Rabbits Full of Magic

SPOILERS WARNING this is a full review of the newest Monkey Island game.

Monkey Island is a game series that left a huge impression on me as a kid. Particularly the first two. The first game, I was with my dad inside the Software Etc. at the local mall when we both saw this box art and were blown away. I got it for Christmas that year and played through it on our x386 MS-DOS computer that had no sound card, so all the music was played through the PC speaker. I loved it, because the ska-style reggae suited the percussive nature of the PC speaker, and someday I hope to play through it again with that analog sound setup. 

Of course I played through it again once we got a Sound Blaster compatible sound card. They issued a remaster a few years later, done with a new engine version, and made for VGA graphics cards. This allowed artists access to a full 256 colors! The resolution was still a tiny 320x240, but the additional colors allowed for full color scans of paintings, drawings, watercolors, etc. to be used directly for game art. The first game was designed with EGA in mind, and the artists involved had to use all kind of tricks in order to cram a maximum amount of art into a tiny space. One technique that I loved, and which was lost in all future remakes and remasters, was the vast use of negative space. The color palette for the first island, Melee Island, which is supposed to be a sort of Caribbean island at permanent twilight or sunset, they use black as the background and outlines of rocks and trees done in grey and two shades of blue. They ended up with a very minimalist look that was spellbinding. It brought to mind forests in the moonlight, and did so musing 4-6 colors. Getting lost in these magical areas was a huge part of these games.

So what have we now? There is a new game. Is it good? Yes. Has Monkey Island been ruined like every other piece of traditional pop culture over the past decade? Not really. Though there are a bunch of lame things about this game that feel very current. Things that I see a lot of modern creatives doing, lazy tricks, easy narratives, creatively coasting. Overall I enjoyed it. But there is a lot to criticize. This is going to be a full spoiler inclusive review, and I want to cover each part of the game.

STORY 

This was perhaps the weakest part of the game. It begins leaning very heavily on the meta ending of Monkey Island 2, and introduces our lead Guybrush Threepwood, which makes no sense, because you also see a child, who was Guybrush Threepwood just one game earlier in the timeline. I mean this quite literally, because the game opens with a remake of the ending of the last game. Just like "The Last Jedi", it opens with a lie, with a retold scene that erases something we have already experienced, something we already invested 2+ hours (including viewing + discussion) of our lives in, because the filmmaker wants to "take it from there". Anyways, right away I am confused, and then Guybrush starts telling Guybrush (they call him Boybrush later which is... ugh... lame. This whole sideplot feels like the writer trying to emotionally manipulate the dads in the audience tbh.) a story, and it's all about the one time he tried to find the Secret of Monkey Island. This sort of becomes his White Whale, the quest for The Secret, and it drives the plot so much, as if writer Ron Gilbert is purposefully building it into an idol to be sacrificed for whatever point he wants to make. Oh boy. It is going to be another lecture. At this point, before the game has even begun, I can see the warning signs.

It is funny how close to "The Last Jedi" this game is. Finding the Secret was never even a thing in any of the games. The first game, you end up going to Monkey Island because that is where they took the governor Elaine, whom you have fallen in love with. The Secret ends up being that the giant monkey head opens up to reveal a mass of satanic catacombs underneath the island, and at the lava filled center, The Ghost Pirate LeChuck's spectral ship and crew reside. Monkey Island isn't even part of the 2nd game. The Secret was never a thing fans or Guybrush obsessed over, but with this game, we are pretending like that is his reason for living. And reason for rehashing so much of that first game.

So, you are basically replaying the first game, except now it's all a deconstructed, because postmodernism is a thing, and why bother writing an original story, when you can just do what you did in your 20s and be cynical about it, and then pat yourself on the back about how cynical you are. So we go back to Monkey Island, and there are these new kids in town, and they are these kind of goth pirates, into dark magic, and thus almost a threat to the Voodoo Lady (a sort of Obi Wan character to your clueless Guybrush) as well as LeChuck. They were cool, and I liked their metal version of the music, but unfortunately, it feels like the game forgets they exist halfway through. They are sort of working with LeChuck, then they start to rebel against him, then the ending kind of drops in out of nowhere.

The ending. Ugh. I get what he was doing, and I liked the idea of "turning out the lights", although it was very cheesy, and almost too sentimental for this series. They should have played "Closing Time" or something, I feel like I am watching an episode of the Office here. You are chasing LeChuck through the catacombs of Monkey Island (literally the ending from the first game) and then you end up going through a door and you are in the alleyway from the end of Monkey Island 2. Then the game goes back to you telling this as a story to your son(?) and there is a multi choice dialog option for what you tell your son the ending of the game is. It is utterly pretentious. These endings aren't lovingly animated or play out in any fashion other than a one-shot gag image following the credits. It feels really undercooked. You see all the characters from the game as cardboard cutouts, like it has all been a theme park side, and nothing matters. Oh boy. Nothing matters, any choice you make is valid.

It sucks because the earlier games were so magical. They weren't about storytelling or this Secret mystery that nobody has cared about in 30 years. They were just pirate adventures. Silly pirate adventures, but pirate adventures nontheless. A kind of tribute to the pulp fiction roots of Indiana Jones and Star Wars. The first two games had actual cool adventures in them. This one has some cool stuff in it, but a lot of navel gazing. Every time a creative makes something about meta, it feels like they are basking in self glory. I don't care about writers. I care about stories.

GRAPHICS

This is a tough one because the art style is absolutely generic corporate and the animation is trash. But then again I can see what they are going for, a kind of children's picture book style. The other games gave the impression of a grand serious cinematic adventure. This style works, and some of the backgrounds look very nice, but the characters faces, especially the main one, are terrible. Seriously, Guybrush looks so dumb I don't want to replay this game for a while.

GAMEPLAY

It's here where things get good. This game is made by one of the guys that invented this genre, and it includes all the quality of life improvements you could want. It plays like a dream. And it's fun to get lost in a graphic adventure again. A shame there isn't much story. And outside of essential objects you need for puzzles, most rooms are pretty empty. In the old games, half the fun was the responses you would get for trying the wrong thing. The gameplay is a bit too streamlined for that. Still, it's nice. A better story and this would have been wonderful.

OVERALL

7/10

The story is trash. I'm so sick of self important creators. It almost seems like an atheist trap. Like no serious Christian would make it all about them being the creator, because glory goes to God. But for an atheist, it is probably the height of intellectualism. The atheist sees themselves as God and creator of their world, however untrue that is, and think that their ability to create is some kind of mark that they are special and thus better than other people. The Christian would realize we are all made in God's image and thus humans are naturally creative. Ultimately IMO it comes down to a fundamentally flawed worldview.

posted by Adam  # 9:06:00 AM 0 Comments