I rarely ever laugh out loud in real life... not that I have a bad sense of humor or anything but I just don't laugh, TOMI managed to get a few chuckles out of me...
I don't really laugh out loud much either. I guess you could say I'm jaded. ToMI evoked exactly 2 chuckles from me, which in itself is quite an achievement.
But SoMI and MI2 both made me laugh out loud a bunch of times, and I think that is partially due to the fact that there were so many clever and original ideas accompanying the humor. But that's the magic of Tim Schaffer, and like I say, he's a rare commodity in the industry.
Was Schaffer involved in anyway with Curse of Monkey Island. I don't think it was, and still, that game is as funny as they come
I think he was mostly busy doing Grim Fandango, but he would contribute from time to time. If I'm not mistaken, one of his contributions was the pirate sing-a-long, which to me was one of the funniest things in the game and definitely a laugh-out-loud moment. Again, that goes back to originality and cleverness.
(BTW I don't want to mis-attribute that clever scene in CMI to the wrong guy... if I'm wrong I hope someone from TTG will correct me. Whoever thought that up should get credit for their brilliance)
Was Schaffer involved in anyway with Curse of Monkey Island. I don't think it was, and still, that game is as funny as they come
I thought he was? I thought I remembered reading an interview somewhere indicating that he wrote a fair share of the puzzles and dialogue, but I guess I could be wrong? It's been so long ago now, I wouldn't have a prayer of finding the article again.
That brings me to another point that I haven't talked about much: The puzzles.
This is one area that I actually didn't have any complaints about in "Narwhal." I felt the puzzles were of exactly the right difficulty, fit into the plot just fine, and advanced the story.
I did think that the puzzle with the Marquis De Singe and the Messed Up Idol was poorly designed (mainly because a line that Guybrush delivered actually turned me OFF of the correct solution that I was persuing), but I've since found that there were other ways to solve this puzzle that I missed, and other people had a much easier time with this one than I did.
I definitely want to see more of this quality puzzle design in future episodes, if maybe making them a bit harder.
(Another poster mentioned how easy it was to get the unbreakable-glass breaker, and I tend to agree that that was far too easy).
Something more along the line of the wheel of cheese would tickle me pink.
Because Guybrush and LeChuck are the two most important characters in the game, we really need to keep them front and center - even if they're not in the same scene.
We only see LeChuck briefly in the intro, and briefly at the exit of the game...to my mind, he felt criminally underused in this episode.
You have to remember that this is the first Chapter of the game. And to my knowledge the only real times we saw LeChuck in the other games, after the start of the game and before the final confrontation (apart from the 1st when he was introduced just towards the end) is in 'meanwhiles' in between chapters, and as we've just had the one chapter we don't know if Telltale plan to put these 'meanwhiles' in at the start or end of further chapters.
I'm sorry if that doesn't make much sense, I've been out and had a few bevvys tonight and I'm not sure how to get my point across.
I think there are a lot of really spot-on comments about tone in this thread, and Shanksworthy's "the quaint-yet-dark and eerily brooding lantern-lit firefly-infested MI world of yore" comment perfectly captures the feeling I got when playing the original 2 games.
I have followed Telltale's output since Texas Hold'em and I must hand it to them - they really have developed in leaps and bounds since the first products. I am now astounded at the level of detail they are now capable of producing for an episodic game on a strict deadline. The mood in the "creepy shack" gives me hope that they can pull off dark-nighttime-environments as well and I can't wait to see what they come up with. It is obvious an awful lot of passion, creativity and attention to detail have gone into creating for instance the various buildings on Flotsam. I just wish for that added layer of dream-like pirate-village with something sinister around the corner, just out of grasp.
So I also find myself in complete agreement with those who feel that the surrounding pirate inhabitants should be less goofy and a tad more serious, in order to provide contrast to Guybrush's personality. Now, story-wise, this could be "fixed" easily enough by having rougher types inhabit darker islands and just consider Flotsam to be a mostly harmless and pretty harmless and "safe" kind of place. I'm just afraid that Telltale's games thus far have generally been populated by various silly but still "nice" (or at least not intimidating) side characters. Design-wise, they look a bit too harmless and not especially fearsome (C'mon - they're pirates! They're allowed to be a bit ugly).
As for LeChuck - I fear his brooding presence diminishes the more he appears in the games, especially now when Guybrush is apparently able to stand next to him calmly with a smirk on his face and little to no sense of danger. In MI1 and MI2 there is a sense of dread and urgency regarding LeChuck. He is really out to capture, torture and kill Guybrush, and Guybrush reacts accordingly in those games. If Guybrush isn't really afraid of him anymore, then LeChuck just becomes a sad clown character going "Arr" all the time. I think he should be kept out of sight for as long as possible. It's like the shark in Jaws - it's scary because we know it's out there and could appear at any moment, but we only rarley see it.
You have to remember that this is the first Chapter of the game. And to my knowledge the only real times we saw LeChuck in the other games, after the start of the game and before the final confrontation (apart from the 1st when he was introduced just towards the end) is in 'meanwhiles' in between chapters, and as we've just had the one chapter we don't know if Telltale plan to put these 'meanwhiles' in at the start or end of further chapters.
There are two specific examples I can think of when i'm talking about the "Meanwhile" sequences.
The first is in The Secret of Monkey Island. When I got the first game all those years ago, I really knew nothing about it. I hadn't really been playing computer games all that long, so I didn't know what to expect. All I knew was that my character wanted to be a pirate, and I was turned loose on an island.
In my mind, I was expecting a fairly typical free-form adventure - almost a sandbox kind of thing. I didn't realize yet that this was a humorous take on piracy, and wasn't expecting any kind of central plot.
I headed into the Scumm Bar, bypassed Mancomb and Esteban, and immediately talked to the Important Looking Pirates in the Next Room, wanting to dive right into the tasks.
I got my quests...and headed out the door.
Suddenly..."MEANWHILE" popped onto the screen. This was COMPLETELY unexpected. I had never played a game before where things were taking place (to my mind) independently of what I (as the player) was doing.
The cutscene introducing LeChuck completely captivated me, and after having played nothing but Nintendo up until that point in my life, I suddenly realized that there was a whole new category of games with PLOT. LeChuck was interesting and scary, and I couldn't wait to see more.
And this was in what was technically the 2nd room of the game. What motivated me to keep playing was to keep getting those crucial little bits of story - that didn't really reveal much, but caused my anticipation to skyrocket.
The second example I can give is from LeChucks Revenge. After becoming very familiar with the original game, I had a much better idea of what to expect this time.
When LeChuck was resurrected, he was a totally different incarnation. He may've been a ghost pirate before, but even as a ghost he was generally jovial. He may not have liked Guybrush that much, but he also didn't take him that seriously.
In LeChucks Revenge, the zombie pirate was out for BLOOD and TORTURE. He wanted to make Guybrush feel pain, and with each newly captured piece of the map, you came to appreicate more and more how powerful LeChuck had become, and just what the stakes were as he took his frustrations out on Largo.
This IS the introductory episode...but by leaving these little bits of exposition out (or postponing them for the start of the next episode), the pacing has been thrown off - and the time that we're waiting for the next episode COULD be spent debating a more critical cliffhanger.
Note: I think this is actually the intent of the end of the episode...I just think the stakes could've been raised.
Mad Muppet:
As for LeChuck - I fear his brooding presence diminishes the more he appears in the games, especially now when Guybrush is apparently able to stand next to him calmly with a smirk on his face and little to no sense of danger. In MI1 and MI2 there is a sense of dread and urgency regarding LeChuck. He is really out to capture, torture and kill Guybrush, and Guybrush reacts accordingly in those games. If Guybrush isn't really afraid of him anymore, then LeChuck just becomes a sad clown character going "Arr" all the time.
I think he reached the apex of evil in LeChucks Revenge (although the addition of Earl Boen as the voice in Curse more than made up for the fact that he'd grown a little sillier.) After Escape, I think we really need to ratchet up the evil again. Zombie Pirate LeChuck was truly frightening in a way that he hasn't been since.
I think he should be kept out of sight for as long as possible. It's like the shark in Jaws - it's scary because we know it's out there and could appear at any moment, but we only rarley see it.
I can only partially agree on this point. Don't get me wrong...I don't think Guybrush and LeChuck should come face to face again until the climax, but I also don't think that we shouldn't see LeChuck at all.
You have to contrast the characters and keep LeChucks presence at the top of the players mind. Even if he's not seen, his influence should be a palpable presence, always threatening to overcome Guybrush.
It'll be interesting to see how literal this translates in these episodes, as Guybrush grows darker and darker due to the pox.
