can find here: https://adventuregamehotspot.com/
Email Us! [email protected]
Games Mentioned:
- Harold Halibut
- Police Quest
- The Thaumaturge
- Disco Elysium
- Quest For Glory
- Return to Monkey Island
- The Secret of Monkey Island
- Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
- The Curse of Monkey Island
- Escape from Monkey Island
- Tales from Monkey Island
Recommended
Transcript
Feline Antics
00:00:00
Speaker
I have very high ceilings in my apartment like extremely high ceiling so it's like nine feet up the ground and she has no way she can like climb up because like cats can like climb like legit climb and not just jump but she can't climb down so she sits there and cries is it that she does she like the idea of you bringing her back down like is that it
00:00:26
Speaker
don't know what it is because she doesn't she's not she's kind of like a bush cat she doesn't like being too high up all the time but there's something i don't know there's something about those shelves that she there's even a bunch of boxes on top so she has like nowhere to sit so when she does sit she just crushes herself like behind these boxes and i'm like this can't this can't be comfy and then just and then just complains the whole time and then just cries yeah yeah
00:00:55
Speaker
Not even whining, but full on baby crying. Like I've done something wrong. So, and so I can't reach her when she gets up there, obviously, because I'm not, I don't know if you knew this, but I'm not nine feet tall. I'm five foot, like seven. I do not know you weren't nine feet tall, but what do you, how do you do it? How do you, how do you get her then? Call the fire department.
00:01:19
Speaker
Every time I call the phone. No, I have to. It's kind of cute, actually. I have to hold her bed up as high as I can and she jumps into the bed. You lower it down. And then I lower it down. Yep. I just I want to like crawl up on the shelf and cry at her and see what she thinks. She holds your bed up and you're like, what?
The Anticipated Media Event
00:02:02
Speaker
roses hi it's out what what we're living in the moment when now it is finally okay everybody just you know this is we're recording on Friday April 19th that's true and
00:02:21
Speaker
There's a media event that just took place. Everybody was waiting for this one media property to come out. Everybody was waiting with bated breath. They were worried that it would be so popular, it might shut down the internet services, which people use to play it. Is this about The Bachelor again? This is not about The Bachelor. Do you not know what this thing is? Anyone's talking about on Twitter.
00:02:51
Speaker
The Married at First Sight reunion came out this morning. I watched that. Well, that's not it. That's not it. What is it? Should I go on Twitter? Should I see what's trending? Will that help? Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. You'll see it. Don't say it out loud. I want us to say it at the same time. So as soon as you think you've got it, you tell me. But again, it's a massive media event. Basically, the whole world was looking forward to this. And it just came out this week.
00:03:21
Speaker
Oh, well, okay, okay, maybe. Do you think you know what it is? Nope. Look, it could be a couple things, but we're gonna go for it. Are you ready? It's a major, major, major piece of work that was just finally released.
00:03:36
Speaker
And people, you know, people are going nuts about it. OK, I'm ready. Dissecting it, talking about it, talking in fan communities. All right, we'll say it at the same time. Ready? Uh huh. Three, two, one. Harold Halibut. Three D Mario. Wait, what? Wait, what did you say? Harold Halibut, obviously. Everybody's talking about Harold Halibut. Well, about 3D Mario?
00:04:07
Speaker
I have no idea what that is. Is that some sort of- Sir, Harold Halibut is not even trending for me. Oh, is Three Mario the name of that new Taylor Swift album? Is that what it is? Yeah, she's going really pop culture these days. Also, just FYI, Little Big Planet is also trending. So how many times have you listened to the new Taylor Swift? I haven't. Now that you bring it up.
00:04:38
Speaker
Is there a new, is there a new new, well, hang on, let's be clear. The big media event that everybody is talking about, obviously the one that everybody was waiting for, the one that people are going crazy for, the one they thought would shut down streaming services is Harold Halibut. But also there's a new Taylor Swift album. Oh, I didn't know either of those. Okay, well.
00:05:02
Speaker
But I went on trending and I saw 3D Mario and I went for it. Again, I think that's the name of the new Taylor Swift album, 3D Mario. The first track on her album is called Fortnite.
Police Quest Controversy
00:05:21
Speaker
And you know if you asked her, she'd be like, oh, I didn't realize that was the name of a game. Like, you know. I didn't know. That was just based on a relationship I had several years ago. I'm not going to name names. It lasted for about two weeks, so I wanted to do a song about it, and so I named it Fortnite. You know when your title, when your number one track is Fortnite in 2024, what that's going to evoke. You can't pretend.
00:05:51
Speaker
Taylor Swift. That's so funny. Anyway, this is a savior game. Everybody, welcome to the show. I'm Matt Aucamp. I'm pushing up roses. Hi. I actually did play some Harold Halibut, but just you just today. Yeah, I am going to look this up right now. Why is it not working? Come on, Harold Halibut. It's the the graphics. It's, you know,
00:06:18
Speaker
all claymation and the graphics look incredible. But. I don't know. Again, I only played it for like 15 minutes and mostly it was it was just walking around very slowly. Very empty environments that looked, again, gorgeous. But, you know, I'm sure I'll have more to say about it next week.
00:06:42
Speaker
But yeah, let's give it a shot. I'm going to put on my radar for hopefully next week. That'll be in my playing thing because I love, I actually love claymation and a lot of people find it kind of frightening. I actually really enjoy it. It's a little, and it's also like a little, the voice acting is really good and also a little bit.
00:07:01
Speaker
There's a lot of space in the audio and it's like kind of quiet. Like the performances are sort of lower key. So in that way reminds me a bit of like Wallace and Gromit.
00:07:16
Speaker
Sure, sure. I think even just inherently it's going to probably because of the clay. Yeah. Yeah. And the British accent. Are you saying it's slow paced right now? Seems to be. Yeah. And also it seems like there's an incredible amount of writing. There's all these parts.
00:07:32
Speaker
Again, I'm only like 15 minutes in, but there's parts where I have walked past two NPCs chatting. And I just stood there for like two minutes and they never repeated dialogue. And I was like, holy cow, how much writing is in this game? So I think it'll be interesting if
00:07:58
Speaker
already, it might be a little bit boring, but we'll find out. So what have you been playing? Well, according to you.
00:08:09
Speaker
So what you guys don't know is that to keep this podcast structured, we have a very organized Google document where we lay out what we've been playing and what we're going to talk about. And if we have a special guest, we're very professional over here. And Rose has been playing all sorts of crazy stuff and she's going to tell you all about them right now. I didn't even know, but apparently I was playing police quest leisure. I love that. It's one of my favorites. The thing is that you love these games.
00:08:38
Speaker
I love these, Leisure Sue Larry, Magna Cum Laude, a classic. That's the 3D one, right? Yeah, that's the 3D classic Larry, and Plumbers Wear Ties, which I don't even own. So that's really impressive that I have somehow on this document list that I have played all these games. I mean, yeah, I do think that's impressive. Thank you. Yeah. Because they're so bad. Like, how did I even sit through them, you might wonder. What did you think about all of them?
00:09:09
Speaker
I evil, you know, I have thoughts on police quest and that nearly people were mad at me. So I haven't. Interestingly, I have been working so hard this week. I haven't played much. Well, I played. I actually played the game that we're going to talk about maybe a little too much that I should have. And then maybe I would have had more time, but I didn't. I just kept playing the game that we're going to talk about.
00:09:32
Speaker
But I have thoughts on police quest. I'm going to use this time to say that my police quest review is very controversial to some people on the internet. And I said how much I didn't like it. I said that it was racist.
Introducing Thaumaturge
00:09:50
Speaker
I did. I said it was a little racist. I said it was kind of the white guys power fantasy to me. And I was I think I was pretty nice about it. I just said like it was clear to me that this is kind of Jim Walls is almost like fantasy.
00:10:05
Speaker
And that there's nothing inherently wrong with that. It could just go bad very quickly if you're not, if you're putting racism in your game, even if, even if by accident, even if you think you're doing the right thing, you know, infections don't really matter if the consequences, bleh. So, but even beyond that stuff, right? This just came up actually. Somebody was talking about police class. It might've been, it might've been Ashens. I was on his, I was in his chat on a stream.
00:10:32
Speaker
And he brought up the infamous, because nobody can forget about this, the bomb puzzle in with the car. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes. If you. If you whenever you get in your car in police quest. You have to walk around.
00:10:52
Speaker
the entire car, you have to like circumnavigate the car. And keep in mind, we're not saying you have to type look, you have to physically have your character walk around the car. Walk your character around the car, around the entirety of the car. And if you do,
00:11:11
Speaker
your character says you know up everything looks fine gets in the car and you drive away perfectly fine if you don't magically a bomb appears in your car and you explode and die because apparently jim walls was like oh yeah here's the thing we always have to check our police cars because people are always putting bombs on
00:11:34
Speaker
But most ridiculous, just so ridiculous. You know, I would have been I would have been maybe even more forgiving if it was randomized. Like maybe one day there is one and you did have to look that day, but it's not. It's it's either or. You know what I mean? It's either you check and there's nothing there. Or if you don't check, you are dead. And that is how this game works. So like say what you will about my opinion on like the moral stuff. This game sucks anyway. OK, I'm sorry. Scapes sucks.
