I dislike this kind of mentality. Everyone who has bought and played the TMI episodes are of course entitled to voice their opinion on the official TMI forums, as long as they stay civil.
That's just the point though he didn't come here and voice an opinion, he didn't state what was was disliked and why he just posted "I agree with the review"
that kind of post get no-one any where. how hard would it have been for him to add "but I would have liked to have seen...." and then add some discussion to it.
It's like when you talk to those people who say "I hate Star Wars" and then when you ask them why they are like "Um.. er.. um.. Cause it's star wars." and it is "cool" to hate on the prequels.
Just walking in and saying "The review is correct" and offering nothing with it is just lazy and altogether a waste of the time it took to read the post, and hell make the post in the first place.
That is what I meant by fans of the series, people who are willing to talk in depth and discuss, when it comes to the flaws, and be willing to talk about why they thought they were flaws, not come in and mindlessly just say "Yeah. I think that sucked."
I said I agree with the review. What do you want me to do, repeat the review? You're a tool. Go read SladerMC's post on "Tone and Monkey Island" then get back to me. You're worthless.
I said I agree with the review. What do you want me to do, repeat the review? You're a tool. Go read SladerMC's post on "Tone and Monkey Island" then get back to me. You're worthless.
I told you above what I would have liked to have seen from your post.
If you can't be bothered to read the post that you are apparently attacking, I apologize for that. How is "Tone and Monkey Island" going to alter you post above? it's not. I've read the thread and there are constructive things said there, your post wasn't constructive in the least.
That's just the point though he didn't come here and voice an opinion, he didn't state what was was disliked and why he just posted "I agree with the review"
that kind of post get no-one any where. how hard would it have been for him to add "but I would have liked to have seen...." and then add some discussion to it.
It's like when you talk to those people who say "I hate Star Wars" and then when you ask them why they are like "Um.. er.. um.. Cause it's star wars." and it is "cool" to hate on the prequels.
Just walking in and saying "The review is correct" and offering nothing with it is just lazy and altogether a waste of the time it took to read the post, and hell make the post in the first place.
That is what I meant by fans of the series, people who are willing to talk in depth and discuss, when it comes to the flaws, and be willing to talk about why they thought they were flaws, not come in and mindlessly just say "Yeah. I think that sucked."
it's pointless and a waste of time.
I was refering to the notion that only fans of the games should be allowed to post on these forums, this Darylman guy is obviously just a troll who's using big words to get attention. He'll just whine and call people names in a few posts before dissappearing.
To be fair, that's as much a convention of adventure games in general as it is of a Telltale game.
Yep, but normally you get less confronted with it as it doesn't occure on an per episode basis.
@Bernus
Not one i'm at least aware of. I tweaked the controls for a Xbox360 experience with XPadder but i continue asking myself why i can point&click on items but not on visible terrain as well.
You're absolutely wrong Herman Toothrot, you're absolutely wrong.
A quick list of what's wrong with this episode:
-Glitches galore (rubber tree not removed, sound garbling, multiple fake sea turtles)
-The tone: In this episode, Guybrush has HIS HAND CUT OFF. The best the writers could come up with was have him throw on a hook and have Elaine make EXACTLY the same sort of terrible joke Guybrush makes to the Mer-People about their legs. This is LAZY writing. Fishing out cliches and colloquialisms isn't what made Monkey Island funny and it doesn't make it funny here.
Having Guybrush unsure if the Mer-People were man or woman COULD have been funny, if the textures used for the characters themselves weren't completely bland and ambivalent regarding gender. The poor character design created the possibility of a bad joke, because the programmers don't have the memory size to create actually interesting and lasting characters. They had to use Anemone TWICE for THREE different functions, none of which made any sense or gave us any insight into her character. I'll leave aside the fact that there were Mer-People in the first place. Having nobody shocked about it or in the least bit intrigued was a gigantic mis-cue, to my mind, but it's not make or break for an episode. Were they Mer-People interesting? Nope. Not even a little bit. Were the pox-infected pirates interesting? Almost! They had defined characters and performed actions that seemed to follow these traits. Trouble was, they never do anything interesting.
The best jokes in the entire episode was the floating treasure chest in the background and having Guybrush whistle Largo's theme.
-Story discontinuity:
Why is Elaine palling up with Lechuck? Why would she EVER choose to stay on the island to help him with his monkeys? Are you friggin' kidding me? This has got to be the worst written story I have ever heard. Lechuck turning human is fine, good idea. But having Elaine just all of a sudden follow him around COMPLETELY negates the idea that Elaine is the brains of the operation and Guybrush just follows orders. HE is supposed to be the naive one, and that's where you draw comedy out of the series. Now he is all wise and simply rolls his eyes sarcastically and grunts under his breath to create comedic potential. Guybrush has become a post-modern whiner, and he's simply not funny. Having Lechuck accepted by Elaine is absolute nonsense. Having her stay with him at the end and Guybrush not even protest the fact was insane. If they didn't want Elaine in the next chapter, they shouldn't have introduced her back into this episode in the first place, especially not with Lechuck's lame monkeys into the wild sub-plot. (which is never explored of used in the episode...WHY????)
-Puzzles:
Each puzzle is designed in exactly this way. Pick up random objects from around the map. Look at random object in your inventory and discover something about it or have additional item fall out. Walk around until you discover X character in Y dilemma. Use items on dilemma. END.
Let me attach a postfix to this by saying that the Morgan LeFlay beginning scene does not suffer from these faults, just as Guybrush and the monkey in the chair scene from the previous episode does not. These are well thought out puzzles that make the episode better and engage the audience. Can you say that about the LOCKET INTO THE HOLE OF THE MANATEE? Can you say that about the PEARL INTO THE OBVIOUS PEARL SCEPTER? No. Because they're obvious and not fun.
Go back and look at the original monkey games. Observe how many people you could talk to and how many random things there were lying around. Now you see how much harder it is to just go up to every object and use every piece of your inventory on it until something works. In this game, there is no one to talk to, and no red herrings, so everything is perfectly bland, and perfectly obvious.
Stacking a pile of wood on the sand does not a red herring make. And a rubber tree? REALLY? Why don't we just call this "Nostalgia of Monkey Island"
Each puzzle is designed in exactly this way. Pick up random objects from around the map. Look at random object in your inventory and discover something about it or have additional item fall out. Walk around until you discover X character in Y dilemma. Use items on dilemma.
Unlike every other adventure games where you don't pick up random objects, not examine them, not discover anything about them and never use anything on anything.
But having Elaine just all of a sudden follow him around COMPLETELY negates the idea that Elaine is the brains of the operation and Guybrush just follows orders.
When exactly was Elaine the "brains" and Guybrush "followed orders"? The first game when he met her and he had to rescue her from LeChuck (or thought he had to rescue her, whatever)? The second when she dumped him and he spends most his time searching for buried treasure? The third when she is turned into a statue? The fourth which didn't happen?
Go back and look at the original monkey games. Observe how many people you could talk to and how many random things there were lying around.
The original games were stand-alone games. These ones are episodic. Corners have to be cut, obviously.
It ain't 1992 anymore and adventure games aren't all the rage. If you can convince a few millions teenage gamers to stop spending enormous amounts of money on yet another twitchy FPS and consider paying for a nice, story-driven adventure game, I suspect you would start seeing much better production values in adventure games. Until then, one must make do with what he has.
Personally, I'm quite satisfied with Telltale. They chose to continue one of the oldest and most beloved adventure franchises, even after the horrible fiasco MI4 was. And they did a good job. It looks, feels and plays like Monkey Island, and it offers an enjoyable way to spend your free time playing an old-school adventure game which is not so common these days. All this for $7. So why so serious?
Fair enough, but examine the varied structures you will find in games like MI2, Maniac Mansion, Zak Mckracken, Loom, King's Quest 5 etc. The winning formula for adventure games is writing the story such that previous illogical uses for items or ways of OBTAINING items become logical. Do you know what I mean? Having a bucket, coupons, crowbar etc. just laying around does nothing to further the story, nor make solving the puzzles particularly compelling. ESPECIALLY when the object you need is right next to the dilemma, as it was with the crowbar. I hope this criticism makes more sense.
