If this is [Holds up Two] Five, then what is this [Holds up One], the answer would be Two, the answer is what he previously holds up, the first number he mentions is just there to throw you off.
If this is [Holds up Two] Five, then what is this [Holds up One], the answer would be Two, the answer is what he previously holds up, the first number he mentions is just there to throw you off.
How are you supposed to know that first time through?
How are you supposed to know that first time through?
You don't, and that's the beauty of that puzzle. You had to pretty much guess how it goes, as to what the dude who comes in the alley before you tells the doorman.
Does he show you his middle finger when he says that?
You don't, and that's the beauty of that puzzle. You had to pretty much guess how it goes, as to what the dude who comes in the alley before you tells the doorman.
Uhm, you don't really have to guess if you're paying attention. The gambler shows you how to do it, when you follow him into the alley the first time. Unintentionally of course, since you're hiding from him and the doorman.
Uhm, you don't really have to guess if you're paying attention. The gambler shows you how to do it, when you follow him into the alley the first time. Unintentionally of course, since you're hiding from him and the doorman.
That's exactly what I said. You had to "guess" the way they do it by watching them before you get it.
But I do agree that for someone who would come from the Tales period, with relatively easy puzzles, that one would definitely be a brain cracker.
That's exactly what I said. You had to "guess" the way they do it by watching them before you get it.
But I do agree that for someone who would come from the Tales period, with relatively easy puzzles, that one would definitely be a brain cracker.
That's not guessing. That's solving a puzzle by paying attention.
If you say "I have a red car" and I say "you have a red car" afterwards, I wouldn't just be guessing, would I?
But yes, it's a difficult puzzle, much more subtle than what we have today. But then again, 50% of the puzzles in Monkey 2 were solved by paying attention to subtle clues. Obvious puzzles were more of the exception than the norm back then.
That's not guessing. That's solving a puzzle by paying attention.
If you say "I have a red car" and I say "you have a red car" afterwards, I wouldn't just be guessing, would I?
Well, what I'm saying is that you had to get (figure out? comprehend? capeeche?) the way they do it. It's obvious you wouldn't think they show it to you for nothing (game developpers have better things to do than to aimlessly animate some side conversation, haven't they?), so yes you had to pay attention but not just to what they say, but also to what the hand shows.
But yes, it's a difficult puzzle, much more subtle than what we have today. But then again, 50% of the puzzles in Monkey 2 were solved by paying attention to subtle clues. Obvious puzzles were more of the exception than the norm back then.
Well I didn't get it the first time either. I remember I was going back and forth following the guy and then saying wrong answers to the doorman. Also, I think there is a book at the local Phatt library on gambling, and if you borrow it you can read from it that gamblers always pay attention to detail and to what happens seconds before than to what happens next (it's a faint hint).
Thou maybe I'm utterly mistaken. I just had an impression that the library had pretty much every hint to all the inside game clues (not excluding the fact that if you didn't read the books on Resurrection, Great Shipwrecks and Romance, you couldn't progress further in game).
But I do agree that for someone who would come from the Tales period, with relatively easy puzzles, that one would definitely be a brain cracker.
Hey, I'll have you know that my first MI game was SoMI's EGA version on floppy disk. That is to say, I remember finding the stump joke ingame back in the day and thought it was hilarious. Anyone who actually called LA asking for SMI's disk 23 when there were only like 3 diskettes is dumber than I was for not getting the solution to the gambling password in MI2.
But yes, it's a difficult puzzle, much more subtle than what we have today. But then again, 50% of the puzzles in Monkey 2 were solved by paying attention to subtle clues. Obvious puzzles were more of the exception than the norm back then.
I guess I'm just A.D.D. or "fail" or something, given that I've played MI2 through like 4 times and I never thought to pay attention closely enough to notice how the first guy did it right. As I said, my solution was to save at the dialogue tree and make a different choice until I got the right one. Then again, I also had to get a hint from somewhere the first time I played MI2 to realize that Guybrush used the spit covered paper to write the Bone Song on. I had thought that I already used that paper and it was furthermore useless. (Not to mention Guybrush was having a delusion at the time.)
game developers have better things to do than to aimlessly animate some side conversation, haven't they?
I've never been very sure about that. After all, games do often supply useless inventory items (Stan's business cards, Wally's pirate pamphlets), so why not useless dialogue?
Agreed, but these items or dialogue lines are not useless because they provide humor. Sure, they have no use in the game, as per character advancement, but some of them are specially intended to be lulz-rich.
