I found the mighty pirate Guybrush Threepwood sitting on a park bench. A little older, but not necessarily smarter. He’s relaying stories of monkey quests from his island secrets to young people he knows. The story that unfolds is essentially his first and biggest hit of his two adventures, curse, Escape, Tales. Guybrush is searching Brawl Island for clues at the same time as his nemesis, the ghost pirate Le Chuck. He enlists the help of his familiar faces, including his lover Elaine and slippery second-hand boat salesman Stan. There are also welcome and charming new companions, such as the cynic Rock Smith. The name is as nosy as comedy gets here.
As a longtime adventure game fan, it’s hard to describe just how satisfying Return is. Evolving from director Ron Gilbert’s Thimbleweed Park engine, contextual interactions, dialogue and puzzles are refined to a whole new level. Gone are the annoying mechanics of backtracking to familiar locations and sifting through dialogue. Instead of moving robotically from screen to screen, you feel like you’re always where you need to be. The puzzle itself is no longer a silly exercise in item combinations. Everything has superficial logic here. Also, thanks to his style of detailed art, not to mention his hunting pixels.
There’s been a hint book in inventory since the beginning, containing several levels of clues, from gentle nudges to detailed explanations of solutions.
There are two difficulty modes to top off your quality of life improvement. Hard Mode (called The Full Monkey) is the normal mode that lovers of the series and genre should go to. Casual mode truncates the puzzle chain. So working in multiple locations to find an item becomes a simple case of picking it up off the floor.
The development team puts extra effort into making the game feel smooth on the controller, and it shows.As anyone who’s ever played a point-and-click adventure on PS1 can attest Besides, that cursor movement is slow and frustrating. The controls here are intuitive and usually set the bar for more laid-back adventures on PC.
Ultimately, with Return to Monkey Island, original creators Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman not only created a loving throwback to the genre they helped popularize, but reinvigorated it. .