/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.8869953]

Anyone else think Curse is as good as the first two Monkey Island games and even better in some aspects? The animation is extremely kino, the writing is great and the puzzle difficulty is a perfect balance between the first two games. The only thing really bad about it is that it completely ignores the last game’s ending.

[Anonymous No.8869965]

>>8869953
>Anyone else think Curse is as good as the first two Monkey Island games and even better in some aspects?
Isn't that the majority opinion outside of a few purists?

[Anonymous No.8869967]

>>8869953
>le it was all a simulation/imagination/illusion mannnn
So cool that Ron Hackbert did this twice with MI2 and Thimbleweed. Glad he signed off on that fuck-awful art for Return, too.

[Anonymous No.8869979]

Yes it's a good sequel. In fact its weakest moments are those where it slavishly follows the preceding games. Stan was never funny, it gains nothing by bringing him back, and the swordfighting was an instance of nostalgia-pandering long before nostalgia-pandering become commonplace in media.

[Anonymous No.8869982]

>>8869979
>it gains nothing by bringing him back
I don't know, I like how it acknowledges the absurdity of it
>if you were trapped in that coffin the whole time, how were you able to make business cards?

[Anonymous No.8870000]

all that "The Curse is shit" started long after the game's release
same shit as the hate nonsense towards Fallout 2

[Anonymous No.8870005]

>>8869953
>>8869965
I think the most constructive opinion that can be considered at least common is that it's a fine sequel with both stronger and weaker points than its predecessors.

The art direction is outstanding on its own terms, but I understand why some people got completely turned off by it, since it was certainly extreme enough to be at least a calculated risk (and a sizable section of any fandom tend to react strongly about that sort of thing). The writing and dialogue is hilarious though, and on that regard I do believe it sometimes beats the previous games legitimately.

In terms of actual game design, I'd say there's good puzzles and setpieces but nothing that downright surpasses the best parts of the original two games. Plus, it's a bit too streamlined and short in comparison to the second MI.

[Anonymous No.8870009]

Seeing as we're doing this: I want to say that the Monkey Island 2 remaster is pretty well done and it would be an acceptable way for newcomers to the series to play the game. I've played through about half of the remaster and so far I've not come across anything objectionable. Some of the new backgrounds are clearly improvements on the originals, and the voice acting gives the game more life.

[Anonymous No.8870028]

>>8870000
Not really; you could meet fans of the series that utterly and acerbically hated it back in the day. But around 1997 the infrastructure for visibility and vocality of fan reaction was at the very least less developed.

Once Internet culture really got going things snowballed pretty quickly, with Gilbert being an early adopter of blogging platforms being a likely contributing factor too.

[Anonymous No.8870036]

I agree, I loved all 4 original games but this was always my favourite.

Didn’t even bother with tales, was too late by then.

I’d like a rerelease of curse and can’t imagine it wouldn’t sell well.

[Anonymous No.8870051]

>>8870028
Oh, he would.

[Anonymous No.8870060]

>>8870009
I agree it's a fine update, specially in comparison to the clusterfuck that the first game's remake was. Though unless you count visible pixels as a deal breaker I really couldn't consider the new art an "improvement"; it's just a competent compromise between superior art and superior resolution.

On a side note, I think people are already giving up about correcting those who use "remaster" to refer to this sort of remake/enhanced port, but in this case it's funny how the original high resolution art DOES exist, but wasn't used for the updated game assets, in favor of more convenient digital paintovers of the original assets. The original art is even included in the bonus galleries you unlock during the playthrough, a nice touch.

[Anonymous No.8870076]

>>8869979
>and the swordfighting was an instance of nostalgia-pandering long before nostalgia-pandering become commonplace in media.
I disagree, I appreciate the level of work put in. It's one thing to come up with lame, childish comebacks for lame, childish insults. It's one thing to make those comebacks rhyme with the insult. It's something else entirely to not only make it rhyme, but make each reply also rhyme with 2-3 other insults so that you not only have to look for the rhyming phrase but the one that is an appropriate reply to what you're being insulted with.

[Anonymous No.8870093]

I'm just now finding out this is considered a bad game, I always liked it as much as the 2 original games. Fuck Escape though

[Anonymous No.8870154]

>>8869953
giving Guybrush a voice was a mistake, it will always be in third place

[Anonymous No.8870160]

>>8870093
>considered a bad game
lol by who.
I've literally never seen anyone shit on it ever since it was released besides a few disliking the cartoony art-style shift.

[Anonymous No.8870207]

>>8870154
This is for your own sake, go away and hide your face.
A PIRATE I WAS MEANT TO BE TRIM THE SAILS AND ROAM THE SEA

[Anonymous No.8870258]

>>8869953

Am I autistic if I say the one flaw is not having any background character? The cities feel empty, the only characters you can interact with are the ones that are useful to progress the plot. No random people around the streets, nothing.

[Anonymous No.8870280]

>>8870154
Couldn't disagree more. Dominic Armato nailed it, and if not for him, Tales would be completely irredeemable.

[Anonymous No.8870286]

>>8870258
That's a good point; obviously it's a budgetary issue to avoid creating a stock mob with idle and walk animations just for "color" but they make a point of lampshading it at least: Plunder Island is a sleepy pirate retirement community, and Blood Island a tourist destination long past its prime.

