The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Okay, I finished it. It is complete. I finished Tales of Monkey Island now. ARE YOU HAPPY, BENJAMIN ESSNER? ARE YOU?

But no, it was fun.

Rise of a Pirate God was a decent episode. I dare say it didn’t have nearly enough humor, though. The entire thing was so steeped in “drama” that there was very little laughter to be had. None of it was out of place for the story itself? They were telling a “Tale,” and this was the dramatic conclusion of said tale. Still, I think it was hurt a little bit by more serious subject matter. It really wanted you to be connected to the characters, but at the same time, you knew what kind of world this was taking place in. You know that, when the game was over, everything would be back to normal. And so it was. It certainly makes “sacrifices” much less meaningful when you know they will not amount to anything because Telltale has to leave Monkey Island the way they found it, in case Lucasarts wants to ever do anything with the series again.

The last episode also had some really annoying puzzles in it. The whole “finale” sequence, while obviously extremely reminiscent of the finale of the original game, was also really annoying to play, as you just had to stand there while you tried to figure things out and, even when you did figure them out, had to wait and wait for things to get into their proper place so that you could enact any plans you created. I mean, I do appreciate the reference, but I certainly found it a little less fun.
Certainly, a lot of the episode was, perhaps, a problem with that sort of thing. There were a bunch of fairly annoying, though I admit not unfair, puzzles. The one puzzle that really stood out to me as awesome and good was the variation on insult swordfighting where you had to insult, but also console at the same time. That was just a really clever and fun bit of puzzle and character development. That was good stuff. That stands out.

In any case, as a whole, Tales of Monkey Island is a package completely worth your time. It might even be better, now that it’s all out, since it very much does feel like one complete game, instead of little episodes. Sam and Max and Wallace and Gromit very much felt like disconnected episodes, and frankly, that is just fine. A fine way to do things. But Telltale managed to take one of the most revered series in adventure game history and write a good, long story with it. That was pretty neat of them. I like it.
Now go get the rights to Maniac Mansion, Telltale! I think that would be cool. I’d play a sequel to Day of the Tentacle made by you all.