Which is the saddest MI?

Adventure/Lucasfilm Games
#1

Here is a completely silly question, considering the Monkey Island series is in the comedy high adventure genre.

But which is the saddest of all of the Monkey Island games, and why?

I am gonna start off:

Honestly I think the saddest of all the Monkey Island games is “The Curse of Monkey Island”.

There is something about the music, visuals and certain plot beats that have this melancholy to them, it’s quite hard to explain what I mean, but the game always makes me feel nostalgically sad (It makes me laugh and have a good time too) but it’s got that thing like the end of “The Last Crusade” the heroes win and Guybrush and Elaine get married, then sail off into the sunset… Like we are never going to see them again… Like it’s their last adventure, and that makes me feel sad. (Obviously they go on more, but it always feels final at the end, I just want to play more)

The visuals have this super distinct near dreamlike quality to them, extremely evocative and memorable, like you have seen them before, they have this undercurrent of darkness, especially on “blood island”…

Then the whole “ring curse” kind of “LOOMS” over you, for the whole game, adding this sense of foreboding.

I do think that it has the finest work from “Michael Land” in terms of composition and the added intro music and whole score has this sense of longing to it.

BONUS
Close second for me has to be the last chapter of “Tales of Monkey Island”, I am not a massive fan of the game. But the last chapter really feels like all is lost. With guybrush being dead and everything

Anyway, this was a silly topic, but I wanted to talk about it.

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#2

Never thought much about it, but you’re right about Curse having a bit of a finale feel to it. Monkey 1, 2 and Escape all end with some sense of Guybrush and Elaine still being part of the story, yet in Curse, they sail away, which does suggest they’re leaving it all behind.

And I agree 100% about the OST, it’s Michael Land’s finest MI soundtrack :slight_smile:

The saddest MI is Tales, as it just made me sad I wasn’t playing the first ones :smiley:

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#3

I’d say the second. Guybrush is rather mean in that one, which makes me feel saddest overall. Plus there’s those parental skeletons and related issues.

1 Like
#4

:joy::joy::joy::joy:

#5

Hello necrothread! I didn’t see you before and damn don’t you look fine today.

Anyway… I do get melancholy vibes from MI, but not from COMI. In the first one, there’s this part where you get back to the starting island and everything is deserted. I get this feeling that something important has changed, things are not how we remember them and it’s clear that the game is about to end. Sounds like getting old.

The other one is even more powerful. In MI2 when Guybrush takes elevator to the top and he’s in a place from MI1, with barred entry. What a brilliant move it was to put it there. Unlike the LeChuck haunted underground, It’s so peaceful there. The image brings memories and It makes me think of everything that may happen outside of MI2 that we will never be able to see.

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