The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Rolling on and rolling on, I finished off Lair of the Leviathan, the third part of the three parts of the quintet of parts that make up Tales of Monkey Island.

There are some odd decisions being made all around this game. The entire setup of LeFlay as a romantic interest of sorts is just really odd for the series. It’s sort of line if Rosalina was someone to be rescued instead of Peach, as opposed to just being a mother figure for stars with a spaceship full of cannons like she was. Anyway, I just feel like it’s a strange decision, since right near the beginning of the first game, which I recently played, even, it was determined that Elaine and Guybrush were plunder bunnies. Then again, since you’ve got this weird situation potentially drawing Elaine away from Guybrush, I suppose some parity between them is to be expected. It’s obvious Guybrush is pretty clearly dedicated, though, so it all seems… pointless? Perhaps something purely one-sided would be more character-relevant, but at several points, Guybrush is obviously not playing it that way. He realizes she’s attractive and uses that to his advantage, etc. If he only saw her as a fellow pirate-y sort with strong skills, it would have been different.
Maybe I’m over-thinking this stuff.

In any case, I felt like the puzzles in this one were a bit of a step back. Mostly because of the “pirate face-off” system which just was not a lot of fun. I mean, it’s not like, mechanically, it was much different from an insult sword-fighting, but at least then, you’re enjoying the retorts and whatnot. This just seemed like a bunch of people were messing with the crazy-ass things the Telltale Tool could do to people’s faces, and decided to justify putting them in the game. None of the faces were laugh-out-loud funny. Maybe a smile. It just seemed to be kind of a waste.
At the same time, though, the entire sequence where you play as the Voodoo Lady? Genius. I loved it. I guess that makes up for it.

But yeah, Tales of Monkey Island really hasn’t disappointed so far. I’ll admit, back when I played the first episode, I had some worries. With the stupid treasure hunting and some really annoying puzzles, I was worried that, by trying to make it for the kind of people who used to play these games a long time ago, they were going to get rid of the casual charm that makes me enjoy playing their games. But they totally haven’t, and that’s totally cool.

Onward to the Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood! Stay tuned, fans of my stupid rambling!