Another great one!

Guybrush: I'm on a whole new adventure.
Bart: Growing a mustache?
Guybrush: No. Bigger than that.
Bart: A beard?!?

Very fun game and certainly a mighty strange ending too. Quite love the monkey island series, however many times I'm often finding myself lost and not knowing what to do, however.

Edit: In this game, our favourite pirate, Guybrush Thweepwood, returns as does LeChuck in attempting to do a Bowser again and make the woman he loves his! However, he's also got a score to settle with Guybrush because of the events of the previous game where his plans were foiled and he needed to find a way to come back when he could've spent time working on his pecs or coming up with more romantic things to tell the love of his life and maybe even be successful!

Not to mention, if Guybrush got in his way before, there's every chance that he will do so again!

👾 Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. Special Edition. (🇺🇸 1991/2010)

Another staple of the golden age of graphic adventures. Puzzles are challenging and the writing is silly and funny in a good way. The ending is not everybody’s cup of tea though.

🎮 Played on Steam Deck

Rating: 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️📍

An improvement over not just the original Monkey Island 1, but its Special Edition as well. I enjoyed the pacing of this one a lot more, the way it starts you off on a small island to ease you in, before opening up three individual islands with their own distinct feel. Making progress can be satisfying, and you're allowed to do it in a more or less free order, giving way for potential optimized routes on follow-up playthroughs.

I also thought the writing was more interesting this time around, and the jokes tended to land more often. The ending of the game is seen as controversial, but I think it fits perfectly with Monkey Island's focus on being a parody of pirate tropes. This was never a serious adventure by any means.

As for the Special Edition's features... if you didn't like Monkey Island 1's more open-ended interface, this version of Monkey 2 streamlines it to only provide you with the context-sensitive options needed to trigger unique dialogue. It's much nicer and faster. You've also still got the hint system in here, along with the toggle between old and new graphics, and a newly added developer's commentary mode. I would only recommend using that one on a 2nd run though, some of the commentary can only be triggered during dialogue-heavy scenes, and it distracts away from the game.

Along with the original game's writing being better, I also consider the voice direction in this Special Edition to be a step-up. It still has some awkward pauses here and there, but the acting generally feels a lot more natural, and even enhances the jokes at times.

Some of these puzzles, though, yeesh. Thank god the Special Edition has a hint system, because some of these solutions are a real stretch in imagination. The infamous "monkey wrench" puzzle for example, makes sense once you know the pun it's going for, but seeing as this pun is never actually mentioned in the game, you're expected to perfectly align your mindset with the one out of potentially dozens of jokes that the developer was thinking of in their head, and that's just a poor way to make the player solve a puzzle. Y'know, other than get them to just use everything on everything. The library also kinda sucks, it's way too open for its own good.

As much as I do have some gripes with this game's puzzle design, the Special Edition alleviates any and all problems this may pose, and what you end up with is a pretty charming adventure, and a respectable version of the game to experience it with. It's a recommend from me.

Turns out: I’m bad at point and click games, who knew.

Monkey Island 2 had me genuinely stumped more times than not, but, to be fair the solutions to some of the puzzles are absolutely not anything that makes sense.

It’s nice to see they remastered this classic beautifully too, with the added bonus of being able to flip back and forth between classic artstyle and gameplay to the remastered version.

Also, I really don't understand how the humour has managed to actually remain funny still all these years later….

Monkey Island™ 2 has… most of the charm of its predecessor. Its tone is a bit more cynical in comparison to the first, but there’s still plenty of moments of lighthearted, cartoonish fun throughout the whole game.

The art direction is still very strong for this remaster, and Guybrush doesn’t look uncanny when he faces the camera anymore. Like the remaster of the first game, they stay true to the original animations very faithfully as well.

The game’s exploration is a lot more in depth this time, as you’re constantly bouncing between three different islands over and over again throughout the whole adventure. I feel like I needed to use the hint system a lot more this time around. There are a lot more convoluted puzzles compared to the first, and I frequently found myself confused when doing these. In particular, I don’t think I ever would’ve figured out the steps needed for the Spitting Contest or accessing the waterfall on Phatt Island on my own. It makes for a slightly more frustrating game, but it’s just as short as the first and it wasn’t that big of a deal to me.

The ending of this game is controversial, and while I won’t spoil it, I will say that despite how people feel about it, it’s foreshadowed pretty well. Hell, it’s foreshadowed as early as the first game if you pay attention. I honestly really liked the ending. It might not be the ending that people were expecting or wanted, but I think it’s a far, far more interesting conclusion, especially in comparison to the first game.