00:12:05
Speaker
I can't imagine many cops die, many cops in the US anyway, I think probably anywhere, die from their car being bombed while they're inside the station. Like in the station. Yeah, this is in the station. Yeah, yeah. So you've been playing a lot of Police Quest. I've been playing a lot of Police Quest.
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah, what have you been playing, Matt? So, so I've been playing the Thaumaturge. It is about it's like this is early 20th century.
00:12:42
Speaker
Poland, like before the Bolshevik Revolution, at the beginning of sort of like the workers unrest in the nation, you play a thaumaturge. You play kind of like a magic wizardy, detective-y kind of guy who you collect basically
00:13:12
Speaker
basically demons that help you have some kind of vague magical powers. Oh, it's like Pokemon. Very, very, very unlike Pokemon. Okay, my bad.
00:13:32
Speaker
You know what, it's actually very much like Disco Elysium. If any of the listeners have played that game, it's the same sort of top-down, isometric, 3D graphics. Very beautiful, but kind of dark. And...
00:13:54
Speaker
a lot of writing, a lot of reading, like kind of like a visual novel level of reading. Basically you're exploring this alternate version of Poland from the early 19th century. You're friends with Rasputin, the historical figure Rasputin.
00:14:15
Speaker
And yeah, basically your father dies who is also a famous thaumaturge who you had disagreements with. You're returning to Warsaw, which right now is no longer Warsaw, Poland. It is Warsaw, USSR, right? Or Warsaw, Russia, I guess it's pre-USSR because Russia has already taken Poland. And there's a lot of like political upheaval and political unrest going on as you are dealing with the fallout from your father's death.
00:14:46
Speaker
there is turn-based combat in this game, which is actually kind of a bummer because I don't think, honestly, I don't think it adds to the game. Would you have rather been real-time? I would rather, I don't think the combat adds at all. Oh, you don't think, so it's like Quest for Glory. You don't think there's like, there should be combat because that's my hot take.
00:15:09
Speaker
the game the game is sort of like like quest for glory it's trying to go for like a tabletop rpg it's like trying to replicate a tabletop rpg right and as such it gives you encounters and some of these encounters can be solved non-violently or through like clever means but there's a lot of forced combat where you cannot resolve it through non-violent means you have to fight these guys and so just every now and then you're
00:15:38
Speaker
going, you're visiting a new place, or you're on your way to complete a quest objective, and suddenly you're in a combat. And the combat, again, they don't really add much. I- It's too bad, because it kind of sounds a little, I mean, it sounds like a JRPG. It sounds like Final Fantasy, where you're hitting these little areas, and sometimes you can run, and sometimes you have to fight. Right, these are- But honestly, I liked that. I liked that in Final Fantasy. I thought it was-
00:16:07
Speaker
There's no random encounters. These encounters are scripted. Oh, okay. Yes. The strength of the game is in talking to characters and investigating these little mysteries that you come across. You have one of your thaumaturge powers. Not only can you influence people, which sometimes
00:16:28
Speaker
affects dialogue trees. You also, at any point, you can kind of like tap your grimoire. It makes this really cool, echoey snapping sound, and it highlights things in the area that you otherwise maybe couldn't have seen.
00:16:47
Speaker
So like you get these red sparkly things that sort of hone in on a specific spot. And then when you walk up to them and click your little snap button, they come together and you can examine that thing. And then when you have a certain amount of clues, he sort of puts together all the pieces in his mind and then gives you some sort of insight, which you can then use to have new interactions with other characters. I like that mechanic.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. The way it's written and these adventure game mechanics are really, really cool and really smart. And again, very disco Elysium-like, as well as the story clearly branches, you're making choices at various times that have major consequences. And there was one situation where it was even like,
00:17:44
Speaker
I saved and then I made two different choices just to kind of see how much it branched. And the next, like the next scene in one situation, I just kind of kept going with my life. And the other situation I was in jail to find my way out of jail. Nice. Like, so there's big changes depending on your actions. This is a big game. Are you saying this is like a kind of like a traditional RPG where you're going to dump out like hours and hours into it?
00:18:13
Speaker
So as far as an RPG, it's short. For an RPG, it's short. For an adventure game, it's long. Supposedly, it's about 25 hours. Okay. Yeah, I would agree with that assessment then. That's a short RPG and it's a long adventure game. I'm only... How long am I in? I'm about...
00:18:33
Speaker
10 hours in right now. And it's really, again, it's really well written. It's really smart. It's a little dour where Disco Elysium had a lot of humor and a lot of wackiness. This game has a lot of somber energy and dark kind of gothic energy. I like that.
00:18:56
Speaker
I'm really enjoying it so far. I'm gonna keep playing and I think we'll be talking about it on the show again at some point. Do you wanna talk about, what are we talking about today?
Excitement for New Monkey Island
00:19:06
Speaker
We are talking about one of my new personal favorites, Return to Monkey Island upon request from our viewers. I was gonna say from our reviewers. We might have reviewers. I don't know if they request stuff, but from our viewers. I also hope we don't have viewers.
00:19:22
Speaker
We, well, that'd be strange. Yeah, because I mean, I'm sitting in my house right now with no camera on me. So it would be very strange if I had a viewer all of a sudden. Yeah, that'd be, that'd be terrifying. Like if somebody just came up to my window and saw me in my cookie monster pants, because I can find her pants today. Just like, Hey, I'm, I'm a, I'm just a viewer. Don't worry about me.
00:19:46
Speaker
videos because the windows closed are just literally. What I meant to say is listener listener recommendation return to Monkey Island, which is the newest Monkey Island game in the series. Hell yeah, I'm I'm stoked to talk about it. All right, I am going to go take a bathroom break and then we'll come back and we will. I'm going to go take a bath and then we'll be right back.
00:20:28
Speaker
Roses. Yes, Matt. Welcome back. Thanks. How was the bathroom? Are you calling me out? Matt, are you calling me out? So yeah, I might've said I might've called it a bathroom break. Did I go to the bathroom? No, I lied. Wow. What did you do? I sat here and looked at my cat. Cool. Cool. Did your cat climb the shelf yet?
00:20:57
Speaker
No, luckily she's still asleep in her little pink bed. She's so cute. How was your bath? It was good. You know, I feel like I'm bringing a sleepy energy to the show today. And I think a bath is just the thing. To make me sleep here. Yeah, it's lean into it. Not to wake me up, but to lean into it. So now I'm just a little, I'm even sleepier.
00:21:23
Speaker
You need to process your feelings, sit with your feelings, even though we are recording. This is just the chill episode where I get to sit. Oh, dear. I'm going to bring this microphone into the bath and I'm just going to splash around while we chat about it. That sounds great. In future episodes, save your game from the bathtub.
00:21:46
Speaker
Next time we have a, next time we have a, like a milestone, when we hit episode 50, we'll both bring our recording stuff into the bathroom, in our, our individual bathrooms, and we will record from the bath. And I'll like, I'll, I'll light like candles. I will get a dinner with a little table, possibly a bath, a bathtub pillow. Those are a thing, you know?
00:22:09
Speaker
And then we'll just both fall asleep. We'll be so comfy that that's the end of it. And then we'll wake up and start talking about adventure games again. And we'll release the whole episode with the whole time that we fell asleep in there. I'm definitely going to put ads on that.
00:22:32
Speaker
No one would watch or sorry why I keep I keep acting as though people are watching us There's no any of people would watch but not many people would listen Just for that I'm wearing a bathing suit
00:22:54
Speaker
Alright, do you want to talk about Monkey Island with me, Roses? Okay. Yes, I do. I will talk about this with anybody, especially if you know me in real life. One of my icebreakers is talking about Monkey Island because
00:23:09
Speaker
That sounds that sounds weird, probably. But even when you're not a gamer, or even an adventure gamer, it seems to me that people of our generation know what Monkey Island is, they're familiar with the franchise. A lot of my friends who are not gamers have played Monkey Island, it just seems to be in that certain age group, people have a lot of nostalgia for it. So much to our surprise,
00:23:31
Speaker
We were shocked when a new Monkey Island came out just a few years ago. Well, do you want to give a very brief history on the franchise before this announcement was made?
00:23:45
Speaker
Sure, or people can just go watch my videos, but no, that's fine. No, that's fine. I'll repeat myself. It's fine. I love doing that. So, Monkey Island is a series developed by what was then called Lucas Films. It is called LucasArtsNow. And when did it start? Like 80, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna guess and see if I'm right, okay? 87 for secret, am I right?
00:24:10
Speaker
No, that's got to be wrong. Yes. Wait, wait, give me a second chance. Give me a second chance. OK. OK. 90. It is 1990. Yes. Yes. See, I knew I was wrong right away with 87. I'm like, well, no, no, that's that's like that's King's Quest three or something. Yeah. Yeah. That's what everything still looked like. Advanced Atari.