As for LeChuck - I fear his brooding presence diminishes the more he appears in the games, especially now when Guybrush is apparently able to stand next to him calmly with a smirk on his face and little to no sense of danger. In MI1 and MI2 there is a sense of dread and urgency regarding LeChuck. He is really out to capture, torture and kill Guybrush, and Guybrush reacts accordingly in those games. If Guybrush isn't really afraid of him anymore, then LeChuck just becomes a sad clown character going "Arr" all the time. I think he should be kept out of sight for as long as possible. It's like the shark in Jaws - it's scary because we know it's out there and could appear at any moment, but we only rarley see it.
Agreed. As a kid, I found all of the LeChuck scenes in MI2 scary, and the end part of the game in the underground tunnels made me jump out of my skin everytime he appeared. I doubt the current LeChuck would have done that...
IAs for LeChuck - I fear his brooding presence diminishes the more he appears in the games, especially now when Guybrush is apparently able to stand next to him calmly with a smirk on his face and little to no sense of danger. In MI1 and MI2 there is a sense of dread and urgency regarding LeChuck. He is really out to capture, torture and kill Guybrush, and Guybrush reacts accordingly in those games. If Guybrush isn't really afraid of him anymore, then LeChuck just becomes a sad clown character going "Arr" all the time. I think he should be kept out of sight for as long as possible. It's like the shark in Jaws - it's scary because we know it's out there and could appear at any moment, but we only rarley see it.
Agreed. The sense of dread is definitely gone. It occurs to me though, that they might put an interesting spin on the whole thing. With LeChuck becoming human and Guybrush becoming partly posessed by the pox, will the tables turn? It might make for some interesting role-reversal in upcoming episodes.
If that's the case, then I'd be all for it. But once that's done, I want to go back to shaking in my boots at the mere mention of LeChuck (which admittedly would be a bit contrived, considering the number of times Guybrush has 'defeated' him).
I played through the episode a second time, and found that it improved on the second playthrough.
I'm especially anxious to see the Marquis De Singe again (I'd love to see him team up with Largo LaGrande, if only he would come back!), Winslow will be very interesting to see developed, and I'm still thrilled with the puzzles.
Does anybody have updated opinions after having played through twice?
Oh god, i've been trying to mention the subject of tone (mostly the handling of anachrosnisms/sillyness) in several threads but i had completely overlooked this one...
Silly me :eek:
That being said, i don't have much to add, but i love reading you guys. Great analysis and i agree 100% with most of what's being said.
Another thing that bugged me was this "esponja grande" thing. Okay, it's only the first episode and we have no idea of how it will turn out, but... A giant sponge ? Am i the only one to think it's exactly the kind of "wrong" sillyness that was all over EMI ? When i've heard that line, i pretty much stopped expecting a plot i'd love. I'm pretty sure it will be good, just not quite "right" for me.
Also, i thought the writing overall was good, but just that, good. After seeing the sam and max episodes become funnier and funnier with each episode (i genuinely think the two last ones were masterpieces), it did feel like a disapointing drop in quality.
Okay, i'm sure this post is gonna sound much more negative than it should, so i'll just end by saying that i still enjoyed the game very much. I'm just thinkin this is (so far) not as great as it could be. I'm pretty much willing to let Telltale prove me wrong, tho, and i don't doubt they can.
to the OP - great writing, found myself agreeing with pretty much all your points and some nice replies from others too, nice thread. I gave this game a 6 in another thread based on my first hour of playing but in the end I actually really enjoyed it although I find it much too short, I thought there was going to be another island full of bars, shops and new characters and objects. Ah well hopefully not too long to wait.
On the topic of old-school, dark and brooding Monkey Island goodness (and I've been on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride many, many times, so I know what that's like), when I
entered the Voodoo lady's shack, with the dark atmosphere and burning candles and long shadows
, that's the moment I really started to feel like I was playing a Monkey Island game (or, you know, got that old feeling back).
I agree completely with the OP, and especially with the points made about tone. That said, I'm just glad to be playing a new Monkey Island game at all, so you won't see me complaining too much.
Another thing that bugged me was this "esponja grande" thing. Okay, it's only the first episode and we have no idea of how it will turn out, but... A giant sponge ? Am i the only one to think it's exactly the kind of "wrong" sillyness that was all over EMI ?
Actually, this is one aspect of the plot that intrigued me, and I think there's a lot of potential to deliver. It reminded me of "El Pollo Diablo" (Guybrush: "The Devil Chicken?!") from Curse, and of the "Fabulous" treasure of Big Whoop from LeChucks Revenge.
It's just a classic MacGuffin - it's not the object itself that's important, just the journey to get there. Also "Voodoo Exfoliating Powers" makes me giggle.
Also, i thought the writing overall was good, but just that, good. After seeing the sam and max episodes become funnier and funnier with each episode (i genuinely think the two last ones were masterpieces), it did feel like a disapointing drop in quality
I agree 100%, but I also expect the episodes further on to get better as well. This episode has a genuinely tough job to do, as it's pure setup. After playing it the second time last night, I think the biggest problem this episode faced (besides the tone, which we've discussed in-depth) is what Fawful mentioned earlier - we don't really get a payoff for getting off of Flotsam Island. We spent the entire episode building up to what we hoped would be the lead-in to the main plot and - nothing.
Well...not really nothing - I think they wanted to ratchet up the tension with the arrival of Kate (Pretty sure it's her - she's probably upset about the loss of her glass-bottomed boat business), and with the potential cliffhanger of LeChuck wooing Elaine - but it ultimately felt anticlimactic. It wasn't really a sense of reward for getting off the island. (This is where I think a true "Meanwhile" sequence would've benefited the game greatly.
Nighttide:
when I entered the Voodoo lady's shack, with the dark atmosphere and burning candles and long shadows, that's the moment I really started to feel like I was playing a Monkey Island game (or, you know, got that old feeling back).
Me too! The introduction, with the rocking ships and the few moments with LeChuck also captured that feeling - I felt like it was only really regained when we entered the Voodoo Ladys creepy shack. (Also, great use of humor here - Chest of Foreshadowing is great!) One *minor* complaint that I have here is the Voodo Lady's voice - it's not the actress, she's great as usual - but she sounds different in every game due to the effects that are applied to her. She never sounded more ethereal than in Curse - in EMI, she sounded sort of hollow. (That was probably because of the reduced audio quality.) Here, something sounded - different - somehow, but I couldn't put me finger on it. Enhanced audio quality may correct.
Those two scenes, plus anything from LeChucks Revenge (and Curse, in my opinion) are what Telltale should REALLY be focusing on, tonewise.
I agree completely with the OP, and especially with the points made about tone. That said, I'm just glad to be playing a new Monkey Island game at all, so you won't see me complaining too much.
Totally agreed. It's my hope that Telltale won't see this as complaining or nagging, so much as offering some constructive criticism, care of the community at large.
That's also why I wanted to debate these points - I'm presenting MY viewpoints on what makes Monkey Island work, but I'm also interested in hearing OTHER peoples viewpoints, whether they agree or not. I'm especialy interested in gaining new insights from others observations, as sometimes all it takes is a slight change in perspective to arrive at new revelations that you never saw before!
One thing about the voice: I listen with my headphones and Guybrush has an echo whenever he's talking normal to loud volume. There are scenes where echo is intended, BUT in the voodoo room shouldn't be such an echo. He really sounds like me producing my radio show... and we don't have professional studios at all as liberal radio station. But I thought BAS got that. Or did someone add an echo fx?
Good point about esponja. I kept thinking "Why is she mispronouncing that?"
You expect that from Guybrush, but the voodoo lady?
Minor niggle though. Really minor.
I'd LOVE to see more dark scenes, i'd love to see more piratey pirates and yeah.. lechuck scared the PANTS off me when I was a kid, the first two games he's just so.. menacing. I'd love to recover some of that dread, that fear you know?
But I can't take him seriously with that over done har har har of his... it just... grates. Makes me think of a jolly santa Ho Ho Ho. Does anyone else really dislike the forced laugh? Or am I just being petty? lol.
I like Winslow, he strikes me as an interesting and amusing character. I can believe he was a pirate, or at least a naval man.
Perhaps the rest of the people on Flotsam have just gone totally loopy from their time there. But the guy with two peglegs (Who's name escapes me) seemed faintly piratical before he went all pox... I just can't believe the glass blower and nipperkin were pirates. I get the feeling nipperkin was a cabin boy or something hahahaha. He looks like a cabin boy to me.
The chest of forshadowing/useless crystal ball etc jokes made me giggle. Now THAT is familiar MI humour.
Interesting note, this was a lucasarts presents sort of affair right? So... does this mean the voodoo lady has fulfilled her 5 game contract with them? (hehehe)
As I was eating lunch this afternoon, I started thinking more about the "unpiratey" pirates and La Esponje Grande.
