The first and second Monkey Island titles are my long-lost funny favorites. It’s been a long time since I played The Secret of Monkey Island, but I never forgot about how hilarious the experience was, even if I only played it in Spanish at the time. Thanks to my husband and his Christmas gift over XBLA, I had the chance to replay this game – this time in English, which made it all even more worthwhile.
The Secret of Monkey Island follows the tale of Guybrush Threepwood, an aspiring pirate.
Pirate: Guybrush Threepwood? That’s the most ridiculous name I’ve ever heard!
Guybrush: Well what’s your name?
Pirate: Mancomb Seepgood.
Yes. Well. Not the greatest name ever, but a memorable one at least! Of course, not everyone can become a pirate; they must first prove themselves, and that is where your story begins, by taking Guybrush through the three trials: swordfighting, thievery and treasure-hunting.
The game plays as your traditional point-and-click adventure, where you inspect everything, talk to everyone, pick up whatever you can, and then figure out what to do with the random stuff in your inventory. Now, many years ago this would have been a big problem. There were no hints to be found, and I still remember the many times I had picked “Use (object) with (another object)” in hopes to find out what to do next. This edition improves on the getting stuck problem by introducing a hint system.
The main difference is definitely in the look of the game. Everything has been redrawn, characters and locations got a very nice colorful, cartoony makeover while still maintaining the same feel of the original game. An audio makeover completes the effect, with remastered tunes and tons of voice-overs for the dialogs. You can still play the game as it was originally by simply pressing a button, but when you switch you don’t retain the improved sound.
I actually used the old version a lot just to use and combine items from my inventory. I guess I was just too used to it even after all these years, and felt a bit awkward using the new pop-up inventory and action windows.
The Secret of Monkey Island is an easy game to pick up and play. Anyone can quickly adjust to the controls and start exploring on their own, filling up Guybrush’s magical carry-all pockets with all sorts of seemingly useless items.
But the fun is definitely in exploring. Memorable insult swordfights, strange cannibals, voodoo magic, bizarre dialogs, an extremely annoying boat salesman (possibly more annoying as before, since now I can actually hear him!), a stalky castaway and ghosts are still every bit as entertaining now as they were 20 years ago.
For those who have never played the original, the adventure will last somewhere around 6 to 8 hours, just because you will want to talk to everyone and find out all kinds of wacky stuff that the pirates have to say, and compare the new version with the old one.
For everyone else who has played ye olde version, you will probably zip through it in about three hours (while skipping story sequences, and get an achievement while you’re at it), maybe five at the most. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less worth those 800 Microsoft points! I, for one, am quite happy to have Guybrush Threepwood and the rest of the cast in my games library all over again, courtesy of a loving husband.