Perhaps saying she was "the brains" went a bit too far. Elaine never really needed much saving. (I exclude MI4, I quit playing it after an hour) She was the governer of the tri-state area and was generally displeased with Guybrush. She was clearly in charge of most situations she was put in and we couldn't help but laugh at Guybrush thinking he was in charge and helping her.
Now, the situation is quite different, wouldn't you agree? Different is not necessarily bad, of course. But observe Elaine here. With the way she talks to Guybrush (including giving up her ring???) you would think she is secretly having an affair with Lechuck. If this was the case, and Elaine's voice over work in any way support this, it would make sense. As it stands now, it doesn't.
I don't really understand why corners have to be cut. Yes, it's episodic, but so what? Monkey Island was ALWAYS divided into chapters, what's the difference here?
Unlike every other adventure games where you don't pick up random objects, not examine them, not discover anything about them and never use anything on anything.
When exactly was Elaine the "brains" and Guybrush "followed orders"? The first when he met her and he had to rescue her from LeChuck (or thought he had to rescue her, whatever)? The second when she dumped him and he spends most his time searching for buried treasure? The third when she is turned into a statue? The fourth which didn't happen?
The original games were stand-alone games. These ones are episodic. Corners have to be cut, obviously.
It ain't 1992 anymore and adventure games aren't all the rage. If you can convince a few millions teenage gamers to stop spending enormous amounts of money on yet another twitchy FPS and consider paying for a nice, story-driven adventure game, I suspect you would start seeing much better production values in adventure games. Until then, one must make do with what he has.
Personally, I'm quite satisfied with Telltale. They chose to continue one of the oldest and most beloved adventure franchises, even after the horrible fiasco MI4 was. And they did a good job. It looks, feels and plays like Monkey Island, and it offers an enjoyable way to spend your free time playing old-school adventure game. For $7. So why so serious?
Go back and look at the original monkey games. Observe how many people you could talk to and how many random things there were lying around.
The red herring in SoMI from the Scumm Bar kitchen.
The pot and meat from the kitchen, for that matter.
The rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle.
The VERY first item you pick up in MI2 is a stick and later on a shovel, though you have no idea where you're going to use them. They're just there.
I could go on and on, but the point is that picking up whatever you can has been an integral part of adventure games since pretty much forever.
As for the talking to more characters part, yes, you are correct. But consider that this game is created by a company far smaller than LucasArts, with fewer resources. TTG are doing the best they can with the budget they have, and while it is not a perfect game by far, the important thing is that in my opinion, they've managed to capture the atmosphere of the saga very well. That's what I was hoping for when I first heard the news of a new MI and that's what I got.
And seriously, this whole mermaid issue? Mermaids have been part of seamen lore for CENTURIES. Hell, scratch that, millennia, even. Other mythical creatures, too, for that matter. They go as far back as Assyrian mythology, Alexander the Great, The Odyssey etc. They were not readily, if at all, used in previous MIs, but the saga will get stale unless some new elements are introduced. TTG decided to do that by using mythology in their game. More power to them.
Because I sense I'll be accused of -gasp- fangirl-ism, I'll say again that I do not think the games so far are the best thing since sliced bread. They have their flaws, and I have no problems pointing them out, but so far I'm very much enjoying the ride.
You're right about those items being just "picked up" in the original games, but as you noted, there was no known USE for them. Here, we are generally picking up items that we either have a well defined need for, or the solution is 3 steps away from you. Consider even the stick from MI2. The box you use the stick on had many components:
Box - Lid - Animal etc. By making objects have many components, you prevent people from just randomly clicking their way to the end and actually have to THINK to a solution. What I mean to say is, I can't recall a time I had to THINK of a solution in these games.
I can think of one. When the gold parrot keeps hardening I had to THINK about dropping it from above. That's a good puzzle!
What I mean to say is, I can't recall a time I had to THINK of a solution in these games.
Oh come on, you're telling me you didn't have to think at all in DeSinge's lab (another awesome puzzle)? Or the spinning wheels? Or the chest with the golden seahorse?
I'll give you the obvious solution to an existing problem in this episode. The coupons were very blatant, for example. But don't judge the whole game by a couple of obvious puzzles.
This post from another thread explains just why these games seem so easy to most of us. A great deal of the people currently playing ToMI and other Telltale products are seasoned adventure gamers. You can't expect a company to design a game that caters to the 'hardcore' audience alone.
Oh come on, you're telling me you didn't have to think at all in DeSinge's lab (another awesome puzzle)? Or the spinning wheels? Or the chest with the golden seahorse?
I'll give you the obvious solution to an existing problem in this episode. The coupons were very blatant, for example. But don't judge the whole game by a couple of obvious puzzles.
This post from another thread explains just why these games seem so easy to most of us. A great deal of the people currently playing ToMI and other Telltale products are seasoned adventure gamers. You can't expect a company to design a game that caters to the 'hardcore' audience alone.
Fair enough. I thought this was why MI2 had Monkey LITE and Monkey HARD? I'm not voicing my criticisms to be a pest, but only to say that I think the popularity of the series will markedly drop off if they don't improve.
As it currently stands, I don't think too many Hardcore adventurers would purchase another season. I paid around 40 dollars for a full game, and so it still has three more episodes to improve. There were some positive steps taken in Episode 2, but I still feel "ripped"
Fair enough. I thought this was why MI2 had Monkey LITE and Monkey HARD?
I could argue that the hint system is pretty much the same thing, but you're right, the games so far haven't been as challenging as MI2 in hard mode. Still, we can't say that with certainty until the entire season is out.
I'm not voicing my criticisms to be a pest, but only to say that I think the popularity of the series will markedly drop off if they don't improve.
That's what the forums are here for We're both fans of the series, and we have different views, I don't see it as either one of us or the other posters being a pest.
As it currently stands, I don't think too many Hardcore adventurers would purchase another season. I paid around 40 dollars for a full game, and so it still has three more episodes to improve. There were some positive steps taken in Episode 2, but I still feel "ripped"
Again, I won't make any big judgments until the whole game is out in its entirety. This is my first experience with a Telltale game, so I'm not used to the fanbase response after each episode. I'll voice my concerns as well, but I hold back a little until I have the full game in my hands.
I did really enjoy the episode, but I must admit, I'm agreeing with Darylman on pretty much everything he's saying.
The best puzzles, in my mind, were definitely the ones with an aha! moment, like making the fake turtle, thinking what to put in the chest (I wasn't too keen on the puzzle to making the pirates look away though), and the tar/hand puzzle at the end of the first episode.
Yep, it really didn't bother me as much but i do agree with most of darylman's points, except the one regarding the storyline (not that those points ain't valid... Just that, well, there's just too much left unknown to really judge it right now IMO. The whole elaine and LeChuck thing DID feel weird in this episode, but since we can only guess what's actually going on, i'd rather assume it might make more sense later on).
Regarding the merfolks, i don't see anything wrong with them being in there... But it seemed, i dunno, too "casual" ? The fact that they were just there and everybody knew about them... Ep 1 introduced this ancient vaycaylian civilisation very well, without insisting much on them but still enough to make you wonder about them and create a sense of mystery, which was kinda ruined when you just walked into one and started cracking jokes about Ethel Merman. I guess it could have worked better if the place had long been abandonned, and maybe we could have met them later, underwater (like in the leviathan's lair, since it seems we WILL get underwater then).
Now the weird thing is that even though i can pick way more disapointing things this time around, on the whole it still felt way better than the first chapter. Maybe that's just me, but i think guybrush character got closer to what he was in the old games, LeFlay and those two poxed pirates were great (i LOVED the tall and thin one.. meh, forgot his name ) , I can't wait to learn what's up with LeChuck and the overall dialog was great.
I'm pretty sure I've never written a review in my life (mostly because I know that whatever it is, I couldn't have done it better!), but... here goes (actually, not so much a review as my opinion about some of the points made in the innumerable threads about this game).
First of all, the atmosphere.
I must say that I love the atmosphere in both this game and Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. To me, they feel like Monkey Island games, and not just some random game with people that happen to be named Guybrush, Elaine and LeChuck.
To some people, a game is not a Monkey Island game if it doesn't feature Stan or Murray, but I'm pretty sure that it has been mentioned elsewhere that Stan might pop up before the end of the season (in my view, the perfect spot for a Stan cameo would be
inside a giant manatee!