There are games whose devs were h/c enough to actually bring whole dialogue lines of two people to give them certain personality, but it's absolutely irrelevant to the plot (in KQVI, for example, when Alexander hides behind the column, you can listen to the whole five-minute long voiced conversation of two guards bragging about how he would look if they meet him). Sometimes you just wonder what was the point of doing it, especially if the solution is obvious.
Here, if you follow the gambler into an alley, it's just too obvious that it's a plot element, when he talks to the door guy and Guybrush hides. You can't mistake it for a simple game filler.
After all these years I still don't know how to do the gambling password. The hint help I got all those years ago was that the hand signals were meaningless and only the numbers were important: the order of the numbers was always repeated, so you needed to write them down and find the pattern. But mostly I just guessed my way through there.
After all these years I still don't know how to do the gambling password. The hint help I got all those years ago was that the hand signals were meaningless and only the numbers were important: the order of the numbers was always repeated, so you needed to write them down and find the pattern. But mostly I just guessed my way through there.
Haha, it's a really simple puzzle, I tried this out in college, and found out that many people were over thinking it, whilst a blonde girl, who was a bit dizzy, got it rather quickly. He shows you the answer, you just have to say back to him the number he shown you first.
I haven't played much of Escape yet, even though I've had it since Christmas, which suggests I'm not finding it as enjoyable as the other MI games (which I found much more addictive). But on the other hand I don't really have any problems with the game or complaints about it. It's not that I think Escape is a bad game... I just think the rest of the MI series is a lot better. :P
I tend to read reviews a lot, and had prepared myself for it to be much worse than it was. So to be fair, even though I was disappointed when first reading the game's reviews, I was pleasantly surprised when I actually played it myself.
And I don't feel like complaining about the graphics because I've played Simon the Sorcerer 3D. 'Nuff said about that. XD
The controls.. never made it out of the pub. Hope I'm not missing out on too much but after CMI it was a travesty. I don't want to play an adventure game with keyboard only.
I'm surprised by the number of people blaming on the controls, which in reality was actually perfectly fine for what it was - especially at a time where Resident Evil style controls were more or less the norm. The controls were, imo, one of the better things about the game. In fact, it was much improved and refined over the Grim Fandango controls. Actually, the whole game was perfectly good looking and with decent enough controls to not substract for the game. Only the story and puzzles were the problems.
I'm surprised by the number of people blaming on the controls, which in reality was actually perfectly fine for what it was - especially at a time where Resident Evil style controls were more or less the norm.
See, that's why I could never play resident Evil or alone in the dark either, hated the controls.. Each to their own.
Argh! Don't mention that game
It used to give me nightmares as a kid. I'm sure people will tell me it's not scary or anything but for me it was the most terrifying things ever. I always felt like someone was following me and stuff.
Escape sucks because it's mainly POOR WRITING. No excuses for that!!! :
- LeChuck is a stupid Ozzie Mandrill's slave (why??? All his excuses for obeying to Ozzie were simply nonsense for a character like LeChuck)
- Guybrush is a total idiot (and DON'T SAY THAT HE'S AN IDIOT. In Tales, the TellTale showed to the world how to build a wonderful not-too-serious-and-not-too-idiot hero)
- Bad atmosphere (Lucre and Jambalaya...oh my god. Where is the Monkey Island magic?? Like Melee?? Like Blood Island?? Like the Crossroads??)
- Not so good puzzle writing
- They put too many things only to let the fan say "wow, this is back. Monkey Island is back. Otis is back". Also if it made nonsense in the story.
TALES is Monkey Island. LECHUCK'S REVENGE is Monkey Island. Escape is not Monkey Island.
especially at a time where Resident Evil style controls were more or less the norm.
I never heard anyone NOT complaining about Resident Evil's controls. I thought the general opinion was that fixed camera potions and controls like that were horrible, a problem of consolites. To have that imprinted upon a PC-title was... well... more than horrible.
Actually, the whole game was perfectly good looking
Ugh. What? I played the demo when it came out, and even for that early 3D time it was repugnant.
It's not as shockingly horrible as Baldur's Gate 2-NWN's decline, but still... pretty shocking de-volution of the graphics.
I never heard anyone NOT complaining about Resident Evil's controls. I thought the general opinion was that fixed camera potions and controls like that were horrible, a problem of consolites. To have that imprinted upon a PC-title was... well... more than horrible.