00:24:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's why I'm like, oh no, no, no, no, that's wrong. That's wrong. It's gotta be 90. So yeah, The Secret of Monkey Island came out in 1990 by Lucas Films. It is an adventure game.
00:24:48
Speaker
How do I describe how to describe? Yeah, it's it's just, you know, it's a it's a it's a funny I don't know if you'd call it a comedy game specifically, but it is a funny adventurous point and click graphic venture. You know, it follows a naive little wannabe pirate.
00:25:07
Speaker
who arrives at a place called Malai Island, and that's his whole thing. He wants to be a pirate. He just wants to be a pirate, yep. And he wants to find the secret of Monkey Island, and in his way is a ghost pirate named LeChuck. And then later, a zombie pirate, and then later, a ghost zombie pirate, and we're not even sure what he is at this point. He's also a demon pirate. In Curse, he was a demon pirate.
00:25:35
Speaker
I thought he was zombie pirate, but that demon makes sense though. Yeah, he had the flamey, he had a firey beard. So yeah, I guess the second installment of Monkey Island came out in 1991, so pretty quickly. It was really that quick, was it? Yeah, and then- I feel like that's not common these days.
00:25:57
Speaker
the third game sort of strayed from the traditional pixel art. Wait, wait, let me guess. Let me guess. I want to see if I can remember this. I covered all these games. I'm going to guess 1997.
00:26:12
Speaker
1997 is when Curse of Monkey Island came out. And that was, you know, that was my, I think, Secret of Monkey Island was my first adventure game that ever played Curse of Monkey Island was maybe my first like favorite video. Like the first time I was like, this is my favorite video game. Oh, yeah. I'm still very enchanted with Curse of Monkey Island. It's one of my favorite games ever in the world. Then a very poorly received fourth game came out.
00:26:42
Speaker
I'm gonna guess 2000. Yes, it was 2000. It was an escape from Monkey Island. It was in 3D. It was a little clunky. It didn't really have the tone of the first three games. It was just, again, a completely different creative team. Did I like it anyway? Yes. For some reason. I really did. I really did like it.
00:27:12
Speaker
then when Telltale in the mid 2000s was revisiting a lot of these, or in the late 2000s, was revisiting a lot of these old adventure game properties and making new editions of them with their Telltale engine. If you don't know Monkey Island, then you're probably a novice to adventure games. So maybe you know the Telltale made the,
00:27:39
Speaker
Fables game. Walking Dead games. And what was the fables game called? The Wolf Among Us. Wolf Among Us. Wolf Among Us. Yes. Based on. Yeah, based on the comic book fables. OK. Yeah, they did a they did a Jurassic Park game that had varying degrees of success. Yeah, they did a game and they read Batman game that people loved and then a Guardians of the Galaxy game that nobody likes.
00:28:06
Speaker
know that existed. And of course they, speaking of LucasArts, they did some of the Sam and Max games, which we talked about in our Sam and Max episode a few episodes back. And then they did Tales of Monkey Island. Once again, a lot of people didn't really, you know, a lot of people kind of considered the first three games, the games. The games, yeah. Escape from Monkey Island was sort of an add-on that a couple people liked and most people didn't.
00:28:33
Speaker
But even if you liked it, it didn't really feel like it was part of the series. I think it does. Okay. I'm, I'm, I'm gonna disagree with you. To me, it does feel like it's a part of it and Tails does not feel like it's a part of it, but that's just me.
00:28:48
Speaker
Yeah, I disagree entirely. I think Escape from Monkey Island does not feel like the same sort of jokes. It doesn't feel like the same. The characters don't have the same personalities. It doesn't look the same. It doesn't feel the same in it. The puzzles aren't similar. It just feels different in a lot of ways.
00:29:06
Speaker
but I think Tales of Monkey Island, while feels a little bit more like any other Telltale game, so it's like the feel still isn't right. I actually think Tales of Monkey Island gets a little closer back to the sense of humor and the characterizations of the earlier games. So then the franchise was quiet for 13 years.
00:29:32
Speaker
Well, it was acquired by Disney, right? Well, Lucas, LucasArts. So LucasArts was acquired by Disney. So some people started wondering aloud, you know.
00:29:43
Speaker
Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Maybe there's hope. And most most people's responses to that was like, come on, stop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then entirely in secret, Adventure Game Company Terrible Toy Box, which is run by Ron Gilbert, who was the creator of the first two Monkey Island games. Uh,
00:30:09
Speaker
Ron Gilbert got the band back together. Yeah, in total secret. Which was kind of amazing because you're telling me there's a game ready to be played soon? Like it's beyond, right? Like it's beyond development. You have a date and it's soon. That is the coolest thing. I just love that. I love that a game company did that.
00:30:35
Speaker
It was so cool. Yeah, it was announced in. Oh, man, I got to find this out. We got to we got to nail this down because let's see what the date was. So the two were so close to each other. It was announced in May 2022 and then was released in September 2022. Yeah. See, so it was like ready to go. It was ready to go. So that was that was wild. And when it was announced,
00:31:06
Speaker
obviously everyone was super stoked, and then they started showing screenshots from it, and the internet sort of broke into two different camps. Do you wanna explain? Yeah, yeah, so.
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah, the trailer came out and I would describe this new style that they're doing. It's more cartoony than nothing but stylized. This is a highly stylized game. It is not pixel art like a lot of indie and metric games choose to do. And the internet was at odds with each other. Some people, without even really, I mean, I can say this for certain, without playing the game said they hated it, that they hate the artistic style. They're basically not gonna play it.
00:31:49
Speaker
other people, and I think a lot of people, I would say a lot of people more than the haters were very excited to have a new monkey island, you know, on the scene. But there was a very loud group of people basically harassing Ron Gilbert off the internet.
00:32:06
Speaker
Because just because of the art style, which is so mind boggling to me. Because, you know, Matt and I, we've been playing adventure games since we were young. And we've seen franchises go through every style that they can possibly go through. You know, the King's Quest games, they started out pixel art, they ended in 3D.
00:32:25
Speaker
Not the best decision, but what can you do? They evolve, you know, things change. Yeah. We watched even like Gabriel, look at Gabriel Knight, pixel art to FMV live acted to 3d. So this is not new. This is not a new thing that adventure games have done. And then returned to its original style, but removed the pixels. Yeah.
00:32:49
Speaker
Yeah, like did, you know, rendered smooth art, which is how, this is the thing that gets me here is a lot of people talk about, talked about this as if, so the art style, yeah, very cartoony, very geometric, a lot of exaggerated shapes and lines. It can be painterly too, with its colors. I think it's a great style. I really like it.
00:33:17
Speaker
If you've ever played the game, Jenny Le Clue, that is the art style that this reminds me of. I agree. Yeah. So when a lot of people were calling Ron Gilbert like a sellout and like how dare he release a new Monkey Island without doing pixel art and what people miss
00:33:39
Speaker
And again, this is the same as when they remastered Gabriel Knight. Yeah. And got rid of all the pixels. Right. This is.
00:33:51
Speaker
The pixel art wasn't like a statement in the 1980s and 1990s. It's what they had to do. This is what they were working with. That's all they had. Right. Yeah. So it wasn't like, oh, these are guys who love pixel art. It's these are guys who are working with the tools they have. So the
00:34:10
Speaker
remake of Gabriel Knight happened because that is how they pictured it in their heads when they were drawing it and it just had pixels when they had to put it in a computer to render it in that era. I understand the nostalgia.
00:34:27
Speaker
the feels towards pixel art. It's become its own style today. It's become its own thing, for sure. But I think people need to realize that the best thing about the Monkey Island games, maybe with the exception of Curse, is not the graphics. It is just not. It's just not. That's the last thing. I actually think this is a very controversial statement. I think Secret of Monkey Island is not the best looking game. When I played it, when I was young, I was like, okay.
00:34:57
Speaker
I would disagree. I don't think the graphics are the last thing. I love the graphics of Early Monkey Island. I have a Secret of Monkey Island print hanging in my living room. I really love those graphics, but... Yeah, I want to be clear. I'm not saying they're nothing.
00:35:17
Speaker
But because I love the franchise as a whole, I'm not sure it matters to me which graphic style they go to as long as it's a Monkey Island game.
Exploring Monkey Island's Narrative
00:35:33
Speaker
They weren't, again, they weren't pixel art enthusiasts. They were pixel artists because that was how you were, that's how you became a computer game artist is learning pixel art because it's all they had. If you want pixel art these days, there are plenty of people who are pixel art enthusiasts and there's plenty of games that are made with pixel art because the creators thought their games looked best in pixel art.
00:36:01
Speaker
Yeah, we have the choice now, you know, we have that choice of like, what style do we want to do we want to replicate? So that doesn't mean that all adventure games should should be pixel art by default. That's crazy. And
00:36:17
Speaker
There's just a lot of people I don't think that understood that. And then there was, because they were grumpy, they would say insane things, like, oh, this art is lazy, which absolutely not. They'd say, oh, this art looks like a child made it, which absolutely not. Right? They'd say. Oh, man, if children can make that, like, go for it. I'm very highly impressed. It's just, yeah, the way people said, like, oh, this art looks like you could do it in two minutes. Like, these things are,
00:36:43
Speaker
absolutely unhinged things to say that it is. There's no understanding.
