Yup, it was just a title to me; an excuse to get the story rolling. It didn’t feel unresolved.
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Guybrush has a vivid imagination, even 30 years later on.
More elaborated:
Summary
My theory is he basically makes up most things, including his son(s) - and Elaine is just someone who also works at the park - which is why she can just show up everywhere, even on Monkey Island- but she plays along to not hurt Guybrush too much after having learned in MI2 that he’s actually happier in his imaginary world.
LeChuck suffers from the same obsession over the secret as he is just another part of Guybrush’s imagination.
At a meta-level, Guybrush is really all of us: players who at a younger age got lost in the first game(s) and want to Return to them now after all these years. Older. Still obsessed over what that secret is. Wanting to pass our passion for this imaginary world to a next generations and our children.
From the developers perspective, they have always put some of their own in the games. Why else would the premise of MI2 be “to go on a whole new adventure that will bring me more fame and give me a new story to tell”.
Return is literally a return to the (world of) Monkey Island (games). The question is: to what do you want to return? The same characters? The same setting/islands? The same sensations you had when you first played or made the games. The same puzzles?
I think they’ve made a pretty good mix of all- although from times I felt they included too many locations from the old games, which makes perfect sense in the end, but irritated me while playing.
What I think about the game
Summary
The pace and order of the quest was nice. Getting up close and personal with LeChuck early on instead of at the end was an original twist to an otherwise predictable mould of how the story would unfold. The way earlier locations would open up again after being inaccessible during some parts was smart too.
I especially liked how the returning characters developed over time and matured.
And whatever the relationship between Elaine and Guybrush is in reality, it is a loving one.
On the puzzle side of things, I never used the hint book - matter of principles- but was not stuck for a very long time. I blame my own age and experience.
The trivia cards on the other hand: way too many spoilers? And hard as nails.
Great and non-distracting art and sound (the stormy ship part!), the animated details in almost every backdrop, which combined with the excellent voice acting and engaging story sucked me right back into the world of MI; forgetting all about the world around me; which is exactly what I think the premise and Secret was. For that I would rate it a solid 7/10.
As I discovered and played the whole game with my son, I give the game an additional point for appropriateness. And one bonus point for replay value as there are enough dialogue options and easter eggs to be still discovered on my next playthroughs - just as on the first MI games.
Final score: 9/10 (as reference, I’d score Full Throttle 5/10, Fate of Atlantis a 6/10, Day of the Tentacle 7/10, TWP and SoMI an 8/10 and Grim Fandango and MI2 both 10/10. Zak McKracken, which holds a special place in my heart, would also be a 9/10. The enjoyment I get from playing a game is closely linked with how happy a game makes ME feel, which may explain the non-conventional scoring across the board)
Oh, and I definitely will need to replay with the “writer’s cut” option on, which hopefully will satisfy my inner MI nerd.
I also hope they patch in the violin playing ghost.
He did! He also said there’s enough hints to what the secret is in the first game if you are paying attention. (Most of us thought it was the “employees only” sign, but it was Guybrush stepping into the world from under the arch and being called a flooring inspector, which of course ties in with the rest and the whole premise of a game that feels like “what if you could step out during the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and go explore that world?”
Aha! THAT is why the banjo in CMI is said to reminisce of the ride. I never got that, because that part is not there in Disneyland Paris…. Oh no, I’m getting monkey wrench vibes all over again.
I think that was to cheer him up. She and Stan (the carpenter) have a hard enough job fixing all the damage he does when he has one of his episodes.
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And what happens in CMI for the title screen? A cannon battle between a pirate ship and a fort, as our boy floats toward them. And he is in a literal ride cart.
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RtMI came in at no. 18 on the Guardian’s 20 best video games of 2022 -
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That part I got. There just is no banjo to be seen or heard.
Someone (no, not @Someone ) was on the right track 5 years ago:
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In retrospect, after digesting RTMI, can we draw some conclusions? In your opinion, is something crucial lost without pixel art? Is something crucial lost without SCUMM?
For me, the answer is definitely yes. Without pixel art, it’s just not the same, although I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what is missing. This thought came to me while watching this amateur video titled ‘Monkey 3a’.
And after playing the excellent ‘Beyond the Edge of Owlsgard,’ I’m certain that without SCUMM, something is lost in terms of gameplay. Something that so far, other interfaces have failed to deliver. But again, I can’t say precisely what it is…
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That’s what I thought when first playing MI3 (no a). With MI4 I would have been happy had it looked like MI3. MI5 was actually okay (or my expectations non-existent) and with such a broad spectrum of styles over the course of the series, I didn’t mind the looks of RTMI. At least it wasn’t 3D.