Ugh. What? I played the demo when it came out, and even for that early 3D time it was repugnant.
It's not as shockingly horrible as Baldur's Gate 2-NWN's decline, but still... pretty shocking de-volution of the graphics.
Yeah, I know that, but with the fact that it was the norm, people should've gotten used to them by the time Grim and Escape came out. Also the fact that Grim and EMI weren't action games, where you had all the time in the world and didn't need to rely on twitch reactions should make the controls fit more to that kind of game than games like Resi or Silent Hill.
Besides, you could easily switch to camera relative if it bothered you that much, just like in Resi and Silent.
Not really defending the controls, 'cause they're hardly the best thing since sliced bread. I'm just saying that they're not remotely as bad as some make it out to be, and it's fluid and relatively intuitive once you get some practice. People remember Silent Hill and Resident Evil because they were great games. Not because it had bad controls. Therefore, I'd assume that Grim and Fandango would be remembered the same way. The controls in all of these games didn't make or break it, because the content was more important. If you blame the controls for EMI being bad, you've missed the point. Grim Fandango wasn't good because of the controls, so it's only fair to say EMI wasn't bad because of the controls.
Just one small note:
Although I agree the controls were bad, but did not cause the game to be subpar on their own, just switching them to camera-relative does not help that much. I always played with camera-relative (I find it easier to handle) and several times I would find myself uncontrollably walking back and forth between two screens because the camera would turn around a full 180 degrees, so holding the one arrow key would send Guybrush repeatedly back to the (for example) left side of the screen and off it. It caused many a shouting match before I could calm down enough to gently tap the arrow until he was on the right screen when I let go.
Of course, it may have just been a bad keyboard. I don't remember having as much of a problem with that the last time I played it, so either I got used to it or it isn't happening anymore.
Great rationale.
"Hey, you've got all the time of the world, so why make the controls AT ALL initiative?"
I suppose I shouldn't have put down Broken Sword 3 down in the closet to collect dust only after 30 minutes of play either just because I couldn't take those horrible controls anymore? (good thing it was a binsale for just 5 bucks. Still...)
And it's one of the sum of parts why EMI is by far the worst MI of all...
I don't think the controls are horrible. They're different, and they take a while getting used to, but they work like the should, no more no less. Simple, direct control, which takes only a look in the manual to understand. I thought you were PC gamers, any PC gamer should be used to keyboard controls, with or without a mouse. Especially at that time. What I'm saying is, people exaggerate a LOT when they complain about the controls, since they're not nearly as bad as they make it out to be. And the fact that people are putting this reason as one of the main reasons the game was bad, that's just laughable.
If you gave up on the game because of the controls, then you suck at gaming, simple as that. You may not enjoy the interface, heck I'm not a big fan of it myself. But to call the controls "bad" is just plain wrong, since they were functional and relatively intuitive. We've had the same discussion for ToMI, and I'd say the click and drag feature is a billion times worse than the Grim or EMI controls, and the inventory system is just plain unintuitive and unnecessarily complex - again the EMI controls were actually better. That said, ToMI had mouse controls to some degree, and wasd together with a mouse worked well. But what I'm saying is, ToMI had issues with the controls as well, (the whole inventory system actually pisses me off), but the controls weren't the reason the game was good.
Also, unicornfoal: if you used camera relative, and you held right, guybrush would still move in the correct direction, sine it freezes the direction he's looking for a second. The fact that you went back and forth between screens was because you held the key too long. Also, this doesn't happen with character-relative controls, which is why I always play with that. It was like that for all games with pre-rendered backgrounds of the day, so the controls were the norm of its day. This only stopped happening once games became fully 3D, since the controls changed as well. Unfortunately, the new fully 3D games got less cinematic views because of this.
Well, I can't speak for other PC users, but games that never use the mouse can stuff themselves for all I care. I much rather prefer using the mouse over the keyboard than opposite. If that were the case, I would have been a consolegamer. And I ain't...
I didn't give up because of the controls though. I gave up around Monkey Kombat. By that time I just couldn't give a damn about the game anymore. I didn't even care how it would continue. And the parts before that I mostly rushed through with a walkthrough... none of the other MI's ever made me do that (okay, sure, I rushed through MI1 with a walkthrough, but I made it to the finish, and that was because I played during schooltime instead of spare time ).