[Anonymous No.8870313]

>>8870258
>>8870286

I'm finding it difficult to think of examples of 90s adventure games that have have plausible amounts of background activity. Blade Runner is the only one that comes to mind. All the Lucasarts adventures, including Grim Fandango, have streets that are empty but for the one or two NPCs that are required by the game. Same goes for Broken Sword with its empty Paris, although Broken Sword 2 does have some decorative NPCs in its towns.

[Anonymous No.8870334]

>>8870313
Among the Lucas games specifically, only the first Monkey Island and Fate of Atlantis had pure filler background characters that can't be interacted with iirc. The rest have crowds and background characters only where they're actually part of a particular puzzle or setpiece

[Anonymous No.8870362]

>>8870009
>>8870060
I never cared for the weird decision of releasing a fully 3D-animated teaser trailer back in the day; the actual game was kind of underwhelming in comparison

https://youtu.be/T7XrgoacLwE

[Anonymous No.8870393]

>>8869953
>The only thing really bad about it is that it completely ignores the last game’s ending.
It doesn't. The MI2 ending is ambiguous, and the MI3 interpretation is one of the possibilities it hinted at (with Elaine's comment, and LeChuck's eyes).

[Anonymous No.8870441]

>>8870393
>The MI2 ending is ambiguous
I never understood why people believe this. What's actually ambiguous about it? Obviously the exact nature of the MI universe is generally mysterious by design -which is part of the appeal-, but the nature of the events in the last act and ending of LeChuck's Revenge is pretty much set down by the elements you mention (Elaine's remark about a curse, and the behavior of "Chuckie").

I'm mostly looking forward to the Gilbert-led sequel, but I'm wary of him leaning too hard on the "Theme Park Reality" angle because he's pretty much cornered himself . He was so vocal for so many years about the sequels made without his involvement getting things WRONG, that at this point he's basically obligated to double down on something that doesn't really bring much to the table. Honestly I'd rather play a tongue-in-cheek pirate game than one explicitly set in a self-aware Theme Park world.

[Anonymous No.8870573]

>>8870441
He's doing a whole lot of backtracking on everything he said as "just some ideas I had one afternoon while being bummed out" and now trying to rationalize having a years out of date corporate clipart style by saying pixel art is outdated.
It's why he shut down his site for a day and comments are now off.
Kinda funny that he says he wanted the art to be "provocative, shocking, and not what everyone was expecting." but then get upset when people are actually provoked by it.

[Anonymous No.8870598]

>>8869965
Yeah.
The controversial opinion would be to say that Curse or Secret is better than Revenge.
Which I do believe, I didn't like Le Chuck's revenge that much

[Anonymous No.8870606]

>>8870598
It's oddly divisive; it probably boils down to whether you enjoy the massive open-ended middle section of the game. Every other game in the series is pretty linear in comparison

[Anonymous No.8870608]

>>8870000
People only started hating on Fallout 2 is because New Vegas is the broad favorite among the large portion of the fanbase which never played 1 and 2, but those who have will very often say that Fallout 2 is easily the best game in the series.

So, the people who still never played it on 4chan decided to use the occasional fourth wall breaks and pop culture references and pretend they are a serious problem with 2

on /v/ you get a lot of people saying Fallout 1 is better than 2, which is peak contrarianism

[Anonymous No.8870612]

>>8870573
I just can't believe they specifically chose that piece to release as part of a handful of hand-picked hype screenshots

[Anonymous No.8870623]

>>8870612
The Seattle crowd is just that out of touch that a blend of 2000s flash game and corporate globohomo clip-art is something they'll insist is thoughtful and new when even the corpos are shying away from it more and more.
I think what clinched it for me is that he's talking about how TP got slagged by reviewers for the pixel art, except of course the actual user reviews are better than anything else he's had since 90s.
Don't know if he's actually a true believer or if it's just the Disney money talking at this point though.

[Anonymous No.8870624]

>>8870573
I think we need to see more of the game before we can really judge the artwork. After all, the representations in the teaser trailer are less abstract and more figurative than than what we see in your picture. The pirate ship there looks as a pirate ship should. But based on what has been shown so far, it does seem like a strange choice. Return to Monkey Island has high expectations to meet and I hear it has a good budget also, yet it seems to be visually inferior to some of the lesser-known, cheaper adventure titles. The artwork in 'A Vampyre Story,' for example, is better-looking than your pic.

[Anonymous No.8870630]

>>8870573
OOF.
That's the real game?
I was in the minority of people who didn't have an issue with the trailer artstyle, but this.
I mean I'll still play it, but this is not fitting.
This looks like the TED animated videos on youtube.
Not sure why he didn't go for a visual design like 3's.
It doesn't look much harder than this

[Anonymous No.8870642]

>>8870608
>on /v/ you get a lot of people saying Fallout 1 is better than 2
It is better....in pacing and atmosphere/tone. But that's about it.

[Anonymous No.8870643]

>>8870608
Fallout 1 is better by quite a bit if you care more about setting immersion.
Fallout 2 doesn't leave the dumb shit to easter eggs making shit like the Hubologists semi-mandatory.

[Anonymous No.8870652]

>>8870642
The pacing of Fallout 1 is fucked by the time limit and time limited endings, if you want to get a good ending, you have far less time then is fun.
And the time limit in general is just stressful and adds absolutely nothing.

But it takes more than just atmosphere and pacing to make a great game. Fallout 1 in my own opinion, isn't even as good as Fallout 3. Which is a hot take

[Anonymous No.8870658]

>>8870652
The only way the time limit should fuck you is not finding Necropolis before the mutants move in. Aside from that, I was able to 100% the game with time to spare.

