Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (1991)

Witness what is now preserved as the hallowed, painstakingly illustrated blueprint for conventional adventure design, accurate to the millimeter... blemished only by a snarky coffee stain from your debbie downer of a contractor. Honestly, though, this game's design is so conspicuously sound, presents such low-hanging fruit for any ravenous analyst to pull apart, that fine, I'll grant it some leeway in that direction, no matter how much every part of me fundamentally disagrees with that sham of an "ending".

It has always been to me, the recommendation for an outsider looking for a window in, emblematic of every innovation the adventure brought to the table, and unconcerned with the steps to follow and what an uncertain future may hold, what storm would brew upon the horizon. Such an account is befitting of the LucasArts machine itself, and, well... it managed to produce what you see before you. Monkey 2 could only ever be a product of extraordinary passion, so even when those rarities when its facade of sprezzatura falters and it trips over its own foot unfold, the ship certainly still feels driven and the crew motivated. 'Tis a joy of the heart to sail with one's hearties.

Preliminary: Ahhh just reading this on the wikipedia page makes me excited for this game and the Humongous Entertainment era, I hope I am able to push through this unlike the first MI: "That year, Gilbert left LucasArts alongside Shelley Day to co-found Humongous Entertainment, a developer of edutainment games for younger audiences."

I'm in love with this beginning music. And the quality of the VGA graphics for 91. Hopefully no tedious parts like that insult learning in the first one.

I'm legit dancing to the tunes during this bridge scene of him taking my treasure :-p

The Look continues to be amazing, I love the simplicity of the Save system (no need for Savestates for once), the Music contineus to be great, and wow Period lets you skip through dialog if you have to replay a part. Great QoL stuff!

Early Game, er, Mid Game and Late Game, er, Day 1--I Got Hooked

Beautiful

Lol the humor has been, gasp, actually funny and not dependent on racism and sexism so far. Who knew that was possible?! >.>

So grateful for their philosophy resisting their contemporaries' love of unavoidable deaths, RNG-based deaths, well just frequent deaths, and annoying unescapable situations. Instead it's playful, elaborate, puzzle-filled sure, but fun

I love this screen! And I love the music in Captain Dread's ship/this area :) It was hard to put this down , so to speak, but I just got to the part where you are collecting the map pieces so I figured it's time to take a break.

Omggg and the way the music changes when you open the map in this new part of the game. I can't stop playing it, I might as well had done a Day 1, Day 2, etc type setup lol

The music (which I didn't necessarily love compared to most of the game's) and the Look of this Antique Shop reminded me so heavily of a shop in the Putt Putt Travels Through Time game that these creators would later do, and had inspired 10ish year old me to write a whole story based around the shop and the Dragon in it

Bahahha the Stan's coffin part was genuinely funny. Rare that humor in a game actually gets me to smile. And teh different options for how to say I'll Be Back to the governor :-p

Not only am I loving the obvious influence on Humongous Entertainment games, but also the influence on Runescape quests. Which we all know I have a slight addiction to :-p The humor, way of solving puzzles, taking advantage of people, and tricking people all definitely influenced Runescape, not to mention they got a quest name from this :-p

Lol the action segments were just plain ol fun rather than how usual early graphic adventure games' action segments were frustrating clunky and death-heavy. The Cook chasing you as you snatch a fish :-p

I just cannot stop playing this and it's still Day 1. At least 3 hours. Maybe 4? Maybe 5? lol. Sign of an amazing game. I keep saying I'll stop after the next segment but don't. So I should've just done a Day 1, Day 2 thing. Cuz I'm technically at Late Game lol

Day 2

I don't know how anyone solved some of these puzzles, luckily all interact-able things pop up as you move your mouse around but still. That one to find the brick to move for Mister Roger's Map Piece...

Yesss even if you do die, you are reminded you are telling a story so you can't possibly have died :-p

Lol when you swing to the treasure chest at the end (well, possibly the end?) and the Indiana Jones music plays just for a second and everything collapses and fails and you're just hanging there :-p

Argh this "final battle" is kinda frustrating. As final battles are meant to be I suppose. I just wish if you were fast enogh you could escape instead of having to repeatedly deal with his teleporting. But the fact I redid this battle after a computer crash says a lot. The most frustrating part of the game and I redid it willingly? Wow. And felt stronger doing it this time. Cute little reference to the original too with that elevator part :-p What a well-designed game that you could tell the creators put love into.

I love the font of the credits, cute music, and great "plot twist" (or is it?) at the end that I will try not to spoil with any screenshots but cute concept with a potential re-twist or something lol. Just a lot of fun, amazing game.

I was trying to make it to the very end of the suggestions of what else to do besides play a computer game, but it seems it loops eventually :-p

Look: 10/10 The official sign of the start of the DOS era I so love and have nostalgia for. It helps that the creators went on to create important nostalgic games for me.