) and that Murray was actually not in the first two Monkey Island game (he is, however, mentioned by name in the first two chapters of TOMI!).
Second (of all? -ly?), the humor.
While not necessarily a carbon copy of the humor found in the first two Monkey Island games, the humor is definitely present in the TOMI games. From subtle touches like what happens when you have Guybrush look at a
skull
or
skeleton
or the (imho) fantastic reply you get from
Anemone
when you ask if you can take the
bucket
to more obvious situations, like pretty much any time you interact with LeChuck, or McGillicutty's crewmen , the game is often very funny, if not always in a laugh-out-loud way (but let's face it, how often do people actually laugh out loud when playing a game
that isn't Strong Bad
?).
Next, the puzzles.
Lots of people have complained that the puzzles are too easy or too obvious. I will admit that I did not once get stuck in this game and have not made any use of the hint system or gotten any help online for this game.
Then again, if I remember correctly, the only game of Telltale's that I've played (that includes the 2 Bone games, the 2 seasons of Sam and Max, the Strong Bad games and the first 2 TOMI games) where I have used the hint system once is "The Great Cow Race" for a drumming (?) puzzle in a barn.
This is probably due in part to my having played (like most of this forum's users) lots and lots of point'n click adventure games when I was younger and, let's face it, to Telltale's puzzles being more logical than a lot of the puzzles in older games.
That doesn't mean that I do not enjoy Telltale's games immensely and I definitely get more of a kick from solving a (albeit easier) Telltale puzzle without help, than a less logical puzzle in another game with a walkthrough.
Have to agree with the
pearl
puzzle, though. That one was way too easy (mostly because you get the
coupon
at the precise moment when you realize that you need a
pearl
). However, as far as the
bucket
puzzle is concerned, while it did not exactly have me stumped, I did have the
bucket
in my inventory from the first time I went to the
bait and repair shop
, hours before I actually needed it.
Finally, the game's length.
This is a point where I can't disagree with most (disgruntled) forum users. Just like "The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball" and "Dangeresque 3" before it, this game is on the shorter end of Telltale's games. I enjoyed every minute of it, but definitely wish I could have enjoyed it a while longer.
Before some forum users tell me that people don't seem to complain about paying as much (if not more) to see a movie in a theater, or that it's better to have a great and fun short game, rather than a long but boring game, I'll just say that I'm not comparing this game to a similarly priced (and possibly shorter) movie or another game company's longer game, but to the rest of Telltale's output.
While every Telltale game yields a lot of "it's too short" responses from forum users, I usually think that the games are the perfect length for the price... except for this one and the two I mentioned above.
In conclusion, I want to thank Telltale for a splendid (if a tad short) addition to the Monkey Island legacy and congratulate Mark Darin on his first Monkey Island effort as writer/director (I love the Nick Bounty and Brain Hotel games and have finally managed to get the downloaded version of the first Nick Bounty game to work on my Mac!).
Keep'em coming (and make'em a little longer - but not boring - if possible)!
I think you're right that Guybrush is getting closer. He felt a lot more "at home" in this episode and his humor was definitely more refined. A distinct upgrade.
I know what you mean about the "casualness" of the mer-people. I can completely accept the addition of mythological creatures to a pirate-themed game, but to do so willy-nilly felt a little...strange. They could have done a lot more with the "mystery" they built up in the first episode, and it felt like a let down to have Guybrush just walk up and crack a (bad) joke.
I suppose I'd like to add a little disappointment with the ending and the sea-creatures. What WERE those? They were neither aesthetically appealing or even interesting. They were like dolphin clowns from hell. (now that would have been funny!)
Yep, it really didn't bother me as much but i do agree with most of darylman's points, except the one regarding the storyline (not that those points ain't valid... Just that, well, there's just too much left unknown to really judge it right now IMO. The whole elaine and LeChuck thing DID feel weird in this episode, but since we can only guess what's actually going on, i'd rather assume it might make more sense later on).
Regarding the merfolks, i don't see anything wrong with them being in there... But it seemed, i dunno, too "casual" ? The fact that they were just there and everybody knew about them... Ep 1 introduced this ancient vaycaylian civilisation very well, without insisting much on them but still enough to make you wonder about them and create a sense of mystery, which was kinda ruined when you just walked into one and started cracking jokes about Ethel Merman. I guess it could have worked better if the place had long been abandonned, and maybe we could have met them later, underwater (like in the leviathan's lair, since it seems we WILL get underwater then).
Now the weird thing is that even though i can pick way more disapointing things this time around, on the whole it still felt way better than the first chapter. Maybe that's just me, but i think guybrush character got closer to what he was in the old games, LeFlay and those two poxed pirates were great (i LOVED the tall and thin one.. meh, forgot his name ) , I can't wait to learn what's up with LeChuck and the overall dialog was great.
I suppose I'd like to add a little disappointment with the ending and the sea-creatures. What WERE those?
Well the merroyalperson sorta melted the golden seahorse, turtle and fish together to create the golden ball, so the creatures are also supposed to be some sort of a cross between a seahorse, turtle and fish.
... and yes, IMO, it didn't work so well. Felt weird and out of place.
As for the ending, I thought it was cool. Huge animals are always fun. However since it is quite obvious the manatee is merely a weird "transportation system" to "Leviathan's lair", I cannot consider it much of a cliffhanger as it probably was made to be.
I'm pretty sure I've never written a review in my life (mostly because I know that whatever it is, I couldn't have done it better!), but... here goes (actually, not so much a review as my opinion about some of the points made in the innumerable threads about this game).
Glad you did it I hate the whole "shut up unless you can do better" argument some people love to throw at anyone trying to express "bad" but constructive opinions :mad:
I suppose I'd like to add a little disappointment with the ending and the sea-creatures. What WERE those? They were neither aesthetically appealing or even interesting. They were like dolphin clowns from hell. (now that would have been funny!)
I didn't really mind them... Probably because we already had the merfolks and their whole "casualness problem"... I'm not saying "the merfolks were so bad that i didn't care anymore", but they did establish a kind of "well, anything can happen now" feel, so the things neither felt right or wrong to me.
And just thinking about it, this "anything can happen now" feel works GREAT in a setting like Sam & Max, just not so much in MI i think. Once again, it's NOT the mermaids or mythological stuff that's "wrong", but i think that kinda stuff should remain somehow mysterious, and not feel like it's part of everyday's life.
There's alot of dislike for the merpeople, especially for how they were introduced.
I really don't see it myself. Firstly, they were foreshadowed in the first episode, and Guybrush seemed surprised at their existence, so it's not as if it was entirely just 'oh, ok, merfolk'.
Admittedly, most people would have been somewhat surprised to see merfolk pop up out of the water. But look back at previous games - it's not like Guybrush to be surprised by anything wierd. Or any of the other characters, for that matter. Ghost pirates? Ok. Voodoo? Sure thing. Zombies? Sure, why not. Fighting monkeys? Just put them over there with the rest of the wierd stuff.
For a series that largely has it's basis in magic, mythology and spiritualism, I'm surprised to see the fans so close-minded to additional 'unrealistic' ideas. When has Monkey Island ever embraced realism? That's simply not the way the series is at all.
You don't think Guybrush was completely surprised by the voodoo/magical elements in the first two games? That was part of the brilliance. They could express more shock and emotion in those 60 pixels than they can now with a fully rendered Guybrush.
Think of the scene where he has to dig up those bones in the graveyeard and lightning keeps striking, he wasn't surprised? How about when his parents came to him in a dream and started dancing as skeletons? When he first meets Lechuck? Sheer terror. Surprise is putting is mildly.
As stated, there is no problem with "Mer-People" per say. But the way they treated their introduction was half assed and uninteresting, at best.
I think the crux of the thing is that in classic Monkey Island games the introduction of elements that don't really "fit" made the games feel surreal. MI1 had a troll guarding the bridge, a circus in the middle of the forest and the frikkin soda machine just standing there... this was funny but at the same time it all created kind of an unsettling atmosphere and it worked. Especially in MI2 which REALLY doesn't play for the audience but rather to its on twisted and unsettling tune.