[Anonymous No.8870665]

>>8869979
Stan was funny in the first game he just felt a little forced in the next two. In Escape he worked surprisingly well, actually that's my favorite Stan appearance.

[Anonymous No.8870781]

>>8870313

The Longest Journey

[Anonymous No.8870884]

>>8869953
I actually enjoyed it more because I was 10 and it was more cartoony and understandable, plus it had voices.

[Anonymous No.8870901]

>>8870630
>Not sure why he didn't go for a visual design like 3's.
>It doesn't look much harder than this
You are right, it's not that much harder (well, technically it is, but that's not the point, you can still find decent artists). It's done on purpose to be ugly and demeaning.

[Anonymous No.8870997]

>>8870901
>It's done on purpose to be ugly and demeaning.
you think so?

[Anonymous No.8871168]

>>8870997
Doubtless he thinks it's part of a jewish plot to defile the white man's culture or something.

[Anonymous No.8871258]

2 was shit, 3 is much better.

[Anonymous No.8871262]

>>8870630
>Not sure why he didn't go for a visual design like 3's.
Weren't 3's graphics really expensive and labor-intensive because it was all hand-drawn with painted backgrounds?

[Anonymous No.8871713]

>>8871262
I believe so, but I don't see why the new digital art couldn't have been reminiscent of it.
I mean I would expect the colors to be flatter, less shading since less budget, but what they did seems really high effort as well, just for very low reward

[Anonymous No.8872567]

>>8870997
>>8871168
>you think so?
Nayrt but it's a direct quote from Gilbert that the goal is to be "provocative" and "shocking". Not to look beatiful or befitting.
For some reason people seem to have forgotten that words have meaning and that to be provocative is done in order to provoke.

[Anonymous No.8872626]

>>8870630
>>8871262
>>8871713
The problem is that it's not really a "choice", but a matter of available talent. This will sound like boomerish spite talking (and I guess part of it is), but a lot of modernist art styles are comparatively easier to pull off on a technical level than more classic representational cartoon styles. Don't get me wrong; they're roughly as challenging to do RIGHT -or even more sometimes, because you have to “learn the rules well so you know how to break them properly”, but there's a comfortable buffer of failure attached in which sloppiness can be believably disguised as "style".

Doing classic cartoon environments (pic related), requires more than competent draftsmanship; the spaces are knowingly warped and the lighting stylized, but there's an expert sense of perspective and compositional value involved. Any less than that, and it would fall flat on its face even for non-artists who wouldn't be able to specifically pinpoint what's wrong with it.

A piece like >>8870573 relies on the extremity of the stylization to disguise how unskilled the execution is. It's an attempt at reproducing Maurice Noble-style cartoon art direction, without an actual understanding of the thoughtful composition, color design and economy that went into it.

[Anonymous No.8872691]

>>8870630
>I was in the minority of people who didn't have an issue with the trailer artstyle
Me too, for me it looked like they were going for the look on MI2 Special edition, but these screenshots tell a different story, this new style makes everything feel so cramped and flat. I saw some things from the art director and his website is full of images in that style, which I find odd considering he was the art director for Tearaway and I loved how that game looked.

[Anonymous No.8872696]

>>8869953
Not me. I think it's a good, maybe even great game but I never finished it because it just didn't seem like a monkey island game to me. And I never dug Guybrush's look in it. He looked like a weird hybrid of andy dick and that big nosed guy from Pianist.

[Anonymous No.8872697]

>>8872691
Can I get a source for that, pls? I'm interested

[Anonymous No.8872757]

>>8872696
So you played it in the 2000s? Somewhat of a bizarre reasoning then

[Anonymous No.8873032]

>>8869953
We loved the game back then! The only critisism was that Guybrush looked radically different. They even joked about it in the manual.

[Anonymous No.8873050]

>>8873032
I think the design was a good translation of the original MI design into the cartoon style they were going for, though it mostly ignores the second game pirate-posseur look yeah.
I always thought they fucked up in the third game making him too short; Guybrush is a dweeb but he should at least have convincing pirateish physical traits.

[Anonymous No.8873280]

>>8873050
Yeah it might have been funnier if Guybrushed looked like a full on pirate, but still behaved like a goofball.
Or if his body was build like a pirate, but his face was obviously showing inexperience and naivety.

Not that it matters that much.

[Anonymous No.8873415]

>>8872757
I played it when it came out. Just because I make a contemporary comparison doesn't mean I liked it back then.

[Anonymous No.8873428]

Curse of Monkey Island was the best Monkey Island in my opinion.

It's sad how few graphic adventures we got with this cartoony style. The window of opportunity was really small. Almost as soon as it was possible on a technical level, the craze for 3D killed graphic adventures. The nostalgia for pixel art and the lack of artists means it will probably never happen again.

[Anonymous No.8873673]

Escape from Monkey Island is unironically the best game in the series.
>MI1
Horribly unbalanced act lengths. Monkey Island awkwardly split over several screens for no reason. Carla spazzes out as idle animation. Puzzles veer erratically between outright telling you what to do and making you guess what the devs thought with no signposting at all.
>MI2
Disastrous narrative full of plot holes. Was it a curse? If so, is Guybrush already affected by it right at the start (visible unnatural metal bars around the edge). How did Toothrot get to Dinky? First three islands completely irrelevant - you just get delivered straight to LeChuck's fortress. Soundtrack relies entirely on shitty imuse system rather than actually having catchy jingles (with the exception of Largo's theme which doesn't use imuse anyway)
>MI3
The preferred entry of homosexuals everywhere. Comedy reduced entirely to characters with funny voices. All the edginess of the first two games removed. Worst puzzle of the series (golden tooth bubblegum window bullshit). Literally includes a section where you whip another grown man's ass.
>MI5
Sparse locations, all the characters look the same. Easiest puzzles in the series, by a long way. Very disjointed narrative as you'd expect from the episodic structure. Culture of abuse in the company that made it leaves sour taste in the mouth.

