Monkey Island Retrospective

7th July 2009 • 1 Comments

Today marks a very important day for me, as for the first time in 9 long years a brand new Monkey Island game is being released. Its name is Tales of Monkey Island and is an episodic series coming from the masters of adventure Telltale games. 

As you might have seen from recent blog entries I'm really stoked for this upcoming game and now I thought I'd write a brief retrospective of the games leading up to this new game. 

Secret of Monkey Island (1990)

 It all started with a designers reluctance to do a fantasy adventure game. Back in 1990, adventure game guru Ron Gilbert decided his next adventure game using the SCUMM engine would not follow the popular fantasy genre at the time and decided to go for the pirate theme. Part of this inspiration came from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland and a pirate novel called "On Strangers Tide" by Tim Powers.

It then all began with a young blonde haired guy named Guybrush Threepwood arriving at Melee Island and stating he wished to become a mighty pirate. To my knowledge it is never explained how he got there or where he came from and still remains a mystery.

As Guybrush you travel to the Scumm bar and are given three challenges in order to become a pirate, requiring you to master the art of swordplay, theft and treasure hunting. The swordplay aspect of the game introduced a new way to do sword fights in games, the clever insult sword fighting system. This involved insulting your opponent and replying with a witty comeback in order to advance in the battle. This is one the most memorable aspects of the original game and the phrase "How appropriate you fight like a cow" has been ingrained in gamers forever.

Whilst completing these trials you learn about the fearsome ghost pirate LeChuck whom resides on his ghost ship harboured at Monkey Island and is trying to win the heart of the governor of Melee Island, Elaine Marley. So much so he dropped dead when she asked him to. Guybrush meets Elaine after trying to steal the idol of many hands from her house. Love seems to strike at first sight for Guybrush and he is left speechless which I find one of the funniest parts of the game.

Elaine however soon gets kidnapped by LeChuck and is taken to Monkey Island, Guybrush gathers a ship and a crew and makes chase to try and save Elaine. Without the help of his crew Guybrush makes it to Monkey Island and with some aid from the local hermit Herman Toothrot and the cannibals of the island manages to enter a giant monkey head and infiltrate LeChucks ship in order to create a deadly root beer to defeat LeChuck.

The action finally returns to Melee where Guybrush defeats LeChuck and Elaine manages to free herself, the pair meet up and watch the firework display of LeChuck blowing up.

Monkey Island 2 LeChucks Revenge (1991)

 A year later Guybrush returns now looking for the treasure of Big Whoop and boring everyone with his story of how he defeated LeChuck. The game used the same SCUMM system as the original game however the scope of the game was much larger and featured many more environments. It also seemed to have a slightly darker storyline than the original but still retained its great humour. It also had a difficulty setting meaning you could make the game easier or harder depending on your level of commitment.

Guybrush starts off on Scabb Island where he gets robbed by Largo LeGrande, one of LeChucks ex henchmen. With the help of the Voodoo lady he manages to make a Voodoo doll in order to rid Scabb Island of Largo and leave the island. Guybrush makes a fatal mistake though and lets Largo take LeChucks beard, which he uses to resurrect the ghost pirate in a zombie form.

Guybrush then starts traveling around the Caribbean looking for the four map pieces to find Big Whoop. This involves winning a drinking contest, resurrecting a dead chef and checking he turned the gas off, hunting for treasure under the sea and dressing up in a pink dress in order to meet Elaine at a party at her house. These challenges are quite funny and flirting with Elaine is quite memorable, especially when she gets angry at the end.

Guybrush eventually gets captured by LeChuck though and after an explosive escape ends up on Dinky Island and eventually has a final confrontation with LeChuck underground.

It gets very Star Warsy at this point with LeChuck revealing he is your brother and mimicking the death of Darth Vader. The game then ends with you as a child at the carnival of the damned. It is a fairly dark ending to a light hearted game as it seems that LeChuck did win and Guybrush for now seems to be trapped there for eternity.

The Curse of Monkey Island (1997)

 After a long wait the Monkey Island series returned for the third game and now armed with cartoon style graphics and full voice work due to being released on CD. Ron Gilbert, the creator of the original two games, was no longer involved with the series and thus there is a different tone to this game. The game also dropped the original SCUMM system found in the original two games and refined it into three basic buttons as found in Full Throttle.

