Did You Like EMI?
I hear a lot of people say that they hated Escape from Monkey Island and most people say that it was the worst of the MI series. But I have heard some people say that they liked it and a few people say that they loved it (me being one of the people who loved it). But what do you think of Escape from Monkey Island?
EDIT: (Sorry for the bad grammar in the poll, it was originally 1 star up the top and 5 stars down the bottom before I decided to switch the order)
EDIT: (Sorry for the bad grammar in the poll, it was originally 1 star up the top and 5 stars down the bottom before I decided to switch the order)
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I didn't have a problem with the controls either.
Besides, it's the game that really got me into the series. I mean, I saw, and even played a little, SoMI and CoMI before EfMI, but I never was awed or hooked. EfMI did it.
The game was as funny as the rest, and the puzzles were a lot more logical.
I really enjoyed playing it - a lot more than the first 3 together.
I just played MIse... And you know what? The game isn't THAT good. The puzzles are so stupid and frustrating that a few times in the middle I just wanted to delete the game and that's it.
I mean... Come on... A red Herring for the Bridge Troll!? WTH?
My biggest issue was with the controls (which I already hated in Grim Fandango), I think the graphics were cool, the story was fun and most of the puzzles were decent. I agree about the protheses shop though, also with the swamp on the same island, and the LUA Bar puzzle quickly got annoying as well. From Jambalaya onwards I think it was fantastic.
Atleast it didn't have pixel hunting like Simon the Sorcerer one, that isn't adventure gaming, that's just stupid.
Though this game was a quality game, no glitches or anything, top of the line graphics in its day. It was well made, good voice acting, sound quality... Aside from artistic differences there's nothing degenerative of the game's quality. Maybe it took some new and ambitious directions with the story but I much rather play a game with as an engaging story as this one than I would most modern video games. I rather play a new Monkey Island game with characters that I love than I would a special edition remake.
The project was very enthuastic and pushed the franchise into new areas of focus and I thought it was a very engaging story aside from plot holes and some of the more over zealous decisions made.
So...how many stars I'd give it depends on how I'm looking at it. I went for the middle road with three.
Same with movies.
Rated it a 3.
I started playing it, got bored, did something else and eventually forgot about it.
Ah, c'mon man! Go back an finish it (it'll haunt you forever otherwise)!
It's the last Lucas Arts Monkey Island release in the series of games...you won't even finish it?
I guess you really have more bias than you realize then, or maybe you're really just indifferent and don't really care.
I've got no bias either way. I do the same with any game: I start playing and see how it goes. I'm not mad about EMI being the way it is and I'm sure there are people who enjoyed it enough to play it to the end, but these people just aren't me.
What point of the game did you actually make it up to?
Don't remember. I faintly remember getting beyond a catapult puzzle but everything after that is a blur.
LOL that's the first puzzle of the entire game
I remember that it was already annoying me. I know I played a bit further, but how much I can't tell. I still can recite from memory the whole tutorial of "Afterlife" but EMI just didn't stick.
Fair enough... but Escape from Monkey Island will always sit on the shelf, staring you in the face, still unplayed, still uncompleted...
- Awful controls and interface. Having to walk up close to something to see if it's possible to interact with may be more realistic, but it's just downright inconvenient in this type of game... not to mention that Guybrush tends to "bounce" off of things and start moving in the wrong direction if you get too close to the a background object. Having to hold an item before you could use it didn't add anything to the experience either.
- Humor/Voice Acting. I blame this more on the writing and voice direction than the actors themselves. The voices are good for the most part, Dominic Armato is top-notch as always. The thing I disliked was more of a subtlety in the programming: When characters spoke they'd never leave any pause in the dialogue between one character and another, making it seem less like they were talking to each other and more like they were quickly rushing through their lines. A very small detail, but one that bothered me enough to take me out of the immersion of the game. As for the humor itself, I didn't like it compared to Curse of Monkey Island but that's all very subjective. To each his own.
- Graphics. Yeah, I realize that 3D graphics weren't very advanced at the time this game was made, but after the beautifully animated CoMI this game just looked awful to me. One thing that sold me right away in ToMI was how the characters had more than one facial expression, unlike EMI (and no, Guybrush having slightly angrier-looking eyebrows doesn't count as another facial expression). Pretty sad when basic stuff like simply having animation in a game is a selling point for a fan.