But

>MI4
Huge variety of interesting puzzles. Inventory puzzles, of course, but also timing puzzles (vista, Lua bar), mazes (mists o'tyme, log flume), mathematical deduction (monkey kombat, lafeet's hat) and many more. Best comedy writing in the series, but also isn't afraid to touch on important themes of commercialisation and tourism. Crazy narrative twist which is carefully seeded and hinted at throughout the game. Several interesting islands to explore, all fully fleshed out and alive.

[Anonymous No.8873675]

>>8873428
Have you played Nelly Cootalot - The Fowl Fleet?

[Anonymous No.8873684]

>>8873673
>Culture of abuse in the company that made it leaves sour taste in the mouth.
That abuse wasn't present until after Walking Dead season 1.
With the early games like Sam and Max, Monkey Island, and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, the development was pretty simple like an indie studio.

[Anonymous No.8873796]

>>8873673
No need to be so mean.

You're right about the bubble gum tooth puzzle tho

[Anonymous No.8873818]

>>8869953
Worst thing of the game is the terribly rushed ending, everything else is amazing. Apparently LucasArts wanted to have the game ready for christmas and forced the team to finish it sooner.

[Anonymous No.8873827]

>>8870258
This, Puerto Pollo is a beautiful drawing, but It's completely devoid of life.

[Anonymous No.8873837]

>>8873827
There's a character right there, out in the open

[Anonymous No.8873850]

>>8873673
>Worst puzzle of the series (golden tooth bubblegum window bullshit)
Pretty sure that one is only in the hard mode. Why didn't you pick normal mode?

[Anonymous No.8873857]

>>8873675
It has nice backgrounds, but I really dislike the pseudo-2D characters. CGI isn't quite there yet.

[Anonymous No.8873862]

>>8873837
Yes, a lonely character that only exists to progress your story, selling lemonade to absolutely no one since It's a desert town. I really don't think it would have been so difficult to draw some tiny little pirates walking on the background from door to door, same as in Monkey Island 1, that little attention to detail would have improved the "city" a lot, same as it did in Melee Island, would have been nice.

>>8870573
I agree this is not the best screenshot, but the other ones looks very nice.

[Anonymous No.8873869]

>>8873428
I played a demo on Steam of an adventure called The Season of the Warlock, It's not out yet but I really liked it and the art is great, try it, maybe you'll like it

[Anonymous No.8873874]

>>8873850
that's the true game, Standard mode is only named standard because people got offended MI2's easier setting was described as being for beginners and game reviewers.

[Anonymous No.8873876]

>>8873862
that shot looks terrible too

[Anonymous No.8873878]

>>8873874
That one puzzle you hate is the only difference between standard and hard mode that I remember.

[Anonymous No.8873879]

>>8873874
No one was offended by that

[Anonymous No.8873885]

>>8873673
>Huge variety of interesting puzzles
>timing puzzles (vista, Lua bar), mazes (mists o'tyme, log flume), mathematical deduction (monkey kombat, lafeet's hat) and many more.

Those are called mini-games, not "interesting puzzles." Most people feel their enthusiasm drain away when they realise that it's time to do a minigame in a Lucasarts adventure. They were always a chore, the minigames in Fate of were awful too.

[Anonymous No.8873891]

>>8873673
>monkey kombat
now I know you're trolling

[Anonymous No.8873901]

>>8873673
>CONTRARIAN I WAS MEANT TO BE-- POST THE BAIT, GET (YOU)'S WITH GLEE

[Anonymous No.8873904]

>>8873869
Thanks for the recommendation anon. I really don't like CGI though. I really liked that Curse of Monkey Island was all hand drawn.

[Anonymous No.8873905]

>>8873879
They straight up said it was the reason at GDC

[Anonymous No.8873908]

>>8873878
Nah, there's a bunch more differences

[Anonymous No.8873910]

>>8873905
Source? I think you made it up

[Anonymous No.8873912]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU_lyiWkP70
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMCVTR8qaBA

Spain had a nice scene for graphic adventures with that kind of graphics. I don't know if the games exist in English.

[Anonymous No.8873941]

>>8873827
The town becomes more and more populated by chickens over time iirc

[Anonymous No.8873943]

>>8873878
No there's a ton of puzzles in Curse that require less steps (or outright no steps) in standard mode.

[Anonymous No.8873969]

>>8873862
This one is less bad, but the architecture does not fit the actual pirate aesthetic,
And jesus are those people terrifying.

[Anonymous No.8873985]

The game has pretty poor writing, turning the sword fighting into just fucking rhyming was a horrible decision and shows they knew nothing of what made the originals good, and this moment despite being loved is just annoying to me. It ain't witty or smart, just an overly long dumb song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9bXjttMxKY

[Anonymous No.8874295]

https://grumpygamer.com/return_to_monkey_island

holy fuck, the comments were more aggressive than 4chan, no wonder he turned them off

https://grumpygamer.com/when_i_made_another_monkeyisland

>Curse of Monkey Island also took a leap forward. It introduced us to a fully voiced and taller, lankier Guybrush with painted backgrounds that were all the rage in the late 90s. It was very much a game of its time.