All in all, I really enjoyed my time with Monkey Island™ 2. It’s a bit more frustrating than the first, but once I started it, I couldn’t stop playing it and finished it in one go. It’s all around a fantastic follow-up.

Completed with 100% of achievements unlocked. The original Secret of Monkey Island still remains a great game, but its sequel, LeChuck's Revenge, easily manages to match its quality, with a significantly larger, more detailed set of locations to explore, and humourous writing that's frequently also a step up from its predecessor. The integrated hint system is, however, arguably all the more necessary here, as while the puzzle solutions are pretty much always fun to see playing out - when you know what's needed - they frequently become very obscure, and the larger number of environments means that it can be harder to know where to go to progress. On the aesthetics, once again the special edition provides a nice lick of paint over the experience, and the interface also sees some notable usability improvements.

Review in progress:
Monkey Island 2 is a comprehensive downgrade from its predecessor. The story is subpar and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They made Guybrush a complete idiot and a huge jerk. He wasn't particularly bright in the first game, but it wasn't this bad. It feels like his character has been flanderized here. Why should I root for this character or believe that Elaine would even want to be friends with him? The ending is one of the worst I've seen in a video game and derails the whole series. The puzzles are more cryptic and frustrating this time around. The new artwork looks bland and unimpressive, but at least you can switch back to the original.

Classic point and click adventure game. Although, I will readily admit I definitely played using a guide as I did not want to artificially inflate my play time trying every random thing, and I do mean every random thing. There is a library where you have to check out some books for puzzles, except it's not really clarified what books they are, and that you even need them. Except, they put in over 100 books that you can get, for small one-off jokes. As this is an O.G. point and click game, the puzzles are especially obtuse at times. Figuring out how to get 6k dollars seemed like something I would never figured out on my own, but the stuff I did solve on my own was fun and satisfying. A cool feature of this remaster is you can switch between the HD graphics and modern gameplay, to the original game and UI. I actually would do this often, as I preferred the original nostalgic graphics for dialogue sequences, but the modern controls when solving puzzles and such.

I’m shocked at how much better this is than the first game’s special edition. The biggest difference is the obvious quality of life improvements to the controls and UI, so that nothing feels tedious and time-wasting like before. The puzzle design also seems improved, with fewer frustrating time-based puzzles or RNG grinds like the random insult sword fight proving matches in the original. The end result is I’m no longer constantly annoyed while playing, and suddenly I’m a lot more open to the silly gag writing. I also feel like the writing improved a ton between 1 and 2, but it’s totally possible that I simply wasn’t hearing it through gritted teeth this time around.

The music is still great and charming, and the updated visuals are much better here than the updated part 1, to the point that I mostly played with updated visuals (though it’s neat to check out each scene in the original pixel style). I also really loved the commentary in several scenes from the three leads, particularly hearing them argue over which jokes they thought sucked that the other guys wrote (based solely on one of the discussions, I think I prefer Schafer’s more thoughtful writing to Gilbert’s seemingly more lolrandom style).

Thank god this a 100% worth while remake now, even comes with Voice Acting in the old graphics out of the box. That said im not the biggest fan of Monkey 2. Its writting is clever but lacks so much focus and structure. Some of the later puzzles I also find to be a bit too extra. Its like they wanted to design a game with the most clever and elaborate puzzles, but had no consideration for anybody that isnt programming adventure games for a living. I consider the parts where you find the 3 map pieces some of the most unfun hours in any adventure game.

Despite being bigger in scope and more ambitious (ambiguous?) with its storytelling, I must confess that “Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge” didn’t deliver the same magic as its predecessor. It goes along the same lines and is objectively more fleshed out in most aspects, yet it felt slightly stale for my taste. Maybe bringing LeChuck back wasn’t a great idea after all? Don’t get me wrong, it was a lot of fun – but I have a feeling that everyone’s favorite Monkey Island is always going to be the first they played (unless it was the fourth one, obviously).

Also, I think they went a little too overboard with the illogical puzzles. The game lets you travel around three islands for a much less linear approach, meaning you have more locations and items to keep in mind and deal with simultaneously. If you forget about one detail or an interactive point of the map, you’re pretty much funked. One puzzle that starts on one island might end on another, with at least four or five intermediate steps to be taken going back and forth between different locations. I remember getting stuck for months trying to find all the map pieces, and the payoff was quite underwhelming. The ending was one of the most controversial of its time, and even though it fits the overall tone of the series, it felt like it came out of nowhere with no connection to what we had seen up to that point.