MrFerder made a point earlier in the thread, and I started thinking really hard about it:
What's strange is that the quest of ToMI revolves around stopping the Pox from turning all the pirates into rude, fierce people, but shouldn't those be the least of the required character traits for a typical pirate? The way the pirates behave under the pox is the way they should be naturally be behaving all along. Since this is Monkey Island we shouldn't expect raping and pillaging, but the pirates should at least be naturally a little rough around the edges. Granted, Guybrush is as nice a guy as you'll find, but the whole gag is that he's a pirate wanna-be.
I've spent most of this thread complaining about the unpiratey-ness of the pirates, but that may be the entire point of this series.
Telltale knows that fans were generally displeased with Escape from Monkey Island. The pirates weren't pirates anymore, and the game had stopped being serious and had turned into a relatively silly affair, with social commentary.
Le Esponje as Reset Button?
The voodoo lady explains in this episode that LeChuck has been using his voodoo magic selfishly, without making sacrifices to the keeper of the Crossroads.
By selfishly drawing this voodoo magic without paying a price, he has created an evil veil that envelops him, sustaining him throughout his incarnations. It manifests itself as the Pox of LeChuck.
What if LeChuck has actually been SUCKING the pirateyness out of the pirates themselves? As LeChuck grew more powerful, the pirates grew more...domesticated...wimpy...bland...and forgot what made them pirates in the first place?
In this scenario, the pirates aren't being infected, so much as RE-infected with the very natures that LeChuck stole from them.
There's some potential for dramatic storytelling here - by LOSING this evil nature, LeChuck may really and truly have turned over a new leaf - it's possible that his advances (and Elaines interest) are actually genuine.
If this is the case, we're in for a hell of a ride - in this kind of a twist, Guybrush truly WOULD become a mighty pirate...by taking on LeChucks nature, and reverting the nature of the pirates to the truly scary pirates we used to know and love, Guybrush can become a Pirate King.
There's just one catch....to retain that nature, rather than USING the Giant Sponge, Guybrush will be forced to destroy it himself - and possibly lose Elaine in the process.
I don't think we're in for a single-season affair. How interesting would it be if the point of the first season is to actually revert the pirates from the generic nobodys' they've become, back to vicious corsairs, put Guybrushs' relationship in jeapoardy, and then stop the first season with a cliffhanger like that?
Makes you wonder where a second season could take us...and how in that season, our newly-studly Guybrush would divest himself of the Pox and return LeChuck to his position of dark menace?
If this is the case, we're in for a hell of a ride - in this kind of a twist, Guybrush truly WOULD become a mighty pirate...by taking on LeChucks nature, and reverting the nature of the pirates to the truly scary pirates we used to know and love, Guybrush can become a Pirate King.
Maybe even... a ghost pirate king?
After all, Episode 4 is titled "The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood".
Just a thought. That would really be an interesting role reversal--a pretty dark plot turn, even for Monkey Island.
Even with inverted personalities i cant imagine a "good" LeChuck.
Now that he is human and powerless, he is more vulnerable. So my thought is that maybe he will be acting as a changed person, only to protect himself, take advantage and wait for his turn to attack.
I think Guybrush and LeChuck will be working together, or at least they will share a same goal: Guybrush avoiding being transformed into a new LeChuck, and LeChuck trying to gain his power back.
I think Guybrush and LeChuck will be working together, or at least they will share a same goal: Guybrush avoiding being transformed into a new LeChuck, and LeChuck trying to gain his power back.
I'm not sure that Guybrush doesn't WANT to be transformed.
At the wishing well, he wishes to be transformed into the mightiest pirate ever...and is turned into LeChuck, briefly.
Sure..he screams "Noooo!" and is changed back...but subconsciously, this may be exactly what he wants.
It may be that the wishing well is a wishing well of foreshadowing as well....
Actually, this is one aspect of the plot that intrigued me, and I think there's a lot of potential to deliver. It reminded me of "El Pollo Diablo" (Guybrush: "The Devil Chicken?!") from Curse, and of the "Fabulous" treasure of Big Whoop from LeChucks Revenge.
It's just a classic MacGuffin - it's not the object itself that's important, just the journey to get there. Also "Voodoo Exfoliating Powers" makes me giggle.
Well, the difference is that the pollo diablo wasn't part of the actual plot, and there's nothing silly in the big whoop treasure being "fabulous" -until you do find it and dive into nonsense, that is.
To me, the first three games had a pretty serious, even classic story if you stripped it from the jokes (save the princess, find a treasure, cure a curse. Okay, it gets a bit more complex but basically, that's it). In EMI, the sillyness started getting into the plot itself (i dunno, i always thought this whole ultimate insult thing was just stupid and not really funny).
And that's what this sponge idea sounds like to me, at least for now.
Now, as i said, wait and see, we can't really comment on this before knnowing more about what they'll actually make out of it.
Well, the difference is that the pollo diablo wasn't part of the actual plot...
Well, not a *main* part of the plot. But Big Whoop (until Curse) was nothing more than an e-ticket - not really all that important. (Guybrush: "I found the Treasure of Big Whoop, and was enormously disappointed.")
...and there's nothing silly in the big whoop treasure being "fabulous" -until you do find it and dive into nonsense, that is.
I think a lot of this depends on what your interpretation of Big Whoop is. Despite the frustration it caused, I think the ending of MI2 is about the most brilliant things the developers ever did - by leaving it ambiguous (and self-contradictory!) this particular story point has allowed fans to debate and discuss it for 17 years!
My own take is that Curse very neatly wrapped up the controversy, and trying to explain any more after that became counter-intuitive. In my mind, the events at the end of MI2 don't really NEED to be explained - whatever the player comes up with in their own mind should suffice.
But that's neither here nor there - with respect to La Esponje Grande, I think there are a lot of interesting story possibilities here.
If La Esponje really does magically exfoliate voodoo in the manner that the voodoo lady describes, it's only natural that Guybrush and LeChuck will be using every method at their disposal to control or eliminate it.
Plotwise, I think this becomes very interesting if Guybrush actually does decide to destroy the sponge, rather than using it. If my theory earlier in the thread is correct, and LeChuck has been sucking the pirateyness out of the pirates all of these years by recklessly drawing power to himself without paying a cost, then it's actually in Guybrushes best interest to disperse that power amongst the pirates - both to prevent the commercial development of the Caribbean (as in Escape) AND to raise a fleet to muster against LeChuck...and attempt to eliminate him once and for all.
But Big Whoop (until Curse) was nothing more than an e-ticket - not really all that important. (Guybrush: "I found the Treasure of Big Whoop, and was enormously disappointed.")
Sure, but you only find this out at the very end. Up until then, both the player and guybrush have no idea of what they're gonna find but they feel it's going to be something big. Which is contrasted by the end, blabla, and i agree, this was a GREAT idea. But the quest itself is still pretty serious, unlike the whole "let's mess around with lots of voodoo nonsense until we end up with giant robot monkeys" of EMI.
Now concerning the actual sponge... Well i just don't know, all i said was that it FELT like this "wrong" kind of sillyness, but i'm basically waiting what comes out of it and avoiding speculations on that one. I like your suggestions, tho, but i don't have much to add to them.
But SoMI and MI2 both made me laugh out loud a bunch of times, and I think that is partially due to the fact that there were so many clever and original ideas accompanying the humor.
I think the reason why the first two games were funnier was because there were no recorded voices. Every line was played back in ones' head according to ones' own comic sensibility.
I think it was also because the sprites were just so cute (Guybrush, the Shopkeeper, Herman, Stan....hehehe)
Fantastic review. Your comments about the tone are, to my mind, spot on.
I am, however, EXTREMELY excited about the story possibility that is being fleshed out here by Slader and others. If, indeed, we could be in store for some role reversal and the re-establishing of darkness in the Monkey Island Universe Pirate Community (TM), I am ALL for it.
Before reading this thread I wasn't exactly sure WHAT I was disappointed with, but I think there are a lot of good points here. What made Lechuck's Revenge so great was that here I was, in the middle of a serious and dark pirate adventure, and my character keeps cracking jokes! You couldn't help but laugh.
Here, I am bombarded by absurdities without any sense of danger. Hence, no tension, and no laughter. I would even go so far as to disagree about the Marquis. He was better developed than any other character, yes, but he was also a little annoying. Why did he keep peeking his head out when you examined objects in his office? Why did he shoot you with a useless air gun when moments before he was willing to chop my limbs off? I thought the TONE of wanting to dismember my pirate arm was hilarious, it just falls flat with how flashy and generally bright the Marquis and his environment are.
