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Just finished.. thoughts?

johnniewalk3rjohnniewalk3r
edited July 2009 in Tales of Monkey Island
I just finished the first episode and thought it was great.. i'm already tired of the countless complaints on this board about petty details. Tell Tail Games did an amazing job of bringing back the monkey island franchise. I wasn't a fan of the visual style of the game when i first saw it in screen shots but when you actually get it in motion and playing the games its freaking awesome, i loved it. I thought the dialog and humor were spot on. The story was well written and the characters were well thought out.. My personal favorite aside from Guybrush had to be the Marquis, Creepy french guys always freak me out. Overall a very good game. Personally I would not feel ripped off if I had paid $35 for this as a full retail game, because it was so enjoyable and well done. Not to mention that I've been waiting for a new Monkey Island game for years and years. This game is great 10/10 from me. And this is only episode one! I can't wait to see what we got coming in the next four installments. :D

Comments

  • Lena_PLena_P
    edited July 2009
    Yeah! I am not alone in my love(as long as he stays on his side of the computer screen) of the Marquis de Singe! (Seriously, first the C.O.P.S. now the Marquis. In the future I think Telltale is just going to have Emerson-Johnson, Brendan Ferguson and Roger L. Jackson voice every character. Female characters will be recorded with the use of helium). And I loved how everyone was animated. They seemed so lively and I was surprised at how expressive everyone was even outside of the major cutscenes. The choreographers really did a great job! (They are the ones I mean, right? Rigging character reactions through the Telltale Tool is the choreographers job, right?) But why isn't Guybrush's boat destroyed? And why is Elaine's still floating? Why doesn't LeChuck look like so much as a jerk as usual? And will the servers be murderated when the next episode comes out? Tune in next time, same pirate ... oh *ahem* Sorry. Tad excited here. Anyway, I liked it.
  • johnniewalk3rjohnniewalk3r
    edited July 2009
    Lena_P wrote: »
    Yeah! I am not alone in my love(as long as he stays on his side of the computer screen) of the Marquis de Singe! (Seriously, first the C.O.P.S. now the Marquis. In the future I think Telltale is just going to have Emerson-Johnson, Brendan Ferguson and Roger L. Jackson voice every character. Female characters will be recorded with the use of helium). And I loved how everyone was animated. They seemed so lively and I was surprised at how expressive everyone was even outside of the major cutscenes. The choreographers really did a great job! (They are the ones I mean, right? Rigging character reactions through the Telltale Tool is the choreographers job, right?) But why isn't Guybrush's boat destroyed? And why is Elaine's still floating? Why doesn't LeChuck look like so much as a jerk as usual? And will the servers be murderated when the next episode comes out? Tune in next time, same pirate ... oh *ahem* Sorry. Tad excited here. Anyway, I liked it.

    Yes! the character animations were great! as for Guybrushes boat im ont sure if it sank or not.. it didnt take some damage but i'm not sure if it went down. As for Elaine's boat it never really blew up. after the explosion Guybrush was thrown off but the actual boat was fine for some reason, considering how much black power was on the deck :confused:
  • descart3sdescart3s
    edited July 2009
    Did not leave my seat until the end of the credits.

    A brilliant nostalgia trip that simultaneously delivered something new, crisp and with an equally as riveting script. I'd love to play it again but as usual, I've got to wait until my memory dissipates until I go through it again! Perhaps I'll go back to COMI on Hard.
  • johnniewalk3rjohnniewalk3r
    edited July 2009
    descart3s wrote: »
    Did not leave my seat until the end of the credits.

    A brilliant nostalgia trip that simultaneously delivered something new, crisp and with an equally as riveting script. I'd love to play it again but as usual, I've got to wait until my memory dissipates until I go through it again! Perhaps I'll go back to COMI on Hard.

    Haha I agree.. all we need in an upcoming ToMI is a musical interlude as in CoMI =) that was one of my favorite parts in the whole series.
  • Lena_PLena_P
    edited July 2009
    Seriously, even the menus were all piratey and pretty!
  • mpuncekarmpuncekar
    edited July 2009
    First thought was definitely, wow, that was fantastic. I expected something good here as I had played the Sam and Max games before, but literally everything here felt like a step up. Animation, voice acting, the puzzles, and the game engine all included. Telltale, give yourself a round of applause.

    I kind of wish I wasn't so excited for the next one. The wait is going to suck.