Sound: 10/10 Consistently loved it. Some of the sound effects of the parrots and whatnot got a bit annoying, but a simple turn down the volume and all good. Truly amazing music. Amazing amazing amazing

Play: 10/10 This is what I look for in an adventure game. And great for following a guide. Then attempting it on my own some day

Feel: 10/10

Attachment: 9.5/10 Would be unfair to give this a 10 for attachment right off the bat, even with the lifetime of hearing how great this series is and the connections to Humongous Entertainment. Still, Attachment builds on replays, and I have a feeling this will :-p

Overall: 9.9/10

Completion: Main Story

Playtime: I dunno? Maybe 7 or 8 hours? I was too busy having fun to keep track :-p

I think this is the best adventure for our hero Guybrush Threepwood. This is a review for the special edition version, although, I did play the original way back when

Naturally, it's a point and click which has pretty much gone out of fashion these days. The special edition version features updated graphics and audio and additional content. One cool thing is that with a click of a button you can switch the game from the special edition look right back to it's 1991 graphics...just for the hell of it. You can play on the old version if you choose to also

The game sold very very poorly, but was a critical hit because of it's humor and challenging puzzles that, for the most part, made sense. You've just got to be able to accept that with point and click games it's inevitable that you're going to get stuck at some point. Nature of the beast. It also employs a hint system if you should get stuck

It's definitely one of the highlights of the point and click genre and if you have the patience you'll have a blast, but I realize that many modern gamers just can't be bothered. haha

It's kinda striking how much better it looks than the first game after just a couple of years. Richer colors, detailed backgrounds, more expressive characters, the whole gamut. It's much more ambitious too, with a more complicated puzzle structure and a bigger map to explore. It really does feel like a more epic game than the first one. The writing is at its peak too, with some of the best jokes in the series. Even my wife, who has never played any of these games before, was laughing at the jokes she caught in her periphery. I admire all of that about it but at the end of the day, I find it less fun to play than the first one.

The constant backtracking between the three islands gets tiresome really fast. Trying to keep track of everything everywhere and how they all fit together is too much, like juggling plates. The puzzles are much much harder this time around too, with some very obtuse solutions. The gigantic inventory doesn't help anything there either. The richly detailed backgrounds make it hard to find some of the items in them too. It almost feels like the game is daring the player to figure it out without looking for hints. I know I couldn't this time around and caved with a walkthrough pretty quickly. I remember playing it as a teenager and even slamming into brick walls when I had the patience to try and brute force my way through things when I was getting stuck. I would commend anyone who managed to get through this all through their own. Oh, and that end part in the tunnels with LeChuck and the voodoo dolls is maybe the most obnoxious part of the entire series, outside of Monkey Combat.

I still like the game quite a bit though. The writing is so sharp that my problems with some of the puzzles more than makes up for it. There is a reason I don't come back to this one as much as 1 and 3 though.

I was not the biggest fan of The Secret of Monkey Island (review), but it was still a fun and memorable example of the classic adventure genre. The sequel, which I played in its remastered "Special Edition", is better in some ways and worse in others, so generally comes out about even in quality.

The most notable improvement over the Special Edition of the first game is that this one's interface and controls are way better (on PC). Interacting with anything in the world or the inventory is a lot easier. I also thought the click-and-drag action wheel generally worked well.

In fact, the game overall has less instances of things that are annoying to actually execute once you know what to do. The main exception to this is the final area which I did find to be a hassle, and a few other small things throughout, but nothing major. Just compare how much easier it is to capture a rat in this game vs in The Dig... lol.

Puzzles generally feel in line with the prior game in complexity. Some stuff just requires a lot of trial and error or outside assistance, but often they hint at stuff being important pretty noticeably. Even in the more obscure cases, the solution can be kinda funny once you have it.

The story in this one is pretty decent. The writing in general definitely leans on references to the prior game at times, but mostly does its own thing. Some of the humor did fall a bit flat for me in this one. I was also not really a fan of the ending, which drops some weird twist bombs, then just kinda ends in an unsatisfying way without elaborating further. From my understanding, the new game Return to Monkey Island resolves this stuff a bit, but either way it leaves this game in a weird spot.

I think the problem with this one is ultimately that it's lacking that memorability factor of the first one for me. It's consistently solid, but I can't say many particular scenes stood out to me as something truly hilarious or worth writing home about. That doesn't stop it though from being an overall fun, colorful, silly adventure game experience.

This is still a great game, with beautiful graphics, amazing music, great writing, lots of humour and fun puzzle to solve. Also, the overall kinda open structure of the main part of the game is very, very modern and kinda is the basis for what Ron Gilbert did with Thimbleweed Park almost three decades later. I loved the game back then and I love it now, even though I was/am not in love with it as I was/am with the first Monkey Island. That's probably mostrly because Elaine is kinda sidelined (the focus is on the relationship between Guybrush and LeChuck). Also, as much as I like the open structure, I'm probably more in synch with the linear, constantly moving narration of the first game. Still, this is a masterpiece, full of great ideas, with so many memorable moments and a wonderful ending.

P.S. Fuck the special edition.

*This review covers the special edition released in digital stores*

First the good news - LucasArts did a much better job with this Special Edition than the one for The Secret of Monkey Island. The new graphics are beautiful and the interface has improved so much that I dont want to switch to classic mode much at all. They also included bonus stuff like concept art and funny commentaries from the authors of the original game (Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman, Time Schafer) which is a really nice touch. The bad news - I realised that the witty dialog just isnt matched in the game design. Many puzzles just doesnt make sense and often feel contrived and not part of the main storyline. Why would Guybrush want to win a spitting contest in order to find Big Whoop for example? There are also "puzzles" for people who like to randomly try all inventory objects on everything until something succeeds ("monkey wrench" anyone?). In the original version pointless puzzles like these could be omitted in a "casual" mode. I must be the only one who liked the
casual mode better, since its not included in this special edition. I had previously rated this game a 5 for nostalgic reasons but the design issues above made me lower it to a 4. Still a classic though, well worth a playthrough.