For example. You could have easily made the "dentist's chair" scene more menacing by making the monkey an agent for both good and evil. One of the slides could have been that of the Marquis' planned amputation, therefore giving the monkey the idea to pick up a saw and look hungrily at your poxed arm. This would also serve the bonus function of living up to another common complaint, which is that there is no significant alternative dialogue or puzzles that "throw you off". Seeing an electromagnetic monkey brandishing a saw and ready to cut my arm off if don't do something about it would plunge me deeper into the game and make me think more about the entire story, rather than just trying everything around me to solve the puzzle.
Hopefully the dev team reads this and keeps working hard. You can tell a lot of love is put into the game, don't stop now!
I think the reason why the first two games were funnier was because there were no recorded voices. Every line was played back in ones' head according to ones' own comic sensibility.
That's a good point.
Good voice acting does a lot in fleshing out the characters (and bad voice acting is great at ruining them), but even when it's good, there'll always be someone who'll feel it deosn"t quite fit with what they had in mind. This is especially true when those characters once didn't have a voice, as you said.
For instance, i never quite bought into Dominic Armatto (did i spell it right?) 's rendition of Guybrush. He obviously did a great job, but it just doesn't sound like what i imagined while playing the first two and therefore trhows me a bit off.
But that being said, they've all done a good job so far, so i'm not really complaining here (and i LOVED elaine's voice in this one. i had never cared much for her, but hearing her in the intro just made me fall in love).
It also always makes me fear the dubbed version... They tend to suck hard. Max's voice in the original french version of sam and max was terrible, i almost couldn't play the game because of it :eek:
I will go along with most people in saying that Narwhal is a fine start to the series. I also genuinely believe we will start to see the darker side of Monkey Island as the series progresses. I think it was a certain Mr. Langley who told me that 'you'll be surprised at how much the tone of the series changes as it goes on' (or words very similar to that effect)
However it can't hurt to add my voice about the tone and just reiterate that something that has been somewhat missing for a while now is that feeling in MI that the stakes are truly high, the enemies to be FEARED and the path forward is wracked with uncertainty, mystery and a certain creeping dread... a feeling that pervaded the second game of the series which is, after all, a fan favourite.
Even though the pirates aren't as evil as they maybe should have been, or that the setting wasn't dark enough, am I (nearly) the only one feeling that the lack of difficulty was by far the main flaw of the game?
In the previous games I often got stuck an hour here and an hour there, trying to solve the one bottleneck-puzzle that stopped my progress. In this first episode I got stuck once, and it took maybe to trips around the map and ten minutes to solve it (to get the bomb to blow in Wilsons(?) face). Since everything just flew by, I'm sure there were lots of funny things I never got the chance to try out.
When I say flew by, I mean in comparison to the earlier MI games. Yes, it's only one fifth of the game, but the earlier fifths took way much longer for me. I really hope we get more game-time in the next episodes. (I played with no hints)
well, telltale games are pretty much designed to be played rather quickly (like it or not, this goes with the whole episodic thing), and they try to appeal not only to hardcore adventure gamers, but also to the more casual gamers.
So yeah, their game are pretty easy for someone used to the older puzzles (personally, i sucked at them anyway). I can understand why it would bother some of the old adventure fans, but i think it's basically the way to go : You've gotta face it, adventure games may not be completely dead but they do need to draw other people's attention. People not used to the kind of logic used in the earlier game, and therefore more likely to give up. Whether this is a shame or not is for everyone to decide, but we can't expect the genre to grow and hope for it to get back from the grave without getting rid of the harder stuff.
Now it's obviously a matter of balance. Personally i think Telltale set the difficulty just about right : Not too hard, but still (at least a bit, and at least for me) challenging. The first sam and max episodes were definitely too easy, and this improved over time. Maybe the difficulty will rise in this series as well, but i wouldn't expect it to reach MI2's level.
But the quest itself is still pretty serious, unlike the whole "let's mess around with lots of voodoo nonsense until we end up with giant robot monkeys" of EMI.
Yes. I think developers got caught in the loop of trying to EXPLAIN everything, when a great deal of the appeal of this type of fiction is the mystery - by NOT explaining everything, it allows the audience to suspend their disbelief in magic, and for a moment reawaken the wonder that every child has, and every adult forgets.
We don't NEED to know how the Monkey Island head got on Monkey Island, and we don't need to know what it's really for. All we need to know is that it's there, it's ancient, it led to the underground lava chambers where LeChucks ghost ship sailed - and that's it. We don't need it to be a robot - and we don't need some mythical "ultimate insult" to power the damned thing.
Darylman:
Here, I am bombarded by absurdities without any sense of danger. Hence, no tension, and no laughter.
Steve Martin actually commented on this in his autobiography. He had heard that laughter was the bodies natural response to the release of tension after a setup. Essentially, by setting up situation in which conflict would take place (as in a joke), the audience naturally becomes tense...and the punch-line is the release of that tension. When you really think about it, a good joke works this way...you may not think of the anticipation of the punchline as "tense", but your body does react that way...holding in your breath, tension of the shoulders in anticipation of the released breath, etc.
Steve Martin wanted to experiment with the idea of ratcheting up the tension, without giving the release...so a lot of his early schtick was having a stream of setups, without ever delivering a punchline. At first, audiences didn't get it...he'd move incredibly fast, from setup to setup, with the audience anticipating the punchline, but never getting it...and the tension kept mounting and mounting. Another trick Mr. Martin would use was to speed up the delivery as he kept delivering setups, and eventually the audience would catch on....the setup WAS the joke, and they would inevitably begin laughing at this frantic performer. Now they were in on the joke, and the tension was released. It was a pioneering form of comedy.
Now...the problem in regards to Monkey Island is that tension can only be maintained over short periods. You can ratchet that tension up as long as you like, but if you're continually ratcheting up the tension and providing release, eventually you get tired and you're no longer feeling the tension of the setup.
This is why most comics limit themselves to 30-40 minute sets...too many jokes stop being funny, and I think that's why the tone MUST be serious and dark, with moments of levity to break that tension. The laughter forms a kind of relief that gives you a buffer to accept more tension.
I would even go so far as to disagree about the Marquis. He was better developed than any other character, yes, but he was also a little annoying.
He was, but I think that was also sort of the point. I *do* see darkness in the Marquis...did you notice the camera closeups on his lips when he's talking about being exiled from the court of King Louis? He stopped being a fop, and for just half a second became genuinely frightening. Here is a man who believes in his own genius, and has been grossly humiliated. He will stop at nothing to restore his name, and that includes the reckless dismemberment of his fellows. If *he* were to gain voodoo power of any kind, I think he could be a formidable opponent. In this way, he reminded me a bit of Largo LaGrande...and my own love of *that* character makes me pray for a return of Largo, and a team-up with the Marquis.
pluizig:
Lorn is now officially my spokesperson on how I feel about this game.
Wow, thanks! Glad to hear that this thread is striking some chords and getting people to think about tone and plot! (which to my mind, are the two most important parts of storytelling)
Inso:
I think it was a certain Mr. Langley who told me that 'you'll be surprised at how much the tone of the series changes as it goes on' (or words very similar to that effect)
I had also heard that quote. The hard part is trying to understand how the development team sees "darkness". I'm curious about whether or not they're taking the pirates behavior (in EMI, and now the first episode) into account, and planning to change that in the course of their story...or if this is just their interpretation of what "funny monkey island pirates" is. If the former is the case, I'll be thrilled to pieces - that would indicate that a GREAT deal of thought went into the writing and continuity. If it's the latter...no matter what they do, at the end of the series I think I won't help but be disappointed.
However it can't hurt to add my voice about the tone and just reiterate that something that has been somewhat missing for a while now is that feeling in MI that the stakes are truly high, the enemies to be FEARED and the path forward is wracked with uncertainty, mystery and a certain creeping dread... a feeling that pervaded the second game of the series which is, after all, a fan favourite.
EXACTLY. Many others have already brought up the climax in LeChucks Revenge - when you're trying to construct the new "Chuckie" doll, LeChuck keeps appearing as you're trying to find ingredients or construct the doll. You have little time before he appears and begins torturing you again, and when he appears, there's a palpable SHOCK each time...fear, dread, and "Oh no!" That thrill is what we remember...even though LeChuck was funny, he was ultimately scary as hell. That menace MUST return to bring the series back to its roots.
Astro Gnocci:
Maybe the difficulty will rise in this series as well, but i wouldn't expect it to reach MI2's level.
Hmmm....my personal feeling is that this first episode really was serving as an introduction, in all respects. My hope is that the next episodes will be both larger, AND harder. I hope *some* of the puzzles reach the MI2 level of brilliance, but they should also be balanced as to not dissuade folks who are new to the genre. That's going to be a really tricky balance to strike and I'm anxious to see how Telltale handles it.
