I especially loved that not only could I not loan any other book from the library, but I learned absolutely nothing about the Mer-People other than the fact that they are terrible at conflict resolution.
Brownie points for being perhaps the first other person I've seen who rates the games 4-1-3-2. I LOOOVE the second game, I hope ToMI goes a bit back in that direction soon.
I think the point the OP made was similar to the one I attempted to, to put it another way:
I think the original S&M and MI games had a subtle, sadistic undercurrent that the Telltale games lack - that edge.
Think of the first scene in S&M HTR, where they show a man hanging by the floor rails - Sam says 'Brutal' and Max responds 'but very true to life'. Visually and verbally this was laugh out loud - I cannot describe it - get a copy of the game if you can.
In another scene there's Max pummeling a low-life - again the way it's depicted was just laugh out loud. And there are numerous other scenes like this. The designers did not hold themselves back. In fact just the cover of S&M HTR makes one laugh - that surely has to be one of the best game covers of all time.
By comparison the Telltale humour is very patterned and cookie-cutter style, and gets stale soon. And I am sure this is partly to cater for a family audience.
In fact if you want a perfect example compare the game intro of SMHTR with Telltale - I can tell you now which one will hurt my funny belly.
Horses for courses I guess. Still I did buy S&M season 1 and TOMI and enjoying them for what they are.
what you said is very true, but regarding sam and max, i do think it got better with season two. Maybe not quite "there" yet, but the humour definitely "improved" (by improved, i mean getting closer to the original game or comics)
If so, I apologize...I meant to get it put up this weekend. I had a few things get in the way.
Earlier this year, my girlfriend informed me that I was going to become a Dad - this led to an unexpected purchase of a house.
We just got moved in two weeks ago, so we're still unpacking and trying to get things organized. The only real spare time I have to help with this is on the weekend, so familial duties took precedence.
(Also, I bought and assembled a crib.)
In addition to that, I'm a network administrator for an internet service provider, and we had some issues this weekend that required me to work pretty much straight through.
Again, my apologies. I do intend to rectify the lack of review in the next couple of days...possibly even today if I can carve out some time!
In an effort to keep on topic...would it help if I let you know the babies room will be done up in a pirate theme?
Dont know why i started the "Where is the Atmosphere" Thread, Every point i wanted to make was summed up in the first post, glad im not the only one who feels that Tales needs tweeking
I completely agree with all the comments about the tone/atmosphere of the game not being piratey enough, especially compared to MI1-2. I attribute this mostly to the designs of the background characters. While it has improved in Episode 2, I still found the pirates to look and act too goofily.
If so, I apologize...I meant to get it put up this weekend. I had a few things get in the way.
Earlier this year, my girlfriend informed me that I was going to become a Dad - this led to an unexpected purchase of a house.
We just got moved in two weeks ago, so we're still unpacking and trying to get things organized. The only real spare time I have to help with this is on the weekend, so familial duties took precedence.
(Also, I bought and assembled a crib.)
In addition to that, I'm a network administrator for an internet service provider, and we had some issues this weekend that required me to work pretty much straight through.
Again, my apologies. I do intend to rectify the lack of review in the next couple of days...possibly even today if I can carve out some time!
In an effort to keep on topic...would it help if I let you know the babies room will be done up in a pirate theme?
Lorn
Congratulations on both accounts! Can't wait for the Grog-themed series of baby bottles.
Once again, my sincere apologies for taking so long to get to this. I initially intended to post my review of the second episode immediately after finishing it on the release date, but I was too tired to post it up that night, and after that life interfered.
I just went through another playthrough to refresh my memory on the events of this epsiode.
Also, I decided against posting additional threads with each new episode - we'll just keep it all in here.
Anyway...without further ado, here's my take on Tales of Monkey Island: Episode 2 - The Siege of Spinner Cay!
Ranking
Alright! To refresh everybody's memory, my take on the original games was that they were ranked as follows, worst to best:
Escape from Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Curse of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2: LeChucks' Revenge
Since playing the first two "Tales" episodes, I would rank them thusly:
Escape from Monkey Island
Tales of Monkey Island - Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
Tales of Monkey Island - The Siege of Spinner Cay
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Curse of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
Story
Well, now we're getting somewhere - sorta. While "LOTSN" ended the years-long drought of Monkey Island content, there was a vauge uneasiness in my mind about how the series started off.
While it was great to see old and new characters on the screen again, the first episode left me wondering where all of this was going, and whether or not it could even be relevent in the overall Monkey Island saga.
While The Siege of Spinner Cay still hasn't revealed Telltales hand, it's certainly alleviated some of my fears regarding humor and dialogue, something that I felt was a weak point in the previous episode.
On the other hand, new fantastical elements have been introduced, which have generated a lot of controversy in the "Monkey Island" fanbase.
Frankly, I'm not sure where I stand on this issue, even now. I had heard prior to release that the Vacaylians were going to be merpeople, and the concept of their inclusion bothered me a bit - not because they don't exist in maritime legendary tradition, but because this seemed to be "pushing it" in the Monkey Island Canon - it didn't feel like it would mesh with the voodoo/ghost story vibe that the rest of the series has given off.
As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, these kinds of tonal shifts are what (I believe) turned people off of Escape from Monkey Island - it's hard to get from Voodoo to Giant Monkey Robots.
When playing the episode though, I found that I accepted the Vacaylians easily...possibly because I felt the characters were funny and well written.
I'm not necessarily sure that Monkey Island shoudl've gone here...but a lot of that will probably depend on how the Vacaylians ultimately fit into the overall story. If there's a good explanation for why the Vacaylian culture and their ruins exist, that fits into the overall Guybrush/Elaine/LeChuck arc, I'm sure we'll be fine.
Also, for those people who strenuously object to their inclusion - I suspect another element that may be working against their acceptance is their androgynous design. While funny, folks may have had an easier time accepting them if they were the traditional merman/mermaid design known throughout myth and legend. (See the conept art for the credit sequence in Curse of Monkey Island - if the Vacaylians looked like traditional mermaids, would there still be an issue?)
Script
The script in Episode II is MUCH improved from Episode I, in this reviewers opinion. The writers seem to be finding their footing, growing more confident with Monkey Islands unique brand of humor.
The one frustration I found in this episode is that we still don't really know where this is all going. Some of this ambiguity is good...such as questioning what's going on with LeChuck and Elaine.
Still, it would be nice to have a bit more idea about what's going on with the sponge itself...we need to have more idea of what it could possibly be used for. I get the impression it's NOT just a voodoo exfoliator, and I suspect it's also going to play in with these Monkeys that LeChuck is so concered about.
While we got lots of new, exciting, and funny characters in this episode (A HUGE improvement over Launch of the Screaming Narwhal) I couldn't help but now decry losing track of the Voodoo Lady and the relatively minor cameo with DeSinge.
I can't help but still feel that "Meanwhile" sequences (besides the brief one with the Marquis) would be a help to keep all of the players in the drama at top-of-mind. With so many interesting characters (LeChuck/Elaine/The Voodoo Lady/The Marquis/McGillicutty/Morgan/potentially DeCava) there's a lot of balls in the air, and they all have to keep moving.
Also, we'd better get some more solid information on DeCava soon. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of him in the next episode, but it feels clumsy to put us on his trail in the first episode, and LEAVE us on his trail at the end of this one. It would've been nice to have actually come face-to-face with him BEFORE we cut to the "To be Continued" tagline.
Dialogue
Where Launch of the Screaming Narwhal left me with a few cracked smiles, The Siege of Spinner Cay had me laughing often. They certainly seem more confident in their writing, and less nervous about offending. This (to me) is a welcome change. While some have decried some innuendo present in the game, I never felt that it was anything more racy than what had come before - kids probably won't even notice.
Puzzles
Strangely, the puzzles in Siege of Spinner Cay actually seem *easier* than in Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. There's never really any question about what has to be done...only about how to do it.
Thankfully, the developers are making greater use of the inventory and item combination, but I still haven't seen anything truly brain-bendy or clever. In fact, the location of most of the objects telegraph the solutions to the puzzles.
The one truly amazing puzzle sequence I can think of wasn't difficult, but was beautiful...and that was the opening fight with Morgan aboard the Screaming Narwhal. THIS was clever guys, and I'd like to see more clever approaches to puzzle design like this in future episodes.
I think it's high time that Telltale turn up the difficulty in the series. While the ease of the puzzles didn't detract from my enjoyment of this episode, it did leave me feeling that their underestimating the intelligence of their audience. Half of the fun of the previous games in the Monkey Island series was in the seriously twisted logic that the player had to employ.
On this count, I implore you, Telltale - try to beat me. Just once. I know you said you wouldn't, but I'll forgive you if you try. We can take it. Trust me.
Art Direction
Telltale continues to squeeze out some impressive art from their engine. While the engine itself may be starting to show some of it's age, they've actually succesfully swayed me on their "cinematic" style.
I initially argued against the new control scheme for Guybrush in LOTSN, but Siege convinced me that Telltale got it right.
Where the camera sometimes fought me in LOTSN, here Telltale succesfully panned back for wide shots, and made sweeping camera moves that I wouldn't have thought possible prior to this episode.
This use of cinematic techniques really makes the art and animation shine, so once again - Big Props, Telltale. You've sold me. Just keep up the good work in forthcoming episodes.
Characters
The first character I must mention is Morgan LeFlay. Wow, guys. THIS is what makes a great character. While most in the community believed that Morgan would either be Kate Capsize or Carla the Swordmaster (including myself!), I love the character of Morgan most of all in this episode.
The physical model is beautiful, and fight animations (with leaps, flips, and sword flourishes) telegraph her skill with a blade. Frankly, she's deadly. This contrasts BEAUTIFULLY with her personality - I'd almost call her "spunky", and cute. I foresee her being a perfect foil for Guybrush, and her presence definitely adds an interesting wrinkle in his relationship with Elaine.
The secondary characters are no less inspired. While you're still obviously reusing old character models, they were much better disguised in this episode. Personalities (particularly McGillicutty) were much more piratey, and I breathed a sigh of relief to see that we're finally seeing some genuine pirates in a Monkey Island game again.
No less welcome were Pintel and Ragetti....um...I mean Murkel and Killick. Essentially a piratey Abbot and Costello, it's funny how these types of characters always work in a comedic pairing.
Thanks for paying attention to your characters, guys - it really sells the story.
Environments
As for environments, they were beautiful as always...the moving-towards-dusk feeling of this episode leads to some brilliant lighting.
While I wondered about the design of Spinner Cay from the concept art, I thought it worked very well in the game, particularly with the cinematic pans and tilts.
One area of concern is the overuse of pink/purple/orange. While this works for the dusky atmosphere, I felt it was overused by the time I got to the jungle.
(Speaking of the jungle - I think I've seen about enough of it by now. While I LOVED the window dressing that was added - particularly the deceased pirate by the tree - I'd rather not see another jungle throughout the rest of the series)
Sound
Music
The music is also much improved in this episode, and I find myself humming parts from this epsiode when I'm in a piratey move. A lot of the music here reminds me of music from LeChucks Revenge.
It still sounds synthesized, but the pirate vibe is back, and themes are distinct. While I still think a fully orchestral score (as in Curse) would add depth to the score, I certainly won't complain about this one.
Voices
The voice cast in this episode was perfect. The actress who portrays Morgan LeFlay is perfectly married to her character, and LeChuck somehow managed to sound clueless and befuddled, while also somehow managing to inject a subtle layer of menace underneath.
I think I even recognized the voice of a lady who does voicework on Futurama, though I can't be certain. I do think that Telltale is having an easier time of attracting quality voice talent then they did even a few years ago.
Technical
Thankfully, this issue I had no technical problems to report. I felt the control interface was improved, and a lot of this had to do with virtual camera blocking.
Judgement
The Siege of Spinner cay left me in a weird place. I really, truly enjoyed this episode, and felt that it felt MUCH more like Monkey Island.
On the other hand, it also felt like something else...part of this is just Telltale putting their own unique stamp on the series, but I can't help but feel that they'd better start tying some things together, and soon.
Part of this problem may be due to having too many balls in the air...a large part of it is also probably due to the fact that the episodes are episodic in nature.
This should probably be taken as a compliment, as it means that Telltale have got me succesfully invested in the characters, caring enough to be impatient to find out what happens to them next.
I don't think Telltale have hit their "A"-game yet, though...while definitely an improvement over LOTSN, I think we need to start getting an idea of what LeChuck, DeSinge, Decava, and the Voodoo Lady are all up to. It's time to get past the "set-up" phase.
I can't help but feel that the ultimate fate of the series is still up in the air in my mind. Whether or not all of this can be accepted as "canon" in my mind will depend on how well it all ties together. If the story works, I can accept it all easily. If it doesn't....well....I may consider it an "alternate" Monkey Island World...and that's a weird feeling.
What Worked Best
Morgan LeFlay.
The Fight Mechanic with Morgan LeFlay.
Pirates who are actually Piratey.
The whole Guybrush/Elaine/LeChuck triangle.
LeChuck himself...the new voice actor has totally sold me on his work, and also manages to sound surprisingly like Earl Boen in his human guise.
What was Missed
The Voodoo Lady
Tougher Puzzles
DeCava (I was really hoping to see him in this episode)
Tougher Puzzles
A clearer idea of where we're going with all this
Some Tougher puzzles might be beneficial
DeSinge
Advice to Telltale
First of all...keep displaying the confidence you displayed in this episode. I have no doubt that you knew that you were going to generate some controvery with the Vacaylians, but you stuck to your guns and you're telling your story the way you want to tell it.
I'm also pretty sure it must've been difficult to try and hit that "monkey island" humor sweet spot, but I felt you did here. Injecting a little subtle "adult" humor was probably something that made you sweat a little bit, but it was present in the old games, and it was needed here. Keep it up!
I can't help feeling like we're still searching for that "tone" we've defined earlier in this thread, though.
It's time to start showing some of your cards...we, as the audience, need to have a better idea of how the pieces come together.
As we're closing at dusk, I can't help but hope that we're coming to the night-time shift. With that will also come some voodoo, I hope...something that I felt was oddly missing in this episode.
(Strangely, I didn't consider the Vacaylian artifacts or ritual words "voodoo" for some reason - while the Pox may have a voodoo origin, I think it's high time to see some real voodoo magic...and bring the voodoo lady back, if possible.)
By the way...the introduction by the voodoo lady at the very opening was brilliant. Hope we see more of that at the start of episode 3.
Conclusion
As I said, this episode is sort of frustrating to review, because even now I'm not sure how I feel about it. I know that I liked it a lot better than epsiode one, and that I enjoyed myself while playing it.
That said, I think we're still trying to nail the "Monkey Island Tone."
As I said, this episode is sort of frustrating to review, because even now I'm not sure how I feel about it. I know that I liked it a lot better than epsiode one, and that I enjoyed myself while playing it.
This pretty much sums it up.
It's weird indeed, i can spot a lot of improvement but on the other hand more stuff bothered me than in the first episode. Still, i enjoyed it much more than "Narwhal" on the whole...
Maybe i just being contradictory :eek:
Frankly, I'm not sure where I stand on this issue, even now. I had heard prior to release that the Vacaylians were going to be merpeople, and the concept of their inclusion bothered me a bit - not because they don't exist in maritime legendary tradition, but because this seemed to be "pushing it" in the Monkey Island Canon - it didn't feel like it would mesh with the voodoo/ghost story vibe that the rest of the series has given off.
When playing the episode though, I found that I accepted the Vacaylians easily...possibly because I felt the characters were funny and well written.
I'm not necessarily sure that Monkey Island should've gone here...but a lot of that will probably depend on how the Vacaylians ultimately fit into the overall story. If there's a good explanation for why the Vacaylian culture and their ruins exist, that fits into the overall Guybrush/Elaine/LeChuck arc, I'm sure we'll be fine.
Also, for those people who strenuously object to their inclusion - I suspect another element that may be working against their acceptance is their androgynous design. While funny, folks may have had an easier time accepting them if they were the traditional merman/mermaid design known throughout myth and legend. (See the conept art for the credit sequence in Curse of Monkey Island - if the Vacaylians looked like traditional mermaids, would there still be an issue?)
