Return To Monkey Island Review

pczone.co.uk:

We’re all grown up now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a bit of juvenile fun from time to time. That’s the vibe we get from Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman, original creators of the Monkey Island franchise on their unexpected new entry in the series.

It’s a proper old-school nostalgia romp, an injection of youth juice for the old and flabby who wax lyrical about their first adventures with pirate-wannabe Guybrush Threepwood, including Guybrush himself. And for the most part, it doesn’t fail to live up to our rose-tinted rememberings.

In the wake of the Disney LucasArts acquisition, Gilbert publicly declared his desire to make another Monkey Island game. I distinctly remember thinking the company would reject the idea, content to sit on the property till doomsday. Thankfully, Gilbert wasn’t dealing with EA.

Two years of secret development on and we have the most pleasant gaming surprise of 2022. A true sequel, the ‘real’ Monkey Island 3. The first from Gilbert and Grossman since 1991.

And 1991 is exactly where we pick up on our new adventure, with two boys running around an island playing pirate, a tutorial aping the out-of-left-field ending to Gilbert and Grossman’s last title, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. (Was our grand adventure just in some dumb kids’ imagination all along? wait, whaaaat?)

When we finally meet Guybrush Threepwood he is neither the plucky adolescent pirate we remember nor a child with an overactive imagination, but a Dad, sitting on a park bench, content to recount his adventures to the sprog that we have just had the pleasure of learning the controls with.

The specific adventure that Guybrush chooses to recount, the one we’re about to play, is the tale of how he discovered the actual secret of