I had also heard that quote. The hard part is trying to understand how the development team sees "darkness". I'm curious about whether or not they're taking the pirates behavior (in EMI, and now the first episode) into account, and planning to change that in the course of their story...or if this is just their interpretation of what "funny monkey island pirates" is. If the former is the case, I'll be thrilled to pieces - that would indicate that a GREAT deal of thought went into the writing and continuity. If it's the latter...no matter what they do, at the end of the series I think I won't help but be disappointed.
I see what you mean, but I don't think we'll be disappointed. I internet-know Andrew from way back in the mists of time, before 1997, when we only had screenshots of CMI to chat excitedly about on IRC. He's coming from exactly the same place as we all came from as MI fans, and he's not the first person to talk with excitement about how the game progresses from episode 1 to 5.
Also, I'm not one of those people who thinks MI has to be set at night to be in its element (hey, there are several daytime islands that are perfectly moody in their own right) but the night does seem to carry some sort of tonal significance in the series, so I'm interested in this thematic shift from day to night that they have talked about. I can easily imagine that the tone will gradually darken as the settings literally darken.
That's one thing I feel like I haven't articulated well enough. In my initial review, I mentioned night-time, and how I wanted to see more night-themed sections.
I feel like I came across hard-line that the game MUST take place at night, and that wasn't the feeling I wanted to convey.
Because these games take place in the tropics, there definitely *should* be daytime environs. We should feel the heat, and the humidity. (Another key - demonstrated beautifully by Pirates of the Caribbean - things should look WET!)
I do think it's important to underscore that day-turning-into-night theme, though. The coming on of night, with moonlight and mist, should be the crossover into "magic-time", if that makes any sense. That shift into darkness reawakens something primal, back in the kid-brain - things are *scary* in the dark, and magic seems much more likely under cover of night.
The main point I was trying to make in my review (which I think got lost in the overall review) was that the character models and environment (to my eye) looked better in darker lighting, with a muted palette. Bright overhead tropical lighting with bright colors underscores the "plastic" look, which some people see as deliberate.
One thing that I felt that Narwhal did right was the 3d overhead map. I LOVED the swing up of the camera, the scudding 3d clouds, and the pox floating around the island.
One of the things I remember most vividly from Treasure Island is the description of the fierce sun overhead, as well as the pestilent, diseased air that hung over the swamps and threatened of fever.
We don't NEED to know how the Monkey Island head got on Monkey Island, and we don't need to know what it's really for. All we need to know is that it's there, it's ancient, it led to the underground lava chambers where LeChucks ghost ship sailed - and that's it. We don't need it to be a robot - and we don't need some mythical "ultimate insult" to power the damned thing.
Yep. That's why this trend for prequels suck so much.
When you really think about it, do you REALLY care about how darth vader became darth vader ? I don't. which is i guess the main reason why the new trilogy basically sucked.
Okay, this is kinda off topic, but seeing how much popular prequels have become since then, i still think it's interesting.
too many jokes stop being funny
Yep again, just like trying too hard to be funny usually makes you dull, no matter if the jokes themselves were good or not.
I hope *some* of the puzzles reach the MI2 level of brilliance, but they should also be balanced as to not dissuade folks who are new to the genre. That's going to be a really tricky balance to strike and I'm anxious to see how Telltale handles it.
Well, that's part of the point. Puzzles don't have to be hard to be clever and well designed. I'm too lazy to think of any exemple, but sometimes you can solve one pretty easily but still be satisfied, because even if it wasn't hard, the reasoning you just had to solve it was funny, or interesting, or whatever... pleasing in some way.
There was a long and interesting discussion about this when the sam and max episodes were coming out in which some guys made this very point in a way more thoughtful and interesting way, but i really couldn't find it back, except maybe after a few days of searching
But anyway, they puzzles HAVE increased in difficulty since the main complains have always been about this, but i still doubt they'll reach the insanity of the old school ones, and the old school fans will pretty much keep being disapointed on this point IMO. Some have already adapted, some probably wont... As i said, i think it's a good thing, but i do understand why anyone could disagree.
And to get back on the need for a more "piratey" feel, well, Irishmile posted this in another thread :
Yep, i won't mind a single bit if they reuse THIS model
That's one thing I feel like I haven't articulated well enough. In my initial review, I mentioned night-time, and how I wanted to see more night-themed sections.
I feel like I came across hard-line that the game MUST take place at night, and that wasn't the feeling I wanted to convey.
Because these games take place in the tropics, there definitely *should* be daytime environs. We should feel the heat, and the humidity. (Another key - demonstrated beautifully by Pirates of the Caribbean - things should look WET!)
I do think it's important to underscore that day-turning-into-night theme, though. The coming on of night, with moonlight and mist, should be the crossover into "magic-time", if that makes any sense. That shift into darkness reawakens something primal, back in the kid-brain - things are *scary* in the dark, and magic seems much more likely under cover of night.
The main point I was trying to make in my review (which I think got lost in the overall review) was that the character models and environment (to my eye) looked better in darker lighting, with a muted palette. Bright overhead tropical lighting with bright colors underscores the "plastic" look, which some people see as deliberate.
One thing that I felt that Narwhal did right was the 3d overhead map. I LOVED the swing up of the camera, the scudding 3d clouds, and the pox floating around the island.
One of the things I remember most vividly from Treasure Island is the description of the fierce sun overhead, as well as the pestilent, diseased air that hung over the swamps and threatened of fever.
Lorn
Oh don't get me wrong, I totally see where you're coming from, I didn't think that you were one of the ones saying that is HAS to be at night (there have been some).
And incidentaly I agree that the characters seem to light up better in darker settings, for whatever reason - I mention that in the next mixnmojo podcast that should be coming out soon.
Comments
I don't really laugh out loud much either. I guess you could say I'm jaded.
But SoMI and MI2 both made me laugh out loud a bunch of times, and I think that is partially due to the fact that there were so many clever and original ideas accompanying the humor. But that's the magic of Tim Schaffer, and like I say, he's a rare commodity in the industry.
I think he was mostly busy doing Grim Fandango, but he would contribute from time to time. If I'm not mistaken, one of his contributions was the pirate sing-a-long, which to me was one of the funniest things in the game and definitely a laugh-out-loud moment. Again, that goes back to originality and cleverness.
(BTW I don't want to mis-attribute that clever scene in CMI to the wrong guy... if I'm wrong I hope someone from TTG will correct me. Whoever thought that up should get credit for their brilliance)
I thought he was? I thought I remembered reading an interview somewhere indicating that he wrote a fair share of the puzzles and dialogue, but I guess I could be wrong? It's been so long ago now, I wouldn't have a prayer of finding the article again.
That brings me to another point that I haven't talked about much: The puzzles.
This is one area that I actually didn't have any complaints about in "Narwhal." I felt the puzzles were of exactly the right difficulty, fit into the plot just fine, and advanced the story.
I did think that the puzzle with the Marquis De Singe and the Messed Up Idol was poorly designed (mainly because a line that Guybrush delivered actually turned me OFF of the correct solution that I was persuing), but I've since found that there were other ways to solve this puzzle that I missed, and other people had a much easier time with this one than I did.
I definitely want to see more of this quality puzzle design in future episodes, if maybe making them a bit harder.
(Another poster mentioned how easy it was to get the unbreakable-glass breaker, and I tend to agree that that was far too easy).
Something more along the line of the wheel of cheese would tickle me pink.
Lorn
You have to remember that this is the first Chapter of the game. And to my knowledge the only real times we saw LeChuck in the other games, after the start of the game and before the final confrontation (apart from the 1st when he was introduced just towards the end) is in 'meanwhiles' in between chapters, and as we've just had the one chapter we don't know if Telltale plan to put these 'meanwhiles' in at the start or end of further chapters.
I'm sorry if that doesn't make much sense, I've been out and had a few bevvys tonight and I'm not sure how to get my point across.
I have followed Telltale's output since Texas Hold'em and I must hand it to them - they really have developed in leaps and bounds since the first products. I am now astounded at the level of detail they are now capable of producing for an episodic game on a strict deadline. The mood in the "creepy shack" gives me hope that they can pull off dark-nighttime-environments as well and I can't wait to see what they come up with. It is obvious an awful lot of passion, creativity and attention to detail have gone into creating for instance the various buildings on Flotsam. I just wish for that added layer of dream-like pirate-village with something sinister around the corner, just out of grasp.
So I also find myself in complete agreement with those who feel that the surrounding pirate inhabitants should be less goofy and a tad more serious, in order to provide contrast to Guybrush's personality. Now, story-wise, this could be "fixed" easily enough by having rougher types inhabit darker islands and just consider Flotsam to be a mostly harmless and pretty harmless and "safe" kind of place. I'm just afraid that Telltale's games thus far have generally been populated by various silly but still "nice" (or at least not intimidating) side characters. Design-wise, they look a bit too harmless and not especially fearsome (C'mon - they're pirates! They're allowed to be a bit ugly).
