Return To Monkey Island Is A Reminder That The Point-And-Click Adventure Is Still The Chillest Genre
Return to Monkey Island is one of the greatest comebacks in video game history. Even with that bold new art style—which, for the record, I think is beautiful—it feels like slipping into an old pair of pirate boots. A gulf of decades separates this game from 1991's Monkey Island 2, of which it's a direct follow-up, but it doesn't feel like it. It's like Dave Grossman and Ron Gilbert, the masterminds behind Guybrush Threepwood's triumphant return, wrote and designed this sequel a week after they finished LeChuck's Revenge—not 30 years later. I guess making comedy swashbuckling point-and-click adventures is like riding a bike.
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I haven't finished Return to Monkey Island yet—I'm currently on a spiritual quest to construct a mop—but I'm already in love with it. It's laugh-out-loud funny, brilliantly self-aware, laden with heaps of fun, challenging puzzles, and incredibly atmospheric—which is all I ask from an adventure game, really. It's also a reminder of why, when it comes to drawing you into a world, this genre is still unbeatable. Most video games are driven by a sense of urgency. You often feel like you're being dragged through them against your will. However, point-and-click adventures, especially those in the classic LucasArts mould, just let you be.
You have a goal in Return to Monkey Island—you just get to decide how doggedly you pursue it. Guybrush needs a ship and a crew, but developer Terrible Toybox is content to just sit back and let you explore Mêlée Island at your leisure, talking to the weirdos who live there, interacting with every point of interest you find, and generally soaking up the moonlit piratical ambience. This is something I've always loved
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