I stand much easier with the merfolk. I thought when references started appearing in LotSN, "they'd better do it MI-like". As a result, they're very different to merpeople found in any other work of fiction and quite funny.
They rightly took their role in the background. If the episode had lots about the merpeople, I'd have felt it was sidetracking from the quest too much. If you look at the Pirates of Danjer Cove or the Goodsoups in CMI, they worked well on their own without interfering with the story too much. If you want to look further back to Ron Gilbert's MI games, take the MI cannibals or the Woodtick for examples.
The one frustration I found in this episode is that we still don't really know where this is all going. Some of this ambiguity is good...such as questioning what's going on with LeChuck and Elaine.
They wrote this very well, I feel, and that we'll find out more during the next episode during Meanwhiles.
Still, it would be nice to have a bit more idea about what's going on with the sponge itself...we need to have more idea of what it could possibly be used for. I get the impression it's NOT just a voodoo exfoliator, and I suspect it's also going to play in with these Monkeys that LeChuck is so concerned about.
While we got lots of new, exciting, and funny characters in this episode (a HUGE improvement over Launch of the Screaming Narwhal) I couldn't help but now decry losing track of the Voodoo Lady and the relatively minor cameo with DeSinge.
I can't help but still feel that "Meanwhile" sequences (besides the brief one with the Marquis) would be a help to keep all of the players in the drama at top-of-mind. With so many interesting characters (LeChuck/Elaine/The Voodoo Lady/The Marquis/McGillicutty/Morgan/potentially DeCava) there's a lot of balls in the air, and they all have to keep moving.
I can't see how they could have put more of De Singe in. They did well to let the player know that De Singe has a more sinister plan than merely studying the posessed hand.
I don't think we'll see the former in ch3, or the Voodoo Lady (but the latter might do another "Previously on Lo- Tales" thing with her cards).
Also, we'd better get some more solid information on DeCava soon. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of him in the next episode, but it feels clumsy to put us on his trail in the first episode, and LEAVE us on his trail at the end of this one. It would've been nice to have actually come face-to-face with him BEFORE we cut to the "To be Continued" tagline.
(Speaking of the jungle - I think I've seen about enough of it by now. While I LOVED the window dressing that was added - particularly the deceased pirate by the tree - I'd rather not see another jungle throughout the rest of the series)
I think we've seen the last of those. We will probably visit Flotsam again in ep4 but seeing as we have all the locations in Map View, we don't need to use the jungle paths at all.
The music is also much improved in this episode, and I find myself humming parts from this epsiode when I'm in a piratey mood. A lot of the music here reminds me of music from LeChucks Revenge.
It still sounds synthesized, but the pirate vibe is back, and themes are distinct. While I still think a fully orchestral score (as in Curse) would add depth to the score, I certainly won't complain about this one.
I only had an internal speaker for company while I grew up, so I prefer the LeChuck theme on that (I only heard the MIDIs after the turn of the millennium). Curse, however, had really great atmospheric music.
On the other hand, it also felt like something else...part of this is just Telltale putting their own unique stamp on the series, but I can't help but feel that they'd better start tying some things together, and soon.
Part of this problem may be due to having too many balls in the air...a large part of it is also probably due to the fact that the episodes are episodic in nature.
This should probably be taken as a compliment, as it means that Telltale have got me succesfully invested in the characters, caring enough to be impatient to find out what happens to them next.
I don't think Telltale have hit their "A"-game yet, though...while definitely an improvement over LOTSN, I think we need to start getting an idea of what LeChuck, DeSinge, Decava, and the Voodoo Lady are all up to. It's time to get past the "set-up" phase.
This is my personal take. I agree with everything else you've said, Lorn, so please don't be offended by counter-argument.
Oh heck...I doubt if you could offend me if you tried. I'm really interested in hearing the opinions of others, because I think all of this really ties into the whole "tone" thing.
I stand much easier with the merfolk. I thought when references started appearing in LotSN, "they'd better do it MI-like". As a result, they're very different to merpeople found in any other work of fiction and quite funny.
This was part of the reason I had such a hard time writing this leg of the review. It's not that I stand UN-easy with the merfolk. While they were onscreen, I enjoyed them and thought they were very well written, and funny.
In game, they didn't bother me a bit.
Oddly, it was after I STOPPED playing that I started thinking more about them. I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to say that I have a problem with them, but if I do, it might be that they strayed from being traditional mer-people.
I tried to emphasize that in the review, but I'm not sure if it got across well. The fact that the merpeoples gender is ambiguous (at best) does lead to some really funny jokes - but it also left me feeling like the mer-people had come out of left field.
Had they had a "standard" design (as in the concept art for the Curse of Monkey Island credit sequence) I don't think I would've even blinked an eye at their inclusion. Likewise for the "Sea Creatures" that lead you to the mouth...whatever they are, they're nothing like anything we've seen or heard about in legend.
Because of this, AFTER I got done playing I was left questioning the decision to deviate from more standard Pirate myths and legends.
In other words, I dont' think it's so much that I have a problem with inclusion of mer-people, or with the writing involving them. It was more like design decisions that were made about them ended up feeling like a distraction to me, after the fact. I think that can be smoothed over as long as their inclusion plays into what I hope is a deeper plot, but I'm growing concerned that the "introduction" part of the game is stretching into the third part, where it should only take up a third of gameplay.
They rightly took their role in the background. If the episode had lots about the merpeople, I'd have felt it was sidetracking from the quest too much.
I agree. I dont' want MI to become all about the Vacaylians. What I'm trying to get across is that I felt that the design decisions involving them left me unintentionally focusing on them when I feel that I shouldn't be. For me, they're popping out of the background when I wish I could've accepted them naturally. Had they been more traditional mer-people, I dont' think this would've been the case.
If you look at the Pirates of Danjer Cove or the Goodsoups in CMI, they worked well on their own without interfering with the story too much. If you want to look further back to Ron Gilbert's MI games, take the MI cannibals or the Woodtick for examples.
I also agree here. I have no problems with the pirates of Danjer Cove, or the Goodsoups. I'm thinking part of the problem I have here is, outside of the game, I'm left with the troubling idea that Telltale either created non-standard merpeople to either A) Put a unique "Telltale" spin on the legend of merpeople, or For cheap and easy laughs. While the laughs were real, either answer would leave me a little bit troubled.
The one frustration I found in this episode is that we still don't really know where this is all going. Some of this ambiguity is good...such as questioning what's going on with LeChuck and Elaine.
They wrote this very well, I feel, and that we'll find out more during the next episode during Meanwhiles.
Still, it would be nice to have a bit more idea about what's going on with the sponge itself...we need to have more idea of what it could possibly be used for. I get the impression it's NOT just a voodoo exfoliator, and I suspect it's also going to play in with these Monkeys that LeChuck is so concerned about.
Again, next episode!
I brought these points up as a matter of pacing. I have no doubt that we'll probably get more information about these points in Episode 3, but my concern now is that we have a few too any balls up in the air, and we're still trying establish the general direction of the plotline.
Taken another way, if you consider that most stories contain three acts, with each act containing roughly 33% of the story - and also remember that Tales will contain 5 episodes - that means that at the end of the episode, we're 40% of the way through the story.
We should be well into the 2nd act, but we're still establishing characters and locations, not to mention shaping the overall conflict. It's not that I don't have faith that Telltale has the story nailed down that they want to tell, it's that I worry that their pacing is off.
Starting off Episode One as an intro is fine...it has to be done, but it's naturally going to frustrate players to leave them on a cliffhanger with not much accomplished in the first episode.
A lot of those feelings of frustration could have (and I would argue SHOULD have) been alleviated by the end of Episode 2 - particularly with DeCava. I didn't really expect to find anything out about him in Episode 2 - but I do think the scene at the lead-out of Episode 2 should've at least shown him, perhaps greeting Guybrush and Morgan in the belly of the Manatee - particularly if DeCava *surprise!* ends up being somebody we already know. (Note: I don't particularly think this is the case, but it could've been a great "Holy Crap!" cliffhanger, making us eager for the start of Episode 3).
As it stands now, I feel like we're still in intro territory...as a player, I feel like I've eaten my vegetables. I need some meat and broth really soon.
The rest of your points I think we're basically in agreement on, so I won't cover them here.
As I said, this episode was REALLY frustrating for me to review, because most of what I wrote sounds negative, and it's really not.
I enjoyed this episode FAR and away more than Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, and most of my quibbles are actually minor.
The main points I keep getting stuck on all come back to tone (imagine that!) and (especially now) pacing.
BTW...I'm interested that nobody else has mentioned anything about how harsh I was about puzzle difficulty in this episode.
How do you guys feel about it? Am I being overly critical now that we're in the second episode, or do you agree that we need to see something of a substantially increased difficulty in future episodes?
Next week, I'll probably also pop back into this thread to touch a bit more on LeChuck, Elaine, and Voodoo. I'm curious to see what your guys thoughts are as well!
They're trying to cater for new adventurers, in providing more story than mindbending monkey-logic puzzles. But it does feel like we're playing MI2 in easy mode.
Starting off Episode One as an intro is fine...it has to be done, but it's naturally going to frustrate players to leave them on a cliffhanger with not much accomplished in the first episode.
A lot of those feelings of frustration could have (and I would argue SHOULD have) been alleviated by the end of Episode 2 - particularly with DeCava. I didn't really expect to find anything out about him in Episode 2 - but I do think the scene at the lead-out of Episode 2 should've at least shown him, perhaps greeting Guybrush and Morgan in the belly of the Manatee - particularly if DeCava *surprise!* ends up being somebody we already know. (Note: I don't particularly think this is the case, but it could've been a great "Holy Crap!" cliffhanger, making us eager for the start of Episode 3).
Yeah, De Cava will be... MURRAY :eek:
We'll learn that he died while searching for la esponja grande and got resurected by LeChuck, after which he decided to resume his quest because he was sick of rolling around...
Okay, on a more serious note, i guess your point about pacing depends upon what we felt was the focus of the episode. I don't know, i just didn't feel that searching for De Cava was the goal of both episodes...
In the first one, you were told you would have to do so, yeah, but guybrush didn't seem to care : he only wanted to get off flotsam island et back to elaine.
Then in spinner cay, he seems quite ready to just leave the place when he finally finds her, and only stays around because she won't follow.
Actually, the quest for De Cava truly begins at the end of the episode, not before, so i guess you could say that the first act, or third of the story, was merely getting back to Elaine to "save" her, and the second one is about finding De Cava (finally gettting your butt on what you were supposed to do).
BTW...I'm interested that nobody else has mentioned anything about how harsh I was about puzzle difficulty in this episode.
How do you guys feel about it? Am I being overly critical now that we're in the second episode, or do you agree that we need to see something of a substantially increased difficulty in future episodes?
Next week, I'll probably also pop back into this thread to touch a bit more on LeChuck, Elaine, and Voodoo. I'm curious to see what your guys thoughts are as well!
I didn't say anything about the puzzle difficulty because it's already being said everywhere : yes, they were easier than the first episode's and overall disapointing, with the exception of this first one or the one involving helping LeChuck, which i think were easy but still pretty clever.
As far as the voodoo lady is concerned, i don't miss her. She's never been seen so much in the previous game : you basically met her in the begining, she told you in her enigmatic ways what had to be done and then you were on your own (she even disapeared in MI1 for most of the time you were on Mélée Island). She has clearly done her job already, i don't mind if she reapears for some reason (since we'll probably get back to flotsam, chances are we'll meet her again), but overall she's not really needed anymore.
Although I do enjoy reading your posts, slader, I do find it strange that you, basically, compare chpaters (acts, parts, name what you like) of Tales of Monkey Island with full games. Considering that ToMI is not just a simple sit-com episodic game, but a normal full Monkey Island game with several, as usual, chapters/acts/parts, just released monthly.
How about, for the sake of experiment, you take all those different chapters of all monkey games, and rank them, well, separately? It will be only fair to ToMI. And then, after all five episodes are released, you can judge it as a full-length game along others. I, for example, would rank SoMI's Part II: the Journey, higher than any of ToMI-episodes so far. It's short, doesn't have much dialogs, but it's a little masterpiece of it's own, I suppose. The atmosphere of a sea journey, just walking around the ship, and what not... it was great. And yet, let's say, Parts 3, 5 and 6 of Curse of Monkey Island are FAR below ToMI chapters so far. Far-far below. For me, of course.
Okay, on a more serious note, i guess your point about pacing depends upon what we felt was the focus of the episode. I don't know, i just didn't feel that searching for De Cava was the goal of both episodes...
A very fair point - finding De Cava is NOT the goal of Guybrush, and I fully understand that. He just wants to get Elaine away from LeChuck and get out of there.
However, all players in the drama are seeking La Esponje Grande for one reason or another.
All points on that road seem to point to DeCava...and as the sponge seems to be the lynchpin that holds this whole thing together, I feel that we need to get onto that main plot theread, and thus past the introduction.
Actually, the quest for De Cava truly begins at the end of the episode, not before, so i guess you could say that the first act, or third of the story, was merely getting back to Elaine to "save" her, and the second one is about finding De Cava (finally gettting your butt on what you were supposed to do).
That's sort of why I'm sounding the alarm bell now. After this episode, we're a full 40% of the way through the game...and yet I dont' feel like we're in the second act. The logical place for us to have begun that second act was in this episode, and I guess that's why I'm concerned.
I didn't say anything about the puzzle difficulty because it's already being said everywhere : yes, they were easier than the first episode's and overall disapointing, with the exception of this first one or the one involving helping LeChuck, which i think were easy but still pretty clever.
I DO think that dealing with Morgan in the opening fight and dealing with LeChucks inability to solve simple puzzles were clever and hilarious, so I definitely want to give kudos to Telltale for that. They found a different perspective within the old adventure-game tropes to make what seems old-hat new and exciting.
I really want a "Monkey Wrench" puzzle, though.
As far as the voodoo lady is concerned, i don't miss her. She's never been seen so much in the previous game : you basically met her in the begining, she told you in her enigmatic ways what had to be done and then you were on your own (she even disapeared in MI1 for most of the time you were on Mélée Island). She has clearly done her job already, i don't mind if she reapears for some reason (since we'll probably get back to flotsam, chances are we'll meet her again), but overall she's not really needed anymore.
Hmm. You're absolutely right. I guess I'm fixating on the voodoo lady, but you're right in that she has fulfilled the same role that she has in all of the other games, so I'm off the mark.
Thinking about it a little more, I don't think it's the voodoo lady that I'm missing, but voodoo itself.
I don't feel that the summoning artifacts or the ritual words of the vacaylians were "voodoo" in and of itself. Likewise, while the voodoo pox may have a voodoo origin, I'm not sure that it qualifies either.
I'm missing the whole "spooky" vibe - we haven't seen ghosts or zombies yet.
I'm totally willing to let this one pass because I think the pox certainly WILL get us where I want to go with vooodoo spookiness...here I'm just being impatient.
Farlander:
Although I do enjoy reading your posts, slader, I do find it strange that you, basically, compare chpaters (acts, parts, name what you like) of Tales of Monkey Island with full games. Considering that ToMI is not just a simple sit-com episodic game, but a normal full Monkey Island game with several, as usual, chapters/acts/parts, just released monthly.
How about, for the sake of experiment, you take all those different chapters of all monkey games, and rank them, well, separately? It will be only fair to ToMI. And then, after all five episodes are released, you can judge it as a full-length game along others. I, for example, would rank SoMI's Part II: the Journey, higher than any of ToMI-episodes so far. It's short, doesn't have much dialogs, but it's a little masterpiece of it's own, I suppose. The atmosphere of a sea journey, just walking around the ship, and what not... it was great. And yet, let's say, Parts 3, 5 and 6 of Curse of Monkey Island are FAR below ToMI chapters so far. Far-far below. For me, of course.
Here's probably where I'm going to take the most amount of heat, but I'm going to draw a hard line on this...and I hope I can make my reasons understandable.
I AM judging the individual chapters against the full games. I'm aware that may appear unfair, but the reason has to do with the fact that Telltale is aware that they're working within an episodic format.