As for LeChuck - I fear his brooding presence diminishes the more he appears in the games, especially now when Guybrush is apparently able to stand next to him calmly with a smirk on his face and little to no sense of danger. In MI1 and MI2 there is a sense of dread and urgency regarding LeChuck. He is really out to capture, torture and kill Guybrush, and Guybrush reacts accordingly in those games. If Guybrush isn't really afraid of him anymore, then LeChuck just becomes a sad clown character going "Arr" all the time. I think he should be kept out of sight for as long as possible. It's like the shark in Jaws - it's scary because we know it's out there and could appear at any moment, but we only rarley see it.
There are two specific examples I can think of when i'm talking about the "Meanwhile" sequences.
The first is in The Secret of Monkey Island. When I got the first game all those years ago, I really knew nothing about it. I hadn't really been playing computer games all that long, so I didn't know what to expect. All I knew was that my character wanted to be a pirate, and I was turned loose on an island.
In my mind, I was expecting a fairly typical free-form adventure - almost a sandbox kind of thing. I didn't realize yet that this was a humorous take on piracy, and wasn't expecting any kind of central plot.
I headed into the Scumm Bar, bypassed Mancomb and Esteban, and immediately talked to the Important Looking Pirates in the Next Room, wanting to dive right into the tasks.
I got my quests...and headed out the door.
Suddenly..."MEANWHILE" popped onto the screen. This was COMPLETELY unexpected. I had never played a game before where things were taking place (to my mind) independently of what I (as the player) was doing.
The cutscene introducing LeChuck completely captivated me, and after having played nothing but Nintendo up until that point in my life, I suddenly realized that there was a whole new category of games with PLOT. LeChuck was interesting and scary, and I couldn't wait to see more.
And this was in what was technically the 2nd room of the game. What motivated me to keep playing was to keep getting those crucial little bits of story - that didn't really reveal much, but caused my anticipation to skyrocket.
The second example I can give is from LeChucks Revenge. After becoming very familiar with the original game, I had a much better idea of what to expect this time.
When LeChuck was resurrected, he was a totally different incarnation. He may've been a ghost pirate before, but even as a ghost he was generally jovial. He may not have liked Guybrush that much, but he also didn't take him that seriously.
In LeChucks Revenge, the zombie pirate was out for BLOOD and TORTURE. He wanted to make Guybrush feel pain, and with each newly captured piece of the map, you came to appreicate more and more how powerful LeChuck had become, and just what the stakes were as he took his frustrations out on Largo.
This IS the introductory episode...but by leaving these little bits of exposition out (or postponing them for the start of the next episode), the pacing has been thrown off - and the time that we're waiting for the next episode COULD be spent debating a more critical cliffhanger.
Note: I think this is actually the intent of the end of the episode...I just think the stakes could've been raised.
Mad Muppet:
I think he reached the apex of evil in LeChucks Revenge (although the addition of Earl Boen as the voice in Curse more than made up for the fact that he'd grown a little sillier.) After Escape, I think we really need to ratchet up the evil again. Zombie Pirate LeChuck was truly frightening in a way that he hasn't been since.
I can only partially agree on this point. Don't get me wrong...I don't think Guybrush and LeChuck should come face to face again until the climax, but I also don't think that we shouldn't see LeChuck at all.
You have to contrast the characters and keep LeChucks presence at the top of the players mind. Even if he's not seen, his influence should be a palpable presence, always threatening to overcome Guybrush.
It'll be interesting to see how literal this translates in these episodes, as Guybrush grows darker and darker due to the pox.
Lorn
Agreed. The sense of dread is definitely gone. It occurs to me though, that they might put an interesting spin on the whole thing. With LeChuck becoming human and Guybrush becoming partly posessed by the pox, will the tables turn? It might make for some interesting role-reversal in upcoming episodes.
If that's the case, then I'd be all for it. But once that's done, I want to go back to shaking in my boots at the mere mention of LeChuck (which admittedly would be a bit contrived, considering the number of times Guybrush has 'defeated' him).
I played through the episode a second time, and found that it improved on the second playthrough.
I'm especially anxious to see the Marquis De Singe again (I'd love to see him team up with Largo LaGrande, if only he would come back!), Winslow will be very interesting to see developed, and I'm still thrilled with the puzzles.
Does anybody have updated opinions after having played through twice?
Lorn
Silly me :eek:
That being said, i don't have much to add, but i love reading you guys. Great analysis and i agree 100% with most of what's being said.
Another thing that bugged me was this "esponja grande" thing. Okay, it's only the first episode and we have no idea of how it will turn out, but... A giant sponge ? Am i the only one to think it's exactly the kind of "wrong" sillyness that was all over EMI
Also, i thought the writing overall was good, but just that, good. After seeing the sam and max episodes become funnier and funnier with each episode (i genuinely think the two last ones were masterpieces), it did feel like a disapointing drop in quality.
Okay, i'm sure this post is gonna sound much more negative than it should, so i'll just end by saying that i still enjoyed the game very much. I'm just thinkin this is (so far) not as great as it could be. I'm pretty much willing to let Telltale prove me wrong, tho, and i don't doubt they can.
I agree completely with the OP, and especially with the points made about tone. That said, I'm just glad to be playing a new Monkey Island game at all, so you won't see me complaining too much.
Astro Gnocci:
Actually, this is one aspect of the plot that intrigued me, and I think there's a lot of potential to deliver. It reminded me of "El Pollo Diablo" (Guybrush: "The Devil Chicken?!") from Curse, and of the "Fabulous" treasure of Big Whoop from LeChucks Revenge.
It's just a classic MacGuffin - it's not the object itself that's important, just the journey to get there. Also "Voodoo Exfoliating Powers" makes me giggle.
I agree 100%, but I also expect the episodes further on to get better as well. This episode has a genuinely tough job to do, as it's pure setup. After playing it the second time last night, I think the biggest problem this episode faced (besides the tone, which we've discussed in-depth) is what Fawful mentioned earlier - we don't really get a payoff for getting off of Flotsam Island. We spent the entire episode building up to what we hoped would be the lead-in to the main plot and - nothing.
Well...not really nothing - I think they wanted to ratchet up the tension with the arrival of Kate (Pretty sure it's her - she's probably upset about the loss of her glass-bottomed boat business), and with the potential cliffhanger of LeChuck wooing Elaine - but it ultimately felt anticlimactic. It wasn't really a sense of reward for getting off the island. (This is where I think a true "Meanwhile" sequence would've benefited the game greatly.
Nighttide:
Me too! The introduction, with the rocking ships and the few moments with LeChuck also captured that feeling - I felt like it was only really regained when we entered the Voodoo Ladys creepy shack. (Also, great use of humor here - Chest of Foreshadowing is great!) One *minor* complaint that I have here is the Voodo Lady's voice - it's not the actress, she's great as usual - but she sounds different in every game due to the effects that are applied to her. She never sounded more ethereal than in Curse - in EMI, she sounded sort of hollow. (That was probably because of the reduced audio quality.) Here, something sounded - different - somehow, but I couldn't put me finger on it. Enhanced audio quality may correct.
Those two scenes, plus anything from LeChucks Revenge (and Curse, in my opinion) are what Telltale should REALLY be focusing on, tonewise.
Totally agreed. It's my hope that Telltale won't see this as complaining or nagging, so much as offering some constructive criticism, care of the community at large.
That's also why I wanted to debate these points - I'm presenting MY viewpoints on what makes Monkey Island work, but I'm also interested in hearing OTHER peoples viewpoints, whether they agree or not. I'm especialy interested in gaining new insights from others observations, as sometimes all it takes is a slight change in perspective to arrive at new revelations that you never saw before!
Lorn
Its not ESPONgea its more like in "Ham" or "Har!", EsponHA.
Shame on you Voodoo Lady!
Yeah, I also cringed every time Guybrush pronounced "De Singe" like the English verb meaning "to burn"* rather than the French word for "monkey."
*Or like Singe the Dragon from Dragon's Lair:
You expect that from Guybrush, but the voodoo lady?
Minor niggle though. Really minor.
I'd LOVE to see more dark scenes, i'd love to see more piratey pirates and yeah.. lechuck scared the PANTS off me when I was a kid, the first two games he's just so.. menacing. I'd love to recover some of that dread, that fear you know?
But I can't take him seriously with that over done har har har of his... it just... grates. Makes me think of a jolly santa Ho Ho Ho. Does anyone else really dislike the forced laugh? Or am I just being petty? lol.
I like Winslow, he strikes me as an interesting and amusing character. I can believe he was a pirate, or at least a naval man.
Perhaps the rest of the people on Flotsam have just gone totally loopy from their time there. But the guy with two peglegs (Who's name escapes me) seemed faintly piratical before he went all pox... I just can't believe the glass blower and nipperkin were pirates. I get the feeling nipperkin was a cabin boy or something hahahaha. He looks like a cabin boy to me.