I much prefuer the ps2 version to the pc verion theres lots of little things changed as well like elaine turning round to tell you off about drinking grog if you try and drink it near her and the controls where much easyer and monkey kombat cheat graph helps a lot
Also, unicornfoal: if you used camera relative, and you held right, guybrush would still move in the correct direction, sine it freezes the direction he's looking for a second. The fact that you went back and forth between screens was because you held the key too long. Also, this doesn't happen with character-relative controls, which is why I always play with that. It was like that for all games with pre-rendered backgrounds of the day, so the controls were the norm of its day. This only stopped happening once games became fully 3D, since the controls changed as well. Unfortunately, the new fully 3D games got less cinematic views because of this.
I never said I didn't know why he jumped between screens, and your comment is slightly confusing me. Are you trying to say he DOESN'T do that? I can assure you, he certainly does. I distinctly remember this being a major problem for me when we first got it. And I already said, I can't get used to character-relative. It just confuses me.
The other reason I remember it is because ToMI's camera-relative controls are far easier. If you change camera-angle while holding a direction key, the controls stay oriented to the previous camera until you let go. It was far more intuitive.
Also, we're not saying that moving Guybrush in EfMI is the major problem; It's the item hunting and inventory system that is confusing and difficult to navigate. Almost every time I play it, I have to dig up the handbook to remember that I have to use Page Up and Down to choose a command.
The other reason I remember it is because ToMI's camera-relative controls are far easier. If you change camera-angle while holding a direction key, the controls stay oriented to the previous camera until you let go. It was far more intuitive.
But EMI does that, that's what I was trying to say.
Also, we're not saying that moving Guybrush in EfMI is the major problem; It's the item hunting and inventory system that is confusing and difficult to navigate. Almost every time I play it, I have to dig up the handbook to remember that I have to use Page Up and Down to choose a command.
Actually, you can do just about everything with just the num-pad. Control Guybrush, enter inventory, switch between commands, pick up and put away. I think the only command that might not be there is combine items (which would be the Use command - U). It's something that could be learnt by yourself within a couple of minutes in the first scene.
Actually, you can do just about everything with just the num-pad. Control Guybrush, enter inventory, switch between commands, pick up and put away. I think the only command that might not be there is combine items (which would be the Use command - U). It's something that could be learnt by yourself within a couple of minutes in the first scene.
Also, can't you reconfigure the controls to work in whatever way makes the most sense to you? I've only ever used a gamepad with it, and my control setup isn't even consistent between playthroughs, it's whatever makes the most sense to me at the time, which certainly eliminates having to relearn controls.
Also, can't you reconfigure the controls to work in whatever way makes the most sense to you? I've only ever used a gamepad with it, and my control setup isn't even consistent between playthroughs, it's whatever makes the most sense to me at the time, which certainly eliminates having to relearn controls.
Yeah, I think you can reconfigure most if not all of the commands. Instead of checking the manual, you might as well just go into the configuration menu. It's a weak argument, imo.
That said, EMI was still a disappointment to me, but it had some great bits as well. the Monkey Kombat and the whole messing-with-the-story and the fact that it felt least piratey of them all was what killed it for me. Otherwise, it could've been a good game.
Yeah, least piratey. I know the whole tourist business was part of the story, but there's a difference between making the player feel genuine disgust about things in the same way the character does, and overdoing it so the player no longer wants to play. I remember from my first playthrough I was almost ready to call it quits with the Lua Bar. And Jambalaya was like the Disney Village or something. I got over it, though.
I remember playing the first time through, and after robot-monkey-kombat, the credits rolled and I'm like "Wait, what? That's it? Where did LeChuck's spirit go? He wasn't destroyed, the statue he possessed was."
Comments
Wondering how many people would understand. ^^
How are you supposed to know that first time through?
You don't, and that's the beauty of that puzzle. You had to pretty much guess how it goes, as to what the dude who comes in the alley before you tells the doorman.
Uhm, you don't really have to guess if you're paying attention. The gambler shows you how to do it, when you follow him into the alley the first time. Unintentionally of course, since you're hiding from him and the doorman.
But I do agree that for someone who would come from the Tales period, with relatively easy puzzles, that one would definitely be a brain cracker.
That's not guessing. That's solving a puzzle by paying attention.
If you say "I have a red car" and I say "you have a red car" afterwards, I wouldn't just be guessing, would I?
But yes, it's a difficult puzzle, much more subtle than what we have today. But then again, 50% of the puzzles in Monkey 2 were solved by paying attention to subtle clues. Obvious puzzles were more of the exception than the norm back then.