There are limitations inherent in producing short "episodes", but there are also ways of providing "reward" to the player that satisfy the requirements of mini-chapters.
I think when placed all together, the episodes will most likely flow more naturally than they do apart.
To my mind, that does NOT excuse Telltale from adjusting pacing within indvidual episodes so that each are just as enjoyable in a self-contained package as they are when placed in their proper context.
Is that a tall order? Most definitely, and it may make me appear ungrateful...
Please understand that I'm not, and I applaud Telltale for their efforts.
I do think there's room for improvement though. Each episode should ensure that you move the ball a little farther down the field within the overarching story of the series, while also giving you minor victories in the self-contained sections of the episode.
While Episode II was VERY enjoyable for me while I was playing, I do not feel that it significantly advanced the overall story - it's still working as an introduction.
Of course, this is only my opinion, and I welcome hearing others thoughts with regards to judging episodes against other games of the series.
Nice review. You've got some valid points there. I just don't see what's wrong with steering with WASD - it was perfect for me once I figured out that it's in the game.
And since this is sort of a review of your review I'd say that if you want people to read what you have to say, don't use any kind of numerical rating in it. The posts above should make that clear
1. The steering was the worst part of the game in my opinion. Almost everything else was great. I don't think it has to be night - it wasn't in curse. Just don't let it sink into awful senseless stories like in escape.
2. I agree, that a /2 rating is stupid. Mostly because it leaves you less room for varying your opinion. However; I disagree very strongly with the notion, that not making numerical ratings would have been better. It would simply have rendered your review uninteresting.
EDIT: I just read your second review and although there were some ok points, the lack of a numerical rating makes it less clear and much less interesting. You're overall opinions are simply not well summarized without numbers. You call things interesting, impressive, good and improved, but how do I know if I disagree, when I don't know how interesting, impressive etc.? Never leave out numerical ratings in a review. Ever.
2. I agree, that a /2 rating is stupid. Mostly because it leaves you less room for varying your opinion. However; I disagree very strongly with the notion, that not making numerical ratings would have been better. It would simply have rendered your review uninteresting.
I've already been over my reasons for choosing to do my initial review on a /2 scale. It caused a lot of controvery, but it was intended to give everybody a concrete understanding of the scoring criteria. On a scale of 1-10, everybody has a different interpretation of what "7" means. I wanted it to be clear that I was scoring on two seperate criterea, and the judgement was an amalgam of those criteria.
However, by scoring in the initial review, the actual intent of the thread was lost, and that was to foster debate and hopefully find some insights on the unique "tone" of the Monkey Island series. Jettisoning the score system allowed my actual intent to come through.
EDIT: I just read your second review and although there were some ok points, the lack of a numerical rating makes it less clear and much less interesting.
Hmmm...maybe if you're skimming what I had to say. If you're the type who prefers an opinion to be summarized in a bullet point, you're probably not the target audience, though. I'm interested in fostering debate...not telling you what I think you should think.
You're overall opinions are simply not well summarized without numbers.
Unfortunately, this is patent nonsense. My opinions are well documented throughout the thread - a number doesn't change the opinion that would be used to formulate that number score.
Numbers, like opinions, are subjective to the authors whims. The danger with using numbers is that they give the appearance of a hard factual basis for the score, when one reviewers number score is equally as valid as anothers.
You call things interesting, impressive, good and improved, but how do I know if I disagree, when I don't know how interesting, impressive etc.?
That's easy. Simply read the prior posts to see what I'm referring to. The thread is long, I'll grant you that...but if you're not interested in reading the discussion (which is really the point of the thread), why are you here?
Never leave out numerical ratings in a review. Ever.
You are free to write your own opinion thread and quote as many numbers as you feel are necessary to get your point across. As for myself, I'll write my reviews as I see fit.
However; I disagree very strongly with the notion, that not making numerical ratings would have been better. It would simply have rendered your review uninteresting.
I know I'm pretty much taking this line completely out of context but I don't see how something along the lines of
6.3/10
is more interesting than a well written and thoughtful review.
I get that you can skip to a score to get a vague idea of what the reviewer thinks before you start reading properly (which I'll admit, I do myself), but the number is ultimately meaningless. Especially a score like 7/10 which could mean anything.
Once again, my sincere apologies for taking so long to get to this. I initially intended to post my review of the second episode immediately after finishing it on the release date, but I was too tired to post it up that night, and after that life interfered.
I just went through another playthrough to refresh my memory on the events of this epsiode.
Also, I decided against posting additional threads with each new episode - we'll just keep it all in here.
Anyway...without further ado, here's my take on Tales of Monkey Island: Episode 2 - The Siege of Spinner Cay!
Ranking
Alright! To refresh everybody's memory, my take on the original games was that they were ranked as follows, worst to best:
Escape from Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Curse of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2: LeChucks' Revenge
Since playing the first two "Tales" episodes, I would rank them thusly:
Escape from Monkey Island
Tales of Monkey Island - Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
Tales of Monkey Island - The Siege of Spinner Cay
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Curse of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
Story
Well, now we're getting somewhere - sorta. While "LOTSN" ended the years-long drought of Monkey Island content, there was a vauge uneasiness in my mind about how the series started off.
While it was great to see old and new characters on the screen again, the first episode left me wondering where all of this was going, and whether or not it could even be relevent in the overall Monkey Island saga.
While The Siege of Spinner Cay still hasn't revealed Telltales hand, it's certainly alleviated some of my fears regarding humor and dialogue, something that I felt was a weak point in the previous episode.
On the other hand, new fantastical elements have been introduced, which have generated a lot of controversy in the "Monkey Island" fanbase.
Frankly, I'm not sure where I stand on this issue, even now. I had heard prior to release that the Vacaylians were going to be merpeople, and the concept of their inclusion bothered me a bit - not because they don't exist in maritime legendary tradition, but because this seemed to be "pushing it" in the Monkey Island Canon - it didn't feel like it would mesh with the voodoo/ghost story vibe that the rest of the series has given off.
As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, these kinds of tonal shifts are what (I believe) turned people off of Escape from Monkey Island - it's hard to get from Voodoo to Giant Monkey Robots.
When playing the episode though, I found that I accepted the Vacaylians easily...possibly because I felt the characters were funny and well written.
I'm not necessarily sure that Monkey Island shoudl've gone here...but a lot of that will probably depend on how the Vacaylians ultimately fit into the overall story. If there's a good explanation for why the Vacaylian culture and their ruins exist, that fits into the overall Guybrush/Elaine/LeChuck arc, I'm sure we'll be fine.
Also, for those people who strenuously object to their inclusion - I suspect another element that may be working against their acceptance is their androgynous design. While funny, folks may have had an easier time accepting them if they were the traditional merman/mermaid design known throughout myth and legend. (See the conept art for the credit sequence in Curse of Monkey Island - if the Vacaylians looked like traditional mermaids, would there still be an issue?)
Script
The script in Episode II is MUCH improved from Episode I, in this reviewers opinion. The writers seem to be finding their footing, growing more confident with Monkey Islands unique brand of humor.
The one frustration I found in this episode is that we still don't really know where this is all going. Some of this ambiguity is good...such as questioning what's going on with LeChuck and Elaine.
Still, it would be nice to have a bit more idea about what's going on with the sponge itself...we need to have more idea of what it could possibly be used for. I get the impression it's NOT just a voodoo exfoliator, and I suspect it's also going to play in with these Monkeys that LeChuck is so concered about.
While we got lots of new, exciting, and funny characters in this episode (A HUGE improvement over Launch of the Screaming Narwhal) I couldn't help but now decry losing track of the Voodoo Lady and the relatively minor cameo with DeSinge.
I can't help but still feel that "Meanwhile" sequences (besides the brief one with the Marquis) would be a help to keep all of the players in the drama at top-of-mind. With so many interesting characters (LeChuck/Elaine/The Voodoo Lady/The Marquis/McGillicutty/Morgan/potentially DeCava) there's a lot of balls in the air, and they all have to keep moving.
Also, we'd better get some more solid information on DeCava soon. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of him in the next episode, but it feels clumsy to put us on his trail in the first episode, and LEAVE us on his trail at the end of this one. It would've been nice to have actually come face-to-face with him BEFORE we cut to the "To be Continued" tagline.
Dialogue
Where Launch of the Screaming Narwhal left me with a few cracked smiles, The Siege of Spinner Cay had me laughing often. They certainly seem more confident in their writing, and less nervous about offending. This (to me) is a welcome change. While some have decried some innuendo present in the game, I never felt that it was anything more racy than what had come before - kids probably won't even notice.
Puzzles
Strangely, the puzzles in Siege of Spinner Cay actually seem *easier* than in Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. There's never really any question about what has to be done...only about how to do it.
Thankfully, the developers are making greater use of the inventory and item combination, but I still haven't seen anything truly brain-bendy or clever. In fact, the location of most of the objects telegraph the solutions to the puzzles.
The one truly amazing puzzle sequence I can think of wasn't difficult, but was beautiful...and that was the opening fight with Morgan aboard the Screaming Narwhal. THIS was clever guys, and I'd like to see more clever approaches to puzzle design like this in future episodes.
I think it's high time that Telltale turn up the difficulty in the series. While the ease of the puzzles didn't detract from my enjoyment of this episode, it did leave me feeling that their underestimating the intelligence of their audience. Half of the fun of the previous games in the Monkey Island series was in the seriously twisted logic that the player had to employ.
On this count, I implore you, Telltale - try to beat me. Just once. I know you said you wouldn't, but I'll forgive you if you try. We can take it. Trust me.
Art Direction
Telltale continues to squeeze out some impressive art from their engine. While the engine itself may be starting to show some of it's age, they've actually succesfully swayed me on their "cinematic" style.
I initially argued against the new control scheme for Guybrush in LOTSN, but Siege convinced me that Telltale got it right.
Where the camera sometimes fought me in LOTSN, here Telltale succesfully panned back for wide shots, and made sweeping camera moves that I wouldn't have thought possible prior to this episode.
This use of cinematic techniques really makes the art and animation shine, so once again - Big Props, Telltale. You've sold me. Just keep up the good work in forthcoming episodes.
Characters
The first character I must mention is Morgan LeFlay. Wow, guys. THIS is what makes a great character. While most in the community believed that Morgan would either be Kate Capsize or Carla the Swordmaster (including myself!), I love the character of Morgan most of all in this episode.
The physical model is beautiful, and fight animations (with leaps, flips, and sword flourishes) telegraph her skill with a blade. Frankly, she's deadly. This contrasts BEAUTIFULLY with her personality - I'd almost call her "spunky", and cute. I foresee her being a perfect foil for Guybrush, and her presence definitely adds an interesting wrinkle in his relationship with Elaine.
The secondary characters are no less inspired. While you're still obviously reusing old character models, they were much better disguised in this episode. Personalities (particularly McGillicutty) were much more piratey, and I breathed a sigh of relief to see that we're finally seeing some genuine pirates in a Monkey Island game again.
No less welcome were Pintel and Ragetti....um...I mean Murkel and Killick. Essentially a piratey Abbot and Costello, it's funny how these types of characters always work in a comedic pairing.
Thanks for paying attention to your characters, guys - it really sells the story.
Environments
As for environments, they were beautiful as always...the moving-towards-dusk feeling of this episode leads to some brilliant lighting.
While I wondered about the design of Spinner Cay from the concept art, I thought it worked very well in the game, particularly with the cinematic pans and tilts.
One area of concern is the overuse of pink/purple/orange. While this works for the dusky atmosphere, I felt it was overused by the time I got to the jungle.
(Speaking of the jungle - I think I've seen about enough of it by now. While I LOVED the window dressing that was added - particularly the deceased pirate by the tree - I'd rather not see another jungle throughout the rest of the series)
Sound
Music
The music is also much improved in this episode, and I find myself humming parts from this epsiode when I'm in a piratey move. A lot of the music here reminds me of music from LeChucks Revenge.
It still sounds synthesized, but the pirate vibe is back, and themes are distinct. While I still think a fully orchestral score (as in Curse) would add depth to the score, I certainly won't complain about this one.
Voices
The voice cast in this episode was perfect. The actress who portrays Morgan LeFlay is perfectly married to her character, and LeChuck somehow managed to sound clueless and befuddled, while also somehow managing to inject a subtle layer of menace underneath.
I think I even recognized the voice of a lady who does voicework on Futurama, though I can't be certain. I do think that Telltale is having an easier time of attracting quality voice talent then they did even a few years ago.
Technical
Thankfully, this issue I had no technical problems to report. I felt the control interface was improved, and a lot of this had to do with virtual camera blocking.
Judgement
The Siege of Spinner cay left me in a weird place. I really, truly enjoyed this episode, and felt that it felt MUCH more like Monkey Island.
On the other hand, it also felt like something else...part of this is just Telltale putting their own unique stamp on the series, but I can't help but feel that they'd better start tying some things together, and soon.
Part of this problem may be due to having too many balls in the air...a large part of it is also probably due to the fact that the episodes are episodic in nature.
This should probably be taken as a compliment, as it means that Telltale have got me succesfully invested in the characters, caring enough to be impatient to find out what happens to them next.
I don't think Telltale have hit their "A"-game yet, though...while definitely an improvement over LOTSN, I think we need to start getting an idea of what LeChuck, DeSinge, Decava, and the Voodoo Lady are all up to. It's time to get past the "set-up" phase.
I can't help but feel that the ultimate fate of the series is still up in the air in my mind. Whether or not all of this can be accepted as "canon" in my mind will depend on how well it all ties together. If the story works, I can accept it all easily. If it doesn't....well....I may consider it an "alternate" Monkey Island World...and that's a weird feeling.
What Worked Best
Morgan LeFlay.
The Fight Mechanic with Morgan LeFlay.
Pirates who are actually Piratey.
The whole Guybrush/Elaine/LeChuck triangle.
LeChuck himself...the new voice actor has totally sold me on his work, and also manages to sound surprisingly like Earl Boen in his human guise.
What was Missed
The Voodoo Lady
Tougher Puzzles
DeCava (I was really hoping to see him in this episode)
Tougher Puzzles
A clearer idea of where we're going with all this
Some Tougher puzzles might be beneficial
DeSinge
Advice to Telltale
First of all...keep displaying the confidence you displayed in this episode. I have no doubt that you knew that you were going to generate some controvery with the Vacaylians, but you stuck to your guns and you're telling your story the way you want to tell it.
I'm also pretty sure it must've been difficult to try and hit that "monkey island" humor sweet spot, but I felt you did here. Injecting a little subtle "adult" humor was probably something that made you sweat a little bit, but it was present in the old games, and it was needed here. Keep it up!
I can't help feeling like we're still searching for that "tone" we've defined earlier in this thread, though.
It's time to start showing some of your cards...we, as the audience, need to have a better idea of how the pieces come together.
As we're closing at dusk, I can't help but hope that we're coming to the night-time shift. With that will also come some voodoo, I hope...something that I felt was oddly missing in this episode.
(Strangely, I didn't consider the Vacaylian artifacts or ritual words "voodoo" for some reason - while the Pox may have a voodoo origin, I think it's high time to see some real voodoo magic...and bring the voodoo lady back, if possible.)
By the way...the introduction by the voodoo lady at the very opening was brilliant. Hope we see more of that at the start of episode 3.
Conclusion
As I said, this episode is sort of frustrating to review, because even now I'm not sure how I feel about it. I know that I liked it a lot better than epsiode one, and that I enjoyed myself while playing it.
That said, I think we're still trying to nail the "Monkey Island Tone."
What are your thoughts?
Lorn
I find this review way too generous compared to your spot-on thoughts of the first game.
