Monkey Island™ 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge™

They took everything great about the first game, cranked up the budget, and made the puzzles exponentially more diabolical. Guybrush is at his peak charmingly arrogant self here, and the audio design, especially the voice acting, elevates the comedy perfectly. Just be prepared to get genuinely stumped a few times, because the logic gets beautifully weird. It's a masterclass in sequel design that every adventure fan needs to play.

“Congratulations, you’re Guybrush Threepwood: a wannabe pirate with the confidence of a golden retriever and the decision‑making skills of a wet sock.” Half the game I was wandering around the Caribbean like a man who forgot what his actual goal was. The other half I was getting bullied by every NPC, including a talking skull who somehow has more charisma than me. At some point I realized Guybrush’s greatest enemy isn’t LeChuck — it’s his own inability to stop making terrible choices. The art? Glow‑up of the century. The voice acting? Everyone sounds like they’re having the time of their lives. The puzzles? Equal parts genius and “why did I think using a monkey as a wrench was normal.” Final thoughts: 10/10 would dig up random graves, insult strangers, and accidentally ruin my own life again just to hear Guybrush say “I’m Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate” with zero self‑awareness.

I have peered into the mists of the spirit world, and I am deeply troubled to report that the fate of the entire Caribbean rests on a blonde buffoon whose idea of a sacred quest involves stuffing a captured monkey, a bucket of mud, and a stolen monographed bra into his apparently bottomless trousers. The cosmos demands moon-logic so utterly baffling that he must rig a local spitting contest with green drink just to advance his journey, proving that while LeChuck’s revenge is a masterpiece of comedic chaos, Threepwood’s inventory is an absolute insult to the voodoo arts.

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. 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 to an outsider looking for a window in, emblematic of everything the genre had going for it, and unconcerned with the steps to follow. 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 its facade of sprezzatura falters and it trips over its own foot, the ship certainly still feels driven and the crew motivated. What a joy of the heart to sail with one's hearties.

This is the best one of the entire series, especially better than that latest ugly nostalgia-fest lame effort!

Good remake of a good game, some of the animations do feel really dated, I'm not a huge fan of the character models -I honestly preferred the earlier designs from the concept art-, and the proportions are really off in some scenes. However, the voice acting is great, the music is great, it's easy to learn the controls, I like how you can essentially play the classic version of the game with the push of a button, I like how the classic version can have the voice acting of the Special Edition. It's definitely a good time, and you should buy it.

My recollection of the series is of diminishing returns with each successive sequel but this one holds up well enough to be worth the time. I remembered a lot more of the first game and very little about this one. There's some vague level of logic to all the puzzles, so, it's frustrating but not as bad as some point-and-clickers of the era got. Hint system and interactable object highlight option included. Developer's commentary too. One can switch between the remake and the original versions with the press of a button—F1—but the new art's so good, I was happy to stick with that—even better than the original's special edition's art. The old pixel art's top tier too—the new stuck extremely close to the old design. LucasArts was the Pixar of their day.

For many point-and-click enthusiasts, Monkey Island 2 represents the pinnacle of adventure games. While even a semi-competent nitpicker will find a bunch of flaws in this game, its near-mythical reputation is far from unearned. The original version's artwork is mesmerisingly beautiful despite the low resolution. The new HD backgrounds and characters (which are enabled by default) are fairly loyal to the original concept art, although they do lack some of its vivacity and distinctiveness. Regardless of the version, the dynamic soundtrack is full of timeless tunes. The voice acting—which can be enabled while using the original graphics—is top notch and Dominic Armato absolutely nails his role as Guybrush. The puzzles are devilishly complex and often hilarious. I wouldn't say that they're too difficult as such, and the twisted logic they follow is an essential part of the charm. However, from a modern perspective, they often lack sufficient signposting, resulting in trial-and-error style of gameplay. Back in the '90s, adventure gamers were totally okay with spending hours picking up numerous items and performing random actions just to see how the game reacts, but lengthening the relatively short game this way does harm the pacing. Because of this, the game may be actually more enjoyable on subsequent playthroughs. Given the potential frustration of getting stuck on moon logic, why should you bother with a slightly spruced up relic like this? When it comes to the atmosphere, Monkey Island 2 has an almost magical quality to it never quite replicated since. It is a game made by insanely talented developers who clearly loved what they were doing. According to my belief, that love of creating something truly unique is the real Secret of Monkey Island.

