Return to Monkey Island Review – A Return To Childhood Nostalgia

“I’m Guybrush Threepwood! I am a powerful pirate!”

Between the moment Guybrush uttered this iconic line in Return to Monkey Island and our reintroduction to familiar characters like used ship salesman Stan S. Stanman and Cobb, with his “Ask me about Loom” badge, I was already shrouded in a haze of nostalgia. You would eat all this up if you were a Monkey Island lover. Monkey Island fans are able to talk their ears off about the uniqueness of this series. The series’ charming and self-referential humor and earnestness of Guybrush Threepwood, its pirate hero, are the key ingredients. The most absurd puzzle in Secret of Monkey Island is the transport of an extremely tart pirate drink called grog from one island to another without melting the mug or burning your hands.

Return to Monkey Island is a fun point-and-click adventure that’s not lost its charm and luster since Ron Gilbert’s original Monkey Island game. It’s close to thirty years later. It feels like time has barely passed since then, with the premise of its swashbuckling tale faithfully crafted from a Monkey Island structure that feels refined to near perfection.

Guybrush is heading to the eponymous island in search of its greatest secret, and he is again in need of a boat and crew. Melee Island is his favorite spot, a favourite haunt for any self-professed Mighty Pirate. Guybrush meets up with a few old friends as well as some less-than-friends. Guybrush is eventually forced to make dramatic declarations by the Voodoo Lady about Guybrush’s failed expedition. You will see hijinks in the form of cleverly using chicken and other fowl products. The idea is clear. 

Return to Monkey Island is a fusion of its goofy humor and genuine sense of humor. This is what makes Monkey Island so special. Although it’s difficult to give details without spoiler territory, there’s a lot of fun jokes and gags. The game’s excellent comedic timing left me sneezing. You will be listening to an interminable monologue on anchors’ beautiful function, history and beauty, which is intended to demonstrate the ability to quickly skip dialogue. 

Return to Monkey Island delivers hilarious comedic timing. You can find jokes that lead to absurd and hilarious conclusions. Fourth-wall breaking references are plentiful, making fun of everything pop culture and the peculiarities of video gaming. You can also find throwbacks from past jokes such as Stan’s jacket, with its eye-watering immaterial textures, that never stop being amusing. This humor goes beyond skin deep. It’s deeply embedded in every aspect of Return to Monkey Island. From its quirky cast to its intricate puzzles to its pacy plot, to its slapstick characters to its slick layout, such as a quest that involves a mop and some grease to a small hole. The personality of Return to Monkey Island shines through, and there’s plenty to love about the show.

Given the series’ popularity, it would have been easy for Gilbert and his studio, Terrible Toybox, to create a new Monkey Island game that simply banks on its fans’ sentimentality for the series – a knowing wink, some inside jokes, or breadcrumbs alluding to long-running gags in Monkey Island (and there are so many of them). Terrible Toybox doesn’t want the new game to be a sequel to Monkey Island 2 – LeChuck’s Revenge. 

It’s notable for the new style of art. The game’s new art style feels less like a departure from its original spirit and more as a way to give a familiar series a fresh coat of paint. This is emblematic of Return to Monkey Island’s new direction. Take, for instance, the scrapbook, a nifty feature that briefly recounts the colorful exploits of the famed Mighty Pirate, meant to ease new players into the game and serve as a recap for a series that spanned three entire decades. 

There’s also a hint system that’s brilliantly woven into the story, and it’s meticulously considered and immensely helpful for folks like myself who can get driven into a corner by its puzzles, and it doesn’t reveal all the answers at once. You can find the answers to your puzzles by using a spellbook that gradually reveals clues based on what obstacles you are facing. This is done by presenting keywords that may inspire a solution – an epiphany, perhaps – or through vague clues that gently nudge you in the right direction.

There’s also the point-and,click interface. This is much more intuitive than the traditional “nine words” list of point-and/click titles. No longer will you haphazardly drag random knick-knacks to these verbs to inadvertently discover what you can do with them; this new interface streamlines such interactions to examining or using these objects. Guybrush’s wit and humor that were associated with the misusing of these items in older Monkey Island games are gone in this title. Talking to random objects or mixing unrelated pieces of artifacts will not be possible. These gags, while inconsequential, are not a problem. Return to Monkey Island has countless great jokes. 

Two difficulty options are available. This allows you to choose whether the experience prioritizes story and puzzles, or if you prefer puzzle lovers who like a little brain teaser. The sum of these parts points to an incredibly thoughtful design that makes Return to Monkey Island an adventure anyone can dive into – one that can be equally delightful to new players, especially for those who may be concerned about trudging into a series with decades of history.

However, it wouldn’t capture the wonder of Monkey Island 2, if you tried to distill it into its individual parts. Return to Monkey Island, for me, feels more like a coming home, of returning back to those sepia tones where I first discovered the excitement of Guybrush Threepwood’s adventures in The Secret of Monkey Island years ago. It is also the reason why Return to Monkey Island, despite Terrible Toybox’s tireless efforts to make it more accessible to new players and easier to navigate, still appeals to the original series fan who will get the best out of the point-and click experience. These are the people who will delight to see, for example, Guybrush holding his grog with the same piece of melted steel. The movie Return to Monkey Island has a nostalgic quality and is hilarious. I feel like a child again, watching Guybrush try to disorient his competitors with the last-ditch attempt to say, “Look behind your back, three-headed monkey!”