    Now if only all of the negative posters would take a break. After completing this, I never expected to jump on here and see so many nitpicky and stubborn posts.
  • huge_peepshuge_peeps
    edited July 2009
    I just finished the first episode then and I too was very impressed. I just about wet myself when i found out last month that not only was there going to be a MI 1 remake but a whole new adventure. Overall I thought it was great, and i thought the length of the episode was pretty decent. The difficulty level was pretty good too. I wasn't often stumped and when i was i just messed around until I had talked to everybody or Guybrush gave me another clue. Now we have 4 more of those to look forward to!
  • epoxytapeepoxytape
    edited July 2009
    i really love the game and can't wait for the others
    i hope they release the soundtrack i really want =]
  • JunaidJunaid
    edited July 2009
    Wow, thanks Telltale, that was amazing
    So weird and satisfying to play another Monkey Island game after all these years

    oh well...

    The good
    - The opening titles were amazing. I love the big epic build-up to the theme and logo (very CMI like). Great cinematic choice of having the titles shown while Guybrush floats on the sea
    - The humor and timing of the jokes. The punch before the chapter screen (love the Evil Dead hand by the way) and the Voodoo Lady's story that Guybrush doesn't want to hear.
    - Finding my book "The pirate who mistook his wife for a hook" :P
    - The story, the cliffhangers, can't wait to see where this will end up
    - At first I was sceptic about the keyboard controls, but with the dynamic camera angle, I loved it :)
    - The nods to the previous games, like the ingredients for the sword of Kaflu.
    - The music, although I hope we'll get a higher quality soundtrack. And more live instruments but I'm sure that will come with TMI season 3 when you are filthy rich ;)

    The bad (or; the slighty less-good)
    - The re-used character models. This really annoyed me, I hope the next chapters won't have this.
    - The many times when different funny dialog options led to nowhere. There's no point in having them if Guybrush ends up saying one thing anyway.
    - No offence to Tim Talbot but I'm starting to get tired of hearing his voice :p. First overused in Sam & Max, then A Vampyre Story and now also in Monkey Island. I hope that if he voices another character in TMI, he will do something completely different with his voice because now it's like "Oh, there's Harry Moleman.... again.."

    The ugly
    - Well... my neighbour's dog is pretty ugly...
    - ...and so is my neighbour...


    Anyway, I really really loved the first chapter and I can't thank you enough for bringing Monkey Island back :)
  • HoppyDragonHoppyDragon
    edited July 2009
    I finished it and I absolutely loved it! I probably put at least six hours of play into it. Not bad at all! So very very Monkey Island. It always seemed like the episode was about to end, and then it threw more at you! Well done, Telltale. I can not wait until next month.
  • OCKiOCKi
    edited July 2009
    Yeah. I loved it too!!
    When I first started playing, I realized how much I'd missed Guybrush and his jolly adventures.

    Its too soon to conclude if this will line up as a classic adventuregame alongside with CMI as it was only the first chapter, but if we compare this first chapter with any other MI first chapters, I'd say we're looking at a winner!

    Looking forward to next month! =)
  • HoppyDragonHoppyDragon
    edited July 2009
    I'd estimate that this episode took as long or longer for me to complete than any of the chapters of the previous Monkey Island games, so this is a definite win. :)
  • HakobusHakobus
    edited July 2009
    Here are my thoughts. Some of these have been mentioned in this thread, some have not.

    The good
    • Most of the writing and many of the characters. Guybrush was written spot on.
    • Colour palette and most of the special visual effects (like the way under-used DOF-effect).
    • Length. I finished this in one sitting and it took about the time watching a film would. Not too long or too short.
    • Mouse-only controls. Thank you so much for this. It wasn't perfect and I kept trying to click to walk for the first half-hour or so, but it got to be second nature.
    • Tying the episodes together. With the previous episodic releases (except for Bone) the overarching story never really felt like it came together. Here we had a proper cliffhanger and I hope there's more to come.

    The bad (mostly nitpicks)
    • Why on earth don't you use the second mouse button for anything besides running? You need to click on the magnifying glass and then on an item to look at it. Right click, anyone?
    • And why was the combining of inventory items handled with the separate slots? It would be a lot more streamlined if you could just click to select an item and then click on what you wanted to combine it with.
    • The Marquis de Singe. I mean yeah, you guys are Americans. And for some reason, to an American a Frenchman who speaks funny equals instant comedy gold. But honestly, this was the most retarded character in any Telltale game yet. It seems he'll be playing a big role this season, but let's hope you get rid of the dead weight before the inevitable season 2.
    • The animation was rigid and at times would have weird jumps in it, no matter the character in question. For example, the Voodoo lady might be doing some magicky gestures and then suddenly snap to doing something else entirely.
    • Didn't really like the look of the supporting characters. All the hand drawn stuff that had similar looking characters looked nice, but as 3D models, the overblown caricatures just didn't always work.

