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LucasArts Opinions of Curse of Monkey Island?

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One of the last well-received adventure games to come out during the last stage of the high age of adventure gaming, I am curious of Codex sentiment with regard to 1997's Curse of Monkey Island.
 

Lord Azlan

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Didn't finish it but I really liked it.

In my olden age and strange urges to revisit games from my past - I would love to get hold of this one again.

Have tried Fate of the Atlantis and The Dig recently. Curse is pretty good. The snake, the comb and the spitting contest - good memories.
 

Melan

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It does not live up to the first two, but it is good. Murray the Talking Skull is iconic. Graphics are what you'd expect. The puzzles can be a bit gimmicky.

It is hard to discuss the game in detail, because it is just what it is - a well-made, but not first-grade adventure game.
 

Jackalope

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Curse is a pretty great game. It has great characters, puzzles and voices, the music is great, the art is epic. So yeah, it's a classic. It's a bit odd here and there when you start thinking about the plot. I guess it had to be, since it's hard to make a sequel to a game that ends the way LeChuck's Revenge ends.

And it's better than Escape, so yeah.
 

Qatesh

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Curse of Monkey Island was my first game I played from the MI franchise and I loved it.

For a 9 years old kid of that time, the art style (the clouds!!!!), the characters and the puzzles were perfect.

A playable pirates fairytale.
 

Barbarian

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Doesn't compare well to the originals, but it is still a very good adventure game. Puzzle design was solid, setting, characters and humor got close to the originals although not quite there.
 
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It IS canon (no matter what ron gilbert says, he actually got involved in tales of Monkey Island, which continues the plotline). Actually a very clever game and on par with MI2. The thing that put me off (during previews at the time) was the new art style for the characters, which felt kind of weird. But once I played it didn't bother me at all. They followed DOTT cartoon style, but it's actually beautifully done, and better than sierra cartoon style adventure games that came out at the same time. The background paintings are stunning. The game is atmospheric, and it really feels like a pirate enviroment. It's LucasArts production levels.

It's the debut of voice acting in a monkey island game, and Dominic Armato delivers. He is Guybrush.

It follows the same structure of MI 1 and 2, divided by chapters. Many returning characters, and puzzles are on the level of previous games (MI logic). Game is long enough.

It's as funny as MI2, the jokes and easter eggs are great and you make you constant smile. Murray the daemonic skull is amazing. I feel it's funnier than MI1, since MI1 has a more subtle kind of humor next to monkey 2. It has two difficulty levels.

The bad part is the ending, which is kind of lame. But the game actually ties the ending of MK2 rather nicely, and the main plot is nice, which revolves in uncursing elaine after she becomes a golden statue..

In the end, I think it's a better adventure game than the 1st one, as classic the previous entries.
 

Scroo

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It was the first MI I played so I'm biased. I really love it but objectively MI 2 is the best imho. Still a very funny game I love to replay every now and then. And great german voice acting even.
 

JarlFrank

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I played it when I was... I dunno how old. Maybe 10 or 11? I played the first two Monkey Islands as a kid in the early 90s and I was really excited about this sequel.
I remember having fun with it, but I preferred the artstyle and atmosphere of MI 1 and 2. Overall, I enjoyed it.

When I replayed it as an adult, my opinion stayed pretty much the same. It's a very good adventure game, but it doesn't quite reach the excellence of MI2 (but then, no adventure game does). It does some things that are weird and made me scratch my head as a kid, nowadays I understand how hard it must've been to work with MI2's surreal ending and write a sequel that makes sense of it. Actually, the team did an admirable job, considering how confusing and surrealMI 2's ending was.
Not much of a fan of the artstyle, I still prefer the realistic with quirky elements of MI 1 & 2 (especially 2 is FUCKING GORGEOUS), but I do have to admit that it's very detailed and high quality. You could show some of its cutscenes on TV and nobody would notice that it's from a game rather than a cartoon show. Personal taste aside, the artists did a great job there.
The humor is top notch. Guybrush is more similar to how he was in the first game, not only in looks but also personality - he's more naive and less sarcastic than in the second game, but the dialogues are funny throughout. There are references to the previous games, there are recurring characters, there are new characters which are fun (like Murray, or the pirate barbers), and most of the jokes are pretty good.
Puzzles are good, too. The typical weird logic of the previous games made it into this one, too.

Also, you can't talk about CoMI without mentioning this:


I didn't actually see this cutscene when I was a kid because I had the German version, and instead of translating the song they just cut it. :(

Overall, it's a very good adventure game and I'd give it 8.5/10 points, with MI2 being a 10/10 and MI1 being a 9/10.
 

Cyberarmy

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I didn't actually see this cutscene when I was a kid because I had the German version, and instead of translating the song they just cut it. :(

This is a crime against humanity!


3rd game has its moments. While I like first 2 game much more, none of them made me laugh as hard as 3rd game. Especially this part.

 
Last edited:

Unkillable Cat

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My 'rating' of the Monkey Island series:

MI1: 8.8
MI2: 9.2
MI3: 9.0
[DATA EXPUNGED]
MI5: 7.1

The bad part is the ending
Wasn't a great chunk of the last chapter cut due to disc size limitations? Made it feel very rushed, with more meat at the last part of the game the ending would probably have been better.