00:36:51
Speaker
of how art is made by any person who says stuff like that. It's just petulant. It's just so petulant to me. And keep in mind, you are allowed to not like a certain type of art. I get it. I'm an artist. I work in visual arts, and I get that. And there are some styles I don't like, and that's fine. But we're talking about people haven't even played the game yet. There's literally a trailer in this just petulant
00:37:20
Speaker
thing was happening. And yeah, people who are saying, again, wild things that are just untrue, right? That this art is easy or whatever. And other people saying things like, oh, this doesn't fit Monkey Island. That's where it's like you haven't played the game yet.
00:37:38
Speaker
yeah if you haven't played the game then you can't tell me it doesn't fit the style of the game because neither of us know what's gonna be in the game like i'm gonna be like totally candid with you when i saw the the trailer i was a little like i was so excited first of all first feeling was excitement second feeling was it was being unsure of the art style and how i would
00:38:05
Speaker
connected to what I already know and what I already love about Monkey Island. But that being said, I was never against it. I never thought it looked bad. And obviously you have to play the game to see if it does fit. You know how trailers are. Trailers are misleading a lot of the time, you know?
00:38:26
Speaker
It definitely took a second of adjustment, but I don't think there was ever a point where I was thinking, huh, I don't know if this is right. Like that never really crossed my mind, but there was a moment where I was like, oh, this is new.
00:38:40
Speaker
Yeah. And even upon replaying it, because I replayed it a lot for today, I liked it even more. There wasn't even a little part of me that needed to adjust. This is Return to Monkey Island. This is what this game is. I like it. And yeah, I really like the artistic style. In fact, I actually think it suits Monkey Island perfectly. Me too. The same way I think Curses
00:39:08
Speaker
cartooning graphics fit that game perfectly and fit Monkey Island perfectly. I'm very charmed by it. I really like it. Yeah, nothing about Return to Monkey Island feels incongruous to me. There's never a moment where I'm playing and I'm thinking like, oh, this soundtrack
00:39:29
Speaker
or this art style doesn't fit, right? To me, and I guess we should start getting into talking about the actual game now, because to me, this game is a little gem of an entity, right? I think every piece of it works together really well, and it really holds together as a piece of art.
00:39:50
Speaker
Yeah, I do too. Look, look guys. I think we can all agree that sometimes when our beloved game developers of the past, sometimes when they try to come back, it's not always smooth sailing. And that makes sense. This is an art form, so you do lose momentum. If I stop painting for 10 years, I will lose momentum.
00:40:15
Speaker
and I might produce something that's not as good as my previous stuff. And we've seen that happen with some of our beloved game devs of the past and of the recent past. Yes. Go ahead. Yeah, if Ron Gilbert is part of, say, a triumvirate of three creators who built the adventure game genre from the ground up, one might say, all three of them came back in the same year and only one of them made a good game.
00:40:45
Speaker
And that was shocking to me. I mean, I guess like we had a little, a little, I mean, we had Thimbleweed Park from Terrible Toybox before that. So I knew that Ron Gilbert could still make adventure games clearly. He had the cave before that, which is fine.
00:41:04
Speaker
But you know, when you're dealing with a franchise that hasn't had an installment in a very long time, you kind of wonder what they're going to do with it. And we have to have to keep in mind that Ron Gilbert only worked on the first and second game, it was a new creative team for curse. And I was wondering personally, what he was going to do with that. And to my pleasant surprise, he used that, you know, Murray is back in this game, the demonic talking skull.
00:41:38
Speaker
He references every game as if they're all part of the same canonical universe and then part of the story of one character and one world.
00:41:50
Speaker
which is which would be hard to do for somebody who is clearly bitter about his, you know, his creative work being taken from him and given to other people. And I know. I don't know how if people know how difficult that would be like as an artist to give away your baby
00:42:15
Speaker
And then see it go in and it's hard. You don't want to be bitter about it because it's art, you know, and curse, especially. Everybody hate one of the installments that you had nothing to do with. Yeah. To be like, well, man, not only did I lose it, it went into the wrong hands.
00:42:33
Speaker
Yeah, I want you guys to really sit on that because it must be so difficult, you know? So I think Curse had some of the same talent. It just did not have Ron Gilbert.
00:42:48
Speaker
Right. So curses had some continuity. Yeah. In creative in the creative team. But yeah, then it escape had, I think, like nobody. Yeah, it might have been. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it was maybe entirely a new creative team. And they might be I might be a little wrong about some of this.
00:43:07
Speaker
Feel free to send us emails, I guess, if you want. Whatever. Don't yell at us, though. Yeah, be nice. Thinking of that, all the disappointment that Ron Gilbert must have had and how weird it is to come back to basically a dead franchise and be competing with all the expectations and people's memories and people's nostalgia.
00:43:33
Speaker
The most brilliant thing about Return to Monkey Island, and we'll start talking about the game now, is Ron Gilbert put all of that into the game. The entire story of this game is about that experience.
00:43:53
Speaker
Right. While having its own identity, I want to be clear that this is not a reboot or like a rehash or reimagining. This is a new Monkey Island game. It's a continuation. I think it's fair to call it a continuation, right? Right. Yes. And even if you don't know anything about
00:44:11
Speaker
the Monkey Island games, it's still a piece of work about what it feels like to compete with nostalgia and what it feels like to return to the glories of your youth as an older person.
00:44:30
Speaker
It's, it's, it's really impressive. Honestly, I thought that I love Ron Gilbert, I think he's a good guy and a good developer, very smart. I thought he would be a little more bitter and inclined to, I guess I felt he was inclined to keep with one and two his product, the one the monkey islands that he worked on, but to my very pleasant surprise is very refreshing.
00:44:54
Speaker
he gave love to all the games. And I think that's one of the best things about this game. There's nothing bitter about it. There's there's there is criticism, though, I think. And there there there is love and there is sorrow. And he made something that is just incredibly thoughtful from every angle. And it pushes
00:45:20
Speaker
in these like literary boundaries in the space of like again in the in the medium again of like a silly cartoony point and click adventure game yeah yeah for sure do you want to give everybody a quick like overview of the premise and the plot of this game
00:45:42
Speaker
Yeah, let's, I'm trying to think if they need to know anything. I don't think so. Cause we kind of gave it a rundown, but you are playing guide first. There's one bit of context. I think they need to know, which is that, uh, there is a, there's a odd scene at the end of the second monkey Island game that was basically a cliffhanger that nobody understood or knew what it was about. And the cliffhanger was basically that, uh,
00:46:12
Speaker
it seemed as if all of Monkey Island's one and two were just two little boys playing in the, you know. Carnival, it's like a carnival, right? Or amusement park. Yeah, and like the back rooms of a carnival, like the staff only area of a carnival, like of an amusement park. That's how the second game ended. And so I think that's the last visual ending. Not everyone is on board with that kind of Ron Gilbert meta.
00:46:41
Speaker
Metta storytelling. And I think even following that is the third game does not, it doesn't humor that idea. It continues Monkey Island as though there is a Monkey Island, there is a secret of Monkey Island.
00:46:59
Speaker
And that's how it is, is that that's what we're searching for big whoop in Curse of Muck Island. But all of it is real. And you can assume the same thing for Escape and Tails. So Return, Return starts with two little boys that are similar looking to the little boys in Lechuck's Revenge. We've got one kind of burly little boy playing Lechuck and one guybrush-threepwood-looking kid playing Guybrush.
00:47:23
Speaker
We're coming out of, I think it's safe to say that those characters were continuing from that back room of the carnival setting from which one to prevent. Would you agree? I think we are seeing the exact scene that Monkey Island 2 ended. Yeah, I think so too. And so these little kids are done. They're farting around. They're being little kids. And this is the tutorial part, by the way, you guys. You're playing, as we come to learn, we're playing Guybrush Streetwood's little boy.
00:47:51
Speaker
And yeah, you kind of think you're you kind of think you're playing Guybrush throughput as a little boy. Yeah.
00:47:59
Speaker
until you sort of exit the park. And there's Guybrush three-foot, older, graying at the temples, sitting on a park bench. And he's like, hey, do you boys have fun? And it's Dominic Armato's voice, the same voice actor that's done it since Curse. And it feels like a warm cup of cocoa, right? It just washes over you.
00:48:25
Speaker
Yeah, you were feeling your way back there. I was overwhelmed, to be honest. And I know that sounds insane. To just be overwhelmed by this video game. But it's powerful. These characters and these games and stories, beyond nostalgia, which can be argued as more of a shallow feeling, it just brings you back in a place in your life, whether it be good or bad. It just brings you somewhere.
00:48:54
Speaker
And I was so stoked. I think that moment is meant to evoke that because again, you kind of think you're playing a young Guybrush three point at this moment. Yeah. And.