    The ugly
    • SOUND QUALITY. For fuck's sake, people have been complaining about this since Sam & Max season 1 and still Elaine's voice sounded horrible with the crackling s's. Come on, Telltale. Fire whoever masters the dialogue or use better compression.

    While I have a lot to gripe about, I did really enjoy the episode and am glad I pre-ordered it. But I would like to see some streamlining for the later releases.

    And please tell me Tales has universal settings (so I don't need to set resolution, graphic detail and sound levels separately for each episode).
  • SammichySammichy
    edited July 2009
    Love it love it love it! The gameplay (honestly the mouse option isn't as annoying as expected, though unusable in certain areas), the visuals (Guybrush's voodoo hand especially), the story, the humour, the references, the puzzles! I love the puzzles, this is the only adventure game ever that I only needed two minor hints for while it was still challenging! It all made sense too, that rarely happens. Oh and I love Elaine. Absolutely love her. And the end was fab aswell. And the beginning. And the middle.

    I am so hyped, might just play it again right away. :D
  • ZoulzZoulz
    edited July 2009
    Overall, I loved it! Some points I didn't like as much:
    • The new control scheme. A bold move, but didn't work that well in my opinion. I'd rather have the old "click to move".
    • It was pretty short, even for a episode. I played through it in roughly 4 hours.
    • Minor annoyances with the UI, like having to click the magnifying glass to examine something. Nothing I can't live with though.

    Already looking forward to the next episode! :D
  • OCKiOCKi
    edited July 2009
    Zoulz wrote: »
    [*]It was pretty short, even for a episode. I played through it in roughly 4 hours.

    Well if you look at the chapters in the previous MI installments, 'tis about the same length.
    And if Telltale maintains this length for each episode, we're looking at a total of 15-20 hrs of MI5 goody gameplay.
    That's even more than we'd ever asked for in the first place! :D
  • Guybrush_ThreepwoodGuybrush_Threepwood
    edited July 2009
    Thoughts? It's perfect.
  • fdiskfdisk
    edited July 2009
    I loved it as well, my nitpicking gripes:

    - Fine, KEEP the stupid control scheme but at least give me the option to point & click! Please!
    - Clicking on the magnifying glass, then the item to examine it; why not just right click!? It's the intuitive thing to do!
    - The extra step in combining items, why not just drop one item onto the other one like in the old games?

    Everything else was phenomenal, I can't wait for Episode 2; Monkey Island is STILL my favorite series ever thanks to you guys! I was starting to doubt it would ever be any good in 3D after the blunder 4 was.

    I also LOVED Ryan's designs! One of my favorite things in the game were all the 2D art like the giant Sponge in the Voodoo book and Pirate DaVinci.
  • A-M-EA-M-E
    edited July 2009
    I've just finished it too: it's brillant !
    The spirit of the saga is just preserved, I can't wait for the second episode anymore !
  • GasokaiGasokai
    edited July 2009
    One question before the roses; where was "LOOK AT" ? It was only possible in inventory... :(

    Other than that, I loved it, only minor flaws, but they didn't disturb my enjoyable gaming expirience at all. Well done Telltale, you surpassed my expectations by far!

    Now I gotta go to replay :D
  • MusicallyInspiredMusicallyInspired
    edited July 2009
    Loved pretty much everything. The non-right click looking of inventory objects and the really long extra unnecessary steps for combining inventory items was annoying. Not a game-breaker, but I wouldn't miss them if you got rid of them. Maybe you were trying to make a big deal out of the fact that you can mix inventory objects in this new game unlike previous games, but is that whole process really that necessary? Why couldn't you just click one inventory item onto another? I'm giving you the benefit of a doubt and assuming it's a limitation of the engine as of now. But that really should be looked at and fixed for future games by being implemented properly instead of the whole extra step.
  • gordygordy
    edited July 2009
    I just finished and must say I loved it. The only problem I had was with the control scheme but I quickly discovered WASD and it was fine. I'll do another play-through soon and try to use the new controls. I guess I'm just so used to the Curse controls with the right click and what-not but I'll get used to it.
    Other than that I thought it was awesome. Loved every minute of it. That title screen was like when you first went to see Phantom Menance and the logo appeared. Butterflies.
  • iliketotalkiliketotalk
    edited July 2009
    Adored it.
  • EduardoEduardo
    edited July 2009
    Enjoyed it, it was an interesting opening act for the game.
  • KenifKenif
    edited July 2009
    Really enjoyed it. The game had the humour and feeling of a Monkey Island game.
    Definite Monkey Island style puzzles.