Well I didn't get it the first time either. I remember I was going back and forth following the guy and then saying wrong answers to the doorman. Also, I think there is a book at the local Phatt library on gambling, and if you borrow it you can read from it that gamblers always pay attention to detail and to what happens seconds before than to what happens next (it's a faint hint).
Thou maybe I'm utterly mistaken. I just had an impression that the library had pretty much every hint to all the inside game clues (not excluding the fact that if you didn't read the books on Resurrection, Great Shipwrecks and Romance, you couldn't progress further in game).
Hey, I'll have you know that my first MI game was SoMI's EGA version on floppy disk. That is to say, I remember finding the stump joke ingame back in the day and thought it was hilarious. Anyone who actually called LA asking for SMI's disk 23 when there were only like 3 diskettes is dumber than I was for not getting the solution to the gambling password in MI2.
I guess I'm just A.D.D. or "fail" or something, given that I've played MI2 through like 4 times and I never thought to pay attention closely enough to notice how the first guy did it right. As I said, my solution was to save at the dialogue tree and make a different choice until I got the right one. Then again, I also had to get a hint from somewhere the first time I played MI2 to realize that Guybrush used the spit covered paper to write the Bone Song on. I had thought that I already used that paper and it was furthermore useless. (Not to mention Guybrush was having a delusion at the time.)
I've never been very sure about that. After all, games do often supply useless inventory items (Stan's business cards, Wally's pirate pamphlets), so why not useless dialogue?
There are games whose devs were h/c enough to actually bring whole dialogue lines of two people to give them certain personality, but it's absolutely irrelevant to the plot (in KQVI, for example, when Alexander hides behind the column, you can listen to the whole five-minute long voiced conversation of two guards bragging about how he would look if they meet him). Sometimes you just wonder what was the point of doing it, especially if the solution is obvious.
Here, if you follow the gambler into an alley, it's just too obvious that it's a plot element, when he talks to the door guy and Guybrush hides. You can't mistake it for a simple game filler.
Haha, it's a really simple puzzle, I tried this out in college, and found out that many people were over thinking it, whilst a blonde girl, who was a bit dizzy, got it rather quickly. He shows you the answer, you just have to say back to him the number he shown you first.
http://www.mixnmojo.com/features/read.php?article=escapefrommonkeyisland
I tend to read reviews a lot, and had prepared myself for it to be much worse than it was. So to be fair, even though I was disappointed when first reading the game's reviews, I was pleasantly surprised when I actually played it myself.
And I don't feel like complaining about the graphics because I've played Simon the Sorcerer 3D. 'Nuff said about that. XD
Which was released AFTER Escape...
See, that's why I could never play resident Evil or alone in the dark either, hated the controls.. Each to their own.
Argh! Don't mention that game
It used to give me nightmares as a kid. I'm sure people will tell me it's not scary or anything but for me it was the most terrifying things ever. I always felt like someone was following me and stuff.
- LeChuck is a stupid Ozzie Mandrill's slave (why??? All his excuses for obeying to Ozzie were simply nonsense for a character like LeChuck)
- Guybrush is a total idiot (and DON'T SAY THAT HE'S AN IDIOT. In Tales, the TellTale showed to the world how to build a wonderful not-too-serious-and-not-too-idiot hero)
- Bad atmosphere (Lucre and Jambalaya...oh my god. Where is the Monkey Island magic?? Like Melee?? Like Blood Island?? Like the Crossroads??)
- Not so good puzzle writing
- They put too many things only to let the fan say "wow, this is back. Monkey Island is back. Otis is back". Also if it made nonsense in the story.
TALES is Monkey Island. LECHUCK'S REVENGE is Monkey Island. Escape is not Monkey Island.
It's not as shockingly horrible as Baldur's Gate 2-NWN's decline, but still... pretty shocking de-volution of the graphics.
Yeah, I know that, but with the fact that it was the norm, people should've gotten used to them by the time Grim and Escape came out. Also the fact that Grim and EMI weren't action games, where you had all the time in the world and didn't need to rely on twitch reactions should make the controls fit more to that kind of game than games like Resi or Silent Hill.
Besides, you could easily switch to camera relative if it bothered you that much, just like in Resi and Silent.