The chest of forshadowing/useless crystal ball etc jokes made me giggle. Now THAT is familiar MI humour.
Interesting note, this was a lucasarts presents sort of affair right? So... does this mean the voodoo lady has fulfilled her 5 game contract with them? (hehehe)
MrFerder made a point earlier in the thread, and I started thinking really hard about it:
I've spent most of this thread complaining about the unpiratey-ness of the pirates, but that may be the entire point of this series.
Telltale knows that fans were generally displeased with Escape from Monkey Island. The pirates weren't pirates anymore, and the game had stopped being serious and had turned into a relatively silly affair, with social commentary.
Le Esponje as Reset Button?
The voodoo lady explains in this episode that LeChuck has been using his voodoo magic selfishly, without making sacrifices to the keeper of the Crossroads.
By selfishly drawing this voodoo magic without paying a price, he has created an evil veil that envelops him, sustaining him throughout his incarnations. It manifests itself as the Pox of LeChuck.
What if LeChuck has actually been SUCKING the pirateyness out of the pirates themselves? As LeChuck grew more powerful, the pirates grew more...domesticated...wimpy...bland...and forgot what made them pirates in the first place?
In this scenario, the pirates aren't being infected, so much as RE-infected with the very natures that LeChuck stole from them.
There's some potential for dramatic storytelling here - by LOSING this evil nature, LeChuck may really and truly have turned over a new leaf - it's possible that his advances (and Elaines interest) are actually genuine.
If this is the case, we're in for a hell of a ride - in this kind of a twist, Guybrush truly WOULD become a mighty pirate...by taking on LeChucks nature, and reverting the nature of the pirates to the truly scary pirates we used to know and love, Guybrush can become a Pirate King.
There's just one catch....to retain that nature, rather than USING the Giant Sponge, Guybrush will be forced to destroy it himself - and possibly lose Elaine in the process.
I don't think we're in for a single-season affair. How interesting would it be if the point of the first season is to actually revert the pirates from the generic nobodys' they've become, back to vicious corsairs, put Guybrushs' relationship in jeapoardy, and then stop the first season with a cliffhanger like that?
Makes you wonder where a second season could take us...and how in that season, our newly-studly Guybrush would divest himself of the Pox and return LeChuck to his position of dark menace?
Lorn
Maybe even... a ghost pirate king?
After all, Episode 4 is titled "The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood".
Just a thought. That would really be an interesting role reversal--a pretty dark plot turn, even for Monkey Island.
Now that he is human and powerless, he is more vulnerable. So my thought is that maybe he will be acting as a changed person, only to protect himself, take advantage and wait for his turn to attack.
I think Guybrush and LeChuck will be working together, or at least they will share a same goal: Guybrush avoiding being transformed into a new LeChuck, and LeChuck trying to gain his power back.
I'm not sure that Guybrush doesn't WANT to be transformed.
At the wishing well, he wishes to be transformed into the mightiest pirate ever...and is turned into LeChuck, briefly.
Sure..he screams "Noooo!" and is changed back...but subconsciously, this may be exactly what he wants.
It may be that the wishing well is a wishing well of foreshadowing as well....
Lorn
Well, the difference is that the pollo diablo wasn't part of the actual plot, and there's nothing silly in the big whoop treasure being "fabulous" -until you do find it and dive into nonsense, that is.
To me, the first three games had a pretty serious, even classic story if you stripped it from the jokes (save the princess, find a treasure, cure a curse. Okay, it gets a bit more complex but basically, that's it). In EMI, the sillyness started getting into the plot itself (i dunno, i always thought this whole ultimate insult thing was just stupid and not really funny).
And that's what this sponge idea sounds like to me, at least for now.
Now, as i said, wait and see, we can't really comment on this before knnowing more about what they'll actually make out of it.
Well, not a *main* part of the plot. But Big Whoop (until Curse) was nothing more than an e-ticket - not really all that important. (Guybrush: "I found the Treasure of Big Whoop, and was enormously disappointed.")
I think a lot of this depends on what your interpretation of Big Whoop is. Despite the frustration it caused, I think the ending of MI2 is about the most brilliant things the developers ever did - by leaving it ambiguous (and self-contradictory!) this particular story point has allowed fans to debate and discuss it for 17 years!
My own take is that Curse very neatly wrapped up the controversy, and trying to explain any more after that became counter-intuitive. In my mind, the events at the end of MI2 don't really NEED to be explained - whatever the player comes up with in their own mind should suffice.
But that's neither here nor there - with respect to La Esponje Grande, I think there are a lot of interesting story possibilities here.
If La Esponje really does magically exfoliate voodoo in the manner that the voodoo lady describes, it's only natural that Guybrush and LeChuck will be using every method at their disposal to control or eliminate it.
Plotwise, I think this becomes very interesting if Guybrush actually does decide to destroy the sponge, rather than using it. If my theory earlier in the thread is correct, and LeChuck has been sucking the pirateyness out of the pirates all of these years by recklessly drawing power to himself without paying a cost, then it's actually in Guybrushes best interest to disperse that power amongst the pirates - both to prevent the commercial development of the Caribbean (as in Escape) AND to raise a fleet to muster against LeChuck...and attempt to eliminate him once and for all.
Lorn
Sure, but you only find this out at the very end. Up until then, both the player and guybrush have no idea of what they're gonna find but they feel it's going to be something big. Which is contrasted by the end, blabla, and i agree, this was a GREAT idea. But the quest itself is still pretty serious, unlike the whole "let's mess around with lots of voodoo nonsense until we end up with giant robot monkeys" of EMI.
Now concerning the actual sponge... Well i just don't know, all i said was that it FELT like this "wrong" kind of sillyness, but i'm basically waiting what comes out of it and avoiding speculations on that one. I like your suggestions, tho, but i don't have much to add to them.
I think it was also because the sprites were just so cute (Guybrush, the Shopkeeper, Herman, Stan....hehehe)
I am, however, EXTREMELY excited about the story possibility that is being fleshed out here by Slader and others. If, indeed, we could be in store for some role reversal and the re-establishing of darkness in the Monkey Island Universe Pirate Community (TM), I am ALL for it.
Before reading this thread I wasn't exactly sure WHAT I was disappointed with, but I think there are a lot of good points here. What made Lechuck's Revenge so great was that here I was, in the middle of a serious and dark pirate adventure, and my character keeps cracking jokes! You couldn't help but laugh.
Here, I am bombarded by absurdities without any sense of danger. Hence, no tension, and no laughter. I would even go so far as to disagree about the Marquis. He was better developed than any other character, yes, but he was also a little annoying. Why did he keep peeking his head out when you examined objects in his office? Why did he shoot you with a useless air gun when moments before he was willing to chop my limbs off? I thought the TONE of wanting to dismember my pirate arm was hilarious, it just falls flat with how flashy and generally bright the Marquis and his environment are.
For example. You could have easily made the "dentist's chair" scene more menacing by making the monkey an agent for both good and evil. One of the slides could have been that of the Marquis' planned amputation, therefore giving the monkey the idea to pick up a saw and look hungrily at your poxed arm. This would also serve the bonus function of living up to another common complaint, which is that there is no significant alternative dialogue or puzzles that "throw you off". Seeing an electromagnetic monkey brandishing a saw and ready to cut my arm off if don't do something about it would plunge me deeper into the game and make me think more about the entire story, rather than just trying everything around me to solve the puzzle.
Hopefully the dev team reads this and keeps working hard. You can tell a lot of love is put into the game, don't stop now!
That's a good point.
Good voice acting does a lot in fleshing out the characters (and bad voice acting is great at ruining them), but even when it's good, there'll always be someone who'll feel it deosn"t quite fit with what they had in mind. This is especially true when those characters once didn't have a voice, as you said.
For instance, i never quite bought into Dominic Armatto (did i spell it right?) 's rendition of Guybrush. He obviously did a great job, but it just doesn't sound like what i imagined while playing the first two and therefore trhows me a bit off.
But that being said, they've all done a good job so far, so i'm not really complaining here (and i LOVED elaine's voice in this one. i had never cared much for her, but hearing her in the intro just made me fall in love).
It also always makes me fear the dubbed version... They tend to suck hard. Max's voice in the original french version of sam and max was terrible, i almost couldn't play the game because of it :eek:
However it can't hurt to add my voice about the tone and just reiterate that something that has been somewhat missing for a while now is that feeling in MI that the stakes are truly high, the enemies to be FEARED and the path forward is wracked with uncertainty, mystery and a certain creeping dread... a feeling that pervaded the second game of the series which is, after all, a fan favourite.