00:49:07
Speaker
you don't know what the rest of the game is going to be. You don't know if you're going to be playing as Young Guy Rush III would. Right. You know, you have two little kids with two obnoxious little kids voices yelling and running around and being. Yeah, it kind of tricked us, didn't it? Because we that's not what we wanted right away. It's like, whoa, I don't know about that. And then and then suddenly. Yeah. So at the same moment that you are realizing, OK, this is
00:49:35
Speaker
This is not what like Giber sleep would exists and is here and is dressed in his old pirate garb
00:49:42
Speaker
You also are realizing, oh, this is his son. And in a direct contrast to the like to the like obnoxious, shrieky little kid voices, there's just this smooth and very understated. He's just like, hey, do you guys have fun at the park? That's one of my favorite things about Guybrush is his his his timbre and cadence and how he speaks. It's one of my favorite things ever.
00:50:09
Speaker
I think it's just meant to give you this feeling of chills. This sinking into a warm bath feeling.
00:50:20
Speaker
And at one point I didn't realize I was like playing a tutorial and I thought it's going to change. I don't think it's going to stay in these two kids perspective. And then it does. You find eventually you get through that part. We'll call it the tutorial and you meet Guybrush your dad and he is going to tell you and us the player a story. And that's when we start playing as Guybrush. She's going to tell us
00:50:45
Speaker
The true story of the secret of Monkey Island and going back to find the secret and LeChuck is back on his bullshit and he still is obsessed with Elaine even though Elaine does not give two shits.
00:51:01
Speaker
and this is this is where the thing starts to get interesting and also starts commenting about the past because Guybrush this is years and years and years after the original adventures um it's in the past as of the prologue right it's Guybrush telling his son a story but it is in the future from the games we've played and all the games we played
00:51:24
Speaker
We find out suddenly our canon, everything that happened in the previous games had happened. But Guybrush comes back and you all of a sudden realize an interesting thing. Guybrush comes back to melee island and he talks to the same lighthouse keeper. He talks with the very beginning of the first game and the guy, the lighthouse keeper. The outlook, you mean? The outlook. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Not lighthouse.
00:51:52
Speaker
The outlook doesn't remember him. Am I right? I don't. I know a lot of people don't remember him. Now I can't remember if the outlook remembers him, but oh, the beginning of the journey. So like I have to like recall real hard. You know, the outlook does remember him, but vaguely. Yeah. And remembers everything differently.
00:52:17
Speaker
So Guybrush is like, you know, he's like, hey, it's me, Guybrush. I found the secret of Monkey Island. And he was like, did you? Did you really? I thought nobody knew the secret of Monkey Island. It's like, oh, I, you know, I fought the pirately chuck. And he's like.
00:52:37
Speaker
Oh, Lachuk's on the island. He's getting together a crew to go find the secret, the real secret of Monkey Island, right? And he's like, oh my God, Lachuk, Lachuk is back, but he's evil. And the out outlook is like, well, he doesn't have very nice things to say about you either. And he's like, he tried to take over the government and it's like, well. He did, he did do, oh my God, he did try to do that technically. But it's like, he was like,
00:53:05
Speaker
Well, wait, wasn't wasn't there a fair election? And it's like, yeah, but he tried to marry Elaine and he was like, well, yeah, but didn't didn't she pretty handily beat him off? And like, as Guybrush throughput is going through like this thing, because we have bought into this narrative that LeChuck is the the.
00:53:28
Speaker
like basic evil villain, right? And Guybrush Sleepwood is the good guy and that these stakes are high. And from like the very beginning, we get hit with this feeling of like, oh, this really mattered to Guybrush. But it didn't matter to anybody else. It was just a little blip in the history of the Caribbean.
00:53:55
Speaker
Yeah, and you could even push that further. In this game, there is a museum for pirate culture and pirate memorabilia. And a lot of it references Guybrush's adventures, but it's all wrong. Like nobody remembers anything correctly, except for a Guybrush, and maybe arguably LeChuck, maybe.
00:54:15
Speaker
Right. Guybrush talks to the pirate leaders, which is like a council of three. It used to be three just white dudes who we had no idea why they were the leaders, what their deal was, what like credentials they had. And now it.
00:54:33
Speaker
They liked Grog. And now it is a diverse group of three people who list their accomplishments. And they're like, oh, yeah, I, you know, I beat off the Spanish. I beat off a Spanish galleon while I was sailing into this bay or I. I killed the captain dreadbeard in single combat and then led a revolution on a small island. And then Guy versus like, well,
00:55:00
Speaker
I solved a bunch of puzzles with my wits and random objects I found lying around. At this bag of wooden nickels. I actually don't know if he says that or not, but it's one of my favorite lines. And what you find is that Guybrush and LeChuck are just kind of boring annoyances to everybody else. Yeah.
00:55:22
Speaker
Pirate history is pirate history, and then there's these two goofballs. Right. Who overstress their own importance and are obsessed with each other.
00:55:34
Speaker
They especially emphasize Lechuck's obsession with Guybrush. We later find Lechuck's diary, and all he talks about is what his motto should be and how much he hates Guybrush, and then he's like, I like Guybrush, and then he's like, haha, just kidding, I hate him.
Guybrush's Quest and Nostalgia
00:55:54
Speaker
It's terribly funny.
00:55:56
Speaker
And like Guybrush, I mean, he eventually like, he wants to beat LeChuck to the treasure of Monkey Island or whatever, the secret of Monkey Island. And everyone's kind of like, why? Why are you still doing this? Like, didn't you grow out of this? Even LeChuck's own crew is like, we're not really...
00:56:16
Speaker
on the same page as you about the secret. We think you're obsessed with Guybrush Streetwood. And, you know, on Guybrush's end, Elaine is very blase, Elaine being his his wife and romantic interest in the early Montgomery Island games. Even she's like, oh, the secret. OK, you know, yeah, she's like, oh, have fun. Yeah. What did you think real quick? What did you think about Elaine's characterization? She has gone through some changes.
00:56:46
Speaker
I think this was smart in that this is really the only way they could have gone from where she has been previously. In the previous game, she went from this no-nonsense tough guy who was in this push and pull romance with Guybrush Threepwood, didn't like that he was always trying to save her,
00:57:12
Speaker
was the competent one to his incompetence but was somehow for some reason just like desperately in love with him and then they kind of dulled her down in the later games even in Curse of Monkey Island she spends that whole game
00:57:30
Speaker
as a stone, as a statue. And granted in that game, they make it Guybrush's fault. She was doing fine until he bumbled his way into screwing things up. But then in Escape, then she just sort of becomes like a political figure, like a political person. And her and Guybrush are just kind of happily married. And then- Still feisty.
00:57:58
Speaker
Not as feisty as Kirsch. That was her most, I thought, maybe even too feisty. I'm like, okay. All right, Elaine. And then in Tales, she's even a little more calmed down. Like she's on political crusades, but when she sees Guybrush, she's just like, oh, hey, sweetie.
00:58:14
Speaker
So at this point, that's her character is she is a person who has her own interests and her own lives, life. And she's got a story going on that we don't really get to see. Yeah, extremely accomplished. Elena is always extremely accomplished in this game. She is trying to protect pirates from scurvy by
00:58:37
Speaker
growing these huge lime groves like that is her that is her mission scurvy is is serious thing and she needs to get pirates to like limes now I I think limes a terrible idea but you know
00:58:51
Speaker
I just think that's so funny. Out of all the fruits, really? Blimes. So that's her thing. And I do, I do, honestly, I love Elaine in this game because she is very supportive, but also like, come on, Guybrush. Like what? Right. When it comes to Guybrush, right? She's like, she doesn't get the point of adventuring. She's outgrown it. She's got bigger things on her mind. And then when Guybrush,
00:59:18
Speaker
is talking about his obsessions. She's just like, that's nice, honey. And she's supportive. She loves him, but she just doesn't get it. And I think it is...
00:59:32
Speaker
I think, again, that serves as this metaphor towards all the people in our lives who we keep talking about these same video games over and over. That's the thing we've tried to do with this podcast is trying to talk about more recent games more often and trying to broaden out our definitions of what we like about adventure games because largely,
00:59:59
Speaker
We're a fan community of people who talk about the same 40 games and have been doing so for 30 years. And- I think Elaine speaks for all of us then when she says, that's nice, honey. Exactly. And so Elaine is all the people who have to deal with us.
01:00:20
Speaker
If Guybrush- It's our friends, it's our partners, it's our work colleagues. That's nice. Yeah. Guybrush is like the Don Quixote of the event. I think I've said that on this podcast before. Maybe I said that in a private conversation with you is Guybrush is this Don Quixote figure where he was obsessed with the romance of pirate stories.