You didn't comment on the emotionless WAY the merfolk were introduced, nor the absurd layout of their cay, only their existence which you accept with very few conditions. One scene...a throne, a library pool and a bait shop, and nothing else? What kind of "town" is that? Zero atmosphere. What kind of personality is a totally bland, normal sounding girly voice? They have almost zero personality. Their look is uninteresting too. The trick to figuring this out is thinking about the countless other ways TellTale COULD have approached the merfolk. What if Guybrush heard these mysterious rumors about merfolk and set out on some kind of sub-quest (that the player solves) to find an entrance to their hide-out. Then, what if their hideout instead required going underwater or underground and exploring a sprawling or otherworldly aquatic network. This kind of approach soaks it in atmosphere, and I think would be universally lauded. Just casually walking up to their out-in-the-open island and saying hi totally sells us short. And then to add insult to injury, you only see a tiny surface of their land, totally unpersuasive as a community, with very little to explore? It's just cheapy and totally lacks the adventure mood of the classics. The existence of the merfolk can be debated, but I find these issues much more important.
It's not some kind of bigotry towards the androgyny either. That COULD be funny, but the jokes about it were sparse and just not THAT clever or witty. Gimmicky jokes like that hit a dead end very quickly too, a few more (as I suspect there will be) and it will firmly be run into the ground. But they should have at least fleshed out a better, more immersive design of their people and their habitat and culture.
Think about what we saw in the original SoMI. The whole game is seeking out this hidden, rumored band of ghost pirates. It builds up their lore in your head, eases you into their existence, etc. Then when you go down the monkey head, what could possibly be more fitting and atmospheric than the hell you have to traverse through to find their ghost ship? And the ship itself and the people and puzzles within are all brilliantly designed and presented. THAT's how you do the supernatural stuff. You don't just stroll up and make some jaded remark and start chumming it up with everyone.
I found the characters and atmosphere and humor far less amazing than you, though they were improved.
The game pretty much had the same pitfalls of the first episode, if not worse. Even though there were multiple "islands" they were all one-scene, samey uninteresting places (besides DeCava's tent), with reused environments like the jungle. In total it felt like there was less to see than the first episode even, which is saying a lot.
I don't remember any of the music, or even HEARING any of the music much. This might be a natural disadvantage to the dynamic camera movements and such. With the originals, you had one static scene per place and its corresponding soundtrack was out in front and immediately identifiable. In these you're constantly shifting around and it doesn't feel like there's a "theme" going on with each environment. To add to that, I've extracted the music and listened to it on its own, it's good stuff but it is OBSCENELY poor audio quality. Compared to past installments, to get a sense of it it's like listening to the CoMI soundtrack converted to MIDI, and played through a pignose speaker with too much distortion.
Note: I know that the rest of Tales is probably pretty much set in stone.
That being noted, what would you like to see in future chapters or even seasons / games of MI as far as settings go?
For me:
1. A spanish architecture a la Puerto Pollo but night, complete with piratey bar / tavern and surrounding businesses you can enter that aren't ENTIRELY ridiculous. Barbershop = okay, Glassblower = no. Think blacksmith, cobbler, food market, etc. Piratey stuff.
2. A melee style town, but at dawn where all the piratey inhabitants are painfully hungover, could lead to some funny puzzles and situations. Many "what did I do last night?" moments. The lighting for a sunrise timed island would be really unique and beautiful as well.
3. A town that is inhabited by british pirate hating soldiers in which Guybrush must disguise himself as a normal british citizen.
Really good ideas. This is the kind of stuff I'm missing from this game. Just solid, natural settings full of life. I feel like we keep getting gimmicks, and these really small novelty things that don't really make sense from a larger perspective. When you enter a town, it should come across as a REAL town that actually sustains its citizens and their needs. That's not that hard to do, you don't have to be able to explore every nook, but it just come across as a WORLD, and not just a little diorama convenient only for the story and puzzles that the designers have created.
Items and locations should seem like they would naturally be there and have uses independent of Guybrush and his quest. The Woodtick, graveyard crypts, Ship Harbor in MI2 and many others are good examples. It's you entering a world, not a world made for you. A ship repair/bait/whatever Guybrush needs shop is not. A BBQ and fishing well in the middle of the jungle, that only makes sense within the confines of Guybrush Threepwood's problems is NOT.
I'm going to copy this post of mine into this thread, because I feel it best hits what my central complaint is.
Really good ideas. This is the kind of stuff I'm missing from this game. Just solid, natural settings full of life. I feel like we keep getting gimmicks, and these really small novelty things that don't really make sense from a larger perspective. When you enter a town, it should come across as a REAL town that actually sustains its citizens and their needs. That's not that hard to do, you don't have to be able to explore every nook, but it just come across as a WORLD, and not just a little diorama convenient only for the story and puzzles that the designers have created.
Items and locations should seem like they would naturally be there and have uses independent of Guybrush and his quest. The Woodtick, graveyard crypts, Ship Harbor in MI2 and many others are good examples. It's you entering a world, not a world made for you. A ship repair/bait/whatever Guybrush needs shop is not. A BBQ and fishing well in the middle of the jungle, that only makes sense within the confines of Guybrush Threepwood's problems is NOT.
It's a shame only the first two games fulfilled these criteria properly. EMI tried to cut corners with Melee and I for one noticed. Mind, the game size would have been a lot bigger if the SCUMM Bar had been as full of pirates as it was in SMI. I really loved CMI but even that has Puerto Pollo's Field of Honor/Competition. In all fairness, LA did put lots of village buildings on Plunder and Lucre that we couldn't enter (or even identify as residences or places of work).
I find this review way too generous compared to your spot-on thoughts of the first game.
I think I'm being generous, with conditions. That's why this episode was SO hard for me to review. If, by the time all of this is wrapped up, we don't have a legitimate story need for the Vacaylians, I think it's safe to say that I'll find the series a disappointment. At this juncture though, I still don't really have a clear idea of where the story is going, so I'm trying to give the developers the benefit of the doubt. If we don't get some SERIOUS payoff by the next episode though, I can see the fanbase possibly starting to turn.
You didn't comment on the emotionless WAY the merfolk were introduced, nor the absurd layout of their cay, only their existence which you accept with very few conditions.
This is another point of awkwardness that made it difficult to review. I wasn't thrilled about the idea of merpeople to start with. However, when I actually got to the Cay, I found that while they didn't exactly bother me, they did trouble me in a "OK - so why merfolk, then?" way.
I guess what I'm trying to say is...did they actually NEED to be merfolk? Is there some reason this couldn't be a normal pirate town of some kind?
If there is some deep story need for the merfolk, I'll be able to accept them when all is said and done. If it comes down to the developers just wanting to have something with a different flavor, that will bother me in the end.
One scene...a throne, a library pool and a bait shop, and nothing else? What kind of "town" is that?
I guess subconsciously I explained this away by having what we saw of the town being the "human-available" services. I expect that UNDERwater is where the Vacaylians have a giant city that we just don't happen to see. In that respect, it didn't bother me.
The trick to figuring this out is thinking about the countless other ways TellTale COULD have approached the merfolk. What if Guybrush heard these mysterious rumors about merfolk and set out on some kind of sub-quest (that the player solves) to find an entrance to their hide-out. Then, what if their hideout instead required going underwater or underground and exploring a sprawling or otherworldly aquatic network. This kind of approach soaks it in atmosphere, and I think would be universally lauded. Just casually walking up to their out-in-the-open island and saying hi totally sells us short.
Here I might end up getting a little self-contradictory, but stay with me. I know what I'm thinking, but I'm not sure it's going to come out correctly in text, but I'll do my best.
The danger with this kind of approach is that I think it makes the vacaylians TOO central to the ongoing story (whatever that is.)
My thinking is that, if we're going to have merpeople, they'd better have a good reason for existing in-game. On the other hand, I DON'T want them to be the focus It seems to me that that territory needs to have Guybrush, LeChuck, and Elaine front and center. (And DeSinge, since he is a driver of the plot).
If we spent an episode following rumors of the Vacaylians and spending an entire episode trying to locate and explore their world, I have a feeling I'd be even more frustrated than I am now. What I want to get to is the MEAT of the game, and that should ultimately concern The Sponge, LeChuck, Voodoo, and lots of Monkeys. It's THAT point that I'm so anxious to get to.
So...to put it another way, I want the Vacaylians to be important enough to have a reason to exist, but no more important than that - otherwise they become a distraction.
And then to add insult to injury, you only see a tiny surface of their land, totally unpersuasive as a community, with very little to explore? It's just cheapy and totally lacks the adventure mood of the classics.
This is something that I didn't properly address in my review. I wanted to shoehorn it in, but I felt like it was getting long already. (I do tend to type more than I figure most reasonable people will want to read).
One thing that I did feel was a huge drawback to Episode 2 was (again) the lack of territory to explore. While the Cay itself was at least interesting from a design standpoint, the jungle felt like a "cheat" that we'd already seen, and was there partially to artificially extend the game.
More criminal were the one-room islands we got to explore in the surrounding area. While I think it's great that we got to actually sail to multiple locations in this episode, I did want to have more to explore. This was ESPECIALLY true of Roe Island, as I felt that having ONLY DeCavas shack to explore was jarring. If anything, I would've much preferred that the jungle location be there, so that we're forced to follow clues to locate the shack of this mysterious person that everybody seems to have heard of, but nobody has seen.
So - amend this to my earlier review - Telltale: We still need LARGER locations with more to explore. I suspect that ultimately this probably has to do with the limitations of the Wii, but I'd still like them to take note.
It's not some kind of bigotry towards the androgyny either. That COULD be funny, but the jokes about it were sparse and just not THAT clever or witty. Gimmicky jokes like that hit a dead end very quickly too, a few more (as I suspect there will be) and it will firmly be run into the ground. But they should have at least fleshed out a better, more immersive design of their people and their habitat and culture.
I wasn't trying to imply that it was bigotry that was turning people off of the androgynous design. For me, it had more to do with altering something that most people have a pretty good mental image of. There are narrative reasons for doing so, but I can't find a reason for doing it HERE. Did they mess with merpeople just to mess with them, or to get cheap jokes? If either answer is yes, then that's inexcusable. If they have ANOTHER reason for doing so, then we need to have some understanding of why.
As to their habitat and culture, I felt like we actually got some information there. We know that the Vacaylians used science and one point to walk on land (presumably creating the artifacts that have been left behind) - and that afterward, they returned to the sea.
Again the question is...why? I expect THAT will be revealed later on, and I suspect that's where their inclusion in the series will be explained.
Think about what we saw in the original SoMI. The whole game is seeking out this hidden, rumored band of ghost pirates. It builds up their lore in your head, eases you into their existence, etc. Then when you go down the monkey head, what could possibly be more fitting and atmospheric than the hell you have to traverse through to find their ghost ship? And the ship itself and the people and puzzles within are all brilliantly designed and presented. THAT's how you do the supernatural stuff. You don't just stroll up and make some jaded remark and start chumming it up with everyone.
I have to disagree with you here - not about your comments about The Secret of Monkey Island (which are spot on!), but about the merpeople as "supernatural."
I don't see them as supernatural at all - unusual yes, but ultimately nothing more than different inhabitants of this world.
Once you start involving ghosts, zombies, and voodoo - THAT'S when the supernatural spooky stuff starts kicking in. That's also why I made a point to mention in the review that I DON'T see the vacaylian artifacts or ritual words as being "voodoo." I don't know what they are, but I don't see it as "magic" that's been defined in earlier parts of the series. That's also why I think it's important that we start getting into the supernatural parts of the story in the slightly-distant future. I suspect that'll start kicking in right around episode 4.
The game pretty much had the same pitfalls of the first episode, if not worse. Even though there were multiple "islands" they were all one-scene, samey uninteresting places (besides DeCava's tent), with reused environments like the jungle. In total it felt like there was less to see than the first episode even, which is saying a lot.
I think the game had some of the same limitations of the first episode, with regards to pacing. That's part of the difficulty of writing for an episodic series, and it's one that I hope they find a solution for soon - I think their pacing is off.
That said, I thought the dialogue was head and shoulders above the first episode. The humor is returning, and the characters seem to be IN character - at least, as well as we can judge. (Human LeChuck is new, and quite different from ghost/zombie/demon/stone? pirate LeChuck - but still seems to have a menacing undertone that I think works)
I completely agree that we need larger locations with more to explore. See above for my thoughts on that. However, I don't feel like there was less to explore than in Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. Flotsam felt completely closed to me, particularly because it was impossible to enter any of the buildings. Sailing to other islands helped give the illusion that we were seeing more, but once we reached additional islands they certainly needed to be larger than one room.
I don't remember any of the music, or even HEARING any of the music much. This might be a natural disadvantage to the dynamic camera movements and such. With the originals, you had one static scene per place and its corresponding soundtrack was out in front and immediately identifiable. In these you're constantly shifting around and it doesn't feel like there's a "theme" going on with each environment. To add to that, I've extracted the music and listened to it on its own, it's good stuff but it is OBSCENELY poor audio quality. Compared to past installments, to get a sense of it it's like listening to the CoMI soundtrack converted to MIDI, and played through a pignose speaker with too much distortion.
Hmmm...sorry to hear that the music didn't work for you. While I don't think it's on par with LeChucks Revenge or Curse, I did feel that it was probably as good as "Secret"...and I felt like a lot more work went into the composition than Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. "Launch" felt like a completely generic soundtrack to me, which is probably the worst thing you can say about a piece of music. I thought that the music here was scene-appropriate and catchy, particularly in the fight with Morgan, or scenes with LeChuck.
Can't say that I notice audio quality problems with the music, but then, I can't claim to be an audiophile either...other's will probably notice more than I would.
Hope this addresses some of your concerns with my review!
Fantastic review. You are more generous with TellTale than I would be, but you EXPLAIN this fact by saying you want to see where the story is going.
This is a fair point. We are 40% of the way through. If the game, and more importantly the story elements, do not pick up immediately, I can't help but think the game will either improve too late or simply not improve at all.
On a scale of 1-10, everybody has a different interpretation of what "7" means. I wanted it to be clear that I was scoring on two seperate criterea, and the judgement was an amalgam of those criteria.
Maybe we just disagree on the whole idea behind rating. Ratings are and ought to be subjective clarification - and summaries of your opinion. I found that the /2 rating didn't work, because it left you two few rating-possibilities AND because you tried to incorporate an objective element in your rating (the intent of the developers), which I don't think belongs there. Like everything else in a review, a numerical rating is a qualified opinion.
Hmmm...maybe if you're skimming what I had to say. If you're the type who prefers an opinion to be summarized in a bullet point, you're probably not the target audience, though. I'm interested in fostering debate...not telling you what I think you should think.
I understand that my aggresive style made you respond in a not so friendly manner. Fair enough.
I am of course interested in the debate as well - and not in being told what to think. The interesting part of a review is that it forces you to - and helps you form your own opinion.
However; I think any review - and any good presentation in general - should be summarized. And in reviews the obvious and perfect tools for this are ratings.
Unfortunately, this is patent nonsense. My opinions are well documented throughout the thread - a number doesn't change the opinion that would be used to formulate that number score.
Numbers, like opinions, are subjective to the authors whims. The danger with using numbers is that they give the appearance of a hard factual basis for the score, when one reviewers number score is equally as valid as anothers.
I disagree very much with your idea that numbers appear as factual. Like you say; numbers are as subjective as the rest of your opinions in a review. Numbers don't change the arguments they are based on, but they clarify them and summarize them.
Observe the difference between these two examples:
1. I found the graphics very nicely made. The characters were beautifully rendered and the backgrounds were richly detailed. However; some of the secondary characters lacked some graphic personality and were a bit generic.
2. I found the graphics very nicely made. The main characters were beautifully rendered and the backgrounds were richly detailed. However; some of the secondary characters lacked some graphic personality and were a bit generic.
Main characters: 8/10
Backgrounds: 8/10
Secondary characters: 5/10 Graphics: 7/10
My point is not, that ratings should be used instead of the review, but as a clarification, in which it is made clearer how much you like different aspects of the game.
I am sorry, that I keep pulling you into a general discussion of ratings instead of your specific review. I find it the subject discussionable.
Maybe we just disagree on the whole idea behind rating.
I expect that's probably true.
Ratings are and ought to be subjective clarification - and summaries of your opinion.
In an ideal world, I agree that that's true. In practice, I've found that this is what usually happens, though:
Most reviewers decide to rate their opinion on a scale of one to ten. Most people READING a review won't give a game that rates lower than a 7 the time of day - and if a game IS rated a 7, most readers can't identify what a score of "7" really means.