Yes, they had to remove at least one cutscene (explaining how Guybrush ended on a rollercoaster after returning to adulthood) and trim down the wedding cutscene. Wouldn't surprise me if some gameplay elements were removed as well.

At least the storyboard for the former can be found online.

missingscene.jpg
 

Zarniwoop

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Fuck the haters, it's awesome. Just as strong as the first 2. And the first 2 were actually remade with similar art so they all look similar now.

Escape from Monkey Island though, is another story. They tried pulling off a Grim Fandango control scheme and ruined EVERYTHING.
 

Alex

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Fuck the haters, it's awesome. Just as strong as the first 2. And the first 2 were actually remade with similar art so they all look similar now.

(snip...)

Hey, hold your horses. I can't stand MI3's artwork, but saying it is on the same level as the remakes is just taking a piss on it.
 

Zarniwoop

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Hey, hold your horses. I can't stand MI3's artwork, but saying it is on the same level as the remakes is just taking a piss on it.
Well OK maybe Guybrush looks a little more gay in the remakes.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Escape from Monkey Island though, is another story. They tried pulling off a Grim Fandango control scheme and ruined EVERYTHING.

No. The tank controls didn't help, but they didn't ruin the game...at least not by their lonesome. For that you want Monkey Kombat and the real-world references (why bring Australia and Finland into this?).

Chapter 1 of MI4 is OK, but the less said about the rest, the better.
 

Zarniwoop

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No. The tank controls didn't help, but they didn't ruin the game...at least not by their lonesome. For that you want Monkey Kombat and the real-world references (why bring Australia and Finland into this?).

Chapter 1 of MI4 is OK, but the less said about the rest, the better.

I didn't mean the controls ruined the game. I mean it has shitty controls AND they ruined everything.
 

Aeschylus

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No. The tank controls didn't help, but they didn't ruin the game...at least not by their lonesome. For that you want Monkey Kombat and the real-world references (why bring Australia and Finland into this?).

Chapter 1 of MI4 is OK, but the less said about the rest, the better.
MI4 felt like a game made by people who had played all of the Monkey Islands, but without really understanding them, and then attempted to create a copy. The painfully unfunny cameo by Murray (a great character in CoMI) says it all.

CoMI, on the other hand, is fantastic. Excellent writing and puzzle design marred only by a rushed/weird ending sequence. So yeah, kind of like MI2 with a bit less edge.
 
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It is a great game, but at first I couldn't stick it as I didn't like the art style nor the voice acting.

In MI2 I thought Guybrush looked like a bro with his whispy beard, blue coat and boots, the skinny Guybrush of MI3 looked to me looked too weedy in comparison. As for the voice acting I always read the text in my own accent, so as a Brit I assumed Guybrush would sound like Errol Flynn/ Wesley from the princess bride, cocky and self assured, which is all a delusion as everyone else thinks he's a bit of a knobhead.

After I got used to the style, change of interface and voice acting though I enjoyed the game and it's atmosphere is definatly true to the franchise.
 

DakaSha II

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I played it when I was... I dunno how old. Maybe 10 or 11? I played the first two Monkey Islands as a kid in the early 90s and I was really excited about this sequel.
I remember having fun with it, but I preferred the artstyle and atmosphere of MI 1 and 2. Overall, I enjoyed it.

When I replayed it as an adult, my opinion stayed pretty much the same. It's a very good adventure game, but it doesn't quite reach the excellence of MI2 (but then, no adventure game does). It does some things that are weird and made me scratch my head as a kid, nowadays I understand how hard it must've been to work with MI2's surreal ending and write a sequel that makes sense of it. Actually, the team did an admirable job, considering how confusing and surrealMI 2's ending was.
Not much of a fan of the artstyle, I still prefer the realistic with quirky elements of MI 1 & 2 (especially 2 is FUCKING GORGEOUS), but I do have to admit that it's very detailed and high quality. You could show some of its cutscenes on TV and nobody would notice that it's from a game rather than a cartoon show. Personal taste aside, the artists did a great job there.
The humor is top notch. Guybrush is more similar to how he was in the first game, not only in looks but also personality - he's more naive and less sarcastic than in the second game, but the dialogues are funny throughout. There are references to the previous games, there are recurring characters, there are new characters which are fun (like Murray, or the pirate barbers), and most of the jokes are pretty good.
Puzzles are good, too. The typical weird logic of the previous games made it into this one, too.

Also, you can't talk about CoMI without mentioning this:


I didn't actually see this cutscene when I was a kid because I had the German version, and instead of translating the song they just cut it. :(

Overall, it's a very good adventure game and I'd give it 8.5/10 points, with MI2 being a 10/10 and MI1 being a 9/10.


that fucking video is way more funny than i like to admit
 

Unkillable Cat

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Also, you can't talk about CoMI without mentioning this:


that fucking video is way more funny than i like to admit


Fun story: I know someone who went to a 'geek' convention in the US about 10 years ago, where she met Gregg Berger, the voice actor for the small pirate. Though the convention was for another thing that Berger was involved with, someone hummed a part of "A Pirate I was meant to be" to him, and his reaction was a loud groan. :D

(He's a pretty cool guy overall and hung out with people afterwards, where he said that he'd love to reprise his role as Cornfed Pig from 'Duckman' if given the chance, but that's unrelated to this discussion.)
 

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