The Secret of Monkey Island #knowyourclassics #review #monkeyisland

Game

Know Your Classics - By Jeroen

4 years ago

The Secret of Monkey Island
#knowyourclassics #review #monkeyisland

Hi, my name is Guybrush Threepwood and I want to be a pirate!"
"YIKES! Don't sneak upon me like that!"
"Sorry!"
"Well then, Triftweed..."
"Threepwood!"
"So you want to be a pirate, eh? You don't look like one! You more look like a flooring inspector"

Yeah, well these words along with "How appropriate, you fight like a cow!" were the start of a legend that would outgrow the status of a classic. Monkey Island became one of the most famous games in its genre, and today I am going to review how it all began, long ago. When people still learned to type commands to make a computer work, in stead of (constantly crashing) GUI based OSes.

Pirates in a Caribbean setting fighting the undead. Sounds familiar? Yeah Jack Sparrow, anyone?
Well, I deem it very likely Jack Sparrow and Guybrush Threepwood do have in common they were inspired by the Disneyland dark ride "Pirates of the Carabean". Much of the similarities end there, and this game is MUCH older that those movies. :P

You assume the role of Guybrush Threepwood. A pathetic loser who wants to be a pirate, but who certainly isn't cut out to be one. However, as the pirates are in desperate need of new recruits Guybrush gets his chance. He must complete the three trials every pirate must pass. The art of Sword Fighting, Thievery and Treasure Hunting. Of course with a player like you helping him Guybrush will complete these trials, however halfway the trials he falls in love with the female governor of the island he visits. Elaine Marley. And after the trials she'll get herself kidnapped by none other than the Ghost Pirate LeChuck. The stage is now set for a valiant rescue.

The interface of the game is easy to understand. LucasArts used this interface before on Maniac Mansion, Zak McKraken en Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In Monkey Island they only improved it a bit for faster play, but the idea is still the same.

You basically click one of the commands below and then click on any item in the scene you are in. Like clicking the command "Open" and then click on the door and Guybrush will open the door. And all this way you can navigate yourself through the puzzles the genre is famous for.

LucasArts started with Loom with the philosophy that in an adventure game the hero shouldn't die and that you also should never get yourself in a position that you can never finish the game any more, this in order to make the game more player friendly and also in order not to "punish" for progress and not forcing the player to start the game over entirely just because he forgot to save at the right time. Sierra games and also Maniac Mansion and Zak McKraken were quite infamous for this. As Loom was very very easy, Sierra laughed very hard about this philosophy. Well that was until Monkey Island came, trust me. Monkey Island proved that you can still a hard game with this philosophy and set the standard for all the point-and-click-adventures that would come out later.
(Now strictly speaking it is possible to drown Guybrush (thus killing him), but there is only one point in the game this can happen, and you actually have to "go for it" to make that happen).

Like in many other games of this genre you will take many items with you in your inventory in order to solve the puzzles in the game.

The success of this game may lie in a few factors. Of course, the fact that this was one of the first adventure games with the "no-die" concept, still proving a hard adventure game could be made this way, but also because of the strongly set up story line. It has a dark, well thought-out plot, with a good... well excuse for a hero, and a very good villain in LeChuck. At the same time the game does not take itself too seriously resulting in very good humor along the way, which not only shows in the good funny punch lines, but also in the fact that the games mixes up all eras of human history, making it possible that a big neon-billboard just pops up in the middle of a story of ancient pirates, and let me tell ya, it doesn't even feel out of place. And of course, the icing on the cake, the sword fights you have to win by cleverly insulting your opponent.

Also the very clumsy way the love between Guybrush and Elaine developers was miraculously worked out and the extremely annoying salesman Stan and the pretty arrogant (although she disguises it well) voodoo lady all contributed to the legend this franchise would become, although I shall review the later installments in a separate review.

Monkey Island revolutionary reinvented the genre, and the best part is that being revolutionary was not what the game was set out to do, and maybe that's the most important reason it worked out so well.

Playing this game in modern times

If you have the original version for MS-DOS, you'll be pleased to know it runs perfectly in DOS-Box.
The versions for other platforms also work very fine on ScummVM.

But the fun doesn't end there.
Aware of the legend this game carries with it, they "remixed" this game, with improved graphics and with voice acting by actors who really know how to hit the characters quite right. And you can just buy this version from steam. Aside from better graphics and voice acting the story and the puzzles are identical to the original game. I have these special editions myself on PlayStation 3.

Conclusion

"The Secret of Monkey Island" is a game every gamer should have played. Whether you be old or young. The game really survived the miseries of time, and the standards uphold today were set by this gem. I guess even the voodoo lady couldn't predict back then how well this game would work out.