I think if it had been done in pixel art, it might have been able to capitalize on nostalgia, but would it really have been any better objectively?
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I didn’t talk about that because it was a stellar game, but things that were less polished or missing in Owlsgard include:
- !!! no distinction between skip and pause
- somehow the ability to skip the language selection screen meaning it defaults to German
- insufficient standard keyboard controls
this stands out more than usual due to qwe/asd/zxc being present- no arrow controls for dialog
- no save game with enter
- no j/u to scroll the inventory
- (presumably no numpad cursor control but I played on my laptop so that’s just an assumption)
- I think SCUMM games after MM and Zak did something with right click to cancel or revert to look at or something? I had the impression the mouse interaction in this game felt more like Zak and less like Fate of Atlantis or Monkey Island. Which is fine, MM/Zak still feels surprisingly modern if you map your scrollwheel to output j/u in the game, but something about it is a touch inelegant. I’d have to do a more active comparison.
- no xxl scrolling rooms
I didn’t actively miss them but they can be cool
For some of those I’m surprised it apparently takes effort and presumably doesn’t just come for free with AGS.
But TWP for example doesn’t suffer from any of that.
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The banjo part is the difficulty menu screen. That’s the part that reminds me of the slow beginning to Disneyland PotC, with the banjo at the swamp shack.
Yes for me as well. Maybe I can’t pinpoint it exactly, but it’s similar to the way I feel that Maniac Mansion, Zak McKraken, and Thimbleweed Park are within the same universe.
Is it normal to feel like Day of the Tentacle isn’t really a true sequel to Maniac Mansion, but Thimbleweed Park is? Maybe it’s related to interacting with Sandy and Dave in Thimbleweed Park, with their sprites resembling the version I played myself in the early '90s (even though I know this wasn’t the original Maniac Mansion graphics)?
No kidding: after playing Thimbleweed Park, I play Maniac Mansion differently. I used to ignore Dave. But now I pretend that Dave is the only one who can use the exercise machine, and I use him in the end sequence… all because I like seeing him in continuity with his Thimbleweed Park appearance.
That was a tangent, but I get similar vibes between MI1 and MI2. I understand that on some level, MI2 has a wildly different art process than MI1. I’ve seen the comparisons between their backgrounds and between their NPC depictions. But on another level, it hits the same part of my brain that interprets “pixel art”.
When MI2 has the dream sequence of Guybrush being root beer sprayed by MI1 Guybrush, I feel like the games are connected. Elaine and Toothrot are basically the same sprite, and Stan and Voodoo Lady are just recolored I think. MI2 Guybrush basically looks the way MI1 Guybrush wanted to be, in my imagination.
And even apart from in-game appearances, the box art translates the pixelation to semi-realism thanks to Steve Purcell. The covers to Secret and Revenge are iconic, giving us an imprint of what the pixel screens might actually look like. And hey, Thimbleweed Park does the same. And that itself is a different impact than when the cover leans harder into the same, in-game cartooney artstyles as was done in CMI, EMI, TMI (sorta maybe?), and yes RMI.
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Yes, I know. I mean there are zero* banjos to be seen/heard in a half mile radius** of the Disneyland Paris PoTC ride.
*unless you bring your own, of course
** I’ve seen a dixieland band with a banjo player on Main Street once
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Ah! Nor is there the banjo bayou at Disneyworld in Florida, the version I’ve been to. I didn’t know about the Disneyland California version until very recently.
Finally, I have finished RtMI, too.
Well, I understand everyone who has been disappointed by the ending. The puzzles at the ending are quite easy, there is no real interaction with LeChuck and the secret is surely not everyone’s taste. I also agree that it feels very similar to the ending of MI2.
The visual style of RtMI looks well - in its own way, though. It strongly reminds of DotT, of course, but it differs so much from the previous MI games and I have never understood why a new MI game always had to look so different from its own predecessors. However, the team decided for this distinct style and we have to cope with it now. Nevertheless, it looks polished, atmospheric and it appears like a classic Lucasfilm/LucasArts point & click game. So it could have been much worse, couldn’t it?
After all, my recent playthrough was a big pleasure to me. In my opinion, RtMI is at least the best MI game since CoMI. There were a lot of funny moments. The characters - especially Guybrush - still have their well-known charm. I really hope that Ron and his team are going to create some more sequels over the next years (without altering the visual style so heavily any more). Seeing the ambiguous ending (in terms of the secret) and the cliffhanger (treasure of Mire Island), there is hope for it indeed! 
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