Tales of Monkey Island: Complete Season

In my personal opinion, The Curse of Monkey Island is still the best game in the series—but this one comes very close. It has all the charm and humor the series is famous for, along with good puzzles and decent controls (especially when compared to the horrible fourth title, Escape from Monkey Island). The puzzles themselves are fair and well-designed. I only had to check a walkthrough twice, and you can definitely finish the entire game without one. Even though I still prefer full mouse control in my point-and-click games—and that’s not the case here, since you have to move the character with the keyboard—it’s still acceptable and doesn’t ruin the gameplay at all. Overall, it’s a great entry in the series, and I can’t wait to start the next title.

ToMI is hard to review as it has 5 episodes that should be looked at separately. They do all share the same graphics, UI and controls. The story focus, pacing and setting does usually change. The graphics are generally okay. The characters are expressive and the game can be very colourful even if it’s not impressive technically. The voice actors did a good job, the UI is clearer and better than the previous games. The controls are pretty bad when you try to play it entirely with a mouse. Playing with a controller is not better since the UI navigation suffers. You can use WASD but a game like this is usually ideal with a mouse. On to the episodes: One A very slow start but it can be excused for setting things up and getting started. While it’s not a bad episode, it does not impress. It can lose an audience when not much is happening. Two Although this episode is fairly slow too, it’s slightly better paced. It also has more interesting environments and puzzles. Three This is the best or second best episode in the list. The pacing improves significantly, the NPC and locations are far more interesting. Four The worst episode and a huge turn off. Not only are you getting the content from episode one fully rehashed, the puzzles are challenging on a whole different, stupid level. AND the first part is an annoying interrogation in a court setting. It was so bad that I watched the rest of the second half on YouTube and was considering giving up on episode 5. Five A massive improvement over four and the second best episode. Here you feel the stakes are high and what you’re doing matters to the overall plot without being slowed down. And that’s the thing, on top of everything mentioned about the episodes, I am left thinking that most of what I did was a huge distraction (or unrelated) and didn’t move the story forward. Most of the major developments can be summed up in one or two sentences for each episode. So I’m left wondering who this is for. I can only see the die hard fans enjoying the fanservice and jokes that they will understand. Newcomers will enjoy the gentler approach (aside from episode four) but not getting the significance of plot points. ToMI is best described as a filler game. It’s not the worst or bad but I’m not sure many need to play it. I still had fun overall, I spent less than 18 hours total according to steam.

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.

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

A good return to form! If you enjoyed the previous Monkey Island-games, you are going to love this one!

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 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

I did not expected this game to be that good . Comedy , adventure , puzles , gg , 100%

ES EL MEJOR JUEGO QUE HE JUGADO HASTA AHORA, LE DA 3 VUELTAS AL SEA OF THIEVES. ESTE ES 10 VECES MEJOR A PESAR DE SU ANTIGÜEDAD, SU JUGABILIDAD Y GRÁFICOS SON INIGUALABLES. HISTÓRICO

Nice brain teaser