Return to Monkey Island

Return to Monkey Island is the sixth full-fledged installment of the Monkey Island series, whose roots date back to 1990. The title was developed in cooperation between three companies - Devolver Digital, Lucasfilm Games and Terrible Toybox. The founder of the latter, Ron Gilbert, is the founder of the series, for whom this production marks a return to the brand after more than thirty years.

Plot

The game continues the story begun in The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, skipping the plot of the series' installments released from 1997 to 2010. Its plot is set many years after the protagonist, Guybrush Threepwood (traditionally voiced by Dominic Armato), had a duel with the zombie pirate, LeChuck. The protagonist feels depressed and unfulfilled, as he has so far failed to discover the secret of the titular Monkey Island.

At the same time, his home, Melée Island, is changing for the worse. Young and fashionable pirate leaders, led by Captain Madison, have come to power. As a result of their rule, Stan S. Stanman - an eccentric, fast-talking salesman, known to fans of the series since "the one" - was sent to prison. His guilt was allegedly "marketing-related crimes."

Guybrush must find his way in this altered reality, interacting with both old acquaintances - including his true love, Elaine Marley, who decided to resign before Madison's group took over - and brand new characters. The adventure, however, quickly claims him. For Guybrush must take to the high seas to find allies (and additional enemies), as well as discover the mysterious and unknown. During his journey, he ends up in such places as Terror Island and the chilling outposts of Brrr Muda.

Gameplay

Return to Monkey Island is a point-and-click adventure game. Consequently, gameplay is mainly about pointing out the right objects, finding their uses and the relationships between them. However, the developers have made an effort to make the gameplay evolve a bit, introducing contextual interactions, reactive dialogue trees or a much more intuitive inventory system than the one known from the original. All of this is meant to help Guybrush Threepwood solve puzzles, throw cut retorts and emerge unscathed from various bizarre situations.

Return of veterans

Ron Gilbert is not the only creator to return to the Monkey Island series after many years. Screenwriter Dave Grossman made a similar move, as did composers Peter McConnell, Michael Land and Clint Bajakian. The art director of Return to Monkey Island, meanwhile, was Rex Crowle (who previously worked on Knights and Bikes and Tearaway, among others).

Controversial graphic design

Unlike the first installments of the series, Return to Monkey Island graphics is not made in a "pixel art" style. This decision did not please longtime fans of the series, who went so far as to criticize and insult Ron Gilbert on the Internet. At one point, the author said "enough," while cutting off all posts, negative or positive. "People are just being mean and I'm having to delete personal attack comments", he declared. - It's an amazing game and everyone on the team is very proud of it. Play it or don't play it but don't ruin it for everyone else. I won't be posting anymore about the game. The joy of sharing has been driven from me."