- Story. I don't really have anything to say about the story that hasn't been said a hundred times already, so I'll just say I'm one of those who thought it had no place in the monkey island series. Just to compare, I love the storylines in all the other MI games, including ToMI.
As for the puzzles, I didn't think there was anything terribly wrong with them per se, but the other annoyances were enough to detract from the fun of figuring them out. And Monkey Kombat can go choke on a banana.
Edit - If there's one thing I think is really good about EMI, it's the music. The main menu theme will never leave my head, IT WILL NEVER LEAVE. I loved the music from the town in Melee Island, too. I hated how they cut corners and reused the same orchestrated MI theme from CoMI, though. That was kind of cheap.
tl;dr - I didn't like the game, and it single-handedly convinced me that the adventure genre was dead. Telltale has rekindled my faith, though.
I'm sure if here were more not-really-so-into-Monkey-Island-simple-adventure-gamers, it would have a LOT of 5s.
anyway, if you like adventure games, don't mind keyboard control and few canon flaws, you should play it..
Still.. compared to other games in series it was the least good (too much pop references, too little piratey feel)- add to this, that it was a direct follow up to CMI, and you get "mission impossible"
He asks for "something that will draw interest but have no real use"
seems to me a lot of people played EMI as the first in the series... or are too young to actually know the series from the beginning.
I mean common... the graphics were outdated at that time (the pre-rendered movies actually looked WORSE on my machine than in game, and that was crap and full of clipping) and the game just isn't that good.
The controls were crap.
the overall story was very far fetched and to top things... the puzzles were so completly childish and easy the game was just a pain to play again...
It's nothing more than a quick sell by using a popular series.
I've tried to play it multiple times after I first finished it, but I couldn't get past chapter two because of the fact I had to do a lot of crappy things al over again.
A problem I have never experienced with the first three (apart from having to learn all the insults again).
Monkey Island Special Edittion is somewhat of a quick sell too, but this time to actually feed the fans of the original...
Tales brings back the MI-style caribbean and has much better story and gameplay...
EMI just doesn't exist as a Monkey Island sequel to me, I consider it a spin-off.... nothing more, nothing less.
And as a spin-off it is pretty fun... in a Crystal Skull kinda way.
Though I object, Monkey Island 4 is not the easiest game in the series, you can easily beat Monkey Island one in just a few days if not just one. To be honest MI 2, 3, and 4 took me far longer.
Though I played MI-4 in about 2003-4...Just a few weeks after the others. I got them all at once for my birth day.
What you are calling a spin off is what I choose to call a Monkey Island game in moderation with flaws. I still find it worth playing because it's still a Monkey Island game in moderation it's just faulted but ultimately that doesn't detract from me that it's a Monkey Island adventure game.
I don't condone everything that's wrong with Monkey Island 4 but I still enjoyed it for what it is, it's not the worse thing I've seen in my life. I played it through and enjoyed it mostly because of what it was not because of what it wasn't. I too hated the stupid ending and the controls but what I loved about the game was that it had the characters I've grown to love. I wasn't too crazy about Lechuck being a tool either...
I accepted the game in moderation and loved it for what it was, undeniably the game has its Monkey moments. Seeing how it was the last in the series and I never thought we were going to get more I just took it in stride as an imperfect game. I don't think I could call it a spoof but I'd definitely say that the game has some flaws and that it's faulted. I didn't go through the game not thinking alot of it was stupid but I truly felt it was worth finishing and I'd do it again, esp after playing the first 3 games. If anything it's good for a sense of completion and saying farewell to everything good about the game.
Thanks for your honesty and enthusiasm, even if we don't agree entirely. I enjoyed KOTCS for similar reasons.
It's a decent game, and as standalone it's good. Considering the (I'm stealing this idea from Udvarnoky) environment it was probably built-in, it's actually a solid, generally good attempt. It really loses it towards the end of the thing, but for the most part it was OK
What I do remember is that it felt like something that was being done by people other than those who did the previous games and they didn't quite get it.
The "Monkey Kombat" thing is TERRIBLE design. It's as time-consuming as insult swordfighting but with NO JOKES! What's more, the combinations actually randomize in each new game, meaning you can't just write the damn things down and skip that garbage if you want to replay; you actually have to do it all over again! I refuse to accept the idea that ANYONE could enjoy doing this once, let along more than once.