The merpeople don't feel surreal or unsettling. They lack any kind of mystique and serve for comic relief. They are simply there and everyone acts like there's nothing even remotely strange about it. I think people consiously or subconciously respond to this - it's not like a soda machine or a fake waterfall which are obviously placed precisely to clash with your environment (and to reinforce the subtle notion that modern world is probably seeping in the piratey Carribbean world for some strange yet definite reason). With the merpeople it's simply - hey, androgynous merpeople are a good source of jokes, let's put them in.
Still, Monkey Island 3 already made it blatantly obvious that the dark undertones are gone and it's all wacky cartoon fun from now on, so personally - merpeople - why not. Bring it on. If dragons and tooth fairies make an appearance, I won't mind, as long as the puzzles are amusing and the jokes are funny.
The merpeople don't feel surreal or unsettling. They lack any kind of mystique and serve for comic relief. They are simply there and everyone acts like there's nothing even remotely strange about it. I think people consiously or subconciously respond to this - it's not like a soda machine or a fake waterfall which are obviously placed precisely to clash with your environment (and to reinforce the subtle notion that modern world is probably seeping in the piratey Carribbean world for some strange yet definite reason). With the merpeople it's simply - hey, androgynous merpeople are a good source of jokes, let's put them in.
That's basically what i was trying to say, yeah.
And i really want to stress this out : the mer people AS SUCH weren't wrong AT ALL. They could have worked great if handled in this whole dark/unsettling way.
that's funny.. A lot of people say that "mythical creatures don't feel out of place in Monkey Island". They're absolutely right, but that's actually the problem : the merfolks just DONT feel mythical in this episode. They did when evoked in the previous one, but not anymore.
I find very funny that the people who dislike the merfolk the most are often the same ones who'll see no problem with the whole "theme park on Monkey Island" thing in Curse of MI ^^
(edit : I'm not saying this for you, Astro Gnocci)
Before Chapter 2 was released, I was preying the merpeople were nothing like merpeople in any other work of fiction. To make them wise, flirty and genderless was a good move, I think. I nodded my head the moment I saw what they'd done with Anemone (whom I really like as a character).
But we have got to remember this isn't just any MI adventure, it's a Telltale MI adventure. Therefore it's going to have elements of the TT universe in there too. Take a look at Bosco's guises in Sam & Max, or Sybil's different businesses (together with Hugh Bliss making a parallel to Stan)? The merpeople fit in well with their humour.
I know ppl wil argue that the merfolk look like a cross between the Zoras in Zelda and the Vulcans in Star Trek but for me they have a certain something else and act nothing like either.
But we have got to remember this isn't just any MI adventure, it's a Telltale MI adventure. Therefore it's going to have elements of the TT universe in there too. Take a look at Bosco's guises in Sam & Max, or Sybil's different businesses (together with Hugh Bliss making a parallel to Stan)? The merpeople fit in well with their humour.
And also, the MI games themselves have evolved over the years, even though they were all made by one company.
I know ppl wil argue that the merfolk look like a cross between the Zoras in Zelda and the Vulcans in Star Trek but for me they have a certain something else and act nothing like either.
Heyyy... have you been reading my review? For the record, even though I said they're like a cross between the Zora and the Vulcans, I do like them!
And also, the MI games themselves have evolved over the years, even though they were all made by one company.
True. Maniac Mansion and McKraken (pre-SMI) while being similar in more ways than just interface, are very different from Indy2 (MI2 era - great enhanced version!), which in turn is different from Full Throttle and Grim Fandango (CMI era).
The merpeople don't feel surreal or unsettling. They lack any kind of mystique and serve for comic relief. They are simply there and everyone acts like there's nothing even remotely strange about it. I think people consiously or subconciously respond to this.
Spot on, this. You've travelled four games and like the entire carrabean to get here and haven't seen them once before. Nor anything similar. That's pretty fine still, but what makes it really stick out is that they're immediately made the source of jokes. And never move much beyond anything else but giggles. People don't even react. Nor do they react to people. They just both kind of go along as if they had been around for ages. Or four games and one fifth of another at the very least.
When has Monkey Island ever embraced realism? That's simply not the way the series is at all.
It's not about realism. It's about continuity. Internal logics. Not that realism and those are mutually exclusive, hey, just saying.
It's not about realism. It's about continuity. Internal logics. Not that realism and those are mutually exclusive, hey, just saying.
Both internal and external logics say that the more experienced the man is, the less he is surprised of new things I think Guybrush saw enough wierdness in his lifetime NOT to be overreactly surprised about merpeople, even if he didn't think they were real. You should note, that in Ch2, he WAS reluctant about the existance of merfolk and he WAS a bit freaked out by sudden Anemone's appearance. But then again, he, like I said, saw SO much strange things since the start of his journey in SoMI, that he doesn't really have a reason to be HOLY FRIGGIN SHIT SURPRISED.
About other people who don't react on merfolk, I suppose they too, lived long enough in the Gulf of Melange area not to overreact about them. Spinner Cay has a port for humans, for crying out loud, there's no reason for people who live in and around that are to go "HOLY FRIGGIN SHIT" mode.
I find very funny that the people who dislike the merfolk the most are often the same ones who'll see no problem with the whole "theme park on Monkey Island" thing in Curse of MI ^^
(edit : I'm not saying this for you, Astro Gnocci)
Hm.
The "theme park on Monkey Island" in MI3 was actually a cop-out solution to continue the series after the surreal and unexpected twist ending of MI2.
You see, from the get go Ron Gilbert (the creator of Monkey Island) seems to have decided to give strong hints that whole "reality" of the Monkey Island's Carribbean setting might not be real - that in fact it is all a theme park and what we are playing through is merely little Guybrush's fantasy (which has probably a lot to do with the fact that the Pirates of the Carribbean ride was a direct inspiration for the series). MI1 gave only slight hints of this (soda machine, circus, neon lights, souvenir shirt being the "treasure", part of the city being "under construction", the fact that Guybrush just suddenly appears out of the blue and decides "he wants to be a pirate"..etc.) but in MI2 Ron decided to go all the way and break the spell completely - a bold move indeed, btw. I don't think anyone guessed that "Big Whoop" was going to be the confrontation between some kid's pirate fantasy and the real world he must reluctantly get back to; a bit deep for a humorous piratey computer game if you ask me.
Of course the general public didn't really respond to this so well so when MI3 came around they decided to play it safe and not follow up on Ron's vision (whatever it might have turned out to be in the end) but rather to go with "wacky Guybrush adventures in the Carribbean" storylines. The theme-park was something they needed to work around since it didn't really fit with the new direction, and they did the best they could, given the circumstances.
In short, if you know a bit of Monkey history it's pretty obvious why the issues of theme-park and merpeople are pretty different.
In short, if you know a bit of Monkey history it's pretty obvious why the issues of theme-park and merpeople are pretty different.
Oh don't worry I know the story and I never said I actually didn't like the theme park myself
Anyway, we're discussing if something "fits" or not in the Monkey Island universe. And whatever the reasons (good or bad) for putting a theme park on Monkey Island were, does that makes the theme park "fit" ? I don't think so.
As you mentionned, in MI2 it was strongly implied that the theme park and the Caribbean where two different worlds (the theme park being the "real world" and the Caribbean the "fantasy of a child", if you like). The anachronistic objects (vending machine, etc) were supposed to be hints that the world wasn't quite what it seemed. The theme park was never supposed to be on an actual island. In CoMI, they decided to explain all of it by putting it all in a same world. And this is where it starts to become a bit hard for me to swallow.
Now how could LeChuck (never depicted as being a genius) have the technology to build a theme park with animatronics and an actual rollercoaster (BTW - the first rollercoaster was created in 1885) ? If he does have the means and technical knowledge, why isn't he using it in the other games ? If the "Monkey Island universe" has reached that level of technology, why can't we see it anywhere else (except in ToMI, actually) ?
On the other hand, those very fans have problems with an island populated by merfolk and say it doesn't fit in the MI universe. Well I think Merfolk fit better with the pirate theme than a "19th century theme park on a 17th century island", which makes little sense other than "it's all we found to explain the ending of MI2".
But please note I'm saying that for people who have problems with Merfolk as a whole, NOT for people who think the merfolk could have been done better.