In the previous games I often got stuck an hour here and an hour there, trying to solve the one bottleneck-puzzle that stopped my progress. In this first episode I got stuck once, and it took maybe to trips around the map and ten minutes to solve it (to get the bomb to blow in Wilsons(?) face). Since everything just flew by, I'm sure there were lots of funny things I never got the chance to try out.
When I say flew by, I mean in comparison to the earlier MI games. Yes, it's only one fifth of the game, but the earlier fifths took way much longer for me. I really hope we get more game-time in the next episodes. (I played with no hints)
So yeah, their game are pretty easy for someone used to the older puzzles (personally, i sucked at them anyway). I can understand why it would bother some of the old adventure fans, but i think it's basically the way to go : You've gotta face it, adventure games may not be completely dead but they do need to draw other people's attention. People not used to the kind of logic used in the earlier game, and therefore more likely to give up. Whether this is a shame or not is for everyone to decide, but we can't expect the genre to grow and hope for it to get back from the grave without getting rid of the harder stuff.
Now it's obviously a matter of balance. Personally i think Telltale set the difficulty just about right : Not too hard, but still (at least a bit, and at least for me) challenging. The first sam and max episodes were definitely too easy, and this improved over time. Maybe the difficulty will rise in this series as well, but i wouldn't expect it to reach MI2's level.
Astro Gnocci:
Yes. I think developers got caught in the loop of trying to EXPLAIN everything, when a great deal of the appeal of this type of fiction is the mystery - by NOT explaining everything, it allows the audience to suspend their disbelief in magic, and for a moment reawaken the wonder that every child has, and every adult forgets.
We don't NEED to know how the Monkey Island head got on Monkey Island, and we don't need to know what it's really for. All we need to know is that it's there, it's ancient, it led to the underground lava chambers where LeChucks ghost ship sailed - and that's it. We don't need it to be a robot - and we don't need some mythical "ultimate insult" to power the damned thing.
Darylman:
Steve Martin actually commented on this in his autobiography. He had heard that laughter was the bodies natural response to the release of tension after a setup. Essentially, by setting up situation in which conflict would take place (as in a joke), the audience naturally becomes tense...and the punch-line is the release of that tension. When you really think about it, a good joke works this way...you may not think of the anticipation of the punchline as "tense", but your body does react that way...holding in your breath, tension of the shoulders in anticipation of the released breath, etc.
Steve Martin wanted to experiment with the idea of ratcheting up the tension, without giving the release...so a lot of his early schtick was having a stream of setups, without ever delivering a punchline. At first, audiences didn't get it...he'd move incredibly fast, from setup to setup, with the audience anticipating the punchline, but never getting it...and the tension kept mounting and mounting. Another trick Mr. Martin would use was to speed up the delivery as he kept delivering setups, and eventually the audience would catch on....the setup WAS the joke, and they would inevitably begin laughing at this frantic performer. Now they were in on the joke, and the tension was released. It was a pioneering form of comedy.
Now...the problem in regards to Monkey Island is that tension can only be maintained over short periods. You can ratchet that tension up as long as you like, but if you're continually ratcheting up the tension and providing release, eventually you get tired and you're no longer feeling the tension of the setup.
This is why most comics limit themselves to 30-40 minute sets...too many jokes stop being funny, and I think that's why the tone MUST be serious and dark, with moments of levity to break that tension. The laughter forms a kind of relief that gives you a buffer to accept more tension.
He was, but I think that was also sort of the point. I *do* see darkness in the Marquis...did you notice the camera closeups on his lips when he's talking about being exiled from the court of King Louis? He stopped being a fop, and for just half a second became genuinely frightening. Here is a man who believes in his own genius, and has been grossly humiliated. He will stop at nothing to restore his name, and that includes the reckless dismemberment of his fellows. If *he* were to gain voodoo power of any kind, I think he could be a formidable opponent. In this way, he reminded me a bit of Largo LaGrande...and my own love of *that* character makes me pray for a return of Largo, and a team-up with the Marquis.
pluizig:
Wow, thanks! Glad to hear that this thread is striking some chords and getting people to think about tone and plot! (which to my mind, are the two most important parts of storytelling)
Inso:
I had also heard that quote. The hard part is trying to understand how the development team sees "darkness". I'm curious about whether or not they're taking the pirates behavior (in EMI, and now the first episode) into account, and planning to change that in the course of their story...or if this is just their interpretation of what "funny monkey island pirates" is. If the former is the case, I'll be thrilled to pieces - that would indicate that a GREAT deal of thought went into the writing and continuity. If it's the latter...no matter what they do, at the end of the series I think I won't help but be disappointed.
EXACTLY. Many others have already brought up the climax in LeChucks Revenge - when you're trying to construct the new "Chuckie" doll, LeChuck keeps appearing as you're trying to find ingredients or construct the doll. You have little time before he appears and begins torturing you again, and when he appears, there's a palpable SHOCK each time...fear, dread, and "Oh no!" That thrill is what we remember...even though LeChuck was funny, he was ultimately scary as hell. That menace MUST return to bring the series back to its roots.
Astro Gnocci:
Hmmm....my personal feeling is that this first episode really was serving as an introduction, in all respects. My hope is that the next episodes will be both larger, AND harder. I hope *some* of the puzzles reach the MI2 level of brilliance, but they should also be balanced as to not dissuade folks who are new to the genre. That's going to be a really tricky balance to strike and I'm anxious to see how Telltale handles it.
Lorn
I see what you mean, but I don't think we'll be disappointed. I internet-know Andrew from way back in the mists of time, before 1997, when we only had screenshots of CMI to chat excitedly about on IRC. He's coming from exactly the same place as we all came from as MI fans, and he's not the first person to talk with excitement about how the game progresses from episode 1 to 5.
Also, I'm not one of those people who thinks MI has to be set at night to be in its element (hey, there are several daytime islands that are perfectly moody in their own right) but the night does seem to carry some sort of tonal significance in the series, so I'm interested in this thematic shift from day to night that they have talked about. I can easily imagine that the tone will gradually darken as the settings literally darken.
That's one thing I feel like I haven't articulated well enough. In my initial review, I mentioned night-time, and how I wanted to see more night-themed sections.
I feel like I came across hard-line that the game MUST take place at night, and that wasn't the feeling I wanted to convey.
Because these games take place in the tropics, there definitely *should* be daytime environs. We should feel the heat, and the humidity. (Another key - demonstrated beautifully by Pirates of the Caribbean - things should look WET!)
I do think it's important to underscore that day-turning-into-night theme, though. The coming on of night, with moonlight and mist, should be the crossover into "magic-time", if that makes any sense. That shift into darkness reawakens something primal, back in the kid-brain - things are *scary* in the dark, and magic seems much more likely under cover of night.
The main point I was trying to make in my review (which I think got lost in the overall review) was that the character models and environment (to my eye) looked better in darker lighting, with a muted palette. Bright overhead tropical lighting with bright colors underscores the "plastic" look, which some people see as deliberate.
One thing that I felt that Narwhal did right was the 3d overhead map. I LOVED the swing up of the camera, the scudding 3d clouds, and the pox floating around the island.
One of the things I remember most vividly from Treasure Island is the description of the fierce sun overhead, as well as the pestilent, diseased air that hung over the swamps and threatened of fever.
Lorn
Yep. That's why this trend for prequels suck so much.
When you really think about it, do you REALLY care about how darth vader became darth vader ? I don't. which is i guess the main reason why the new trilogy basically sucked.
Okay, this is kinda off topic, but seeing how much popular prequels have become since then, i still think it's interesting.
Yep again, just like trying too hard to be funny usually makes you dull, no matter if the jokes themselves were good or not.
Well, that's part of the point. Puzzles don't have to be hard to be clever and well designed. I'm too lazy to think of any exemple, but sometimes you can solve one pretty easily but still be satisfied, because even if it wasn't hard, the reasoning you just had to solve it was funny, or interesting, or whatever... pleasing in some way.
There was a long and interesting discussion about this when the sam and max episodes were coming out in which some guys made this very point in a way more thoughtful and interesting way, but i really couldn't find it back, except maybe after a few days of searching
But anyway, they puzzles HAVE increased in difficulty since the main complains have always been about this, but i still doubt they'll reach the insanity of the old school ones, and the old school fans will pretty much keep being disapointed on this point IMO. Some have already adapted, some probably wont... As i said, i think it's a good thing, but i do understand why anyone could disagree.
And to get back on the need for a more "piratey" feel, well, Irishmile posted this in another thread :
Yep, i won't mind a single bit if they reuse THIS model
Oh don't get me wrong, I totally see where you're coming from, I didn't think that you were one of the ones saying that is HAS to be at night (there have been some).
And incidentaly I agree that the characters seem to light up better in darker settings, for whatever reason - I mention that in the next mixnmojo podcast that should be coming out soon.