However, most people ARE willing to take a chance on anything 8 and above.
Now...consider the fact that most reviewers only rate games in this 4 number spread! (7-8-9-10)
(Unless a game is truly atrocious, most games will rate at least a 60%.
As you can see, both reviews and reviewers tend to scew the actual scale, without taking into account that anything over 50% is technically favorable.
The problem - occurring at BOTH ends of the review - (reviewer and reader of the review) makes the 1-10 scale at best hobbled and at worst completely meaningless.
My attempt at offering a "scale of two" review intended to address this by clearly defining what each point was awarded for - judging what I believed to be the developers intent (which is, admittedly still subjective), and whether or not it worked for me personally.
Unfortunately, by even trying to address the issue the thread nearly got derailed from the very start. Rather than fostering debate, the scoring system became the focus and initial reactions to what I had written were negative because people were focusing on the SCORES - not what I had actually said.
Like everything else in a review, a numerical rating is a qualified opinion.
I think an author can make that statement as a statement of intent...but that's not necessarily what comes across to the reader. Too many people try to use a score as shorthand for "should I even bother with this?"
I much prefer to write, and allow people to draw their own conclusions...and then debate those conclusions. It may not be as efficient time-wise, but I've found it's far more effective for my own goals for the thread.
I understand that my aggresive style made you respond in a not so friendly manner. Fair enough.
It wasn't your aggressive style that made me respond in a not-so-friendly manner.
It was two very specific things - within your initial reply you asked a question -
"You call things interesting, impressive, good and improved, but how do I know if I disagree, when I don't know how interesting, impressive etc.?"
I read this question as - "Please do my thinking for me. I don't want to actually read what has been said in the thread, I want an easy number to look at so the numbers can make my decision for me."
Even if this was not your intent, the problem with using those numbers that you so desperately crave is that your interpretation of what the numbers mean may be completely different from what MY interpretation of what the numbers mean. That's why I'd much rather you read the points that I have to make, then reply with your own counter-arguments and theories.
The second thing that got under my skin was this:
Never leave out numerical ratings in a review. Ever.
This was a demand, and it had already been addressed WAY back in the thread. I'll admit that this really got my hackles up - the very point of this thread was to foster debate, and by including numbers in the first place, I very nearly killed the thread before it ever got started.
If I came across as harsh, I apologize - but I hope after reading this reply, you'll understand where the response came from.
I think I'm being generous, with conditions. That's why this episode was SO hard for me to review. If, by the time all of this is wrapped up, we don't have a legitimate story need for the Vacaylians, I think it's safe to say that I'll find the series a disappointment. At this juncture though, I still don't really have a clear idea of where the story is going, so I'm trying to give the developers the benefit of the doubt. If we don't get some SERIOUS payoff by the next episode though, I can see the fanbase possibly starting to turn.
This is another point of awkwardness that made it difficult to review. I wasn't thrilled about the idea of merpeople to start with. However, when I actually got to the Cay, I found that while they didn't exactly bother me, they did trouble me in a "OK - so why merfolk, then?" way.
I guess what I'm trying to say is...did they actually NEED to be merfolk? Is there some reason this couldn't be a normal pirate town of some kind?
If there is some deep story need for the merfolk, I'll be able to accept them when all is said and done. If it comes down to the developers just wanting to have something with a different flavor, that will bother me in the end.
I guess subconsciously I explained this away by having what we saw of the town being the "human-available" services. I expect that UNDERwater is where the Vacaylians have a giant city that we just don't happen to see. In that respect, it didn't bother me.
Here I might end up getting a little self-contradictory, but stay with me. I know what I'm thinking, but I'm not sure it's going to come out correctly in text, but I'll do my best.
The danger with this kind of approach is that I think it makes the vacaylians TOO central to the ongoing story (whatever that is.)
My thinking is that, if we're going to have merpeople, they'd better have a good reason for existing in-game. On the other hand, I DON'T want them to be the focus It seems to me that that territory needs to have Guybrush, LeChuck, and Elaine front and center. (And DeSinge, since he is a driver of the plot).
If we spent an episode following rumors of the Vacaylians and spending an entire episode trying to locate and explore their world, I have a feeling I'd be even more frustrated than I am now. What I want to get to is the MEAT of the game, and that should ultimately concern The Sponge, LeChuck, Voodoo, and lots of Monkeys. It's THAT point that I'm so anxious to get to.
So...to put it another way, I want the Vacaylians to be important enough to have a reason to exist, but no more important than that - otherwise they become a distraction.
This is something that I didn't properly address in my review. I wanted to shoehorn it in, but I felt like it was getting long already. (I do tend to type more than I figure most reasonable people will want to read).
One thing that I did feel was a huge drawback to Episode 2 was (again) the lack of territory to explore. While the Cay itself was at least interesting from a design standpoint, the jungle felt like a "cheat" that we'd already seen, and was there partially to artificially extend the game.
More criminal were the one-room islands we got to explore in the surrounding area. While I think it's great that we got to actually sail to multiple locations in this episode, I did want to have more to explore. This was ESPECIALLY true of Roe Island, as I felt that having ONLY DeCavas shack to explore was jarring. If anything, I would've much preferred that the jungle location be there, so that we're forced to follow clues to locate the shack of this mysterious person that everybody seems to have heard of, but nobody has seen.
So - amend this to my earlier review - Telltale: We still need LARGER locations with more to explore. I suspect that ultimately this probably has to do with the limitations of the Wii, but I'd still like them to take note.
I wasn't trying to imply that it was bigotry that was turning people off of the androgynous design. For me, it had more to do with altering something that most people have a pretty good mental image of. There are narrative reasons for doing so, but I can't find a reason for doing it HERE. Did they mess with merpeople just to mess with them, or to get cheap jokes? If either answer is yes, then that's inexcusable. If they have ANOTHER reason for doing so, then we need to have some understanding of why.
As to their habitat and culture, I felt like we actually got some information there. We know that the Vacaylians used science and one point to walk on land (presumably creating the artifacts that have been left behind) - and that afterward, they returned to the sea.
Again the question is...why? I expect THAT will be revealed later on, and I suspect that's where their inclusion in the series will be explained.
I have to disagree with you here - not about your comments about The Secret of Monkey Island (which are spot on!), but about the merpeople as "supernatural."
I don't see them as supernatural at all - unusual yes, but ultimately nothing more than different inhabitants of this world.
Once you start involving ghosts, zombies, and voodoo - THAT'S when the supernatural spooky stuff starts kicking in. That's also why I made a point to mention in the review that I DON'T see the vacaylian artifacts or ritual words as being "voodoo." I don't know what they are, but I don't see it as "magic" that's been defined in earlier parts of the series. That's also why I think it's important that we start getting into the supernatural parts of the story in the slightly-distant future. I suspect that'll start kicking in right around episode 4.
I think the game had some of the same limitations of the first episode, with regards to pacing. That's part of the difficulty of writing for an episodic series, and it's one that I hope they find a solution for soon - I think their pacing is off.
That said, I thought the dialogue was head and shoulders above the first episode. The humor is returning, and the characters seem to be IN character - at least, as well as we can judge. (Human LeChuck is new, and quite different from ghost/zombie/demon/stone? pirate LeChuck - but still seems to have a menacing undertone that I think works)
I completely agree that we need larger locations with more to explore. See above for my thoughts on that. However, I don't feel like there was less to explore than in Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. Flotsam felt completely closed to me, particularly because it was impossible to enter any of the buildings. Sailing to other islands helped give the illusion that we were seeing more, but once we reached additional islands they certainly needed to be larger than one room.
Hmmm...sorry to hear that the music didn't work for you. While I don't think it's on par with LeChucks Revenge or Curse, I did feel that it was probably as good as "Secret"...and I felt like a lot more work went into the composition than Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. "Launch" felt like a completely generic soundtrack to me, which is probably the worst thing you can say about a piece of music. I thought that the music here was scene-appropriate and catchy, particularly in the fight with Morgan, or scenes with LeChuck.
Can't say that I notice audio quality problems with the music, but then, I can't claim to be an audiophile either...other's will probably notice more than I would.
Hope this addresses some of your concerns with my review!
Lorn
Thanks for responding. I hope to hear what you think about my other post after that one.
One thing I want to clarify, and that is that I didn't necessarily want finding the vaycalians to be the central plot point. but even just a cut scene in the beginning or SOME kind of build up to them, and then some kind of imaginative world for them (that made sense outside of fulfilling needs for puzzles) would do. i understand there's only a finite amount of time, but if you're going to include MERMEN in monkey island, you gotta at least make it memorable. at the end of the game, looking back, you should recall meeting the merfolk and seeing their world as an awesome part of an epic journey (and hopefully long to play it again). if that doesn't happen, then telltale failed imo.
I'm back for some more long-winded replies, hoping to catch some things that I may've missed earlier.
RockNRoll:
I wasn't really sure how to respond to your post, which is why I sort of brushed past it. I'll try and address it as best I can here.
First, replying to DeLucas original post:
Note: I know that the rest of Tales is probably pretty much set in stone.
That being noted, what would you like to see in future chapters or even seasons / games of MI as far as settings go?
For me:
1. A spanish architecture a la Puerto Pollo but night, complete with piratey bar / tavern and surrounding businesses you can enter that aren't ENTIRELY ridiculous. Barbershop = okay, Glassblower = no. Think blacksmith, cobbler, food market, etc. Piratey stuff.
This first wish touches primarily on the tone of the location. This is a subject that we've covered in depth here, and addresses both the feel of the location, and the attitude of the inhabitants.
The first episode committed the gravest sins in my mind - the pirates were a joke. I feel that this was addressed very well in episode two. Pirates were piratey, and we weren't landlocked an an uninteresting island.
I think your primary complaint, RockNRoll, was in the design of the cay itself. If I understood you correctly, you felt that the locations were basically "one-stop-shopping" for puzzle solutions, and didn't make sense in a "realistic" community.
My own feeling (as I mentioned earlier) was that the buildings that we saw in Episode II were the "human-available-services." In my head, there IS a big underwater vacaylian city that we haven't seen yet...(note the emphasis on YET. I suspect we'll get to see the vacaylian side of things in the next episode. In my head, the Lair of the Leviathan is an enclosed underwater cavern, where DeCava is likely trapped.
I suspect the "mouth" is one-way. It allows entry to the lair, but doesn't get you back out. So what's the solution?
Well...Guybrush can hold his breath for ten minutes...can't he?
I noticed that a lot of people were also irritated by the Ship Repair/Bait shop in the episode.
For the life of me, I don't understand the complaint. I can understand that the player may feel like this is just lazy design, but to me it makes sense.
Shipyards (and shipwrights) often supply a lot of additional services. After all, if you've got somebody in for one service, you may as well make some money on an additional service. I've often seen bait and tackle shops attached to these types of business, so the combination to me felt natural.
2. A melee style town, but at dawn where all the piratey inhabitants are painfully hungover, could lead to some funny puzzles and situations. Many "what did I do last night?" moments. The lighting for a sunrise timed island would be really unique and beautiful as well.
Actually, a town filled with hung-over pirates DOES sound funny to me, and could provide a lot of interesting puzzles. My only concern here is that we're getting pretty deep into "fan-service" territory.
Despite my misgivings on the pacing, I am confident that Telltale has a pretty tight plot up their sleeve, I'm just concerned about the pace at which they're revealing it. If I'm right, and they DO have such a plot in mind...how does this town fit into it?
3. A town that is inhabited by british pirate hating soldiers in which Guybrush must disguise himself as a normal british citizen.
I can't say that I'm too keen on this idea. In addition to the "overall plot" point that was brought up before, this introduces an additional problem. Why are we hiding from the british? Who are they working for? Certainly not DeSinge, who is French. The "hiding" mechanic to me sounds like it could be an excercise in frustration, so I don't really see this idea as workable.
Now, back to RockNRolls points:
This is the kind of stuff I'm missing from this game. Just solid, natural settings full of life. I feel like we keep getting gimmicks, and these really small novelty things that don't really make sense from a larger perspective.
I can agree with this point in principle. One of the things that made Melee so magical was that pirates were wandering around town, entering buildings and shops, independent of what you were doing. It felt like a living town.
When you enter a town, it should come across as a REAL town that actually sustains its citizens and their needs. That's not that hard to do, you don't have to be able to explore every nook, but it just come across as a WORLD, and not just a little diorama convenient only for the story and puzzles that the designers have created.
I can agree with this statement as well, but with a few important qualifications. One of the things we've brought up in earlier sections of the thread is the anachronisms that somehow manage to mesh with the "pirate" vibe. There's no way they SHOULD gel, but somehow the charm just sells it.
Because of this, I think it's important to make the distinction that we're talking about FANTASY-real towns...not REAL-real towns. You don't need to have a full support industry catering to everything you'd expect in a real town, but it should at least sell the illusion of indepdent pirate communities continuing to exist off-screen when you're not there.
Items and locations should seem like they would naturally be there and have uses independent of Guybrush and his quest. The Woodtick, graveyard crypts, Ship Harbor in MI2 and many others are good examples. It's you entering a world, not a world made for you.
I agree that Melee from MI 1 and Woodtick from MI2 are the gold standard. (I'd include Puerto Pollo from CMI, but I think a few people would disagree with me on that point)
A ship repair/bait/whatever Guybrush needs shop is not.
I disagree here, but for the reasons I mentioned above.
A BBQ and fishing well in the middle of the jungle, that only makes sense within the confines of Guybrush Threepwood's problems is NOT.
I also disagree here, but for another important reason - the BBQ in the jungle doesn't bother me because we know it was a land-based vacaylian artifact.
I think the reason this bothered people was because it seemed to be sitting there in the middle of nowhere, but it sounds like the vacaylians returned to the sea some time ago, so this still doesn't really bother me.
I DO think it might've felt a little bit more natural if there were other ruins in the immediate vicinity...maybe a dance floor or petrified hammock or something - some kind of outdoor entertainment venue.
One thing that does bother me - why did the Vacaylians return to the sea? I have this nagging feeling that it has something to do with DeSinge. With his obsession with limbs (and the amputation of such), I can imagine Vacaylians with legs would be interested in getting out of his reach as quickly as possible.
The problem with this theory is that (as I understand it) the Vacaylians returned to the sea centuries ago...maybe DeSinge has some type of ancestor? Or maybe I'm just barking up the wrong tree.
One thing I want to clarify, and that is that I didn't necessarily want finding the vaycalians to be the central plot point. but even just a cut scene in the beginning or SOME kind of build up to them, and then some kind of imaginative world for them (that made sense outside of fulfilling needs for puzzles) would do. i understand there's only a finite amount of time, but if you're going to include MERMEN in monkey island, you gotta at least make it memorable. at the end of the game, looking back, you should recall meeting the merfolk and seeing their world as an awesome part of an epic journey (and hopefully long to play it again). if that doesn't happen, then telltale failed imo.
I don't think we're done with the Vacaylians yet. I think where we'll get that sense of wonder will probably be the next episode, in the Lair of the Leviathan. I expect the Lair itself will be vast, and interesting.
I suspect there are a special "guardian" caste of the Vacaylians who protect it's sacred resting place, but they're cut off from the rest of the Vacaylian community, who don't seem to know all that much about the "mouth" or the "sponge", except from what they can interpret from their soggy religious texts.
tbm1986: Do you mind if I ask why you don't think they'll get a license for another season?
I'm actually fairly confident that they will...while they haven't released sales figures, we do know it's their fastest selling title yet, and that they exceeded their estimates.
Lucasarts also seems happy, and the reviewers so far have been very kind (although they have mentioned some of the concerns that we've pointed out as well.)
Do you have a feeling that opinions are more negative than what the mainstream press is reporting?
I feel LucasArts made SMI: SE and allowed TT the TMI licence to test the water for the adventure game market, to see if it would be worthwhile making an in-house MI5. TMI and SMI: SE have sold so well I think LA will want their franchise back exclusively, as they won't want TT competing with them.
I've heard this theory floated before, but I don't think I buy it.
It seems to me that the Telltale partnership is the best of all possible worlds for them.
Like it or not, adventure games have still become a very specific niche. They cost a lot to develop, vs the small subset of total overall gamers who will play them.