By the way, for all we know, Merfolk may have been a suggestion from Ron Gilbert himself during his brainstorming sessions with Telltale. I wonder how the die-hard, "Gilbert-is-god" fans would react to that ?
As you mentionned, in MI2 it was strongly implied that the theme park and the Caribbean where two different worlds (the theme park being the "real world" and the Caribbean the "fantasy of a child", if you like). The anachronistic objects (vending machine, etc) were supposed to be hints that the world wasn't quite what it seemed. The theme park was never supposed to be on an actual island. In CoMI, they decided to explain all of it by putting it all in a same world. And this is where it starts to become a bit hard for me to swallow.
To be honest, every Monkey Island game after MI2 was a bit hard for me to swallow. As much as I enjoy the puzzles and the humor, I still consider them merely "fan fiction" and not a direct continuation of the story. It's not that I'm a snobbish die-hard Gilbert fan who dismisses anything not done by him, but rather that the duality of the world and dark undertones which were so prominent in first two games were just too good of a thing I find it impossible not to miss them in the later Saturday-morning-cartoon editions.
And as I said, I don't have problems with merpeople. In fact, I have problems with the following:
- LeChuck should be creepy, not cheesy. Check out the moment in the MI2 dream sequence when LeChuck makes his unexpected first appearance (quite late in the game, too!). Even with the old-age graphics and MIDI music, the moment when the groovy skeleton song morphs into LeChucks tune is genuinely unsettling. You just can't find moments like these in newer MI games.
I don't know what Telltale plans with the "new" LeChuck, but it will be nice if some of his old creepiness returns. Or if Telltale has enough guts to make some world-changing alterations, like making Guybrush the villain or something. Probably not, though, since we all know average Joe just loves his status quo.
- Guybrush and Elaine should have never been a "loving" couple. It's so boring and cliche and only serves as a convenient source of "damsel in distress" or soap opera-like "love triangle" plotlines. There's a reason why MI2 started with them already being history.
- Overreliance on voodoo artifacts/recipes/curses/spells/whatnot. Come on, we are talking about pirates. Pirates! Can ANY plotline be I dunno, piratey? It's ok when voodoo is there to give additional spice, but how long will it be used as a crutch for the plot to move forward?
Then again, MI4 didn't have a "voodoo" storyline and it was horrible beyond words.
To sum up, gameplay-wise and humor-wise Telltale does a superb job, IMHO, but looking at the big picture there is a lot of issue besides merfolk worth focusing on.
By the way, for all we know, Merfolk may have been a suggestion from Ron Gilbert himself during his brainstorming sessions with Telltale. I wonder how the die-hard, "Gilbert-is-god" fans would react to that ?
Yeah, no one would have complained if they had been shown worshipping Nor Treblig
As for the theme park thing, i'm not sure what i actually think of it, it's been a while since i played Curse and i don't remember the ending so well...
I think the main "wrong" thing in curse was trying to make sense of the MI2 ending. Sure, people would have complained if they had just dismissed it, but well... By trying too hard it felt artificial and not convincing (it's not the actual explanation that felt wrong, but the whole "let's try to suddenly tie this game to the previous ones" feel this conversation had). And the ride is part of this explanation. I guess it would have worked better to leave it unexplained and stick with the "okay, let's just keep telling funny pirate stories" way the rest of the game seems to follow.
Oh and spiffy, i don't have time to think about your post right now, but i sure agree with you. They clearly decided to go for a more light hearted/sillyfunny thing starting with Curse, which is why i personally don't like it so much (i still feel it was a great game, just not as great as the other two). But regarding what i just said about coninuing the story, i think it was the way to go. It must have been pretty hard to sit up and think "okay, so we're making a third game, what the heck are we gonna DO now ?" Going for the cartoonier feel and just keep telling stories may not have worked so well for some people (including me), but it didn't feel too wrong for me in this one (except when it kinda clashed with the need to explain MI2's ending).
Now that the series has evolved in this direction and has fans of almost every game, it's a bit hard to just get back to the whole dark and spooky setting.
I'm quite dissapointed in this episode. Just a few thoughts:
1. Anemone seemed to me like an equal of jar jar bings... which is just like in starwars very... VERY annoying.
2. The 'cutscene' in which you escape through the barrier is totally useless.
3. Creating DaCava island just for one minor and not really fun puzzle? Right...
4. Adding three (4, if you count flotsam in) islands you dont have to visit at all?...
5. Fishbait coupon + red bait which you dont have to use?
Overall:
Where is the Guybrush who steals things from his friends or annoys them? You never get the feeling you "hurt" somebody, which was quite nice in the previous MI's.
Why are there just a few items in you inventory, instead of heaving to switch between different pages of your inventory full of items. The puzzles are just too eazy.
I'm sorry but Spinner Cay Island never really adds any 'warmth' to the game. It's a freakshow, which is quite common to MI, but without any added value. I actually disliked visiting that island and really tried solving puzzles without going there, which was ofcourse impossible.
Pro's: The map on the boat looks old school. The boat (opening scene) is nice (but on the boat itself there's nothing you can do). The Le Chuck and Elaine thing is good aswell as the introduction of Morgan.
The rest: just not good enough. Even MI4 had a lot of better puzzles (pegnose pete puzzle for example).
Bummer.... I really lost my MIfeeling in this episode
5. Fishbait coupon + red bait which you dont have to use?
Why is everyone fixated on this? Why is the "fake" coupon a BAD thing?
Red herrings are cool. Dead-end puzzles are a staple of the genre. MI2 was chokeful of them. We need MORE of this, not less.
Few of the reasons why the game feels so easy are:
a) you know each item is going to get used somewhere so instead of logic you can often solve puzzles merely by eliminating "used" items and brute-forcing through the unused ones
b) each time you manage to "do" something, you are completely sure you are closer to your goal, so you just need to carefully examine "what has changed" and you are halfway there to solving the next puzzle.
Future episodes would benefit from items without a purpose and "fake" solutions, as long as this is executed in a logical or amusing way.
Comments
That's just the point though he didn't come here and voice an opinion, he didn't state what was was disliked and why he just posted "I agree with the review"
that kind of post get no-one any where. how hard would it have been for him to add "but I would have liked to have seen...." and then add some discussion to it.
It's like when you talk to those people who say "I hate Star Wars" and then when you ask them why they are like "Um.. er.. um.. Cause it's star wars." and it is "cool" to hate on the prequels.
Just walking in and saying "The review is correct" and offering nothing with it is just lazy and altogether a waste of the time it took to read the post, and hell make the post in the first place.
That is what I meant by fans of the series, people who are willing to talk in depth and discuss, when it comes to the flaws, and be willing to talk about why they thought they were flaws, not come in and mindlessly just say "Yeah. I think that sucked."
it's pointless and a waste of time.
I told you above what I would have liked to have seen from your post.
If you can't be bothered to read the post that you are apparently attacking, I apologize for that. How is "Tone and Monkey Island" going to alter you post above? it's not. I've read the thread and there are constructive things said there, your post wasn't constructive in the least.
I was refering to the notion that only fans of the games should be allowed to post on these forums, this Darylman guy is obviously just a troll who's using big words to get attention. He'll just whine and call people names in a few posts before dissappearing.
Yep, but normally you get less confronted with it as it doesn't occure on an per episode basis.
@Bernus
Not one i'm at least aware of. I tweaked the controls for a Xbox360 experience with XPadder but i continue asking myself why i can point&click on items but not on visible terrain as well.
A quick list of what's wrong with this episode:
-Glitches galore (rubber tree not removed, sound garbling, multiple fake sea turtles)
-The tone: In this episode, Guybrush has HIS HAND CUT OFF. The best the writers could come up with was have him throw on a hook and have Elaine make EXACTLY the same sort of terrible joke Guybrush makes to the Mer-People about their legs. This is LAZY writing. Fishing out cliches and colloquialisms isn't what made Monkey Island funny and it doesn't make it funny here.