    Only issue was when I skipped somebody talking the sound continued.
  • FondsFonds
    edited July 2009
    Well.. i was going to type up a huge story about how much this series means to me...

    All I can really say though, is:

    Thanks for reviving this series, you've done an awesome job on all aspects of the game.
  • imqqmiimqqmi
    edited July 2009
    I really loved it to bits! I played it through in little over 4 hours straight with no hints and it was awesome to be in this piraty world again :)

    Overall the game feels very polished and complete compared to S&M and W&G. Hopefully the next seasons of those games will have the same engine and creative minds behind it.

    The Great:
    - Great story, characters, stayed close to the essence of the Monkey Island feel
    - Great puzzles, cleverly thought out and well executed.
    - Great references to other games as well :) Was Black Ninja Dave a reference to Pure Pwnage?
    - W&G reference :)
    - Voice sound quality has improved over W&G and S&M
    - Nice BGMs
    - The controls are fine for my taste, didn't get in the way and the combining looks a bit like the Horadric Cube from Diablo II, mysterious and interesting effect.
    - Graphics are great too, nice DOF effect (and not overused either), brought up to this years graphics.
    - The map instructions were very nicely executed and worked very well, I got satisfaction of completing that puzzle :)
    - Loved the hand thing!
    - You didn't put all the good things like insult fighting in the first episode and that's a good thing!

    Good, but could be improved upon (hopefully you take this as constructive criticism):
    - The main theme intro music feels a bit like the .mid (midi) of old dos games. A bit choppy musically (not technically) and not full sounding like the MI3 theme (liked that one better, gave me goose bumps at the time :). A little more reggae rhythm, live instruments, more instruments and reverb please. I was listening with good headphones on (Beyerdynamics DT-770 and good amp), the BGMs are fine but the cutscenes and intro was a little off. I hope this is fixed when time and resources allows.
    - The voice of LeChuck felt light and shrilly, a bit more bass and rumble for this unearthy heavy badguy. Probably due to the heavy compression.
    - The entrance of the voodoo lady was a bit plain. The 'word' was a nice touch though. Might have liked a more elaborate entrance like the older games.
    - Guybrush character was a bit broken when he didn't complain about those pink underwear on the line of the ship (It's.. pink!). And the pink(!) porcelain dolls (I'm not going anywhere near those dolls!) should've made him pick up the doll only when he'd changed them enough to not be recognizable as pink and porcelain (work around that one ;)

    The essential bits are spot on though so keep up the good work!
  • BacchusBacchus
    edited July 2009
    I don't really post a great deal on forums, but felt compelled to after playing through this chapter.

    Overall, I thought it was excellent. Dialogue was more or less spot on, the atmosphere felt right, and whilst I prefer the 'complete game' experience, I can understand why the episodic route is taken from a business and development perspective. Hey, it's my problem if I can't wait until chapter 5 comes out so I can play it as one game - I just needed to get my hands on any new MI at the earliest opportunity...

    I thought the length was fine, with a nice bit of variety. Though MI and a lot of other classic adventure games use the 'do these x amount of things' formula that's kind of why I love them, and Tales presented this in a pretty 'tongue in cheek' fashion. If the other 4 chapters equal or surpass the length and quality of this one I've got absolutely no complaints, so long as Murray and Stan make their inevitable re-appearances.

    Let's hope Tales continues to prosper, so we can get even more MI, and convince Lucasarts to let Telltale get their hands on Grim, Tentacle, Zak etc.

    Thanks again Telltale - that was really good fun.
  • HakobusHakobus
    edited July 2009
    I'd just like to add one more thing to my earlier post:

    The puzzles were great and felt logical. But they were also way too easy. Come on, bust our brains a bit more next time.
  • thatdude98thatdude98
    edited July 2009
    johnniewalk3r wrote: »
    I just finished the first episode and thought it was great.. i'm already tired of the countless complaints on this board about petty details. Tell Tail Games did an amazing job of bringing back the monkey island franchise. I wasn't a fan of the visual style of the game when i first saw it in screen shots but when you actually get it in motion and playing the games its freaking awesome, i loved it. I thought the dialog and humor were spot on. The story was well written and the characters were well thought out.. My personal favorite aside from Guybrush had to be the Marquis, Creepy french guys always freak me out. Overall a very good game. Personally I would not feel ripped off if I had paid $35 for this as a full retail game, because it was so enjoyable and well done. Not to mention that I've been waiting for a new Monkey Island game for years and years. This game is great 10/10 from me. And this is only episode one! I can't wait to see what we got coming in the next four installments. :D

    My thoughts exactly.
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