Tales of Monkey Island: Complete Season

Auch wenn die fünf Episoden respektive Kapitel von Tales of Monkey Island als einzelne Spiele angeboten werden, gehören sie doch untrennbar zusammen und ergeben einzeln nur wenig Sinn. Darum bezieht sich diese Rezension auf alle fünf Kapitel gemeinsam und ist entsprechend auch bei allen fünf Teilen identisch. Ich mag die Monkey-Island-Reihe sehr und habe die Teile 1 und 2 schon vor langer Zeit gespielt und geliebt. Schon länger hatte ich im Sinn, auch die weiteren Teile nachzuholen, wobei sich insbesondere Teil 3 als absolutes Meisterwerk erwiesen hat. Teil 4 dagegen musste ich aufgrund seines grauenvollen technischen Zustands auslassen, und so landete ich schliesslich bei der Telltale-Serie. Und ehrlich gesagt waren meine Erwartungen nicht besonders hoch. Ich ging davon aus, dass die fünf Episoden nicht mit den Originalen mithalten können. Und ja, das war dann auch tatsächlich so, allerdings in deutlich geringerem Mass, als ich das erwartet hatte. Denn ja, ganz an das Meisterwerk-Niveau und den Humor der ersten drei Teile kommt Tales of Monkey Island nicht heran. Aber das ist auch eine unglaublich hohe Hürde. Die fairere Frage ist daher: Macht das Telltale-Abenteuer einem Monkey-Island-Fan trotzdem Spass? Und da lautet die Antwort glasklar: Ja! Das liegt vor allem an der herrlich absurden, typisch Monkey-Island-mässigen Chaosgeschichte mit vielen bekannten Figuren und auch einigen neuen, wunderbar schrägen Charakteren. Die Story ist witzig, voller gelungener Gags in typischer Monkey Island Manier, was bestens unterhält. Die Adventure-Seite tritt in Sachen Rätsel zwar spürbar eine Stufe kürzer, was alte Veteranen vielleicht etwas enttäuschen dürfte, trotzdem ergibt sich insgesamt ein sehr tolles und rundes Monkey-Island-Erlebnis. Dabei helfen auch die Grafik und der Sound. Ja, die simple 3D-Comicgrafik ist kein Grafikblender, wirkt dafür aber relativ zeitlos. Auch wenn der optische Stil dadurch ein bisschen generisch erscheint, ist das Resultat trotzdem stimmig und völlig ok. Besonders stark ist der Sound: Der Soundtrack passt perfekt und die Sprecher machen einen hervorragenden Job. Fazit: Auch wenn die Telltale-Serie nicht ganz an die ersten drei Teile herankommt, ist Tales of Monkey Island trotzdem ein sehr gelungenes Adventure, das ich jedem Adventure-Fan generell und jedem Monkey-Island-Fan erst recht ohne Einschränkungen empfehlen kann.

The first episode is quite good, the other four not so much. You always carry tons of items that you either don't need or no longer need. The game has tons of locations you can go to even after there is nothing left to do in them. The resulting permutations of items, hot-spots and locations to use together becomes way too high. You'll get stuck eventually and have to use a walkthrough. The game has a hint system but the hints are completely useless. For example: There is a captain that you have to defeat. The game makes it very clear what the goal is but you can't figure out how to defeat him - the hint system just repeats "I must get on that ship and defeat the captain" over and over again without actually helping. The finale in episode 5 is massively annoying to play, with forced cutscenes every 15 seconds. The ending is underwhelming and not really worth playing the game for.

Great game, lots of fun puzzles to make you think. This is nostalgia from the early 90s but with modern graphics. the series is totally worth it. I wish they would make a second tales of Monkeys Islands. I miss these types of games.

This was the one MI game I missed (mostly because after Escape the 3D graphics gave me PTSD), and... No, just no. It doesn't feel like a Monkey Island game. The controls are somehow worse than Escape and most puzzles are just not quite there. Not as in "they are too easy/hard", but as in "I randomly shoot a cannon which will somehow do an unexpected thing that solves a puzzle in another area". Somehow Guybrush and Elaine feel out of character. Heck, every character except LeChuck does. And that really killed it for me. Out of 5 chapters the 3rd one was actually fun and somehow had that kind of MI atmosphere... But the rest were just a chore to get through. It's maybe the one MI game I won't ever feel like replaying at all... Which makes it kinda special on its own?

This game is rather different to many of the other monkey island games, which, along with the fact that its in 3D, leaves it to be overlooked quite often. This is a shame because this game is punches you in the gut so many times it leaves one's organs permanently damaged and still manages to be funny about it. 9/10

This is Monkey Island in 3D, but the same classic adventure vibe , pirate vibe I reccomand turning off Hints and activating only if you are stuck as Guyflush Greenfood will tell you excatly where to go otherwise. And a little spoiler, the game is fun

best games ever such intricate character design i love islands (especially monkey islands) peak would recommend its a must play with any fan of any game ever #igrewuponts

3/5 Let me speak about the entire game here. All 5 chapters in one go. Ultimately the game is mid. If you are familiar with any of the Monkey Island games you may find this one to be familiar in design only, not in quality. GAMEPLAY: The greatest feature about this game is it's puzzles. The puzzles are equally as good as the previous titles. As usual they sometimes flop and sometimes they do something revitalizing and new. Movement was fine. Inventory was simplified but combining items made worse. VISUALS: The general design is forgettable and not 2009's finest. No zone or area sinks into my heart like a Plunder, Blood, or Phatt Island (MI2-3). To nobody's gain, it may even remind you of a completly different game, eg. Chapter 2's Spinner Cay is a poor man's Zora's domain from Zelda, with now a different race of humanoids to boot. The character design is deplorable. Many major side characters are so plain and unremarkable I had a hard time recognizing them. I can think of five of these clowns that even share the exact same body frame, copy, paste, change the skin color. One idiot even looks like a rejected Mii. WRITING: The larger part of characters themselves are massively irratating, and not in a fun way. Aside from a few examples like Winslow, Voodoo Lady and maybe De Singe. But even if the character is one of the better ones (eg. Morgan, Elaine) they are not free from inconsistent character actions nor... the worst type of humor of our age, 2005-2015 humor. Back then it was known as SO RANDOM, today it goes by Quirk Chungus. Almost every single character, Guybrush included, will make long winded, dramatic, overly obtuse retorts. Nothing like a bunch of theatre kids bowing to each other while regally speaking about tacos, pop-culture idiosyncrasies, and cats. Then, Taletell added a growing set of character arcs that are fundamentally undeserved and wildly out of place. Never before has a Monkey Island game needed a 1 on 1 power talk to motivate the main protagonist into beliving in himself. I'd applaude the idea of trying something new as I will for several other ideas such as Le Pox. However, the games major narrative feels split on weather it wants to be a quirky heart warming cartoon for preteens or the satirical college age lampoon a Monkey Island game is supposed to be. I'm not joking. I don't think there was a single 4th wall break this entire game, a staple of the series. I should also mention this game includes overly verbose dialog boxes with no info or humor for 5/6 choices. Did I laugh? sometimes yes, but less than usual. But by many more accounts did I hate. In previous games I hated the puzzles often, sometimes even an overkilled joke or two (MI2). This game made me hate characters, plot, and puzzles. Audio: Not a single song or track to remember.