Return to Monkey Island on Nintendo Switch
Testing the sequel to one of the games I played a lot while a teenager!
Testing that game
The goal of this article is not to do a full (or even partial) review of Return
to Monkey Island.
First because plenty of others did it already, and second because it was
released some months ago, so there's not really a lot of interest in doing so
(although I do write articles about some Amstrad CPC that are 30+ years old!).
No, my point is more to reflect on how I liked the game, and how it brought back some nice memories.
Monkey Island
I only played the 3rd game, The Curse of Monkey Island, mostly because the 2 first ones were released on platforms that I didn't own:
- The Secret of Monkey Island was released in 1990, and at that time I owned an Amstrad CPC 6128, with the game only available on Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh and MS-DOS.
- LeChuck's Revenge, released one year later, was also not available on CPC.
- I played The Curse of Monkey Island in 1999, 2 years after it got released (1997), because I just got my first PC the year before. Still, I have fond memories of it and the fun I had playing it!
Available on the Switch!
So when I saw (can't remember whether it was on Twitter or HackerNews) that Return to Monkey Island would be released, and watched the first trailer (which was super fun), I immediately got excited and knew I would buy it.
Now, I don't play a lot on the game consoles we have at home, this is mostly for the kids - I would play Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U a bit, or Fifa on the PS4, but this is it really - the kids would use the PS4 or the Switch a lot more than I do.
But the portable nature of the Switch made it perfect for me to play Return of Monkey Island at night time in the bebdroom :)
The Game
Again, I'm not gonna do a full review, but here are a few things I liked:
- the graphics: granted, they are very different from the previous games, but to me they look at the same time a lot more modern (of course), while still "respecting" the legacy of Monkey Island
- game duration: I didn't track how much time it took me to finish the game (especially since I rarely play for more than 1h), but I was busy for a few weeks, which is pretty good.
- difficulty: it was OK, though I appreciated the available help when I got stuck (essentially, you have a button where the game would give you hints to tell you what to do next)
- humor: as with any Monkey Island, you have jokes and play on words pretty much all the time - this is hilarious to me, since I played the previous game(s)
- references to previous games: it was good to see some references to the first episodes - of course, the main characters (Guybrush, Elaine, LeChuck, ...) are the same, which helps creating this feeling.
Wrap Up
As you must have figured out already, I liked the game a lot, and had a lot of fun playing it. There's enough adventures and riddles to keep you busy, you really have to explore the different maps/islands to keep moving.
And last but not least, once you've finished the game, you have a kind of "mémoire" from the authors, reflecting on not only that game, but also the previous ones - see the below pica (in French):
Tags: Retrogaming, Geek