The special edition definitely has better graphics than “The Secret of Monkey Island”, but the animations are still pretty bad. It almost looks like a browser game. The audio commentary was interesting, though.

A diferença entre MI1 e MI2 é gritante!

A história teve uma trama muito mais interessante que o jogo anterior, os puzzles ficaram mais complexos, a exploração ficou muito mais gostosinha, o humor "cartoonizado" continua presente, personagens mais carismáticos e a trilha sonora maravilhosa.
A nova interface para selecionar as ações ficou bem prática, o que deixou a exploração menos cansativa. As animações ficaram bem fluídas e lindas, apesar de eu não conhecer o jogo original (ainda), também gostei da opção de poder ouvir os comentários dos desenvolvedores. A batalha final me deixou com raiva porque eu não sabia o que fazer, mas assim que soube, foi extremamente divertido explorar cada centímetro.
O artbook que o jogo te dá acesso é lindo, vejam!
Única coisa que me irritou foi um bug na parte 3 que descobri que não tem solução (teoricamente), vi que muitas pessoas abandonavam o jogo ali, onde o cursor desaparece e você consegue fazer nada. Mas graças a comunidade na Steam, consegui baixar um arquivo e substituir meu save, fazendo com que eu fosse para alguns minutos antes do bug e evitasse ficar presa novamente. Mas fica a dica aí para quem pretende jogar: chegou na parte 3, tenha mais que um slot de salvamento.
Se a franquia for melhorando assim, mal posso esperar pra chegar no jogo mais recente!

Una segunda parte en la línea del primero. Es más ambiciosa en todo, y para mí eso ha supuesto un lastre. El primero es un juego de puzzles refrescante, divertido y original. Te obliga a pensar de forma diferente a los juegos de puzzles originales, ningún puzzle tiene una solución lógica.

Esta segunda parte es igual, y precisamente por eso me gusta menos. Los puzzles no me sorprenden tanto porque ya no voy buscando la lógica normal, sino la forma "graciosa" de resolverlos. Cuando lo original se convierte en la norma, lo que queda es otro juego de puzzles bastante más enrevesado que la mayoría, que muchas veces no busca que pienses una solución sino reírse de ti. Y un juego entero dedicado a reírse de ti mientras te marean andando una y otra vez por el mapa, que llega a hacerse un poco tedioso, acaba cansando. Supongo que también es que a mí personalmente me gustan muchísimo los juegos "clásicos" de puzzles, y tanta deconstrucción me juega a la contra.

Eso sí, mis dieces al final. ¿Ha sido todo una ensoñación de Guybrush jugando con su hermano? ¿Está bajo otro hechizo de LeChuck? ª, quién sabe. ¿Cuál es el secreto de Monkey Island?

Puede que le acabe dando un tiento al 3, en conjunto es una saga bastante maja, divertida y los juegos no son largos cuando tiras de pistas.

This is a much better new rendering compared to the Special Edition of The Secret of Monkey Island. AND you can play with old graphics with voices.

I would have liked an honest-to-good performance of the Bone Song though.

For the French - I made a kind of retrospective here

https://lacritiquedumoment.wordpress.com/2022/09/29/ron-gilbert-et-monkey-island/

This game flip-flops with me. On one hand, I feel as if this game's puzzles are much less confusing than the first game, but at the same time, the hint system in this game is somehow worse in the first game, despite the option to highlight all the interactable objects (which is a great thing, imo). The hint system actively leads me away from my train of thought, only for me to arrive at the designated location, for it to tell me to do the exact thing I was thinking. This next point also applies to the first game, but I wish the hint system had manually adjustable levels. When reading the first or second hint, I may not have read it in time or want to re-read it, so I press the hint button again, only for it to show me the yellow arrow which I did not want to do.

The gameplay changes in this game are wonderful. Instead of having a whole vocabulary on what you can do, holding right click over objects presents you options that you can logically do. Especially with the inventory, I can simply left click an object in my inventory to open the object, instead of opening up the vocabulary menu to open an object (especially when "opening" a cake in Monkey Island 1). That being said, I feel like puzzles have less creative and arguably "skilless" solution to puzzles (such as the grog puzzle in Monkey Island 1). But also, I equally struggled with puzzles in this game as well as the previous.

The story in this game has much more depth than the previous title, which isn't exactly hard to do, but also it was much less immersive in my opinion. A lot of story bits in the game didn't make sense and kind of lame (especially with the ending). However, the comedy in this game are way funnier than the previous game.