Having Guybrush unsure if the Mer-People were man or woman COULD have been funny, if the textures used for the characters themselves weren't completely bland and ambivalent regarding gender. The poor character design created the possibility of a bad joke, because the programmers don't have the memory size to create actually interesting and lasting characters. They had to use Anemone TWICE for THREE different functions, none of which made any sense or gave us any insight into her character. I'll leave aside the fact that there were Mer-People in the first place. Having nobody shocked about it or in the least bit intrigued was a gigantic mis-cue, to my mind, but it's not make or break for an episode. Were they Mer-People interesting? Nope. Not even a little bit. Were the pox-infected pirates interesting? Almost! They had defined characters and performed actions that seemed to follow these traits. Trouble was, they never do anything interesting.
The best jokes in the entire episode was the floating treasure chest in the background and having Guybrush whistle Largo's theme.
-Story discontinuity:
Why is Elaine palling up with Lechuck? Why would she EVER choose to stay on the island to help him with his monkeys? Are you friggin' kidding me? This has got to be the worst written story I have ever heard. Lechuck turning human is fine, good idea. But having Elaine just all of a sudden follow him around COMPLETELY negates the idea that Elaine is the brains of the operation and Guybrush just follows orders. HE is supposed to be the naive one, and that's where you draw comedy out of the series. Now he is all wise and simply rolls his eyes sarcastically and grunts under his breath to create comedic potential. Guybrush has become a post-modern whiner, and he's simply not funny. Having Lechuck accepted by Elaine is absolute nonsense. Having her stay with him at the end and Guybrush not even protest the fact was insane. If they didn't want Elaine in the next chapter, they shouldn't have introduced her back into this episode in the first place, especially not with Lechuck's lame monkeys into the wild sub-plot. (which is never explored of used in the episode...WHY????)
-Puzzles:
Each puzzle is designed in exactly this way. Pick up random objects from around the map. Look at random object in your inventory and discover something about it or have additional item fall out. Walk around until you discover X character in Y dilemma. Use items on dilemma. END.
Let me attach a postfix to this by saying that the Morgan LeFlay beginning scene does not suffer from these faults, just as Guybrush and the monkey in the chair scene from the previous episode does not. These are well thought out puzzles that make the episode better and engage the audience. Can you say that about the LOCKET INTO THE HOLE OF THE MANATEE? Can you say that about the PEARL INTO THE OBVIOUS PEARL SCEPTER? No. Because they're obvious and not fun.
Go back and look at the original monkey games. Observe how many people you could talk to and how many random things there were lying around. Now you see how much harder it is to just go up to every object and use every piece of your inventory on it until something works. In this game, there is no one to talk to, and no red herrings, so everything is perfectly bland, and perfectly obvious.
Stacking a pile of wood on the sand does not a red herring make. And a rubber tree? REALLY? Why don't we just call this "Nostalgia of Monkey Island"
Unlike every other adventure games where you don't pick up random objects, not examine them, not discover anything about them and never use anything on anything.
When exactly was Elaine the "brains" and Guybrush "followed orders"? The first game when he met her and he had to rescue her from LeChuck (or thought he had to rescue her, whatever)? The second when she dumped him and he spends most his time searching for buried treasure? The third when she is turned into a statue? The fourth which didn't happen?
The original games were stand-alone games. These ones are episodic. Corners have to be cut, obviously.
It ain't 1992 anymore and adventure games aren't all the rage. If you can convince a few millions teenage gamers to stop spending enormous amounts of money on yet another twitchy FPS and consider paying for a nice, story-driven adventure game, I suspect you would start seeing much better production values in adventure games. Until then, one must make do with what he has.
Personally, I'm quite satisfied with Telltale. They chose to continue one of the oldest and most beloved adventure franchises, even after the horrible fiasco MI4 was. And they did a good job. It looks, feels and plays like Monkey Island, and it offers an enjoyable way to spend your free time playing an old-school adventure game which is not so common these days. All this for $7. So why so serious?
Perhaps saying she was "the brains" went a bit too far. Elaine never really needed much saving. (I exclude MI4, I quit playing it after an hour) She was the governer of the tri-state area and was generally displeased with Guybrush. She was clearly in charge of most situations she was put in and we couldn't help but laugh at Guybrush thinking he was in charge and helping her.
Now, the situation is quite different, wouldn't you agree? Different is not necessarily bad, of course. But observe Elaine here. With the way she talks to Guybrush (including giving up her ring???) you would think she is secretly having an affair with Lechuck. If this was the case, and Elaine's voice over work in any way support this, it would make sense. As it stands now, it doesn't.
I don't really understand why corners have to be cut. Yes, it's episodic, but so what? Monkey Island was ALWAYS divided into chapters, what's the difference here?
The red herring in SoMI from the Scumm Bar kitchen.
The pot and meat from the kitchen, for that matter.
The rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle.
The VERY first item you pick up in MI2 is a stick and later on a shovel, though you have no idea where you're going to use them. They're just there.
I could go on and on, but the point is that picking up whatever you can has been an integral part of adventure games since pretty much forever.
As for the talking to more characters part, yes, you are correct. But consider that this game is created by a company far smaller than LucasArts, with fewer resources. TTG are doing the best they can with the budget they have, and while it is not a perfect game by far, the important thing is that in my opinion, they've managed to capture the atmosphere of the saga very well. That's what I was hoping for when I first heard the news of a new MI and that's what I got.
And seriously, this whole mermaid issue? Mermaids have been part of seamen lore for CENTURIES. Hell, scratch that, millennia, even. Other mythical creatures, too, for that matter. They go as far back as Assyrian mythology, Alexander the Great, The Odyssey etc. They were not readily, if at all, used in previous MIs, but the saga will get stale unless some new elements are introduced. TTG decided to do that by using mythology in their game. More power to them.
Because I sense I'll be accused of -gasp- fangirl-ism, I'll say again that I do not think the games so far are the best thing since sliced bread. They have their flaws, and I have no problems pointing them out, but so far I'm very much enjoying the ride.
Box - Lid - Animal etc. By making objects have many components, you prevent people from just randomly clicking their way to the end and actually have to THINK to a solution. What I mean to say is, I can't recall a time I had to THINK of a solution in these games.
I can think of one. When the gold parrot keeps hardening I had to THINK about dropping it from above. That's a good puzzle!
Oh come on, you're telling me you didn't have to think at all in DeSinge's lab (another awesome puzzle)? Or the spinning wheels? Or the chest with the golden seahorse?
I'll give you the obvious solution to an existing problem in this episode. The coupons were very blatant, for example. But don't judge the whole game by a couple of obvious puzzles.
This post from another thread explains just why these games seem so easy to most of us. A great deal of the people currently playing ToMI and other Telltale products are seasoned adventure gamers. You can't expect a company to design a game that caters to the 'hardcore' audience alone.
Fair enough. I thought this was why MI2 had Monkey LITE and Monkey HARD? I'm not voicing my criticisms to be a pest, but only to say that I think the popularity of the series will markedly drop off if they don't improve.
As it currently stands, I don't think too many Hardcore adventurers would purchase another season. I paid around 40 dollars for a full game, and so it still has three more episodes to improve. There were some positive steps taken in Episode 2, but I still feel "ripped"
I disagree entirely.
I could argue that the hint system is pretty much the same thing, but you're right, the games so far haven't been as challenging as MI2 in hard mode. Still, we can't say that with certainty until the entire season is out.
That's what the forums are here for
Again, I won't make any big judgments until the whole game is out in its entirety. This is my first experience with a Telltale game, so I'm not used to the fanbase response after each episode. I'll voice my concerns as well, but I hold back a little until I have the full game in my hands.
The best puzzles, in my mind, were definitely the ones with an aha! moment, like making the fake turtle, thinking what to put in the chest (I wasn't too keen on the puzzle to making the pirates look away though), and the tar/hand puzzle at the end of the first episode.
Regarding the merfolks, i don't see anything wrong with them being in there... But it seemed, i dunno, too "casual" ? The fact that they were just there and everybody knew about them... Ep 1 introduced this ancient vaycaylian civilisation very well, without insisting much on them but still enough to make you wonder about them and create a sense of mystery, which was kinda ruined when you just walked into one and started cracking jokes about Ethel Merman. I guess it could have worked better if the place had long been abandonned, and maybe we could have met them later, underwater (like in the leviathan's lair, since it seems we WILL get underwater then).