With a telltale licensing deal, Lucasarts basically gets a cut of every game sold, without having to do anything.
Even with the number of sales they've gotten, I don't see these sales competing with their Star Wars titles, which is admittedly where the cash cow is.
With Lucasarts also retaining the merchandise deals for anything that Telltale produces...I just think it makes more sense for them to have Telltale continue the series.
I've heard this theory floated before, but I don't think I buy it.
It seems to me that the Telltale partnership is the best of all possible worlds for them.
Like it or not, adventure games have still become a very specific niche. They cost a lot to develop, vs the small subset of total overall gamers who will play them.
With a telltale licensing deal, Lucasarts basically gets a cut of every game sold, without having to do anything.
Even with the number of sales they've gotten, I don't see these sales competing with their Star Wars titles, which is admittedly where the cash cow is.
With Lucasarts also retaining the merchandise deals for anything that Telltale produces...I just think it makes more sense for them to have Telltale continue the series.
Lorn
I hope you're right, because we don't want a repeat of Escape.
In addition to the "overall plot" point that was brought up before, this introduces an additional problem. Why are we hiding from the british?
i found the explanation obvious.
The British Empire: The Caribbean was part of the slave-triangle; hugely profitable sugar plantations; strategic importance for the Royal Navy.
The Royal Navy's mission was to seek out and destroy piracy (and the Dutch, Spanish. Portuguese etc..).
If Guybrush is a mighty pirate then he surely would be hiding from British troops (ignoring the fact that he is married to a British governor!!!! (and British himself?))
I think it's a great idea. Guybrush trying to smuggle himself, or something, in or out of a British garrison deep in the Caribbean.
Comments
Brownie points for being perhaps the first other person I've seen who rates the games 4-1-3-2. I LOOOVE the second game, I hope ToMI goes a bit back in that direction soon.
I think the original S&M and MI games had a subtle, sadistic undercurrent that the Telltale games lack - that edge.
Think of the first scene in S&M HTR, where they show a man hanging by the floor rails - Sam says 'Brutal' and Max responds 'but very true to life'. Visually and verbally this was laugh out loud - I cannot describe it - get a copy of the game if you can.
In another scene there's Max pummeling a low-life - again the way it's depicted was just laugh out loud. And there are numerous other scenes like this. The designers did not hold themselves back. In fact just the cover of S&M HTR makes one laugh - that surely has to be one of the best game covers of all time.
By comparison the Telltale humour is very patterned and cookie-cutter style, and gets stale soon. And I am sure this is partly to cater for a family audience.
In fact if you want a perfect example compare the game intro of SMHTR with Telltale - I can tell you now which one will hurt my funny belly.
Horses for courses I guess. Still I did buy S&M season 1 and TOMI and enjoying them for what they are.
If so, I apologize...I meant to get it put up this weekend. I had a few things get in the way.
Earlier this year, my girlfriend informed me that I was going to become a Dad - this led to an unexpected purchase of a house.
We just got moved in two weeks ago, so we're still unpacking and trying to get things organized. The only real spare time I have to help with this is on the weekend, so familial duties took precedence.
(Also, I bought and assembled a crib.)
In addition to that, I'm a network administrator for an internet service provider, and we had some issues this weekend that required me to work pretty much straight through.
Again, my apologies. I do intend to rectify the lack of review in the next couple of days...possibly even today if I can carve out some time!
In an effort to keep on topic...would it help if I let you know the babies room will be done up in a pirate theme?
Lorn
Congratulations on both accounts! Can't wait for the Grog-themed series of baby bottles.
Once again, my sincere apologies for taking so long to get to this. I initially intended to post my review of the second episode immediately after finishing it on the release date, but I was too tired to post it up that night, and after that life interfered.
I just went through another playthrough to refresh my memory on the events of this epsiode.
Also, I decided against posting additional threads with each new episode - we'll just keep it all in here.
Anyway...without further ado, here's my take on Tales of Monkey Island: Episode 2 - The Siege of Spinner Cay!
Ranking
Alright! To refresh everybody's memory, my take on the original games was that they were ranked as follows, worst to best:
Escape from Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Curse of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2: LeChucks' Revenge
Since playing the first two "Tales" episodes, I would rank them thusly:
Escape from Monkey Island
Tales of Monkey Island - Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
Tales of Monkey Island - The Siege of Spinner Cay
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Curse of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
Story
Well, now we're getting somewhere - sorta. While "LOTSN" ended the years-long drought of Monkey Island content, there was a vauge uneasiness in my mind about how the series started off.
While it was great to see old and new characters on the screen again, the first episode left me wondering where all of this was going, and whether or not it could even be relevent in the overall Monkey Island saga.
While The Siege of Spinner Cay still hasn't revealed Telltales hand, it's certainly alleviated some of my fears regarding humor and dialogue, something that I felt was a weak point in the previous episode.
On the other hand, new fantastical elements have been introduced, which have generated a lot of controversy in the "Monkey Island" fanbase.
Frankly, I'm not sure where I stand on this issue, even now. I had heard prior to release that the Vacaylians were going to be merpeople, and the concept of their inclusion bothered me a bit - not because they don't exist in maritime legendary tradition, but because this seemed to be "pushing it" in the Monkey Island Canon - it didn't feel like it would mesh with the voodoo/ghost story vibe that the rest of the series has given off.
As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, these kinds of tonal shifts are what (I believe) turned people off of Escape from Monkey Island - it's hard to get from Voodoo to Giant Monkey Robots.
When playing the episode though, I found that I accepted the Vacaylians easily...possibly because I felt the characters were funny and well written.
I'm not necessarily sure that Monkey Island shoudl've gone here...but a lot of that will probably depend on how the Vacaylians ultimately fit into the overall story. If there's a good explanation for why the Vacaylian culture and their ruins exist, that fits into the overall Guybrush/Elaine/LeChuck arc, I'm sure we'll be fine.
Also, for those people who strenuously object to their inclusion - I suspect another element that may be working against their acceptance is their androgynous design. While funny, folks may have had an easier time accepting them if they were the traditional merman/mermaid design known throughout myth and legend. (See the conept art for the credit sequence in Curse of Monkey Island - if the Vacaylians looked like traditional mermaids, would there still be an issue?)
Script
The script in Episode II is MUCH improved from Episode I, in this reviewers opinion. The writers seem to be finding their footing, growing more confident with Monkey Islands unique brand of humor.
The one frustration I found in this episode is that we still don't really know where this is all going. Some of this ambiguity is good...such as questioning what's going on with LeChuck and Elaine.
Still, it would be nice to have a bit more idea about what's going on with the sponge itself...we need to have more idea of what it could possibly be used for. I get the impression it's NOT just a voodoo exfoliator, and I suspect it's also going to play in with these Monkeys that LeChuck is so concered about.
While we got lots of new, exciting, and funny characters in this episode (A HUGE improvement over Launch of the Screaming Narwhal) I couldn't help but now decry losing track of the Voodoo Lady and the relatively minor cameo with DeSinge.
I can't help but still feel that "Meanwhile" sequences (besides the brief one with the Marquis) would be a help to keep all of the players in the drama at top-of-mind. With so many interesting characters (LeChuck/Elaine/The Voodoo Lady/The Marquis/McGillicutty/Morgan/potentially DeCava) there's a lot of balls in the air, and they all have to keep moving.
Also, we'd better get some more solid information on DeCava soon. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of him in the next episode, but it feels clumsy to put us on his trail in the first episode, and LEAVE us on his trail at the end of this one. It would've been nice to have actually come face-to-face with him BEFORE we cut to the "To be Continued" tagline.
Dialogue
Where Launch of the Screaming Narwhal left me with a few cracked smiles, The Siege of Spinner Cay had me laughing often. They certainly seem more confident in their writing, and less nervous about offending. This (to me) is a welcome change. While some have decried some innuendo present in the game, I never felt that it was anything more racy than what had come before - kids probably won't even notice.
Puzzles
Strangely, the puzzles in Siege of Spinner Cay actually seem *easier* than in Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. There's never really any question about what has to be done...only about how to do it.
Thankfully, the developers are making greater use of the inventory and item combination, but I still haven't seen anything truly brain-bendy or clever. In fact, the location of most of the objects telegraph the solutions to the puzzles.
The one truly amazing puzzle sequence I can think of wasn't difficult, but was beautiful...and that was the opening fight with Morgan aboard the Screaming Narwhal. THIS was clever guys, and I'd like to see more clever approaches to puzzle design like this in future episodes.
I think it's high time that Telltale turn up the difficulty in the series. While the ease of the puzzles didn't detract from my enjoyment of this episode, it did leave me feeling that their underestimating the intelligence of their audience. Half of the fun of the previous games in the Monkey Island series was in the seriously twisted logic that the player had to employ.
On this count, I implore you, Telltale - try to beat me. Just once. I know you said you wouldn't, but I'll forgive you if you try. We can take it. Trust me.
Art Direction
Telltale continues to squeeze out some impressive art from their engine. While the engine itself may be starting to show some of it's age, they've actually succesfully swayed me on their "cinematic" style.
I initially argued against the new control scheme for Guybrush in LOTSN, but Siege convinced me that Telltale got it right.
Where the camera sometimes fought me in LOTSN, here Telltale succesfully panned back for wide shots, and made sweeping camera moves that I wouldn't have thought possible prior to this episode.
This use of cinematic techniques really makes the art and animation shine, so once again - Big Props, Telltale. You've sold me. Just keep up the good work in forthcoming episodes.
Characters
The first character I must mention is Morgan LeFlay. Wow, guys. THIS is what makes a great character. While most in the community believed that Morgan would either be Kate Capsize or Carla the Swordmaster (including myself!), I love the character of Morgan most of all in this episode.
The physical model is beautiful, and fight animations (with leaps, flips, and sword flourishes) telegraph her skill with a blade. Frankly, she's deadly. This contrasts BEAUTIFULLY with her personality - I'd almost call her "spunky", and cute. I foresee her being a perfect foil for Guybrush, and her presence definitely adds an interesting wrinkle in his relationship with Elaine.
The secondary characters are no less inspired. While you're still obviously reusing old character models, they were much better disguised in this episode. Personalities (particularly McGillicutty) were much more piratey, and I breathed a sigh of relief to see that we're finally seeing some genuine pirates in a Monkey Island game again.
No less welcome were Pintel and Ragetti....um...I mean Murkel and Killick. Essentially a piratey Abbot and Costello, it's funny how these types of characters always work in a comedic pairing.
Thanks for paying attention to your characters, guys - it really sells the story.
Environments
As for environments, they were beautiful as always...the moving-towards-dusk feeling of this episode leads to some brilliant lighting.
While I wondered about the design of Spinner Cay from the concept art, I thought it worked very well in the game, particularly with the cinematic pans and tilts.
One area of concern is the overuse of pink/purple/orange. While this works for the dusky atmosphere, I felt it was overused by the time I got to the jungle.
(Speaking of the jungle - I think I've seen about enough of it by now. While I LOVED the window dressing that was added - particularly the deceased pirate by the tree - I'd rather not see another jungle throughout the rest of the series)
Sound
Music
The music is also much improved in this episode, and I find myself humming parts from this epsiode when I'm in a piratey move. A lot of the music here reminds me of music from LeChucks Revenge.
It still sounds synthesized, but the pirate vibe is back, and themes are distinct. While I still think a fully orchestral score (as in Curse) would add depth to the score, I certainly won't complain about this one.
Voices
The voice cast in this episode was perfect. The actress who portrays Morgan LeFlay is perfectly married to her character, and LeChuck somehow managed to sound clueless and befuddled, while also somehow managing to inject a subtle layer of menace underneath.
I think I even recognized the voice of a lady who does voicework on Futurama, though I can't be certain. I do think that Telltale is having an easier time of attracting quality voice talent then they did even a few years ago.
Technical
Thankfully, this issue I had no technical problems to report. I felt the control interface was improved, and a lot of this had to do with virtual camera blocking.
Judgement
The Siege of Spinner cay left me in a weird place. I really, truly enjoyed this episode, and felt that it felt MUCH more like Monkey Island.
On the other hand, it also felt like something else...part of this is just Telltale putting their own unique stamp on the series, but I can't help but feel that they'd better start tying some things together, and soon.
Part of this problem may be due to having too many balls in the air...a large part of it is also probably due to the fact that the episodes are episodic in nature.
This should probably be taken as a compliment, as it means that Telltale have got me succesfully invested in the characters, caring enough to be impatient to find out what happens to them next.
I don't think Telltale have hit their "A"-game yet, though...while definitely an improvement over LOTSN, I think we need to start getting an idea of what LeChuck, DeSinge, Decava, and the Voodoo Lady are all up to. It's time to get past the "set-up" phase.
I can't help but feel that the ultimate fate of the series is still up in the air in my mind. Whether or not all of this can be accepted as "canon" in my mind will depend on how well it all ties together. If the story works, I can accept it all easily. If it doesn't....well....I may consider it an "alternate" Monkey Island World...and that's a weird feeling.
What Worked Best
Morgan LeFlay.
The Fight Mechanic with Morgan LeFlay.
Pirates who are actually Piratey.
The whole Guybrush/Elaine/LeChuck triangle.
LeChuck himself...the new voice actor has totally sold me on his work, and also manages to sound surprisingly like Earl Boen in his human guise.
What was Missed
The Voodoo Lady
Tougher Puzzles
DeCava (I was really hoping to see him in this episode)
Tougher Puzzles
A clearer idea of where we're going with all this
Some Tougher puzzles might be beneficial
DeSinge
Advice to Telltale
First of all...keep displaying the confidence you displayed in this episode. I have no doubt that you knew that you were going to generate some controvery with the Vacaylians, but you stuck to your guns and you're telling your story the way you want to tell it.
I'm also pretty sure it must've been difficult to try and hit that "monkey island" humor sweet spot, but I felt you did here. Injecting a little subtle "adult" humor was probably something that made you sweat a little bit, but it was present in the old games, and it was needed here. Keep it up!
I can't help feeling like we're still searching for that "tone" we've defined earlier in this thread, though.
It's time to start showing some of your cards...we, as the audience, need to have a better idea of how the pieces come together.
As we're closing at dusk, I can't help but hope that we're coming to the night-time shift. With that will also come some voodoo, I hope...something that I felt was oddly missing in this episode.
(Strangely, I didn't consider the Vacaylian artifacts or ritual words "voodoo" for some reason - while the Pox may have a voodoo origin, I think it's high time to see some real voodoo magic...and bring the voodoo lady back, if possible.)
By the way...the introduction by the voodoo lady at the very opening was brilliant. Hope we see more of that at the start of episode 3.
Conclusion
As I said, this episode is sort of frustrating to review, because even now I'm not sure how I feel about it. I know that I liked it a lot better than epsiode one, and that I enjoyed myself while playing it.
That said, I think we're still trying to nail the "Monkey Island Tone."
What are your thoughts?
Lorn
This pretty much sums it up.
It's weird indeed, i can spot a lot of improvement but on the other hand more stuff bothered me than in the first episode. Still, i enjoyed it much more than "Narwhal" on the whole...
Maybe i just being contradictory :eek:
I stand much easier with the merfolk. I thought when references started appearing in LotSN, "they'd better do it MI-like". As a result, they're very different to merpeople found in any other work of fiction and quite funny.
They rightly took their role in the background. If the episode had lots about the merpeople, I'd have felt it was sidetracking from the quest too much. If you look at the Pirates of Danjer Cove or the Goodsoups in CMI, they worked well on their own without interfering with the story too much. If you want to look further back to Ron Gilbert's MI games, take the MI cannibals or the Woodtick for examples.
They wrote this very well, I feel, and that we'll find out more during the next episode during Meanwhiles.
Again, next episode!
I can't see how they could have put more of De Singe in. They did well to let the player know that De Singe has a more sinister plan than merely studying the posessed hand.
I don't think we'll see the former in ch3, or the Voodoo Lady (but the latter might do another "Previously on Lo- Tales" thing with her cards).
We'll see a lot of him in LoL, trust me
I think we've seen the last of those. We will probably visit Flotsam again in ep4 but seeing as we have all the locations in Map View, we don't need to use the jungle paths at all.