01:00:44
Speaker
And he wanted to live them, but he didn't quite understand what they were. And also the things he was that he was reading in the stories weren't exactly true. And when he tries to live them, everything kind of falls apart because it can't. That isn't how real life works. And and in this
01:01:11
Speaker
And that's how he is in the first couple of games. But in this game, he's like a Don Quixote of adventure games, where he remembers how great it was to go on big adventures and solve puzzles. But then he starts trying to do it in this world. And he's just kind of annoying to people. He just kind of seems like a weirdo and a relic.
01:01:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's great. And yet people are still characters are still for the most part kind to him. Yes, I think Guybrush is always going to be that kind of goofy character that we don't quite know what the heck to do with. Right. It just reminds me of like curse when we're trying to get that crew. We're trying to get our crew. We're just annoying them. We're just they don't want any part.
01:02:00
Speaker
of our quest, now we're just being annoying. So there's always, and Guybrush, don't give me your own, Guybrush is the likable annoying character. You know what I mean? Like, you're never going to truly be annoyed with Guybrush. You're more
01:02:15
Speaker
you're more delighted that other characters are annoyed by him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, very similar to Don Kehoe. Like I know I'm repeating this metaphor, but that's that's what that is how I think of Guybrush 3. I think it's a really good comparison, honestly. I think he still feels that he feels that way very strongly to me in
01:02:45
Speaker
that it's a little adorable and a little annoying and very dangerous. It's got that wholesome nature to it and that's some of my favorite kind of comedy is this innocent wholesome comedy. I would even put like
01:03:04
Speaker
I didn't even put like Wayne's world up there. Because even though there are some adult jokes, right, for the most part, if you really think about the characters of Wayne and Garth, they could be a lot more edgy. They could be we could have they could have been written as terrible.
01:03:19
Speaker
characters that start fires and like do insane, immature things. But they're more than the holes in time. That's Beavis and Butthead. Yeah, correct. Yeah, Beavis and Butthead is Wayne's world without the sweetness. Yeah, they're like the add to even Beavis and Butthead have their own enduring moments, but they are doing essentially crappy, crappy things. Yeah, they are doing. Yeah, they are. Yeah.
01:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, so that's not wholesome humor to me but Wayne's world is and Guybrush very much is I I've always been a fan of one liner humor that's very wholesome and and much to my delight it was really
01:03:56
Speaker
It really stayed. They really kept the it really felt like I mean, is it the exact same writers and developers? Because it's the same humor. It is spot on to the other games. Yeah, I am not a.
01:04:12
Speaker
I'm not a person who keeps, who remembers jokes. Like I'm not a person who- I absolutely am. I will just start quoting them. Quotes don't stick in my head. I don't know a lot of like street jokes. I don't remember jokes after they've been made. So do you have a couple, do you have any examples from this game that you really, really liked?
01:04:38
Speaker
I think so. Not like verbatim, but I can give you kind of the structure that I noticed. So for example, one of my, and probably one of your favorite things too is when Guybrush meets Murray in Curse and he's like, can I call you Bob?
01:04:52
Speaker
It's just this very quick, like, terse thing that he says. Yeah. And I don't know why it's funny, but it is. And there's a lot of that that is in return as well. Just the way that Guybrush just speaks so tersely. And what's the word? Joyously, I guess, when he speaks to other characters.
01:05:13
Speaker
When he makes a joke, he's not, he's not winking or nudging. He's just kind of saying, he just kind of like, he says everything just kind of matter of factually. Yeah. And a lot of that structure is still in that dialogue of him being like, there, there's a character named Apple Bob, not, not related to Bob.
01:05:35
Speaker
You know, just like, Hey, Apple, Bob, how's it hanging? And he's like hanging from a post. It's like those very quick that the humor structure. Right. Has carried on from, from curse. And I attribute that a lot to Dominic's amazing voice performance as Guybrush, but also the way it's written. It's.
01:05:56
Speaker
It's very difficult to get tired of these dialogue trees because they are efficiently written and funny at the same time. Right.
01:06:07
Speaker
Uh, you know, even when you meet like the locksmith, her name is lock Smith and Guyabrash is like, really? And she's just like, yes. And before you ask, yes, they did. Yes, it really is. And yes, my parents were like, you know, it's just this quick, this quick style humor that has carried on. And I just, it's really what makes it a monkey Island game to me. Right.
01:06:30
Speaker
So what happens after this, like just really quickly run through the game is Guybrush stows on board, sneaks on board the Chuck ship. And well, here's another sad thing. So there's a joke that's been running throughout all of Monkey Island where Guybrush three-put constantly brags that he can hold his breath for 10 minutes. Whenever anyone asks for his qualifications for anything or asks like,
01:06:55
Speaker
what special talents he has. He always says, I can hold my breath for 10 minutes. No, in this game, because he's getting older, he can only hold his breath for eight minutes. And it's the smallest, silliest thing. But it's also really sad. And when you notice that that is why it's really like affecting. It is. And then, you know,
01:07:24
Speaker
Basically, he finds out that the secret of Monkey Island is a chest, and he needs five special keys scattered across a bunch of islands to open the chest. Was it five, really?
01:07:41
Speaker
Is it five? I thought it was three. Yeah. Five golden keys. Okay. Dang. I did a lot in that game. You know, it, it felt, it was pleasant. So I guess I didn't notice the amount of what I was doing, but it's a lot. And another thing this game reckons with is again, uh, he's a guy versus sweet.
01:08:03
Speaker
he's got like a sweetness to him, but there is a, there is a net, like the things he's doing are both annoying and destructive. And this game shows that, this game shows the, like in all the games, you're always stealing stuff from people and freeing people from prison. And like you're doing all sorts of crazy stuff, breaking things like,
01:08:28
Speaker
you're always doing all this insane stuff. And then you're ruining people's lives. Let's be honest here. Right. And then Wally, Wally got screwed over so many times. In most cases, they've made references to this in the other games. But like, there's little jokes here there.
01:08:45
Speaker
But most of the time you've done something horrible to a person and they just kind of like storm off or run away or get chased off a screen or whatever. Never see him again. But in this game, you're made to sit with the consequences of almost every terrible thing you do. People will confront you about that, about them. People will talk about how you just ruined their lives. People will constantly bring up. There's a point where you need to
01:09:11
Speaker
you need to make a special mop from a special tree. That's exactly where my thoughts are, yep. But do you wanna explain it? Yeah, okay. I forgot why we need, oh, we need a mop because we need to get on Lechuck's ship and the only job available is like a swabby. So we need a mop. So who do we go to? We go to the kitchen guy in the scumbar and we're like, we need this mop, what do we do? The guy's like, there is this special mop tree.
01:09:39
Speaker
that you need to harvest this wood from. And he's like very serious about his mops, okay? This is a magical, amazing, this is kind of like the mop chooses you kind of thing. And we're like, yeah, all right, whatever. We find a map, we get a map to find this mop tree. And it's like snow white, like there's animals everywhere, some magical mop tree and all the wildlife is just so magical and enjoying it.
01:10:05
Speaker
And in the next few scenes, it shows Guybrush absolutely destroying the tree. For one piece of wood, mind you, you only need like a little piece for the handle.
01:10:20
Speaker
This is the only time I felt bad while laughing at the same time. The whole tree is just destroyed. And I mean, on fire, destroyed. The wildlife is crying and hiding. And I'm like, oh, oh my. And he's oblivious to it. He's like, he's like smiling and coming. And yeah.
01:10:40
Speaker
He's like, yeah, another sacrifice of nature for the greater good. I'm like, oh my God. Which again, just leans into that idea of like, he thinks he's doing something. He thinks he's on some quest for goodness when everybody else knows it's just an ego thing. It is. And again, just like these, you know, nostalgia makes you think that there's something important.
01:11:07
Speaker
to all this stuff that you like. Yeah. And these pursuits that you have. And there's real it's really just your own interest in it. There's nothing inherently important about the things that you love, like that you feel nostalgia towards. Right. Right. And so. In this instance, yeah, people keep bringing it up throughout the game is like somebody destroyed the old mop tree like.
01:11:35
Speaker
Who could have done this? And Elaine's like, uh, you know, she knows, she knows who could have done this. And even, even in the beginning of the game, so, um, the sword master Carla, who is, I believe
01:11:50
Speaker
She's not, sorry, she is not in Curse, as far as I know, but she's a main character, the Swordmaster Carla. She's now the governor. Yeah, she's in the first game, she's in the fourth game, and she's in this game. And she started out as the Swordmaster.
Pacing and Puzzle Design in Monkey Island
01:12:03
Speaker
She's now in return as the governor. And she's awesome. I've always loved Carla as a character.
01:12:11
Speaker
And in the beginning of the game, right away, you know, Guybrush has this camaraderie with her, they start sword fighting, but as only really, really playfully. And then I see a bookshelf. I'm like, Hey, can I borrow this book? And she's like, No, you didn't return the last book that you borrowed. And he's and I'm like, Okay, I'm sorry. And she's like, just it's just not enough.
01:12:32
Speaker
And so you have to go out of your way now to apologize for something that you've done, which I think is great because Guybrush is not known for apologizing to anybody.
