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Nintendo Switch. Return to Monkey Island. This item will be sent to your system automatically after purchase. Return to Monkey Island is an unexpected, thrilling return of series...
Sep 19, 2022 · System: Nintendo Switch Release date: 19/09/2022. Overview. Gallery. Details. Return to Monkey Island is an unexpected, thrilling return of series creator Ron Gilbert that continues the...
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By Ryan McCaffrey
Updated: Nov 4, 2022 7:51 pm
Posted: Sep 19, 2022 4:00 pm
Return to Monkey Island is the adventure game equivalent of Spider-Man: No Way Home. No, wait, don’t go! Hear me out: most would agree that No Way Home is an excellent, very fun movie – even for a kid who’s never seen the Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films. But if you have made those movie memories with the Peter Parkers of the past, then No Way Home taps into something more: nostalgia, even eliciting genuine emotion at various points.
Return to Monkey Island, which very notably puts series creator Ron Gilbert back in the franchise’s director’s chair for the first time in 30 years, is a similar ride. It's a funny, beautiful, polished, and well-paced story packed with plenty of puzzles that are both hilarious and challenging for anybody who appreciates a good adventure game. And Return wisely offers "Guybrush's Scrapbook" in the main menu, as a fun, visual way to recap the previous Monkey Island games that's narrated by Guybrush. But for those like me, for whom the earliest Monkey Island games were a formative part of our gaming youth, this reunion with wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood feels like coming home. To this end, I loved the not-so-hidden Trivia Cards scattered around many scenes, testing your knowledge of the franchise.
The most obvious way that Return to Monkey Island differs from its predecessors is in its art style. Gilbert could’ve gone the pixel-art route to pluck some extra low-hanging nostalgia fruit, but instead he’s gone with a much bolder modern look. I’ll admit: I didn’t love it when I first saw it. It’s a jarring departure from the games I love, but then again, so was the first post-Gilbert Monkey Island game, the Curse of Monkey Island, which used a Disney-cartoon-like style that I adored. Return’s art direction is more abstract, but somewhere along the 11 hours it took me to complete the story I grew to love it. It uses a large swath of the color palette, and its over-the-top character design matches Monkey Island’s sense of humor nicely.
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An excellent story and memorable characters are just one half of the classic puzzle game equation: the other is a series of puzzles that are both challenging and satisfying to solve, serving as the bedrock of any great point-and-click adventure. Return serves up a hearty helping of them here, always including a thread of comedy running through the ...
The puzzle structures and solutions don’t really tread new ground, but none were so abstract as to leave me wondering how the heck I’d have ever come up with the solution once I figured it out. And while nothing ever frustrated me to the point of wanting to quit and try again later with a refreshed mind, I did occasionally get a bit stuck in the mud, as is par for the course in these games – such as when I had to use an “apology frog” to win back the favor of Melee Island’s governor, Carla. So I made use of Guybrush’s always-available hint book here and there, and I quickly learned I didn’t need to swallow my pride entirely before resorting to it. It’s a very welcome evolution of a feature first introduced to the series in LucasArts’s 2009 remasters of Monkey Island 1 and 2, and it feels guilt-free to use because it’s not simply a tome of spoilers like using a walkthrough.
Instead, it gives you hints layer by layer, nudging you in the right direction but still preserving the feeling of satisfaction you get from eventually solving the puzzle yourself. Only once, in fact, did the hint book tell me something I genuinely didn’t want to know at that moment. The new To-Do List also helps you keep track of everything you’re currently working on trying to solve without making it feel like you’re being led around by the nose.
Here's the entire Monkey Island series, from 1990's "Secret" to 2022's "Return". Log in to track which ones you've played and completed.
After decades of believing that we’d never see Gilbert get to make his Monkey Island 3, I was in no way disappointed with Return’s conclusion. In fact, it moved me, and made clear that Gilbert cares as much about these characters as we fans do. I expected Return to Monkey Island to be funny. I expected it to have good and often-zany puzzles and hil...
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amazing
Return to Monkey Island expectedly comes packed full of smartly crafted puzzles, funny dialogue, and memorable characters. But as series creator Ron Gilbert returns to the series’ director’s chair for the first time since 1991, it unexpectedly offers a lot of heart, too. It is an adventure gamer’s delight.
IGN's Ryan McCaffrey praises the adventure game's humor, art, music, and nostalgia, but notes some puzzles can be frustrating. Return to Monkey Island is a sequel to Monkey Island 2, directed by series creator Ron Gilbert, and available on Switch and other platforms.
Sep 23, 2022 · A three-game series! Version Reviewed: North American. review by Roland Ingram Fri 23rd Sep 2022. Share: 1.1k. Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube 768k. In 1990, Ron Gilbert created the seminal...
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Return to Monkey Island is an unexpected, thrilling return of series creator Ron Gilbert that continues the story of the legendary adventure games. Purchase. Buy on Steam Buy on Nintendo Switch Buy on Xbox Buy on PS5. About the Game. Adventure Narrative Casual Point-and-Click.
Jun 28, 2022 · Return to Monkey Island is coming to Nintendo Switch later this year! Wishlist today: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/return-to-monkey-island-switch/...
- 2 min
- 153.4K
- Nintendo of America