I only had an internal speaker for company while I grew up, so I prefer the LeChuck theme on that (I only heard the MIDIs after the turn of the millennium). Curse, however, had really great atmospheric music.
All will be revealed as and when it needs to
Oh heck...I doubt if you could offend me if you tried. I'm really interested in hearing the opinions of others, because I think all of this really ties into the whole "tone" thing.
This was part of the reason I had such a hard time writing this leg of the review. It's not that I stand UN-easy with the merfolk. While they were onscreen, I enjoyed them and thought they were very well written, and funny.
In game, they didn't bother me a bit.
Oddly, it was after I STOPPED playing that I started thinking more about them. I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to say that I have a problem with them, but if I do, it might be that they strayed from being traditional mer-people.
I tried to emphasize that in the review, but I'm not sure if it got across well. The fact that the merpeoples gender is ambiguous (at best) does lead to some really funny jokes - but it also left me feeling like the mer-people had come out of left field.
Had they had a "standard" design (as in the concept art for the Curse of Monkey Island credit sequence) I don't think I would've even blinked an eye at their inclusion. Likewise for the "Sea Creatures" that lead you to the mouth...whatever they are, they're nothing like anything we've seen or heard about in legend.
Because of this, AFTER I got done playing I was left questioning the decision to deviate from more standard Pirate myths and legends.
In other words, I dont' think it's so much that I have a problem with inclusion of mer-people, or with the writing involving them. It was more like design decisions that were made about them ended up feeling like a distraction to me, after the fact. I think that can be smoothed over as long as their inclusion plays into what I hope is a deeper plot, but I'm growing concerned that the "introduction" part of the game is stretching into the third part, where it should only take up a third of gameplay.
I agree. I dont' want MI to become all about the Vacaylians. What I'm trying to get across is that I felt that the design decisions involving them left me unintentionally focusing on them when I feel that I shouldn't be. For me, they're popping out of the background when I wish I could've accepted them naturally. Had they been more traditional mer-people, I dont' think this would've been the case.
I also agree here. I have no problems with the pirates of Danjer Cove, or the Goodsoups. I'm thinking part of the problem I have here is, outside of the game, I'm left with the troubling idea that Telltale either created non-standard merpeople to either A) Put a unique "Telltale" spin on the legend of merpeople, or
I brought these points up as a matter of pacing. I have no doubt that we'll probably get more information about these points in Episode 3, but my concern now is that we have a few too any balls up in the air, and we're still trying establish the general direction of the plotline.
Taken another way, if you consider that most stories contain three acts, with each act containing roughly 33% of the story - and also remember that Tales will contain 5 episodes - that means that at the end of the episode, we're 40% of the way through the story.
We should be well into the 2nd act, but we're still establishing characters and locations, not to mention shaping the overall conflict. It's not that I don't have faith that Telltale has the story nailed down that they want to tell, it's that I worry that their pacing is off.
Starting off Episode One as an intro is fine...it has to be done, but it's naturally going to frustrate players to leave them on a cliffhanger with not much accomplished in the first episode.
A lot of those feelings of frustration could have (and I would argue SHOULD have) been alleviated by the end of Episode 2 - particularly with DeCava. I didn't really expect to find anything out about him in Episode 2 - but I do think the scene at the lead-out of Episode 2 should've at least shown him, perhaps greeting Guybrush and Morgan in the belly of the Manatee - particularly if DeCava *surprise!* ends up being somebody we already know. (Note: I don't particularly think this is the case, but it could've been a great "Holy Crap!" cliffhanger, making us eager for the start of Episode 3).
As it stands now, I feel like we're still in intro territory...as a player, I feel like I've eaten my vegetables. I need some meat and broth really soon.
The rest of your points I think we're basically in agreement on, so I won't cover them here.
As I said, this episode was REALLY frustrating for me to review, because most of what I wrote sounds negative, and it's really not.
I enjoyed this episode FAR and away more than Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, and most of my quibbles are actually minor.
The main points I keep getting stuck on all come back to tone (imagine that!) and (especially now) pacing.
BTW...I'm interested that nobody else has mentioned anything about how harsh I was about puzzle difficulty in this episode.
How do you guys feel about it? Am I being overly critical now that we're in the second episode, or do you agree that we need to see something of a substantially increased difficulty in future episodes?
Next week, I'll probably also pop back into this thread to touch a bit more on LeChuck, Elaine, and Voodoo. I'm curious to see what your guys thoughts are as well!
Lorn
Yeah, De Cava will be... MURRAY :eek:
We'll learn that he died while searching for la esponja grande and got resurected by LeChuck, after which he decided to resume his quest because he was sick of rolling around...
Okay, on a more serious note, i guess your point about pacing depends upon what we felt was the focus of the episode. I don't know, i just didn't feel that searching for De Cava was the goal of both episodes...
In the first one, you were told you would have to do so, yeah, but guybrush didn't seem to care : he only wanted to get off flotsam island et back to elaine.
Then in spinner cay, he seems quite ready to just leave the place when he finally finds her, and only stays around because she won't follow.
Actually, the quest for De Cava truly begins at the end of the episode, not before, so i guess you could say that the first act, or third of the story, was merely getting back to Elaine to "save" her, and the second one is about finding De Cava (finally gettting your butt on what you were supposed to do).
I didn't say anything about the puzzle difficulty because it's already being said everywhere : yes, they were easier than the first episode's and overall disapointing, with the exception of this first one or the one involving helping LeChuck, which i think were easy but still pretty clever.
As far as the voodoo lady is concerned, i don't miss her. She's never been seen so much in the previous game : you basically met her in the begining, she told you in her enigmatic ways what had to be done and then you were on your own (she even disapeared in MI1 for most of the time you were on Mélée Island). She has clearly done her job already, i don't mind if she reapears for some reason (since we'll probably get back to flotsam, chances are we'll meet her again), but overall she's not really needed anymore.
How about, for the sake of experiment, you take all those different chapters of all monkey games, and rank them, well, separately? It will be only fair to ToMI. And then, after all five episodes are released, you can judge it as a full-length game along others. I, for example, would rank SoMI's Part II: the Journey, higher than any of ToMI-episodes so far. It's short, doesn't have much dialogs, but it's a little masterpiece of it's own, I suppose. The atmosphere of a sea journey, just walking around the ship, and what not... it was great. And yet, let's say, Parts 3, 5 and 6 of Curse of Monkey Island are FAR below ToMI chapters so far. Far-far below. For me, of course.
Astro Gnocci:
A very fair point - finding De Cava is NOT the goal of Guybrush, and I fully understand that. He just wants to get Elaine away from LeChuck and get out of there.
However, all players in the drama are seeking La Esponje Grande for one reason or another.
All points on that road seem to point to DeCava...and as the sponge seems to be the lynchpin that holds this whole thing together, I feel that we need to get onto that main plot theread, and thus past the introduction.
That's sort of why I'm sounding the alarm bell now. After this episode, we're a full 40% of the way through the game...and yet I dont' feel like we're in the second act. The logical place for us to have begun that second act was in this episode, and I guess that's why I'm concerned.
I DO think that dealing with Morgan in the opening fight and dealing with LeChucks inability to solve simple puzzles were clever and hilarious, so I definitely want to give kudos to Telltale for that. They found a different perspective within the old adventure-game tropes to make what seems old-hat new and exciting.
I really want a "Monkey Wrench" puzzle, though.
Hmm. You're absolutely right. I guess I'm fixating on the voodoo lady, but you're right in that she has fulfilled the same role that she has in all of the other games, so I'm off the mark.
Thinking about it a little more, I don't think it's the voodoo lady that I'm missing, but voodoo itself.
I don't feel that the summoning artifacts or the ritual words of the vacaylians were "voodoo" in and of itself. Likewise, while the voodoo pox may have a voodoo origin, I'm not sure that it qualifies either.
I'm missing the whole "spooky" vibe - we haven't seen ghosts or zombies yet.
I'm totally willing to let this one pass because I think the pox certainly WILL get us where I want to go with vooodoo spookiness...here I'm just being impatient.
Farlander:
Here's probably where I'm going to take the most amount of heat, but I'm going to draw a hard line on this...and I hope I can make my reasons understandable.
I AM judging the individual chapters against the full games. I'm aware that may appear unfair, but the reason has to do with the fact that Telltale is aware that they're working within an episodic format.
There are limitations inherent in producing short "episodes", but there are also ways of providing "reward" to the player that satisfy the requirements of mini-chapters.
I think when placed all together, the episodes will most likely flow more naturally than they do apart.
To my mind, that does NOT excuse Telltale from adjusting pacing within indvidual episodes so that each are just as enjoyable in a self-contained package as they are when placed in their proper context.
Is that a tall order? Most definitely, and it may make me appear ungrateful...
Please understand that I'm not, and I applaud Telltale for their efforts.
I do think there's room for improvement though. Each episode should ensure that you move the ball a little farther down the field within the overarching story of the series, while also giving you minor victories in the self-contained sections of the episode.
While Episode II was VERY enjoyable for me while I was playing, I do not feel that it significantly advanced the overall story - it's still working as an introduction.
Of course, this is only my opinion, and I welcome hearing others thoughts with regards to judging episodes against other games of the series.
Lorn
1. The steering was the worst part of the game in my opinion. Almost everything else was great. I don't think it has to be night - it wasn't in curse. Just don't let it sink into awful senseless stories like in escape.
2. I agree, that a /2 rating is stupid. Mostly because it leaves you less room for varying your opinion. However; I disagree very strongly with the notion, that not making numerical ratings would have been better. It would simply have rendered your review uninteresting.
EDIT: I just read your second review and although there were some ok points, the lack of a numerical rating makes it less clear and much less interesting. You're overall opinions are simply not well summarized without numbers. You call things interesting, impressive, good and improved, but how do I know if I disagree, when I don't know how interesting, impressive etc.? Never leave out numerical ratings in a review. Ever.
I've already been over my reasons for choosing to do my initial review on a /2 scale. It caused a lot of controvery, but it was intended to give everybody a concrete understanding of the scoring criteria. On a scale of 1-10, everybody has a different interpretation of what "7" means. I wanted it to be clear that I was scoring on two seperate criterea, and the judgement was an amalgam of those criteria.
However, by scoring in the initial review, the actual intent of the thread was lost, and that was to foster debate and hopefully find some insights on the unique "tone" of the Monkey Island series. Jettisoning the score system allowed my actual intent to come through.
Hmmm...maybe if you're skimming what I had to say. If you're the type who prefers an opinion to be summarized in a bullet point, you're probably not the target audience, though. I'm interested in fostering debate...not telling you what I think you should think.
Unfortunately, this is patent nonsense. My opinions are well documented throughout the thread - a number doesn't change the opinion that would be used to formulate that number score.
Numbers, like opinions, are subjective to the authors whims. The danger with using numbers is that they give the appearance of a hard factual basis for the score, when one reviewers number score is equally as valid as anothers.
That's easy. Simply read the prior posts to see what I'm referring to. The thread is long, I'll grant you that...but if you're not interested in reading the discussion (which is really the point of the thread), why are you here?
You are free to write your own opinion thread and quote as many numbers as you feel are necessary to get your point across. As for myself, I'll write my reviews as I see fit.
Lorn
(3,5; 3,6; 4,4)
1,4
2,4
2,3
4,2
T,1
1,2
3,3
3,1
4,3
T,2
1,3
(3,2; 3,4; 1,1; 2,1; 2,2; 4,1)
EDIT: Sorry, I wanted to post this last night but got cut off. These are my rankings for MI chapters.
I know I'm pretty much taking this line completely out of context but I don't see how something along the lines of
6.3/10
is more interesting than a well written and thoughtful review.
I get that you can skip to a score to get a vague idea of what the reviewer thinks before you start reading properly (which I'll admit, I do myself), but the number is ultimately meaningless. Especially a score like 7/10 which could mean anything.
You didn't comment on the emotionless WAY the merfolk were introduced, nor the absurd layout of their cay, only their existence which you accept with very few conditions. One scene...a throne, a library pool and a bait shop, and nothing else? What kind of "town" is that? Zero atmosphere. What kind of personality is a totally bland, normal sounding girly voice? They have almost zero personality. Their look is uninteresting too. The trick to figuring this out is thinking about the countless other ways TellTale COULD have approached the merfolk. What if Guybrush heard these mysterious rumors about merfolk and set out on some kind of sub-quest (that the player solves) to find an entrance to their hide-out. Then, what if their hideout instead required going underwater or underground and exploring a sprawling or otherworldly aquatic network. This kind of approach soaks it in atmosphere, and I think would be universally lauded. Just casually walking up to their out-in-the-open island and saying hi totally sells us short. And then to add insult to injury, you only see a tiny surface of their land, totally unpersuasive as a community, with very little to explore? It's just cheapy and totally lacks the adventure mood of the classics. The existence of the merfolk can be debated, but I find these issues much more important.
It's not some kind of bigotry towards the androgyny either. That COULD be funny, but the jokes about it were sparse and just not THAT clever or witty. Gimmicky jokes like that hit a dead end very quickly too, a few more (as I suspect there will be) and it will firmly be run into the ground. But they should have at least fleshed out a better, more immersive design of their people and their habitat and culture.
Think about what we saw in the original SoMI. The whole game is seeking out this hidden, rumored band of ghost pirates. It builds up their lore in your head, eases you into their existence, etc. Then when you go down the monkey head, what could possibly be more fitting and atmospheric than the hell you have to traverse through to find their ghost ship? And the ship itself and the people and puzzles within are all brilliantly designed and presented. THAT's how you do the supernatural stuff. You don't just stroll up and make some jaded remark and start chumming it up with everyone.
I found the characters and atmosphere and humor far less amazing than you, though they were improved.
The game pretty much had the same pitfalls of the first episode, if not worse. Even though there were multiple "islands" they were all one-scene, samey uninteresting places (besides DeCava's tent), with reused environments like the jungle. In total it felt like there was less to see than the first episode even, which is saying a lot.
I don't remember any of the music, or even HEARING any of the music much. This might be a natural disadvantage to the dynamic camera movements and such. With the originals, you had one static scene per place and its corresponding soundtrack was out in front and immediately identifiable. In these you're constantly shifting around and it doesn't feel like there's a "theme" going on with each environment. To add to that, I've extracted the music and listened to it on its own, it's good stuff but it is OBSCENELY poor audio quality. Compared to past installments, to get a sense of it it's like listening to the CoMI soundtrack converted to MIDI, and played through a pignose speaker with too much distortion.
Really good ideas. This is the kind of stuff I'm missing from this game. Just solid, natural settings full of life. I feel like we keep getting gimmicks, and these really small novelty things that don't really make sense from a larger perspective. When you enter a town, it should come across as a REAL town that actually sustains its citizens and their needs. That's not that hard to do, you don't have to be able to explore every nook, but it just come across as a WORLD, and not just a little diorama convenient only for the story and puzzles that the designers have created.
Items and locations should seem like they would naturally be there and have uses independent of Guybrush and his quest. The Woodtick, graveyard crypts, Ship Harbor in MI2 and many others are good examples. It's you entering a world, not a world made for you. A ship repair/bait/whatever Guybrush needs shop is not. A BBQ and fishing well in the middle of the jungle, that only makes sense within the confines of Guybrush Threepwood's problems is NOT.
It's a shame only the first two games fulfilled these criteria properly. EMI tried to cut corners with Melee and I for one noticed. Mind, the game size would have been a lot bigger if the SCUMM Bar had been as full of pirates as it was in SMI. I really loved CMI but even that has Puerto Pollo's Field of Honor/Competition. In all fairness, LA did put lots of village buildings on Plunder and Lucre that we couldn't enter (or even identify as residences or places of work).
I think I'm being generous, with conditions. That's why this episode was SO hard for me to review. If, by the time all of this is wrapped up, we don't have a legitimate story need for the Vacaylians, I think it's safe to say that I'll find the series a disappointment. At this juncture though, I still don't really have a clear idea of where the story is going, so I'm trying to give the developers the benefit of the doubt. If we don't get some SERIOUS payoff by the next episode though, I can see the fanbase possibly starting to turn.