Now the weird thing is that even though i can pick way more disapointing things this time around, on the whole it still felt way better than the first chapter. Maybe that's just me, but i think guybrush character got closer to what he was in the old games, LeFlay and those two poxed pirates were great (i LOVED the tall and thin one.. meh, forgot his name
First of all, the atmosphere.
I must say that I love the atmosphere in both this game and Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. To me, they feel like Monkey Island games, and not just some random game with people that happen to be named Guybrush, Elaine and LeChuck.
To some people, a game is not a Monkey Island game if it doesn't feature Stan or Murray, but I'm pretty sure that it has been mentioned elsewhere that Stan might pop up before the end of the season (in my view, the perfect spot for a Stan cameo would be
Second (of all? -ly?), the humor.
While not necessarily a carbon copy of the humor found in the first two Monkey Island games, the humor is definitely present in the TOMI games. From subtle touches like what happens when you have Guybrush look at a
Next, the puzzles.
Lots of people have complained that the puzzles are too easy or too obvious. I will admit that I did not once get stuck in this game and have not made any use of the hint system or gotten any help online for this game.
Then again, if I remember correctly, the only game of Telltale's that I've played (that includes the 2 Bone games, the 2 seasons of Sam and Max, the Strong Bad games and the first 2 TOMI games) where I have used the hint system once is "The Great Cow Race" for a drumming (?) puzzle in a barn.
This is probably due in part to my having played (like most of this forum's users) lots and lots of point'n click adventure games when I was younger and, let's face it, to Telltale's puzzles being more logical than a lot of the puzzles in older games.
That doesn't mean that I do not enjoy Telltale's games immensely and I definitely get more of a kick from solving a (albeit easier) Telltale puzzle without help, than a less logical puzzle in another game with a walkthrough.
Have to agree with the
Finally, the game's length.
This is a point where I can't disagree with most (disgruntled) forum users. Just like "The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball" and "Dangeresque 3" before it, this game is on the shorter end of Telltale's games. I enjoyed every minute of it, but definitely wish I could have enjoyed it a while longer.
Before some forum users tell me that people don't seem to complain about paying as much (if not more) to see a movie in a theater, or that it's better to have a great and fun short game, rather than a long but boring game, I'll just say that I'm not comparing this game to a similarly priced (and possibly shorter) movie or another game company's longer game, but to the rest of Telltale's output.
While every Telltale game yields a lot of "it's too short" responses from forum users, I usually think that the games are the perfect length for the price... except for this one and the two I mentioned above.
In conclusion, I want to thank Telltale for a splendid (if a tad short) addition to the Monkey Island legacy and congratulate Mark Darin on his first Monkey Island effort as writer/director (I love the Nick Bounty and Brain Hotel games and have finally managed to get the downloaded version of the first Nick Bounty game to work on my Mac!).
Keep'em coming (and make'em a little longer - but not boring - if possible)!
I know what you mean about the "casualness" of the mer-people. I can completely accept the addition of mythological creatures to a pirate-themed game, but to do so willy-nilly felt a little...strange. They could have done a lot more with the "mystery" they built up in the first episode, and it felt like a let down to have Guybrush just walk up and crack a (bad) joke.
I suppose I'd like to add a little disappointment with the ending and the sea-creatures. What WERE those? They were neither aesthetically appealing or even interesting. They were like dolphin clowns from hell. (now that would have been funny!)
Well the merroyalperson sorta melted the golden seahorse, turtle and fish together to create the golden ball, so the creatures are also supposed to be some sort of a cross between a seahorse, turtle and fish.
... and yes, IMO, it didn't work so well. Felt weird and out of place.
As for the ending, I thought it was cool. Huge animals are always fun. However since it is quite obvious the manatee is merely a weird "transportation system" to "Leviathan's lair", I cannot consider it much of a cliffhanger as it probably was made to be.
Glad you did it
I didn't really mind them... Probably because we already had the merfolks and their whole "casualness problem"... I'm not saying "the merfolks were so bad that i didn't care anymore", but they did establish a kind of "well, anything can happen now" feel, so the things neither felt right or wrong to me.
And just thinking about it, this "anything can happen now" feel works GREAT in a setting like Sam & Max, just not so much in MI i think. Once again, it's NOT the mermaids or mythological stuff that's "wrong", but i think that kinda stuff should remain somehow mysterious, and not feel like it's part of everyday's life.
Well look at the three SUmmoning artifacts again.. then look at the creatures that came to escort you.
I really don't see it myself. Firstly, they were foreshadowed in the first episode, and Guybrush seemed surprised at their existence, so it's not as if it was entirely just 'oh, ok, merfolk'.
Admittedly, most people would have been somewhat surprised to see merfolk pop up out of the water. But look back at previous games - it's not like Guybrush to be surprised by anything wierd. Or any of the other characters, for that matter. Ghost pirates? Ok. Voodoo? Sure thing. Zombies? Sure, why not. Fighting monkeys? Just put them over there with the rest of the wierd stuff.
For a series that largely has it's basis in magic, mythology and spiritualism, I'm surprised to see the fans so close-minded to additional 'unrealistic' ideas. When has Monkey Island ever embraced realism? That's simply not the way the series is at all.
Think of the scene where he has to dig up those bones in the graveyeard and lightning keeps striking, he wasn't surprised? How about when his parents came to him in a dream and started dancing as skeletons? When he first meets Lechuck? Sheer terror. Surprise is putting is mildly.
As stated, there is no problem with "Mer-People" per say. But the way they treated their introduction was half assed and uninteresting, at best.
The merpeople don't feel surreal or unsettling. They lack any kind of mystique and serve for comic relief. They are simply there and everyone acts like there's nothing even remotely strange about it. I think people consiously or subconciously respond to this - it's not like a soda machine or a fake waterfall which are obviously placed precisely to clash with your environment (and to reinforce the subtle notion that modern world is probably seeping in the piratey Carribbean world for some strange yet definite reason). With the merpeople it's simply - hey, androgynous merpeople are a good source of jokes, let's put them in.
Still, Monkey Island 3 already made it blatantly obvious that the dark undertones are gone and it's all wacky cartoon fun from now on, so personally - merpeople - why not. Bring it on. If dragons and tooth fairies make an appearance, I won't mind, as long as the puzzles are amusing and the jokes are funny.
That's basically what i was trying to say, yeah.
And i really want to stress this out : the mer people AS SUCH weren't wrong AT ALL. They could have worked great if handled in this whole dark/unsettling way.
that's funny.. A lot of people say that "mythical creatures don't feel out of place in Monkey Island". They're absolutely right, but that's actually the problem : the merfolks just DONT feel mythical in this episode. They did when evoked in the previous one, but not anymore.
(edit : I'm not saying this for you, Astro Gnocci)
But we have got to remember this isn't just any MI adventure, it's a Telltale MI adventure. Therefore it's going to have elements of the TT universe in there too. Take a look at Bosco's guises in Sam & Max, or Sybil's different businesses (together with Hugh Bliss making a parallel to Stan)? The merpeople fit in well with their humour.
I know ppl wil argue that the merfolk look like a cross between the Zoras in Zelda and the Vulcans in Star Trek but for me they have a certain something else and act nothing like either.
Heyyy... have you been reading my review?
True. Maniac Mansion and McKraken (pre-SMI) while being similar in more ways than just interface, are very different from Indy2 (MI2 era - great enhanced version!), which in turn is different from Full Throttle and Grim Fandango (CMI era).
Didn't realise it was the same Haggis, sorry! Good review, man. Makes me think I should write my own review...
Spot on, this. You've travelled four games and like the entire carrabean to get here and haven't seen them once before. Nor anything similar. That's pretty fine still, but what makes it really stick out is that they're immediately made the source of jokes. And never move much beyond anything else but giggles. People don't even react. Nor do they react to people. They just both kind of go along as if they had been around for ages. Or four games and one fifth of another at the very least.
It's not about realism. It's about continuity. Internal logics. Not that realism and those are mutually exclusive, hey, just saying.
Both internal and external logics say that the more experienced the man is, the less he is surprised of new things
About other people who don't react on merfolk, I suppose they too, lived long enough in the Gulf of Melange area not to overreact about them. Spinner Cay has a port for humans, for crying out loud, there's no reason for people who live in and around that are to go "HOLY FRIGGIN SHIT" mode.