01:12:47
Speaker
So I thought that was great. But yeah, there's a lot of things where Guybrush thinks he's doing something good or innocent, just innocuous. He's ruining people's lives. Even like they brought back very briefly a Herman tooth rot as a cameo.
01:13:07
Speaker
We find him again somewhere stranded because Herman's always stranded somewhere. And we don't even help him. We don't even help. We just leave him where he was. So like, yeah, Guybrush, even though it is a very sweet, bumbling character, there is a selfishness to Guybrush across all the games, I think. I mean, yeah, he does not. He has no self-awareness.
01:13:35
Speaker
What I love about Monkey Island and what I love about Return is it kept its basic journey, its basic structure. Everything is in chapters. In the first chapter, very commonly, you have to get a crew, you have to get a boat, you know, stuff like that. You are given instructions on what to do. And then you do something different in the next chapter. And the maps are the same. Eventually, when you open up the world, you can travel, you know, via boat and go to different points on your map.
01:14:05
Speaker
And I love that the main, like that main format was kept for this, but we just get all different things. So we get different islands, like Terror Island, we get different pirates, we get to see Lechuck's crew in more detail than they have their own problems. The first chapter is on, or sorry, the second chapter is on Lechuck's ship. And that's so different to me.
01:14:32
Speaker
because it plays like a monkey animal. It's like we've never been this close to LeChuck. You know, we are on his crew now speaking with other crew members and we could go visit him. We could talk to him. We're in disguise. So it's OK. We're in disguise. And anytime in any other game that you're near LeChuck, it is in a it's in like a boss battle kind of sequence, which is interesting. They used to have
01:15:01
Speaker
LucasArts games used to have basically, even though there was no combat, they were like, you know, story and puzzle games, they basically had the structure of boss battles at the end of every game, where there was some
01:15:20
Speaker
last puzzle or last little series of puzzles you had to solve while something bad was happening to you, that was kind of annoying and would reset your progress, at least on some level. Luchak's Revenge being maybe the worst offender, I really didn't like the end quote boss battle. He would show up and just zap you and suddenly be in somewhere else and some of the puzzles were
01:15:46
Speaker
required you to act really quickly once he entered the room before he zapped you. So yeah. And that's that's when you saw LeChuck. But in this game, you're taught I just thought it was so smart. Hanging out with, you know, because how do you how many adventures can you let's be honest, most books have been written, right?
01:16:05
Speaker
We're always taking from previous ideas. How are you going to make this game have its own identity? But yeah, Monkey Island game with new islands with characters. This was a really smart way to do it. Yeah. Let's have him be on LeChuck's crew. Let's find out more about LeChuck. Let's find out who he consorts with. That was brilliant. And that second chapter on the boat, that is my favorite chapter. I got to meet his whole crew and his whole and it like.
01:16:34
Speaker
I was gonna say humanizes, but they're all ghosts and skeletons. Yeah, they're all what you could expect an undead crew to look like. And like we kind of mentioned earlier, they're not quite on board with LeChuck because LeChuck's whole thing is finding the secret and getting Elaine. That's his whole motive. And the crew is like, we don't want the same things.
01:17:02
Speaker
We're going to the beat of a different drum here, LeChuck. And it's just, it's great. And I will say I loved the puzzles on the boat. I thought they made sense. It felt very Monkey Island. This is a Monkey Island game where I did think that the puzzles advanced in difficulty as you went through the chapters. I don't know if you felt that way, but I was feeling it. I was feeling like the puzzles were getting harder.
01:17:26
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't struggle with really any of the puzzles in the game. Yeah. I thought they were all fairly not simple, but easier than previous games. I struggled with beer muta with some of the things on beer, beer muta. OK.
01:17:42
Speaker
Yeah. But again, even with those struggles, the puzzles are very Monkey Island in nature. It's interesting. Monkey Island has a lot of different kinds of puzzles. You know, in the in the earlier games, you would have like insult sword fighting, right? Like that's a puzzle in itself. You have to kind of complete that in itself or you had to or in like four, for example, there was like a swamp puzzle that I'm sure you absolutely hate.
01:18:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's not my least favorite puzzle in four. But yeah, sure. This game is full of different kinds of of interesting puzzles and interesting fetch quests where you don't just find something you have to almost like, learn to do something.
01:18:32
Speaker
And there's always like a, have you noticed there's always a competition aspect in the Monkey Island games. You're always competing with someone, always. And I don't know if that's the piratey nature of it, but you know, in three, you compete with your, with the crew to get them to go on board with you.
01:18:47
Speaker
And obviously the sword fighting is also competing in its own right. And then in this game, you're competing against the queen of this island called Bermuda, where you have to be the best at something to become the... I won't give too many spoilers, but you're trying to become the queen of Bermuda.
01:19:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's another interesting thing. This wasn't really the case in the other games. Every island had its own feel to it in a lot of the other games. But in this game, each island is themed, is heavily themed. Yes, that's correct. Each island has a very distinct look, a distinct idea. Yeah.
01:19:32
Speaker
and they're all incredibly different from each other, where the other games, they had their own looks, but they were all just islands, just regular Caribbean islands with regular Caribbean islands stuff on them.
01:19:44
Speaker
Oh, for sure. I will say that I did because this game, I think there was a lot going on. Things seem to move very quickly. I will say I felt more of an attachment for the islands in curse than I felt for the islands in return. Because even though they're themed and they have their own identity, that's very cool. I felt that I wasn't spending too much time. Like on Terror Island, you don't spend that much time there. It's a cool island. It's a cool concept.
01:20:10
Speaker
but I felt like I didn't spend a lot of time there, nor did I meet any characters there, if I'm remembering correctly. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think this game, if I had to make one complaint about this game, it is that it moves too fast. Yeah, it moves very quickly. Where, you know, the other games, you feel like you spent a good amount of time everywhere and... Yeah. You really...
01:20:36
Speaker
I mean, especially curse, I'm thinking very specifically about my time on Blood Island and how much I loved it. I didn't even I didn't even want to leave or even a game like Grim Fandango, where, you know, a lot of people love their time on Rubicaba, for example. Those games seemed slower paced. This game, I was like ever going everywhere real fast, like trying to trying to get things done, you know.
01:21:02
Speaker
Yeah, same, same. And and you're jumping around islands so quickly that you don't you don't really feel. Yeah, there's no point where you feel tied to an island and like you're really getting the hang of it. Yeah. So.
01:21:17
Speaker
I think we've talked a good amount about the game and what we like about it. I agree. I agree. And we should probably wrap up talking about it, but I love it so much. Me too. I really love it. But I think we should think about talking about the ending because it has a very interesting and some might say controversial ending.
Return to Monkey Island's Ending
01:21:39
Speaker
I'm going to go ahead and say that pretty much all of the lucky island games have some kind of Ron Gilbert-esque storytelling that some people like and some people do not like. Famously, the first game ended with Guybrush in a Lane staring out over fireworks at fireworks over Melee Island and
01:22:05
Speaker
talking about what they've learned. And Guybrush says, the lesson is never pay more than $20 for a computer. Yeah, it's just this very meta fourth wall breaking ending. And the second ending we've talked about. Yes. On this podcast that. It appears as if this was all like in the imagination of two little boys. I mean, curse has like the most normal ending.
01:22:34
Speaker
Yeah, Curse has a normal ending where they just like go off and get married. Yeah, they get married. Escape, I don't even remember the ending ending of Escape because you're too distracted by the fact that you had to do like a fighting game with a bunch of robot monkeys, which was horrible.
01:22:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I remember, too. I don't remember the the true ending, but I remember this also before the ending. That game has its own villain named. Yes, that's like this Australian businessman. It's yeah, wild tales. I can't remember the ending of that either. I think it's fairly normal. Yeah. But so return. This has given people who haven't played the game enough time to turn it off. Yes, you can turn away now. Turn away now if you must.
01:23:25
Speaker
So the end of Return to Monkey Island is when you finally find the secret of Monkey Island, it turns out that it's the whole thing is just like a playground, just like a little amusement park playground that people set up for Guybrush to do again and again and again if he wants to, you know, basically play pretend, play the secret of Monkey Island.
01:23:55
Speaker
Yeah. Like everything is construction. You know, everyone's like a cardboard cut out and it's actually quite impressive. I would be very happy if somebody did that for me. What in the world? And Stan is like, hey, lock up when you're done. Yeah. Yeah. Turn off all the lights and gives them the keys and Elaine's like, let me know when you're ready to leave. Right. And then.
01:24:22
Speaker
You do, you turn off the lights, you lock up, and you leave, and then it cuts to the present. And Guybrush is telling the story to his son, and meanwhile Elaine has shown up. And here's where I think this game is very smart.
01:24:39
Speaker
So at that ending, it's obviously it's kind of going back to what we were exposed to in Le Chuc's Revenge, where there is an imaginary aspect to these tales that they're not real, that they're being told or being imagined or somebody's playing pretend to them.
01:24:56
Speaker
But when Elaine comes onto the screen, she says, Oh, you're telling that story again, the ending keeps getting stranger and stranger. I thought that was interesting. And then a little guy brush. I forget his I forget boy brush. I forget his name or if he has a name. He leaves.