This is another point of awkwardness that made it difficult to review. I wasn't thrilled about the idea of merpeople to start with. However, when I actually got to the Cay, I found that while they didn't exactly bother me, they did trouble me in a "OK - so why merfolk, then?" way.
I guess what I'm trying to say is...did they actually NEED to be merfolk? Is there some reason this couldn't be a normal pirate town of some kind?
If there is some deep story need for the merfolk, I'll be able to accept them when all is said and done. If it comes down to the developers just wanting to have something with a different flavor, that will bother me in the end.
I guess subconsciously I explained this away by having what we saw of the town being the "human-available" services. I expect that UNDERwater is where the Vacaylians have a giant city that we just don't happen to see. In that respect, it didn't bother me.
Here I might end up getting a little self-contradictory, but stay with me. I know what I'm thinking, but I'm not sure it's going to come out correctly in text, but I'll do my best.
The danger with this kind of approach is that I think it makes the vacaylians TOO central to the ongoing story (whatever that is.)
My thinking is that, if we're going to have merpeople, they'd better have a good reason for existing in-game. On the other hand, I DON'T want them to be the focus It seems to me that that territory needs to have Guybrush, LeChuck, and Elaine front and center. (And DeSinge, since he is a driver of the plot).
If we spent an episode following rumors of the Vacaylians and spending an entire episode trying to locate and explore their world, I have a feeling I'd be even more frustrated than I am now. What I want to get to is the MEAT of the game, and that should ultimately concern The Sponge, LeChuck, Voodoo, and lots of Monkeys. It's THAT point that I'm so anxious to get to.
So...to put it another way, I want the Vacaylians to be important enough to have a reason to exist, but no more important than that - otherwise they become a distraction.
This is something that I didn't properly address in my review. I wanted to shoehorn it in, but I felt like it was getting long already. (I do tend to type more than I figure most reasonable people will want to read).
One thing that I did feel was a huge drawback to Episode 2 was (again) the lack of territory to explore. While the Cay itself was at least interesting from a design standpoint, the jungle felt like a "cheat" that we'd already seen, and was there partially to artificially extend the game.
More criminal were the one-room islands we got to explore in the surrounding area. While I think it's great that we got to actually sail to multiple locations in this episode, I did want to have more to explore. This was ESPECIALLY true of Roe Island, as I felt that having ONLY DeCavas shack to explore was jarring. If anything, I would've much preferred that the jungle location be there, so that we're forced to follow clues to locate the shack of this mysterious person that everybody seems to have heard of, but nobody has seen.
So - amend this to my earlier review - Telltale: We still need LARGER locations with more to explore. I suspect that ultimately this probably has to do with the limitations of the Wii, but I'd still like them to take note.
I wasn't trying to imply that it was bigotry that was turning people off of the androgynous design. For me, it had more to do with altering something that most people have a pretty good mental image of. There are narrative reasons for doing so, but I can't find a reason for doing it HERE. Did they mess with merpeople just to mess with them, or to get cheap jokes? If either answer is yes, then that's inexcusable. If they have ANOTHER reason for doing so, then we need to have some understanding of why.
As to their habitat and culture, I felt like we actually got some information there. We know that the Vacaylians used science and one point to walk on land (presumably creating the artifacts that have been left behind) - and that afterward, they returned to the sea.
Again the question is...why? I expect THAT will be revealed later on, and I suspect that's where their inclusion in the series will be explained.
I have to disagree with you here - not about your comments about The Secret of Monkey Island (which are spot on!), but about the merpeople as "supernatural."
I don't see them as supernatural at all - unusual yes, but ultimately nothing more than different inhabitants of this world.
Once you start involving ghosts, zombies, and voodoo - THAT'S when the supernatural spooky stuff starts kicking in. That's also why I made a point to mention in the review that I DON'T see the vacaylian artifacts or ritual words as being "voodoo." I don't know what they are, but I don't see it as "magic" that's been defined in earlier parts of the series. That's also why I think it's important that we start getting into the supernatural parts of the story in the slightly-distant future. I suspect that'll start kicking in right around episode 4.
I think the game had some of the same limitations of the first episode, with regards to pacing. That's part of the difficulty of writing for an episodic series, and it's one that I hope they find a solution for soon - I think their pacing is off.
That said, I thought the dialogue was head and shoulders above the first episode. The humor is returning, and the characters seem to be IN character - at least, as well as we can judge. (Human LeChuck is new, and quite different from ghost/zombie/demon/stone? pirate LeChuck - but still seems to have a menacing undertone that I think works)
I completely agree that we need larger locations with more to explore. See above for my thoughts on that. However, I don't feel like there was less to explore than in Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. Flotsam felt completely closed to me, particularly because it was impossible to enter any of the buildings. Sailing to other islands helped give the illusion that we were seeing more, but once we reached additional islands they certainly needed to be larger than one room.
Hmmm...sorry to hear that the music didn't work for you. While I don't think it's on par with LeChucks Revenge or Curse, I did feel that it was probably as good as "Secret"...and I felt like a lot more work went into the composition than Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. "Launch" felt like a completely generic soundtrack to me, which is probably the worst thing you can say about a piece of music. I thought that the music here was scene-appropriate and catchy, particularly in the fight with Morgan, or scenes with LeChuck.
Can't say that I notice audio quality problems with the music, but then, I can't claim to be an audiophile either...other's will probably notice more than I would.
Hope this addresses some of your concerns with my review!
Lorn
This is a fair point. We are 40% of the way through. If the game, and more importantly the story elements, do not pick up immediately, I can't help but think the game will either improve too late or simply not improve at all.
Maybe we just disagree on the whole idea behind rating. Ratings are and ought to be subjective clarification - and summaries of your opinion. I found that the /2 rating didn't work, because it left you two few rating-possibilities AND because you tried to incorporate an objective element in your rating (the intent of the developers), which I don't think belongs there. Like everything else in a review, a numerical rating is a qualified opinion.
I understand that my aggresive style made you respond in a not so friendly manner. Fair enough.
I am of course interested in the debate as well - and not in being told what to think. The interesting part of a review is that it forces you to - and helps you form your own opinion.
However; I think any review - and any good presentation in general - should be summarized. And in reviews the obvious and perfect tools for this are ratings.
I disagree very much with your idea that numbers appear as factual. Like you say; numbers are as subjective as the rest of your opinions in a review. Numbers don't change the arguments they are based on, but they clarify them and summarize them.
Observe the difference between these two examples:
1. I found the graphics very nicely made. The characters were beautifully rendered and the backgrounds were richly detailed. However; some of the secondary characters lacked some graphic personality and were a bit generic.
2. I found the graphics very nicely made. The main characters were beautifully rendered and the backgrounds were richly detailed. However; some of the secondary characters lacked some graphic personality and were a bit generic.
Main characters: 8/10
Backgrounds: 8/10
Secondary characters: 5/10
Graphics: 7/10
My point is not, that ratings should be used instead of the review, but as a clarification, in which it is made clearer how much you like different aspects of the game.
I am sorry, that I keep pulling you into a general discussion of ratings instead of your specific review. I find it the subject discussionable.
Hopefully Telltale starts making changes along the lines of these suggestions. I miss the dark atmosphere or the first two games.
I expect that's probably true.
In an ideal world, I agree that that's true. In practice, I've found that this is what usually happens, though:
Most reviewers decide to rate their opinion on a scale of one to ten. Most people READING a review won't give a game that rates lower than a 7 the time of day - and if a game IS rated a 7, most readers can't identify what a score of "7" really means.
However, most people ARE willing to take a chance on anything 8 and above.
Now...consider the fact that most reviewers only rate games in this 4 number spread! (7-8-9-10)
(Unless a game is truly atrocious, most games will rate at least a 60%.
As you can see, both reviews and reviewers tend to scew the actual scale, without taking into account that anything over 50% is technically favorable.
The problem - occurring at BOTH ends of the review - (reviewer and reader of the review) makes the 1-10 scale at best hobbled and at worst completely meaningless.
My attempt at offering a "scale of two" review intended to address this by clearly defining what each point was awarded for - judging what I believed to be the developers intent (which is, admittedly still subjective), and whether or not it worked for me personally.
Unfortunately, by even trying to address the issue the thread nearly got derailed from the very start. Rather than fostering debate, the scoring system became the focus and initial reactions to what I had written were negative because people were focusing on the SCORES - not what I had actually said.
I think an author can make that statement as a statement of intent...but that's not necessarily what comes across to the reader. Too many people try to use a score as shorthand for "should I even bother with this?"
I much prefer to write, and allow people to draw their own conclusions...and then debate those conclusions. It may not be as efficient time-wise, but I've found it's far more effective for my own goals for the thread.
It wasn't your aggressive style that made me respond in a not-so-friendly manner.
It was two very specific things - within your initial reply you asked a question -
I read this question as - "Please do my thinking for me. I don't want to actually read what has been said in the thread, I want an easy number to look at so the numbers can make my decision for me."
Even if this was not your intent, the problem with using those numbers that you so desperately crave is that your interpretation of what the numbers mean may be completely different from what MY interpretation of what the numbers mean. That's why I'd much rather you read the points that I have to make, then reply with your own counter-arguments and theories.
The second thing that got under my skin was this:
This was a demand, and it had already been addressed WAY back in the thread. I'll admit that this really got my hackles up - the very point of this thread was to foster debate, and by including numbers in the first place, I very nearly killed the thread before it ever got started.
If I came across as harsh, I apologize - but I hope after reading this reply, you'll understand where the response came from.
Lorn
One thing I want to clarify, and that is that I didn't necessarily want finding the vaycalians to be the central plot point. but even just a cut scene in the beginning or SOME kind of build up to them, and then some kind of imaginative world for them (that made sense outside of fulfilling needs for puzzles) would do. i understand there's only a finite amount of time, but if you're going to include MERMEN in monkey island, you gotta at least make it memorable. at the end of the game, looking back, you should recall meeting the merfolk and seeing their world as an awesome part of an epic journey (and hopefully long to play it again). if that doesn't happen, then telltale failed imo.
This is hilariously stupid.
I'm back for some more long-winded replies, hoping to catch some things that I may've missed earlier.
RockNRoll:
I wasn't really sure how to respond to your post, which is why I sort of brushed past it. I'll try and address it as best I can here.
First, replying to DeLucas original post:
This first wish touches primarily on the tone of the location. This is a subject that we've covered in depth here, and addresses both the feel of the location, and the attitude of the inhabitants.
The first episode committed the gravest sins in my mind - the pirates were a joke. I feel that this was addressed very well in episode two. Pirates were piratey, and we weren't landlocked an an uninteresting island.
I think your primary complaint, RockNRoll, was in the design of the cay itself. If I understood you correctly, you felt that the locations were basically "one-stop-shopping" for puzzle solutions, and didn't make sense in a "realistic" community.
My own feeling (as I mentioned earlier) was that the buildings that we saw in Episode II were the "human-available-services." In my head, there IS a big underwater vacaylian city that we haven't seen yet...(note the emphasis on YET. I suspect we'll get to see the vacaylian side of things in the next episode. In my head, the Lair of the Leviathan is an enclosed underwater cavern, where DeCava is likely trapped.
I suspect the "mouth" is one-way. It allows entry to the lair, but doesn't get you back out. So what's the solution?
Well...Guybrush can hold his breath for ten minutes...can't he?
I noticed that a lot of people were also irritated by the Ship Repair/Bait shop in the episode.
For the life of me, I don't understand the complaint. I can understand that the player may feel like this is just lazy design, but to me it makes sense.
Shipyards (and shipwrights) often supply a lot of additional services. After all, if you've got somebody in for one service, you may as well make some money on an additional service. I've often seen bait and tackle shops attached to these types of business, so the combination to me felt natural.
Actually, a town filled with hung-over pirates DOES sound funny to me, and could provide a lot of interesting puzzles. My only concern here is that we're getting pretty deep into "fan-service" territory.
Despite my misgivings on the pacing, I am confident that Telltale has a pretty tight plot up their sleeve, I'm just concerned about the pace at which they're revealing it. If I'm right, and they DO have such a plot in mind...how does this town fit into it?
I can't say that I'm too keen on this idea. In addition to the "overall plot" point that was brought up before, this introduces an additional problem. Why are we hiding from the british? Who are they working for? Certainly not DeSinge, who is French. The "hiding" mechanic to me sounds like it could be an excercise in frustration, so I don't really see this idea as workable.
Now, back to RockNRolls points:
I can agree with this point in principle. One of the things that made Melee so magical was that pirates were wandering around town, entering buildings and shops, independent of what you were doing. It felt like a living town.
I can agree with this statement as well, but with a few important qualifications. One of the things we've brought up in earlier sections of the thread is the anachronisms that somehow manage to mesh with the "pirate" vibe. There's no way they SHOULD gel, but somehow the charm just sells it.
Because of this, I think it's important to make the distinction that we're talking about FANTASY-real towns...not REAL-real towns. You don't need to have a full support industry catering to everything you'd expect in a real town, but it should at least sell the illusion of indepdent pirate communities continuing to exist off-screen when you're not there.
I agree that Melee from MI 1 and Woodtick from MI2 are the gold standard. (I'd include Puerto Pollo from CMI, but I think a few people would disagree with me on that point)
I disagree here, but for the reasons I mentioned above.
I also disagree here, but for another important reason - the BBQ in the jungle doesn't bother me because we know it was a land-based vacaylian artifact.
I think the reason this bothered people was because it seemed to be sitting there in the middle of nowhere, but it sounds like the vacaylians returned to the sea some time ago, so this still doesn't really bother me.
I DO think it might've felt a little bit more natural if there were other ruins in the immediate vicinity...maybe a dance floor or petrified hammock or something - some kind of outdoor entertainment venue.
One thing that does bother me - why did the Vacaylians return to the sea? I have this nagging feeling that it has something to do with DeSinge. With his obsession with limbs (and the amputation of such), I can imagine Vacaylians with legs would be interested in getting out of his reach as quickly as possible.
The problem with this theory is that (as I understand it) the Vacaylians returned to the sea centuries ago...maybe DeSinge has some type of ancestor? Or maybe I'm just barking up the wrong tree.
I don't think we're done with the Vacaylians yet. I think where we'll get that sense of wonder will probably be the next episode, in the Lair of the Leviathan. I expect the Lair itself will be vast, and interesting.
I suspect there are a special "guardian" caste of the Vacaylians who protect it's sacred resting place, but they're cut off from the rest of the Vacaylian community, who don't seem to know all that much about the "mouth" or the "sponge", except from what they can interpret from their soggy religious texts.
Lorn
I'm actually fairly confident that they will...while they haven't released sales figures, we do know it's their fastest selling title yet, and that they exceeded their estimates.
Lucasarts also seems happy, and the reviewers so far have been very kind (although they have mentioned some of the concerns that we've pointed out as well.)
Do you have a feeling that opinions are more negative than what the mainstream press is reporting?
If so, why?
Lorn
It seems to me that the Telltale partnership is the best of all possible worlds for them.
Like it or not, adventure games have still become a very specific niche. They cost a lot to develop, vs the small subset of total overall gamers who will play them.
With a telltale licensing deal, Lucasarts basically gets a cut of every game sold, without having to do anything.
Even with the number of sales they've gotten, I don't see these sales competing with their Star Wars titles, which is admittedly where the cash cow is.
With Lucasarts also retaining the merchandise deals for anything that Telltale produces...I just think it makes more sense for them to have Telltale continue the series.
Lorn
I hope you're right, because we don't want a repeat of Escape.
i found the explanation obvious.
The British Empire: The Caribbean was part of the slave-triangle; hugely profitable sugar plantations; strategic importance for the Royal Navy.
The Royal Navy's mission was to seek out and destroy piracy (and the Dutch, Spanish. Portuguese etc..).
If Guybrush is a mighty pirate then he surely would be hiding from British troops (ignoring the fact that he is married to a British governor!!!! (and British himself?))
I think it's a great idea. Guybrush trying to smuggle himself, or something, in or out of a British garrison deep in the Caribbean.
Can't get any more piratey than that!!