{"id":152899,"date":"2023-07-27T12:45:04","date_gmt":"2023-07-27T16:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/return-to-monkey-island-review\/"},"modified":"2023-07-27T12:45:04","modified_gmt":"2023-07-27T16:45:04","slug":"return-to-monkey-island-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/return-to-monkey-island-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Return to Monkey Island review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<div class=\"fullWidthVideo\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p><em>Return to Monkey Island<\/em> answers the question of what you should do with an aging franchise that defined a genre: Give it a proper send-off. This adventure game welcomes the return of its original creators, features some super smart innovations on classic adventure game design, and closes the book on Guybrush Threepwood and LeChuck in a (mostly) satisfying way.<\/p>\n<p><p class=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.148apps.com\/2023\/7\/122761\/269835\/return-to-monkey-island-ios-1.png\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Find the secret (for real this time)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This latest chapter in the long-running and celebrated <em>Monkey Island<\/em> series once again focuses on Guybrush Threepwood and his pursuit to uncover the secret of Monkey Island. Only this time, the game opens with a vignette of his son playing with friends (which doubles as a sort of tutorial to teach you how to play the game) before settling on a park bench to hear his father tell the story of the time he actually found the secret he had always been looking for.<\/p>\n<p>This frame narrative helps set up a story with a momentum that leads players toward where they have long been wanting to go, and features a lot of classic point-and-click adventure puzzles, corny wordplay, and expressive character design that have long been hallmarks of this series.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Revamped return<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tonally, <em>Return to Monkey Island<\/em> fits right in with other games in the series, and even features quite a few callbacks and cameos of iconic moments and characters of games&#039; past. Structurally and mechanically, though, this game feels like a modern realization of the old point-and-click formulas of yore. This is to say <em>Return to Monkey Island<\/em> definitely still has you doing a lot of the same kinds of item combinations and pixel hunting that other games had you do, but everything is structured and designed in a way to feel more seamless and natural than it has basically ever felt.<\/p>\n<p>There may have been a time or two when playing <em>Return to Monkey Island<\/em> that I felt slightly perplexed by a puzzle or task, but I never once felt stuck or without a clue of what I was supposed to be doing next. The game&#039;s handy to-do list and optional hint book go a long way in keeping you always on track and moving forward, but there&#039;s also a lot of credit to be given to the thought behind all of the puzzle designs in the game, every tooltip that pops up when holding a finger over it, and the way the game writing guides you through its story.<\/p>\n<p><p class=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.148apps.com\/2023\/7\/122762\/269835\/return-to-monkey-island-ios-2.png\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Goodbye Guybrush<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Another celebration-worthy aspect is the way that <em>Return to Monkey Island<\/em> tells its story. As a game focused on allowing you to actually discover the secret that has been danced around for over three decades, it firmly and confidently commits to reflecting on Guybrush&#039;s legacy and putting an endcap on a series, at for the most part. There are multiple endings to the game (some of which are gags), but some are less satisfying than others, and I almost wish the game commited to a single one. Still though, it is a story lovingly told, and&#8211;despite a somewhat abrupt turn toward the end&#8211;is a heartfelt send-off for a series from the original creators.<\/p>\n<p>As for how the game plays on iOS, well, it&#039;s basically perfect. Point-and-click style games always tend to work well on touchscreens, but <em>Return to Monkey Island<\/em> goes above and beyond by having gesture and multi-touch controls that ensure you never accidentally skip past dialog (unless you want to) or select the wrong item when two are close to each other. I imagine it&#039;s a great playing game on other devices, but <em>Return to Monkey Island<\/em> plays so well on my iPad I&#039;m not sure I&#039;d want to play it anywhere else.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The bottom line<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Return to Monkey Island<\/em> is a game made with a clear affection for the genre and series itself. It is also a confidently told story with some incredible design work to make sure it still feels like a classic point-and-click game without all of the sore spots that usually come with that.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Source link:https:\/\/www.148apps.com\/reviews\/return-to-monkey-island-review\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Return to Monkey Island answers the question of what you should do with an aging franchise that defined a genre: Give it a proper send-off. This adventure game welcomes the return of its original creators, features some super smart innovations on classic adventure game design, and closes the book on Guybrush Threepwood and LeChuck in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":152900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midatlanticconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}