01:25:13
Speaker
And then she says she kind of she kind of whispers to him, Hey, I found the lost treasure map to Meyer Island, it's going to be a great adventure. And he says, I'll meet you at the docks. And I think this was maybe the smartest move. Because with these two things with the scenes about the construction, you could theorize that yes, this was Ron Gilbert's vision. This was pretend Guy Rush likes to play pretend and he always has. And he has a soft spot for these tales, these stories.
01:25:43
Speaker
But at the same time, we had Elaine alluding to like, why are you changing the ending? Again, I found this last treasure map. It's very smart that you can also speculate that maybe he was fudging the ending for boybrush or that he does keep changing the endings to his tales because maybe he doesn't remember or he just wants to change him for boybrush for whatever reason. To keep his son from wanting to go on dangerous adventures and such. And meanwhile Elaine's like sneakily saying like, hey, I found a treasure map.
01:26:13
Speaker
You know, I think that is the smartest thing for both people who subscribe to either or I think of these endings that it's open to either is really nice. I think.
01:26:26
Speaker
The the read that I have is that it's all pretend and that when Elaine is like I found the secret to my like she's trying to motivate him because he's sad thinking about the end of his adventure. Like this this story for his funny and adventurous and silly and whatever it was. It was also a sad story about, you know, a man desperately trying to relive his glory days and
01:26:55
Speaker
You know, basically making up details to make it seem more fantastic than it was. Even in his own, you know, even in his own retelling, people are looking at the legends he used to, like the stories he used to tell about himself as inconsequential.
01:27:12
Speaker
It is a story about getting older and not being able to fall back on your achievements the way that you thought you could. And again, about this nostalgia and it not being as fulfilling as you think it's going to be.
01:27:28
Speaker
I also think you can take that kind of piggybacking about what you're saying is he is sad, but is he sad because he's not on an adventure right now? So she could be motivating him either way.
New Adventure with Elaine?
01:27:43
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like this was a long time ago. Your tails are changing. Things are ambiguous. Let's go on an adventure. But I think that's the smart way to do it. I honestly, I don't have a
01:27:56
Speaker
I don't lean strongly either way. I could probably entertain both and be happy with either outcome, you know? Right. I mean, yeah, we'll see if we ever get a Monkey Island seven. Yeah. My island is there. That'd be fun. But, you know, I do really love I think the point as it seems to me that Ron Gilbert is always trying to make with these crazy endings that he goes for these metatextual endings.
01:28:24
Speaker
is this idea that these are just games, and it doesn't matter. You still had the time you had with the thing, and it's still as valuable as you chose to make it. So if at the very end you find out it's all pretend, that's because it was, and that's okay. It was still fun, and it was still challenging, and it was still an adventure. And if you wanna keep on pretending it's real,
01:28:54
Speaker
Like when Elaine whispers to you, I found the map to Meyer Island. Yeah. Yeah, you can keep pretending it's all real. And that's fine. Whatever makes you enjoy it more. Yeah, yeah. Like I said, I don't, I really don't lean strongly either way. I don't like one ending more than the other in my head. I just, I like both and I think it's really smart. Me too. Yeah, I think it's all,
01:29:22
Speaker
I just think it's all very thoughtful and just like an intelligent commentary on what it is to be a creator looking back at your own work and what it is to be a fan engaging in nostalgia. And I think it is incredibly ironic that so many people
01:29:43
Speaker
went nuts about the art style for this game because it didn't match their nostalgia. Not even knowing that that is what this game is about. This game is specifically talking about the thing that you are going through. Like the people who needed this game the most are the people who boycotted it. I know! Oh no. That's the people who needed the lessons.
01:30:08
Speaker
missing the point. Yeah, I think and I do think that Ron Gilbert finally because I
01:30:15
Speaker
in LeChuck's Revenge, I thought that was pretty cut and dry. I think he was making a point about two boys playing pretend and this was his vision. And I think that he finally kind of got to expand upon his vision in return. You know what I mean? Because he wasn't on the third game. It was it was red conned a little bit. So I am glad that I believe that Ron Gilbert's intent was to make pretend.
Art's Multiple Meanings and Player Reactions
01:30:43
Speaker
But I do but also with any art, right, I believe you can assign whatever meaning that you want to it. I painted a weird thing today and you can assign any meaning you want to it, even though to me, it's flowers. But hey, if they look like fish to you, fine, I guess they're fish. But I do think that the artist intent I think Ron Gilbert's intent was to make this very wistful make believe type of a story.
01:31:10
Speaker
Right. It's just so there's something so unique about Ron Gilbert being able to look us in the face with this game and both insult us and tell us he loves us at the exact same time. He's good at that, isn't he? He's just like, he's just like, I love you and the things you love you fucking obsessive weirdos.
01:31:36
Speaker
That seems to be what he's saying. He's saying both at the same time and also kind of saying both things in a mirror. I have a real deep fondness and affection for this game.
01:31:52
Speaker
I don't think it's a game that I'm gonna replay. I don't know about you. I don't think it's a game I'm gonna replay like every couple years the way I do the classics. I think I will. But the only reason I think I will is because I did it for this and loved it again. So I could see myself doing it in a couple years and replaying it.
01:32:11
Speaker
I think the reason I wouldn't is because it's such a deeper experience than those. Those are kind of just like fun popcorn experiences. Well, this one has like a deeper meaning and I don't want to lose the effect it's had on me watering it down.
01:32:30
Speaker
You know, sort of like my favorite book in the entire world is Robert Pierce's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And it meant a whole lot to me as a young teen. And I didn't read that book again for 20 years. Like I just read it this past year. Wow. Because I didn't want to lose that meaning. Sure.
01:32:55
Speaker
by watering it down by just having it become something that I can just quote and say over and over again the way that I can, like I can watch Star Wars a thousand times because I'm not losing anything. That movie's not good, it's just great. You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. And so that's the thing about this, like this game is great and good. I'm sorry, I was using great as the pejorative one, right?
01:33:26
Speaker
this game no this game is like this game is just solidly a great piece of art and i think uh i i want to play it again in maybe five or ten years and feel those feelings again for sure rather than just play it every year and be able to quote it yeah for sure and plus i i do i think i will play it again in a few years but i do have my mainstays that i do play
01:33:52
Speaker
every few years or so, Grant Fandango, Curse, the Dagger of Amun-Ra. I do Curse, yeah, I do Sam and Max. Yeah, Sam and Max I don't do as often because as we spoke about in a few episodes ago, it does tend to aggravate me a little bit. Even though I do also have a great fondness for Sam and Max, I just get a little aggravated with the backtracking.
01:34:17
Speaker
And you know, I'll do a game that I always want to play again, but I'm trying to wait for my memory to disperse is a return of the goal. No. Return of the Obra Dinn.
01:34:31
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I know. I love that game. Oh, my God. I just need my memory to wipe over time. Are we going to have to talk about that game? Oh, definitely. Because I can't I can't beat that game for shit. Oh, my God. I am so terrible at it. I really am that bad at it. Yeah.
01:34:48
Speaker
Ooh, we'll have to talk about Return to Overdom sometime. But so that was our that was, I think, all our thoughts on. Well, we probably have a million more, but that's the thoughts we're giving you today on Return to Monkey Island. If you haven't played it.
01:35:04
Speaker
and you have played the other Monkey Island games, go back and check this game out. It is absolutely worth your time. If you haven't played the other Monkey Island games, I still think this one might be worth your time because it is just so sweet and so fun. It is fun. It is its own adventure. I think it would help if you knew some stuff about Monkey Island, but it is its own thing. Right. Roses, you wanna start saying goodbye to everybody?
01:35:33
Speaker
That's so awesome. Goodbye. I want to keep talking about monkey Island. You guys stop podcasting first. No, you stop podcasting. Wait, wait, wait, Matt. You want to hear a joke? Uh, sure. Okay. Uh, let's do a knock, knock joke, but you start. I start. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Knock, knock. Who's there?
01:36:01
Speaker
Matt Matt Matt's here. No, that was the joke is that you started the funny joke All right, everybody well email us
01:36:20
Speaker
at gmail.com. We're gearing up actually for another Q&A episode really soon. So if you want to get your questions in for the next Q&A, do it now. Send those emails right now. You probably won't have time after the next episode. I'm excited. To get them in in time. Yeah, me too.
01:36:45
Speaker
I'm excited. I always like, I like getting questions cause they always lead to suggestions that I, I mean, I'm still thinking about the last door. I'm still thinking about it in my brain. Uh, we got some good questions this time too. So I'm, I'm excited to excited to dig in. Awesome. Uh, anything else you want to say before we go?
01:37:07
Speaker
Uh, I'm making a piece of art out of pistachio shells and I ate so many and it was worth it. And that's, that's the end. Well, you know, you know, sometimes you have to eat so many pistachio shell or so many pistachios to make your art because, uh, while podcasts is art, the other thing that we know is art is suffer. I really did eat a lot though.