Ron Gilbert stopped hating on MI3 now that he is in charge of the entire franchise apparently. He said on Twitter they took great care to make MI3 stay canon.

[Anonymous No.8874586]

>>8873985
I've already said why I disagree on that here >>8870076 so I don't feel the need to restate it

[Anonymous No.8874587]

>>8874295
I'm pretty sure he never disliked Curse, it's just the not the Monkey Island 3 HE would have made.

[Anonymous No.8874592]

It's peak Monkey Island, IMO
How the fuck they made Escape after Curse is beyond me

[Anonymous No.8874597]

>>8873862
god it looks like shit

[Anonymous No.8874807]

>>8874586
I don't doubt it doesn't take effort or isn't something that's very complex but with how much the game rhymes its just annoying. They didn't even need to redo the battle system or even bring it back, there was no need and there was no asking for a revamp where now you have to rhyme and it certainly wasn't a good adition. Even if its a gargantuan task to do doesn't mean it's a good one

[Anonymous No.8874860]

>>8874807
Not him but I dont know, I like Guybrush's reaction when told the new rules, like even he knows that it's a farce

[Anonymous No.8875484]

>>8874592
Different leads, different team

[Anonymous No.8877829]

>>8873827
nice

[Anonymous No.8878865]

>>8870313
Didn't Grim Fandango have a few background characters that were there just for atmosphere?
I remember the audience in the poetry club, the gamblers in the casino and I thought there was an office worker or two in the travel agency?

[Anonymous No.8878873]

ORANGE
Also, only now I've realized that one of the singing pirates was Scrooge McDuck himself.

[Anonymous No.8878874]

>>8873827
Holy shit, did that count as "completely devoid of life" in 1997?

[Anonymous No.8878882]

>>8874592
Escape is bland in general, but I'm convinced the biggest problem was the game engine. It was tolerable as a novelty for Grim Fandango, but ultimately they should have gotten off their asses and actually implemented point-and-click controls for the second GrimE game; the movement and interaction controls were a fucking chore for this type of action-less game, and ultimately just intended as a quick and dirty workaround until they managed to get proper 3D pathfinding to work, as they did with the GF re-release 20 years later.

[Anonymous No.8879678]

>>8869979
>>8873985
Rhymes made it much better. Massive improvement.

[Anonymous No.8879706]

>>8879678
I wouldn't call it an "improvement". It's a nice twist to the original formula, but making it work like that in MI1 would have added an unnecessary layer of complexity; how simple and clever that puzzle was made it one of the most memorable in the series. The idea of taking a simple dialogue tree mechanic and turning it into a full-on battle system is really fucking genius at work.

[Anonymous No.8879851]

>>8878882
it worked in Grim because the game's aesthetic complimented it.

[Anonymous No.8879857]

>>8878873
Yes, it's like they asked Alan Young "can you be MORE Scottish than Scrooge?"

[Anonymous No.8879872]

>>8879851
What do tank controls and the awkard proximity interaction system have to do with aesthetics?

[Anonymous No.8879914]

>>8869953
It's a good example of not needing the original devs to make a game that has the same feel of the original games. It's usually a good idea to get the original devs, but in this case Curse is great.

[Anonymous No.8879917]

>>8879914
also Escape was fine fuck you guys, it's just the weakest entry.

[Anonymous No.8880118]

>>8879917
It's perfectly fine to factor in expectations when judging a game inside a series.

[Anonymous No.8880439]

>>8878865
yes, there was also a lots of viewers in the race track, the world feels more populated than Puerto Pollo even thought it always uses the day of the death excuse, being most of the population visiting their family in the land of the living

[Anonymous No.8880446]

>>8879872
I was talking about the 3D graphics. It worked a lot better in Grim than it did in Escape, even though Escape had way more polygons per model.

[Anonymous No.8880451]

>>8879917
It's fine until you actually get to Monkey Island, which feels incredibly halfassed. And yes I know that's the case for Curse as well but at least with Curse you're only there for a half hour.

[Anonymous No.8880695]

Curse of Monkey Island

>Guybrush: That diamond belongs in a museum!
>King Andre: So do post-impressionist paintings, Mister Threepwood.

MI3 taking shots at Return of Monkey Island from the grave

[Anonymous No.8880702]

>>8880695
That's inaccurate and kind of a (completely undeserved) compliment

[Anonymous No.8880718]

>>8880702
How is it a compliment to look like this?

[Anonymous No.8880762]

>>8880718
I like the bird

[Anonymous No.8880764]

>>8879917
I liked Escape, and have never played Curse for that matter.

[Anonymous No.8881278]

>>8873428
What about Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist? It's not as detailed, but the talking heads are, and the overall style is nice and cartoony.

[Anonymous No.8881289]

>>8873428
Toonstruck and Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail come to mind

[Anonymous No.8881398]

>>8880695
>So do post-impressionist paintings, Mister Threepwood.
What does THAT mean?

[Anonymous No.8881420]

>>8869979
Insult sword fighting is fine, the fact that the ship battles built around it made it go on way too long was less fine

[Anonymous No.8881489]

>>8873428
The deponia games are nice and cartoony

[Anonymous No.8881906]

Imagine if the new game had a button to switch between visual art styles. Like. the remasters.