Hm.
The "theme park on Monkey Island" in MI3 was actually a cop-out solution to continue the series after the surreal and unexpected twist ending of MI2.
You see, from the get go Ron Gilbert (the creator of Monkey Island) seems to have decided to give strong hints that whole "reality" of the Monkey Island's Carribbean setting might not be real - that in fact it is all a theme park and what we are playing through is merely little Guybrush's fantasy (which has probably a lot to do with the fact that the Pirates of the Carribbean ride was a direct inspiration for the series). MI1 gave only slight hints of this (soda machine, circus, neon lights, souvenir shirt being the "treasure", part of the city being "under construction", the fact that Guybrush just suddenly appears out of the blue and decides "he wants to be a pirate"..etc.) but in MI2 Ron decided to go all the way and break the spell completely - a bold move indeed, btw. I don't think anyone guessed that "Big Whoop" was going to be the confrontation between some kid's pirate fantasy and the real world he must reluctantly get back to; a bit deep for a humorous piratey computer game if you ask me.
Of course the general public didn't really respond to this so well so when MI3 came around they decided to play it safe and not follow up on Ron's vision (whatever it might have turned out to be in the end) but rather to go with "wacky Guybrush adventures in the Carribbean" storylines. The theme-park was something they needed to work around since it didn't really fit with the new direction, and they did the best they could, given the circumstances.
In short, if you know a bit of Monkey history it's pretty obvious why the issues of theme-park and merpeople are pretty different.
Oh don't worry I know the story and I never said I actually didn't like the theme park myself
Anyway, we're discussing if something "fits" or not in the Monkey Island universe. And whatever the reasons (good or bad) for putting a theme park on Monkey Island were, does that makes the theme park "fit" ? I don't think so.
As you mentionned, in MI2 it was strongly implied that the theme park and the Caribbean where two different worlds (the theme park being the "real world" and the Caribbean the "fantasy of a child", if you like). The anachronistic objects (vending machine, etc) were supposed to be hints that the world wasn't quite what it seemed. The theme park was never supposed to be on an actual island. In CoMI, they decided to explain all of it by putting it all in a same world. And this is where it starts to become a bit hard for me to swallow.
Now how could LeChuck (never depicted as being a genius) have the technology to build a theme park with animatronics and an actual rollercoaster (BTW - the first rollercoaster was created in 1885) ? If he does have the means and technical knowledge, why isn't he using it in the other games ? If the "Monkey Island universe" has reached that level of technology, why can't we see it anywhere else (except in ToMI, actually) ?
On the other hand, those very fans have problems with an island populated by merfolk and say it doesn't fit in the MI universe. Well I think Merfolk fit better with the pirate theme than a "19th century theme park on a 17th century island", which makes little sense other than "it's all we found to explain the ending of MI2".
But please note I'm saying that for people who have problems with Merfolk as a whole, NOT for people who think the merfolk could have been done better.
By the way, for all we know, Merfolk may have been a suggestion from Ron Gilbert himself during his brainstorming sessions with Telltale. I wonder how the die-hard, "Gilbert-is-god" fans would react to that ?
To be honest, every Monkey Island game after MI2 was a bit hard for me to swallow. As much as I enjoy the puzzles and the humor, I still consider them merely "fan fiction" and not a direct continuation of the story. It's not that I'm a snobbish die-hard Gilbert fan who dismisses anything not done by him, but rather that the duality of the world and dark undertones which were so prominent in first two games were just too good of a thing I find it impossible not to miss them in the later Saturday-morning-cartoon editions.
And as I said, I don't have problems with merpeople. In fact, I have problems with the following:
- LeChuck should be creepy, not cheesy. Check out the moment in the MI2 dream sequence when LeChuck makes his unexpected first appearance (quite late in the game, too!). Even with the old-age graphics and MIDI music, the moment when the groovy skeleton song morphs into LeChucks tune is genuinely unsettling. You just can't find moments like these in newer MI games.
I don't know what Telltale plans with the "new" LeChuck, but it will be nice if some of his old creepiness returns. Or if Telltale has enough guts to make some world-changing alterations, like making Guybrush the villain or something. Probably not, though, since we all know average Joe just loves his status quo.
- Guybrush and Elaine should have never been a "loving" couple. It's so boring and cliche and only serves as a convenient source of "damsel in distress" or soap opera-like "love triangle" plotlines. There's a reason why MI2 started with them already being history.
- Overreliance on voodoo artifacts/recipes/curses/spells/whatnot. Come on, we are talking about pirates. Pirates! Can ANY plotline be I dunno, piratey? It's ok when voodoo is there to give additional spice, but how long will it be used as a crutch for the plot to move forward?
Then again, MI4 didn't have a "voodoo" storyline and it was horrible beyond words.
To sum up, gameplay-wise and humor-wise Telltale does a superb job, IMHO, but looking at the big picture there is a lot of issue besides merfolk worth focusing on.
Yeah, no one would have complained if they had been shown worshipping Nor Treblig
As for the theme park thing, i'm not sure what i actually think of it, it's been a while since i played Curse and i don't remember the ending so well...
I think the main "wrong" thing in curse was trying to make sense of the MI2 ending. Sure, people would have complained if they had just dismissed it, but well... By trying too hard it felt artificial and not convincing (it's not the actual explanation that felt wrong, but the whole "let's try to suddenly tie this game to the previous ones" feel this conversation had). And the ride is part of this explanation. I guess it would have worked better to leave it unexplained and stick with the "okay, let's just keep telling funny pirate stories" way the rest of the game seems to follow.
Oh and spiffy, i don't have time to think about your post right now, but i sure agree with you. They clearly decided to go for a more light hearted/sillyfunny thing starting with Curse, which is why i personally don't like it so much (i still feel it was a great game, just not as great as the other two). But regarding what i just said about coninuing the story, i think it was the way to go. It must have been pretty hard to sit up and think "okay, so we're making a third game, what the heck are we gonna DO now ?" Going for the cartoonier feel and just keep telling stories may not have worked so well for some people (including me), but it didn't feel too wrong for me in this one (except when it kinda clashed with the need to explain MI2's ending).
Now that the series has evolved in this direction and has fans of almost every game, it's a bit hard to just get back to the whole dark and spooky setting.
1. Anemone seemed to me like an equal of jar jar bings... which is just like in starwars very... VERY annoying.
2. The 'cutscene' in which you escape through the barrier is totally useless.
3. Creating DaCava island just for one minor and not really fun puzzle? Right...
4. Adding three (4, if you count flotsam in) islands you dont have to visit at all?...
5. Fishbait coupon + red bait which you dont have to use?
Overall:
Where is the Guybrush who steals things from his friends or annoys them? You never get the feeling you "hurt" somebody, which was quite nice in the previous MI's.
Why are there just a few items in you inventory, instead of heaving to switch between different pages of your inventory full of items. The puzzles are just too eazy.
I'm sorry but Spinner Cay Island never really adds any 'warmth' to the game. It's a freakshow, which is quite common to MI, but without any added value. I actually disliked visiting that island and really tried solving puzzles without going there, which was ofcourse impossible.
Pro's: The map on the boat looks old school. The boat (opening scene) is nice (but on the boat itself there's nothing you can do). The Le Chuck and Elaine thing is good aswell as the introduction of Morgan.
The rest: just not good enough. Even MI4 had a lot of better puzzles (pegnose pete puzzle for example).
Bummer.... I really lost my MIfeeling in this episode
Off the top of my head, items you can get in MI2 which has no purpose:
Why is everyone fixated on this? Why is the "fake" coupon a BAD thing?
Red herrings are cool. Dead-end puzzles are a staple of the genre. MI2 was chokeful of them. We need MORE of this, not less.
Few of the reasons why the game feels so easy are:
a) you know each item is going to get used somewhere so instead of logic you can often solve puzzles merely by eliminating "used" items and brute-forcing through the unused ones
b) each time you manage to "do" something, you are completely sure you are closer to your goal, so you just need to carefully examine "what has changed" and you are halfway there to solving the next puzzle.
Future episodes would benefit from items without a purpose and "fake" solutions, as long as this is executed in a logical or amusing way.
Edit: Ninja'd by Bagge