Guybrush somehow managed to escape the carnival of the damned and is floating along in a bumper car, when he sees Elaine and LeChuck engaged in an epic battle. Soon enough he is captured by LeChuck and we are introduced to the hilarious talking skull named Murray, a character whom is a highlight of the game. Guybrush eventually blows up LeChuck and escapes the sinking ship. Armed with a giant diamond engagement ring he stole from the ship, he plucks up the courage and proposes to Elaine, however the engagement ring is cursed and Elaine is turned into a giant gold statue.

With guidance from the voodoo lady again, Guybrush recruits a crew (with no help from his banjo skills), peels a map off a guys back and gains a ship from a crew of Monkeys and sets of to Blood Island in order to find a giant uncursed diamond ring to lift the curse off Elaine.

On the high seas he has to defeat Captain Rottingham through the use of insult sword fighting which now has to rhyme.

For example:

Insult: "I've never seen such clumsy swordplay"

Response: "You would have if you kept not running away"

Guybrush also has to deal with his barber shop quartet crew whom decide to have a sing song at the heart of battle. This is possibly the funniest part of the game as it is so random.

On Blood Island, Guybrush gets the parts needed to create the giant diamond ring. It is not easy though as Guybrush has to defeat the smugglers at poker, enrage the vegetarian cannibals, con Stan once again, reunite a dead couple, escape a tomb and finally die multiple times.

Once Elaine is free though, they are captured and return to the carnival of the damned. After turning himself back into an adult, Guybrush seals LeChucks fate under a block of ice and sails off with his new wife Elaine.

Escape From Monkey Island (2000)

The last Monkey Island game to be released and quite possibly the weakest. After the success of the brilliant Grim Fandango, Monkey Island completely dropped the SCUMM system instead replacing it with the GRIME engine. It was also the first game to use 3D graphics on top of prerendered backgrounds.

After finishing their honeymoon, Guybrush and Elaine return to Melee island, where they learn that Elaine has been declared dead and an election has been called. The pirate world has also been put into chaos as an Austrailian real estate developer Ozzy Mandrill is buying up all the property and driving out the pirates in order to make the Caribbean tourist friendly. Elaine also has a rival for the election named Charles L. Charles, which later turns out to be LeChuck.

As Elaine tries to get herself declared alive, Guybrush reunites with some of his old crew from the first game and goes to Lucre island to try and get the deeds to the estate. He is soon put under island arrest after being framed for robbing the bank by Pegnose Pete. Whilst on the island, Guybrush meets Ozzy Mandrill, whom we learn is after the ultimate insult in order to break the will of pirates and make them nervous wrecks.

This sets off Guybrush on an adventure to find the pieces of the ultimate insult first, however this soon backfires as LeChuck is elected governor of Melee Island and Guybrush is sent back to Monkey Island. Here he is reunited with Herman Toothrot and it turns out he is Elaines grandfather and rightful governor of Melee Island. With help from Herman and JoJo Jr the Monkey, the giant monkey head is turned into a giant robot and heads back to Monkey Island to save Elaine.

LeChuck then uses a voodoo spell to take control of a giant statue of himself and engage with you in Monkey Kombat. Monkey Kombat is a new version of insult sword fighting where you have to make the right monkey sounds in response to other ones, it wasn't very good. Ozzy also uses the ultimate insult on LeChuck in order to control him. After a while LeChuck gets frustrated, pummels Ozzy into his head and explodes. Herman returns as governor and Guybrush and Elaine go off on another adventure. 

Reflection

One of the biggest draws to Monkey Island is how funny it is and also how it mocks modern culture in a pirate setting. For example grog vending machines in Monkey 1 or theme parks in 2 & 3. Sometimes this can be taken too far as shown in Escape from Monkey Island, but on the whole Monkey Island is possibly the funniest series in video games. The dialogue is some of the best and is timeless so it is still funny even today, almost 20 years after the release of the original game. It knows to mock the fact its a video game with pranks such as the helpline in Monkey Island 2 and faking a game over screen in Monkey 3.

I think what also helps is the strength of the characters, whilst Pirates of the Caribbean only really needs Jack Sparrow, I could not imagine a Monkey Island game without Guybrush, Elaine and LeChuck. The games are still a blast to play today and with the announcement of old Lucasarts games coming to Steam, they'll probably be readily available soon.

If you've reached the end of this, give yourself a pat on the back, this is a long blog entry. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you at least give Tales of Monkey Island a go today.