[Anonymous No.8881913]

Let's pray Return doesn't try to add SJW politically correct bullshit into the game.

[Anonymous No.8881915]

>>8881489
Shame they're not retro then

[Anonymous No.8881916]

>>8880695
>>8880718
pyw

[Anonymous No.8881940]

>>8881913
I have a feeling that SJW bullshit slowly stops being trendy with the corporations, so maybe it won't be the case.

[Anonymous No.8881950]

>>8881940
Once virtue signaling stops working as content, we will start getting quality and craftsmanship again. I try to not get annoyed by it anymore because I'm fully aware that would make me just the figure B of a self-fulfilling prophecy mechanism.

But now that you mention it, do we actually know for sure Guybrush will be the protagonist of Return?

[Anonymous No.8881958]

>>8881950
Well, Dominic Armato is back, so unless the devs want to pull some epic Kojima, I would think so.

[Anonymous No.8881969]

>>8881950
>>8881958
We all know the time is ripe for Carla to finally step up

[Anonymous No.8882016]

>>8881958
Some find it weird that the trailer used LeChuck's theme rather than the main MI one so they think he might be the player character

[Anonymous No.8882021]

>>8881950
It will be multi-character featuring Mancomb Seepgood, Kate Capsize and Kenny Falmouth

[Anonymous No.8882095]

>>8869953
It's a good adventure game on it's own but compared to the first two Monkey Island games the writing is weaker and, as you alluded, it doesn't really work well as a continuation of the first two games. The animation is great but I think games like King's Quest 7 and Broken Sword are better references for comparison since its art direction is totally different to the first two Monkey Island games.

[Anonymous No.8882096]

>>8870608
People really exaggerate the pop culture stuff in FO2 but it can get annoying sometimes. And I do prefer 1 over 2 overall even though it's a much smaller game.

[Anonymous No.8882097]

>>8869953
It was my favourite for years, but was usurped by MI2 as I got older.

I've been playing through P&C games with my wife and we're currently on CoMI. Seeing it through a newcomer's eyes really highlights some of the flaws in design.

The verb coin was a change for the worse.

The mouth icon when not used on people makes for some of the worst puzzles in the series.

You're railroaded/bottlenecked into reaching the snake area before you can get the map, the ship and a crew which is world's apart from the independence of the three trials from the first game (and indeed the map, ship and crew from the first game). It's made worse by the fact that you can get two crew members beforehand making it seem the third can be obtained too.


The art is phenomenal and the insult swordfighting was a positive evolution from the first game and is a hallmark of the series which should be present in every entry.

I still love it for the sake of nostalgia but it's a pretty flawed game.

[Anonymous No.8882110]

>>8882095
I think Curse's writing is great and there's probably more laugh-out-loud moments than in the previous two games; the first one specially is a bit broad and uneven and too snarky for its own good, but that's Gilbert's style; the second one (in which Grossman and Schafer handled writing) is honestly better for my own taste.

>The animation is great but I think games like King's Quest 7 and Broken Sword are better references for comparison
Each still represent a very different approach though; King's Quest VII is ersatz Disney, Curse is more zany and cartoon-like, and Broken Sword has that polished and realistic finish of later Don Bluth productions. Not to mention the actual game-design approach which is also extremely different in all three.

[Anonymous No.8882117]

>>8882097
I agree about the verb coin not being precisely an improvement in general; it's weird it became the standard for adventure games for a while. But I thought the "mouth" puzzles were cute; plus, the manuals (for this and for Full Throttle, which came up with the gimmick) suggested the broader usage of the icon too

[Anonymous No.8882129]

>>8882117
CoMI in general had some weird ideas on how to interact with stuff. I remember being stuck on the "golden tooth" puzzle for AGES. I knew exactly what I have to do, I just didn't know HOW to do it. Oh, yeah, you have to "use" one of the pirates, and it's the only time in the entire it ever does anything. That makes sense.

[Anonymous No.8882138]

>>8882129
I always played the "normal" mode as a kid, and recently played through MM. Yeah those two stood out as ones I would never ever have gotten, with gold tooth being particularly frustrating. I felt similarly about the painting face thing in the hotel- I figured a gist of what needed to be done, but couldn't figure out the right order.

[Anonymous No.8882162]

>>8882095
>>8882110
Broken Sword has probably the most technically elaborate 2D animation in any /vr/ game. There's actual feet-shuffling animations for the character to turn between the eight possible walking orientations, which I don't think I've ever seen in another 2D game.

Curse is pretty good though; I specially like the versatile system used for Guybrush when he talks (eyes, mouth and body language are independent pieces that can be scripted separately; not even Broken Sword did that)

King's Quest VII is merely a very compromised imitation of classic Disney animation iirc.

[Anonymous No.8882197]

>>8882021
Jokes aside, I think multi-character is a pretty safe bet for what to expect

[Anonymous No.8882213]

>>8882117
I can still hear Ben saying "I'm not putting my mouth on that."

[Anonymous No.8882221]

>>8882110
Yes the games I mentioned don't have identical art styles to Curse of Monkey Island. All I meant is that the style is closer to those games than the pixel work of the previous Monkey Island games.

[Anonymous No.8882261]

>>8881289
It's been enough time to have forget all the puzzles from Toonstruck, I should replay it

[Anonymous No.8882302]

>>8870362
I know it's just a cgi trailer but fuck the 2 remaster is my favorite design, he looks perfect to me.

[Anonymous No.8882756]

>>8873891
Monkey Kombat is functionally identical to insult swordfighting.

