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Return to Monkey Island resurrects greatness
D
Dave Tach
The story follows wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood, earnest and hapless as ever, on an island-hopping adventure through the Caribbean. Series regulars like the evil pirate LeChuck surround him, but you don’t have to recognize the cantankerous demonic skull Murray or the fast-talking, plaided salesman Stan to enjoy their outrageous personalities. Even still, it's their narratives which are the real stars of the show.
You spend most of your time talking to colorful characters, building relationships, chuckling at dialogue, finding items, and then solving puzzles based what you stuffed into your pockets. Sometimes you steal a monocle. Sometimes you grease up a window. Sometimes you accidentally make the idyllic forest animals cry, or play the skull bongos. This is the life of a pirate, and when Return to Monkey Island is at its best, you enter a flow state, connecting narrative dots between the weirdos you befriend, their gripes, desires, and tchotchkes. You dash back and forth across maps that essentially become one giant, multi-stage puzzle to solve.
The point-and-click adventure formula established in the ’80s and ’90s on PCs translates surprisingly well, with some light modernizations based on your input device. These mechanics are one of the most impressive parts of Return to Monkey Island, because it’s equally credible when played with a mouse and keyboard or a controller. I spent hours trying both, and I still can’t decide which I like better, except to say that it felt old-school cool to point-and-click at my desk and modern to play with a controller on my couch.
Although the story picks up after the end of 1991’s Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, this is no exclusionary nostalgia trip. It’s a perfectly valid and inclusive entry point for the series. And if you’re worried about what you don’t know (or may have forgotten), Return to Monkey Island will catch you up through an interactive storybook built right into the main menu.
That in-game tome mimics the game’s papercraft art style, which resembles that of a pop-up book. This aesthetic was perhaps a little jarring at first, but it quickly proved appropriate for the story, and it eventually became the way I pictured even the old Monkey Island games in my mind. The omnipresent jaunty Caribbean tunes also help ground the franchise in its roots.
Return to Monkey Island is fun in just the way a Monkey Island game should be. It’s silly. It’s irreverent. It feels big and deep, thanks to a diversity of characters and locations. And that’s the thing about this franchise, really. When it's done well, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to put Guybrush Threepwood, self-styled pirate extraordinaire, back at the helm.
Grab Return to Monkey Island on the Epic Games Store right now.