The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!
Let’s discuss the Monkey Island series. What is your favorite game? What aspects do you like about it? What doesn’t work for you? Are there games that gave you a similar experience? Feel free to share any thoughts that come up, or react to other peoples comments. Let’s get the conversation going!
If you have any recommendations for games or series for the next post(s), please feel free to DM me or add it in a comment here (no guarantees of course).
Previous entries: 8 Bit Era, Animal Crossing, Age of Empires, Super Mario, Deus Ex, Stardew Valley, The Sims, Half-Life, Earthbound / Mother, Mass Effect, Metroid, Journey, Resident Evil, Polybius, Tetris, Telltale Games, Kirby, LEGO Games, DOOM, Ori, Metal Gear, Slay the Spire
MI is great, I played 1+2 when they were new (in the 90s), they were brilliant back then. These days, they’re probably still good point&click adventure games. There were some special editions or remasters which probably make them play well on modern machines. They belong to a long list of awesome LucasArts point&click adventures during the 90s and early 2000s. Most of these games are great. You should definitely try them out, especially if there are remasters available. But you can also play the originals using ScummVM most likely. Ron Gilbert is like the mastermind behind the series. He still creates adventure games to this day. And they’re all pretty good, but the genre is kind of niche these days. It wasn’t niche back then. It was just as big as action or soulslike games are today. The Monkey Island titles were probably the most successful or popular ones of the bunch. But there are some others which are equally good. Adventure games are rare these days but basically they are like puzzle games where you have to solve certain situations by combining items, finding items in the first place, trying different approaches, and so on. You kind of know once you’ve overcome a challenge when you were able to progress further in the game. There’s little to no handholding, but also little to no handholding needed. There’s one timing-based riddle in the original Monkey Island which I never liked that much, but it’s still a funny one. It’s not hard but it doesn’t really fit the genre well because nothing else is timing-based. It does fit the game’s art, setting and humor well though. The soundtrack is nice indeed. This is probably the most well-known track: https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=FoT5qK6hpbw
Man, I miss the golden age of point-and-click adventure games. My brothers and I played through so many together. PC Speaker version of the MI1 soundtrack for maximum nostalgia: https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=_cfPw3IL1sk
I have the remake (The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition) in my Steam backlog. I’ve been meaning to play it for a while, but it seems like a game that will require my full focus to not forget the story / puzzles. Once some of the games I’m currently playing are finished, I might give it a go. Also seems like a fun game to play during the winter times, so maybe I’ll get around to it in a few months.
I absolutely love this retrospective video about the series by youtuber Ahoy: RetroAhoy: The Secret of Monkey Island. I highly recommend it!
I’ve only ever played 3 and I really liked it when I did. Sad that one doesn’t get talked about much cause the art style is my favorite of the whole series I think.
It definitely had its fair share of batshit insane puzzles, but overall it’s a great game.
I have nothing to say about this game other than thank you for reminding me about CONGO’s CAPER! I’ve been looking for the name of this game for years and this post inspired me to find it!
I played the first, maybe not all the way through, on my Atari ST. Later on, I got quite annoyed that the Amiga got the sequel but Lucasfilm Games days it wasn’t coming to the Atari.
I remember getting the PC CD-ROM edition of the original game and the music was lovely.
The next time I played was game three, Curse of Monkey Island. I loved the art style and completed that one.
I plan on playing the latest installment at some point. I downloaded it onto my Xbox.
There’s also a great program for playing old Lucasfilm faces on PC. You can load soundbanks into it because it can emulated different midi interfaces that I dreamed of owning back in the day. The tunes sound amazing.
It’s an emulator for playing the entire back catalogue of Lucasarts games. It’s very well documented and ready to use. As I said, if you had some kind of general midi set up or Roland MT32 back in the day, you’d be laughing. The music is awesome.
The program is called Dreamm.
DREAMM is a backronym for:
DOS
Retro-
Emulation
Arena for
Maniac
Mansion (and other LucasArts Games).
I have somehow never heard of this before today, I know where the rest of my day is going. Thank you!