[Anonymous No.8883075]

[Anonymous No.8883174]

[Anonymous No.8883393]

>>8870093
>fuck Escape
Escape was how I was introduced to the series so I’ll never be able to appreciate the criticism for it. It’s got the best music and the best art direction of the first 4 games and everything else is solid too (except for the retcons I guess).

[Anonymous No.8883395]

>>8870334
MI4 also has them, on Lucre island in particular if I remember correctly.

[Anonymous No.8883470]

>>8880118
I never said it wasn't a disappointment, I just said the game was good.

[Anonymous No.8883858]

>>8882756
No it isn't, it has more complex rules that are abstract and randomized for each playthrough, while insult swordfighting is a simple dialogue matching minigame where you don't even have to memorize or write down anything as long as you can figure out the jokes, plus after you fight Carla once the game gives you an auto win button on randoms in the form of her insults.

[Anonymous No.8883951]

>>8881969
She already showed up in Escapeand no one cared

[Anonymous No.8883968]

>>8882138
I always played on Mega Monkey even as a kid simply because the Normal mode cuts out some of my favorite jokes

[Anonymous No.8884793]

>>8883075
fucking SOUL

[Anonymous No.8885802]

>I have it on the best of authorities the The Curse of Monkey Island will be available for #FREE on Amazon Prime Gaming for the whole month of May! You've had 25 years to play the game. It's time. #monkeyisland #adventuregames #adventuregame #RetroGaming #retrogames #videogames

[Anonymous No.8885860]

>>8874295
He's said before he thought Curse was a good sequel and didn't like Escape.

[Anonymous No.8886010]

>>8882756
I can't see if you are a troll or just stupid, good job. I don't have to take pen and paper and write completely nonsense randomized combinations to play insult swordfighting you mad man.

[Anonymous No.8886029]

>>8883393
I wouldn't go that far. I mean Dark Souls 2 was my introduction to that series but even I can tell it's flawed to hell and back even if I have rose-tinted glasses towards it.
I think one of the biggest flaws to escape, one that doesn't get brought up much, is it's not particularly funny compared to the previous entries.

[Anonymous No.8888121]

>>8883393
For me CoMI was my introduction to the series and I was really underwhelmed by Escape's presentation when it was released. However, nowadays I think I would be more open to the game. It can't be that bad, despite Monkey combat?

[Anonymous No.8888126]

>>8879917
>it's just the weakest entry
Nah that's easily Tales.

[Anonymous No.8888143]

>>8888121
It plays really well until you get to monkey combat, then it’s a drag. Imo it’s not worth completing the game past monkey combat more than once. Melee/Lucre sections are comfy as fuck, with a good soundtrack. Jambalaya is ok but nuttin atoll is just depressing.

[Anonymous No.8888148]

>>8888888
digits soon

[Anonymous No.8888213]

>>8888121
After many, many years (only played it once when I was a kid) I replayed it recently, It has some good things, It's usually fun, lots of good puzles here and there, the gentrification plot and the new villain It's interesting though It doesn't go as far as it could. Sadly, the last chapter is so, so bad, and Monkey Kombat is such a huge piece of shit that it totally made me forget all the previous good hours.

[Anonymous No.8888295]

>>8888126
Those barely count. They're not even bad, but the limited scope of episodic adventure games puts them automatically below full-length games.

[Anonymous No.8888525]

>>8886010
Cool. Now tell me how it differs mechanically for people who don't have Alzheimer's.

[Anonymous No.8890312]

>>8888126
that's just blatantly false. tales is better than escape and arguably even secret

[Anonymous No.8890329]

>>8890312
How appropriate, you bait like a cow

[Anonymous No.8891231]

I can only understand Monkey 4 being anyone's favorite if it was their first entry and nostalgia is doing most of the work, and even then they still have horrible taste.

>Mike Stemmle hates Monkey Kombat too
why the fuck did they create it then, it baffles me

[Anonymous No.8892057]

>>8891231
I can only assume that it was supposed to be better but time/budget got in the way and they hate how it turned out.

[Anonymous No.8892107]

>>8891231
It was an idea that sounds kinda funny on paper that they could put on the back of the box to sell it.

[Anonymous No.8893650]

>>8892107
They didn't put it on the back of the box though

[Anonymous No.8893678]

>>8883174
was guybrush supposed to be an attractive male, I thought the joke was that he looked like a dork

[Anonymous No.8893726]

>>8893678
No, this iteration is supposed to be a Jim Hawkins sort of figure, starry eyed kid wanting to be a pirate. The whole thing about the first monkey island is everyone look like they're from a legit swashbuckling epic as long as you don't talk to them.

[Anonymous No.8893783]

>>8888121
It's not. Mostly people dislike the theme and few retcons.
As far as the game goes it's a lot better than Tales of episodic troonfish and the same few locations and VAs repeated ad nauseam.

[Anonymous No.8894091]

>>8886029
I’m gonna have to go back and replay Escape one of these days to confirm this. The games all have a charming sense of humor but none of them made me literally laugh out loud. I made a point to replay the first three games a few years ago (remastered versions of 1&2) and mostly just got sensible chuckles out of them.

[Anonymous No.8894225]

>>8893650
You got me to look it up. It's not mentioned by name, but depicted twice in screenshots/renders.

[Anonymous No.8894245]

>>8894225
What an amazingly awful cover

[Anonymous No.8894279]

>>8890312
Tales is just nothing. It's well written, but there are no real puzzles and the environments are heavily restricted. It's more like reading a decent Monkey Island fanfic than playing a proper Monkey Island game.

