I was feeling the same as you for the first couple hours. I really did not like the opening teaching portion with the young people. It was “oh no” bad for me, for the reasons that you said (and others).
Then the game seemed to take a while to get going. But now that I’m a few puzzles deep and actually doing stuff it’s getting to be quite fun.
Well, about the missing spooky feeling… I don’t remember it in Monkey 2. It feels the same to me.
I am now stuck for the first time. It’s about a book.
Edit: nope, it was just a matter of looking around better. I am a bit afraid the game is still too easy.
PS I wish the hint book would stop glowing. I thought I could avoid picking it up, but I couldn’t.
I think the spooky feeling some of you are missing was given by the silence, so it was only in Monkey1. Ron said it was not intended, the silence was a technical limitation…
I’m now in part 2. Unfortunately, there was no good puzzle in part 1…
I’m stuck in part 2, thank goodness. 
about flattening something.
Part 2 finished. Only got stuck for 15 minutes 
Don’t underestimate the realistic appearances, the impression that you could be walking around behind the scenes of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in the first two games.
People remember being more frightened of LeChuck in MI1 and MI2, despite him literally murdering huge amounts of people in MI3, because his MI3 version was visually more cartoony.
EDIT: I’ve also read people saying that the puzzles go pretty quickly and that the locations feel… not very huge? The locations in MI1 and MI2 both did feel pretty huge. For MI1, this probably combined with the silence and realism for a spookiness factor.
I never seem to get stuck for more than 10 minutes. This is exactly what Ron said was his goal, in the interviews. But from the interviews I didn’t realize how much this would ruin the whole experience… 
I’m in part 3 btw.
Starting part 4. Still no real challenge…
It’s very good, but if you breeze through it…
I’m genuinely baffled by this comment. What about moments such as exploring the cemetery? Reviving Rapp Scallion (and exploring his weenie hut for that matter)? The tunnels beneath Rum Rogers’ place, with the ominous and foreshadowing music? The final confrontation with LeChuck, where he stalks Guybrush and talks about his “screaming chair”?
Monkey Island 2 was arguably the most spooky game out of all of the Monkey Island titles. Return to Monkey Island has none of that same feeling and atmosphere.
Yes, ok, these are specific moments. Not the general feeling. That’s what I meant.
But I think when people talk about the new game lacking that spooky feeling, they’re talking about those specific moments from the previous games. Nobody is claiming that the previous Monkey Island games were wall to wall horror and scares. A few spooky moments peppered throughout an adventure can make a huge impact in terms of the overall atmosphere of a game.
Could be…
I hope there are similar moments in RtMI as well. Who knows. (I’m in part 4, but there are more parts this time)
MI2 was spooky for me. I got mugged in the first minutes. The cemetery, sailing in a coffin through a swamp, the voodoo lady with creepy artifacts, walking in the night, creepy music in some places - it was all already in the first part of MI2. Here, the Voodooo lady seems very normal and you can’t really feel it’s night. It’s all very bright and cheery. Even the music is something I would expect on a renaissance fair (or whatever it’s called). It feels like a kid game, way more than 1 or 2 and art style supports that.
Funny enough, I think this was also partly accidental due to the scanned backgrounds in MI2. The backgrounds had blurry areas that weren’t touched up as sharply as MI1, and that combined with the overall dark colors… I’ve read comments from people who say the game has a dreamlike/unsettling quality because if it, which syncs well with the ending.
But it can’t all be accidental, surely. The colors in MI2 ARE darker, and the soundtrack in general has an angst quality to it.
You are right. It’s just that when I think of Monkey 2 I generally think about strolling in woodtick and booty, not about the spooky episodes. I don’t know why.
Me earlier this year:
“Hey, MI2 has a few 18th-19th century folk songs. I wonder why it focuses on the folk songs that are obsessed with death and/or tragedy?”
. . .
“I’m going to listen to other folk songs.”
. . .
“Okay, so it turns out 97% of folk songs are obsessed with death and/or tragedy.”
What folk songs are in MI2?
Going to ask here instead of Google searching!
For those of you who use Steam:
I’ve never used it before. I installed it and this game on my old MacBook Pro that I have hooked up to my 4K TV 24/7. Unfortunately, sometimes random things will cause that old MacBook’s fans to go crazy, so once I got on the ship with the rain and all, the computer started going crazy, even when I lowered the graphics render to medium.
If I install Steam and RTMI on my better MacBook that I use for work, will my save states and everything automatically be on the new computer? Can I just hop back and forth between computers as I play, with saves updating across them?