Not really defending the controls, 'cause they're hardly the best thing since sliced bread. I'm just saying that they're not remotely as bad as some make it out to be, and it's fluid and relatively intuitive once you get some practice. People remember Silent Hill and Resident Evil because they were great games. Not because it had bad controls. Therefore, I'd assume that Grim and Fandango would be remembered the same way. The controls in all of these games didn't make or break it, because the content was more important. If you blame the controls for EMI being bad, you've missed the point. Grim Fandango wasn't good because of the controls, so it's only fair to say EMI wasn't bad because of the controls.
Although I agree the controls were bad, but did not cause the game to be subpar on their own, just switching them to camera-relative does not help that much. I always played with camera-relative (I find it easier to handle) and several times I would find myself uncontrollably walking back and forth between two screens because the camera would turn around a full 180 degrees, so holding the one arrow key would send Guybrush repeatedly back to the (for example) left side of the screen and off it. It caused many a shouting match before I could calm down enough to gently tap the arrow until he was on the right screen when I let go.
Of course, it may have just been a bad keyboard. I don't remember having as much of a problem with that the last time I played it, so either I got used to it or it isn't happening anymore.
"Hey, you've got all the time of the world, so why make the controls AT ALL initiative?"
I suppose I shouldn't have put down Broken Sword 3 down in the closet to collect dust only after 30 minutes of play either just because I couldn't take those horrible controls anymore? (good thing it was a binsale for just 5 bucks. Still...)
And it's one of the sum of parts why EMI is by far the worst MI of all...
If you gave up on the game because of the controls, then you suck at gaming, simple as that. You may not enjoy the interface, heck I'm not a big fan of it myself. But to call the controls "bad" is just plain wrong, since they were functional and relatively intuitive. We've had the same discussion for ToMI, and I'd say the click and drag feature is a billion times worse than the Grim or EMI controls, and the inventory system is just plain unintuitive and unnecessarily complex - again the EMI controls were actually better. That said, ToMI had mouse controls to some degree, and wasd together with a mouse worked well. But what I'm saying is, ToMI had issues with the controls as well, (the whole inventory system actually pisses me off), but the controls weren't the reason the game was good.
Also, unicornfoal: if you used camera relative, and you held right, guybrush would still move in the correct direction, sine it freezes the direction he's looking for a second. The fact that you went back and forth between screens was because you held the key too long. Also, this doesn't happen with character-relative controls, which is why I always play with that. It was like that for all games with pre-rendered backgrounds of the day, so the controls were the norm of its day. This only stopped happening once games became fully 3D, since the controls changed as well. Unfortunately, the new fully 3D games got less cinematic views because of this.
I didn't give up because of the controls though. I gave up around Monkey Kombat. By that time I just couldn't give a damn about the game anymore. I didn't even care how it would continue. And the parts before that I mostly rushed through with a walkthrough... none of the other MI's ever made me do that (okay, sure, I rushed through MI1 with a walkthrough, but I made it to the finish, and that was because I played during schooltime instead of spare time
00:33
I never said I didn't know why he jumped between screens, and your comment is slightly confusing me. Are you trying to say he DOESN'T do that? I can assure you, he certainly does. I distinctly remember this being a major problem for me when we first got it. And I already said, I can't get used to character-relative. It just confuses me.
The other reason I remember it is because ToMI's camera-relative controls are far easier. If you change camera-angle while holding a direction key, the controls stay oriented to the previous camera until you let go. It was far more intuitive.
Also, we're not saying that moving Guybrush in EfMI is the major problem; It's the item hunting and inventory system that is confusing and difficult to navigate. Almost every time I play it, I have to dig up the handbook to remember that I have to use Page Up and Down to choose a command.
But EMI does that, that's what I was trying to say.
Actually, you can do just about everything with just the num-pad. Control Guybrush, enter inventory, switch between commands, pick up and put away. I think the only command that might not be there is combine items (which would be the Use command - U). It's something that could be learnt by yourself within a couple of minutes in the first scene.
Also, can't you reconfigure the controls to work in whatever way makes the most sense to you? I've only ever used a gamepad with it, and my control setup isn't even consistent between playthroughs, it's whatever makes the most sense to me at the time, which certainly eliminates having to relearn controls.
Yeah, I think you can reconfigure most if not all of the commands. Instead of checking the manual, you might as well just go into the configuration menu. It's a weak argument, imo.
That said, EMI was still a disappointment to me, but it had some great bits as well. the Monkey Kombat and the whole messing-with-the-story and the fact that it felt least piratey of them all was what killed it for me. Otherwise, it could've been a good game.
That's be cause it was all just a dream....
This is not the Monkey Island you are looking for...