Una remasterización magistral que preserva el humor y los puzles desafiantes del original, elevándolos con un apartado visual pintado a mano y una banda sonora orquestada sublime y tener la posibilidad de alternar al estilo retro al instante lo convierten en la versión definitiva de esta joya de LucasArts.

I can understand why newer generations of players aren't chomping at the bit to dig up old point-and-click games and sing their praises, even for social media content. It's because they don't operate on video game logic™, they operate on developer logic™, which, in the old days, wan't based on "logic" at all. In this game's series' case, it was complete cockamamie ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that sortof required you to understand the dev studio to get some sense of an idea on how to complete it. If you never saw a single Indiana Jones movie, would you have the idea to swap a necessary, game-completing book, that was lying on a sleeping pirate tyrant's lap, with another book (doesn't matter which) that was located in a nearby library? Would that reference make sense to you? Even if you did watch all the Indy movies, does the game do a good job of explaining that to you? I personally don't think they did. This game has a hint button, that can guide you along. What this game doesn't tell you is that the hints are location-specific at certain points, and they could've done a better job of making sure those hints guide the player to the objective. Your goal is to find four pieces of a map, but finding 1-2 pieces gets you to a point where the hints stop guiding you to the next objective and start reiterating that you need to find the other pieces. Just one, of four, based on what you figured out for yourself, would've been better, but at a certain point you have to just click/combine/attempt everything to get ahead. This turns a 6 hour game into a much longer game. Now, if you're a "journey" over "destination" type gamer, you won't have a problem with that. But if you were born in the past 30 years, there is something to be said about game design here. Without the internet, I don't expect most people would finish this game, past or present, as was unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) intended when this game came out some 2x years ago, when computers where less useful, vague with how they could enrich your life, and suggested that any amount of time you spent with them outside work suggested that you were a total loser. The first game didn't require the hint button, but it was juuuuust helpful enough. The second game (this one) they went way overboard. You need a "monkey" wrench to open up a new path to progress the game? [spoiler]The hint was in the word "monkey" in quotes?[/spoiler] Where do you find a monkey? [spoiler] In the bar you've been to to get to this point in the first place. Did you know there was a monkey there? No. But there was a sign in the bar that said there was a performer there that played the piano every now and again. Do you need to be a bit racist to "get the logic" of this game? I don't know but it feels like it, a bit...[/spoiler] At that point, you had to sneak into the kitchen in the backroom to progress that far in the game. Why would you think to come back there? Only if you exhausted all other options. [spoiler] I got 3 drinks from that bar and thought that they might help with solving the drinking competition that gets you one of the map pieces, but this ain't Putt-Putt or Freddie Fish, this game is harder. [/spoiler] Say what you want about 'the need to turn a profit' trumping 'engaging game design/yellow paint', and the like, but I had to use the "hint" button (H) at every moment I got stuck during the final chapters of the game because, straight-up, modern-day game developers don't think the same as the old-guard, and that's probably for good reason. If the puzzle game is too convoluted to solve without a hint button, then there's probably a good reason that the original writers stopped f*cking with this game after the second installment. (the one I'm reviewing now) I haven't finished the game, because I got to a point that required google to pass. Am "EYE" out of touch? Should point-and-click video game success be based on the "Dungeon Master's" logic to win? No, I say. It's the elders who are wrong. At some point, you'll have to just rely on the hint button to finish the game. If "listening to your elders" was such a great idea, why didn't our elders do that? Because they're full of ♥♥♥♥. Actually, this is the perfect game series for cheap, "bottom-of-the-barrel game-review-content-to-get-a-quick-check" content, because it is straight-up infuriating. And if I see my youtube algorithm suddenly decide to recommend me a video-essay about this game and its flaws. Or a smarmy, well paid (maybe British or Australlian) game reviewer decide to start talking about it, then I'll take solace in the fact that the game journalism system is working as intended.