[Anonymous No.8894285]

>>8894245
>>8894225
It's linda funny because it's got the same problem they'd also have with the movie project, which is that Monkey Island doesn't have much to do with monkeys, but as soon as they see the title marketing dept want monkeys everywhere.

[Anonymous No.8894291]

>>8894279
The Telltale model was exciting at the time until the implications sank in. It was depressing knowing you couldn't expect more than a couple of locations per "episode" and as a series went along you'd get more and more reuse of assets heavily constricting writing and design.

Shame AAA graphic adventures fizzed out before we could get Sam & Max Freelance Police.

[Anonymous No.8894293]

>>8894225
>In Scurvy-inducing 3D!
It's like they knew.

[Anonymous No.8894305]

>>8894291
Not even as the series went along, even just in the first episode it was so blatant that for a while I thought that it'd be a plot point that the entire population of the island was just the same two guys with different beards and eyepatch.

[Anonymous No.8894598]

>>8894291
They got better with time though, Season 1 heavily reused assets and locations, Season 2 got more varied and tried to use the new locations more and they were visually more interesting, I'm currently playing Season 3 and the visual overhaul is great, loving it so far.

[Anonymous No.8894639]

>>8894598
Season 3 almost never reuses locations, it shows they had more budget for that. I never had a problem with that with S&M specifically anyway, the office street ended up feeling like home

[Anonymous No.8894709]

>>8870573
Ron is a piece of shit for going with the strawman narrative that people are pissed that it's not pixel art.
People are pissed because its butt fucking ugly corporate memphis facebook art. Not because its not pixelated.
When the game's art is so fucking ugly you cant even tell what is what the ugly art even becomes a gameplay problem.

[Anonymous No.8894713]

>>8872626
>>8871262
The name game is according to ron the MI game with the highest budget so far. And its not for a lack of available talent since he specifically got the art director for his ugly 2007 era corporate clipart style. Its already fucked from that aspect alone.

[Anonymous No.8894730]

>>8894709
The only people who are pissed at all are the permanently outraged.

[Anonymous No.8894738]

>>8894730
I'm not outraged. I'm glad ron went for that style, so monkey island is one more "nostalgic" franchise I have to not care about anymore.
MI2 is the last monkey island as far as I'm concerned and the series is dead.

[Anonymous No.8894748]

>>8894738
>MI2 is the last monkey island as far as I'm concerned
why?

[Anonymous No.8894750]

>>8873901
fucking laughed way too hard at this anon

[Anonymous No.8894752]

>>8873901
underrated

[Anonymous No.8894763]

>>8894748
Because he wants to be angry about nothing

[Anonymous No.8894882]

>>8894291
I was fine with the limited environments with S&M because that was kinda half the joke, that shit keeps happening to the same few people they know in life.

[Anonymous No.8894895]

>>8894882
It's one of those jokes that are meant to defuse or lampshade a problem, but thinking that makes it less of a problem is a bit self-indulgent on behalf of the writers and designers. They clearly downplayed that approach out of later seasons for a reason.

[Anonymous No.8896305]

I know not retro but just like to mention Witcher 3 had a Monkey Island reference. You’re suppose to fist fight this guy but if you insult him well enough during the pre-fight dialogue he gives you the win

[Anonymous No.8896328]

>>8894245
>tfw title and cover are what compelled me to rent the game in the first place
First I tried out Super Bombad Racing, which was horrible even by my standards as a 10 year old. Game was so bad I asked my mom to take me back to Blockbuster so I could get it exchanged for something else (MI4) which turned out to be one of the best games I’d ever played.

[Anonymous No.8896750]

>>8896305
Sorry for dogshit thumbail, lets try again

[Anonymous No.8896819]

>>8894245
The guy who drew the cover art was probably constrained by the game art. He had to make it look similar to those low-poly models.

[Anonymous No.8896824]

>>8891231
There are only two good jokes in the entirety of MI4 that I can think of. Fucking grim.

[Anonymous No.8897230]

>>8896824
but le epic murray returns

[Anonymous No.8897257]

>>8894713
The highest budget so far *for a Ron Gilbert game*. Like, he's got a 25 people team and can afford a second full time programmer, it's not the kind of budget Curse got with its 200+ people team.

[Anonymous No.8897684]

>>8894709
Spot on Anon. It's nothing to do with it not being pixel art, it's just a disappointing stylistic choice. I don't know shit about art; all I knows is that I don't like it.

[Anonymous No.8898034]

>>8896819
Which is wierd because the PC cover DOESN'T look like that

[Anonymous No.8898272]

>>8898034
Actually that's an early version of the final illustration iirc, the final retail cover for the PC version is this one, dialing back Guybrush's idiotic face a little

[Anonymous No.8900323]

>>8869953
Sure

[Anonymous No.8901394]

>>8898034
the derp on Guybrush's face lol

[Anonymous No.8902558]

>>8869953
What does it say about me if I think its the best one?
>>8896750
>mancomb

[Anonymous No.8904484]

>>8902558
It says that you prefer that kind of comedy and artstyle, probably an animation fan too? Not my fav but I really like Curse too

[Anonymous No.8904643]

>>8869953
i love the art direction of curse but it's not as good as 1 and 2. still, it's a classic too.

[Anonymous No.8905596]

>>8902558
>mancomb
Yes, Mancomb Sheepgood. You've never heard of him?