Monkey Island 1 is an undeniable classic. From the memorable locales of Melee Island, to the iconic Insult Swordfighting sequence, to the parodic breakdown of various piratey tropes, I can't by any means disregard the status this game has among point 'n click games. As for me, I'm a Monkey Island fan too, but... my relationship with the series is a roller coaster ride, there's ups and there's downs. The first Monkey Island is like that moment where you ride the uphill track, bracing yourself for the exciting ride downwards, except the coaster ride breaks and you get stuck up there until the maintenance guys pull you out in an hour.

Okay, what the fuck am I talking about? Let's get the positives out of the way. A lot of these positives have to do with the additions the Special Edition brought. The game looks stellar. I never tire looking at those water graphics, especially with the bridge area with the moonlight shining off the ocean surface. This game looks real nice. Don't like how it looks? Press a button, and you can immediately switch between the new and old graphics on the fly. Do you prefer dialogue-heavy games to have voice acting? Special Edition adds that. Tired of all the LucasArts puzzle logic impending your progress? There's a built-in hint system.

I can tell there was a lot of care put behind this remake, while still retaining the optionality of making it aesthetically closer to the original if you so wish. It's a good way to experience the first entry, and it's one adventure that I think everybody should give a shot.

So, that was what I consider the objective take. Now for something that only reflects how I feel about it: The game's just okay. It's, fine. There's memorable moments in it for sure, but I feel like the writing and voice acting isn't doing enough to really sell the whole thing.

That's not to say that those things are done poorly, they're perfectly passable. But for a comedy game, I need more than that. There's a purposefully dry tone that permeates this game, and it extends to the delivery of the dialogue, which often fell flat. Due to the way the dialogue is structured, there will be a lot of awkward pauses that give off this unnatural voice direction. Jokes that were clearly delivered in one take, get cut up into multiple lines with pauses in-between. Meanwhile, other line deliveries lack enthusiasm, or feel like the actors are constantly restarting their speech cadence rather than building up or varying their tone of delivery towards the punchline. All of this makes the writing hit softer rather than harder.

It actually makes me wonder if playing the game with text-only would've enhanced the effect of the jokes, seeing as I would've been able to imagine my own delivery alongside it, but... I'm sure the actors did their best, it's just the way this game is built does not allow for natural-sounding voice acting. But then, what about Monkey Island 2? Curse of Monkey Island? I thought those games did a better job with their voice acting, it felt like the performances were more lively and natural there. It's really difficult to explain, but there's just something stilted about this first game. Something that makes it more average. Something that I respect still, but don't find myself coming back to often compared to the later games.

The Special Edition graphics look awful, but at least you can switch over to the (very charming) original look of the game. No matter how it looks, though, definitely one of my favorite point & click games of all time, and despite being over 30 years old, the humor still hits just as well now as I'm sure it did back then. Also a lot of fun to experience the game for the first time in many years since I did not exactly remember every puzzle solution so there was still a lot of fun discoveries and having to actually think about what I was supposed to do at times, but with the added bonus of at least remembering the broad strokes of most things so I never really got stuck. Not that tSoMI is a particularly cruel game anyway, usually being pretty logical and even when the solution can feel a bit obtuse, the game is really good at giving pretty clear nudges along the way for most of the game. Probably not my favorite in the franchise, but there's something special about it that was just never replicated, and I'm not really sure what. Maybe the high energy enthusiasm it exudes? Not sure, but whatever the case may be, still an absolutely fantastic little adventure that somehow never seems to age, and with a fantastic soundtrack as well!

Controlling the pointer with a controller rather than a mouse certainly isn't ideal by the way, but it works decently enough.

👾 The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition (🇺🇸 1990/2009)

Biased opinion here since it’s my favourite graphic adventure of all time. The special edition gives a great facelift to the classic and the brilliant writing never gets old. It should be in a museum.

🎮 Played on Steam Deck

Rating: 🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒

A beautifully made clean up of the original with improved graphics, whilst keeping true to the game and adding voice acting in it too. Definitely worth a buy if you want to play the first monkey island game and you don't have Dosbox or Scummvm to play the original on.

Edit: The game was mostly made for those who had played it in the past, but I do love how they had changed certain things as not only were the graphics replaced with more cartoonish ones, but you can semi-seamlessly swap between the new ones and the only ones if you're feeling especially nostalgic without messing with DOSBox or Scummvm.

The story, for those who don't know, follows Guybrush Thweepwood who wants to become a pirate, however, he's often laughed off as not only is he a bit of a slender character with no real muscle and not intimidating features at all, but the name itself also doesn't exactly strike fear into the heart of those who come across it.

At the same time, the Pirate named LeChuck has returned from the dead! The reason being, the governor's daughter refused his advances and told him to drop dead and so he did to become the zombie pirate we all know and fear! He's returned with the power of voodoo magic to attempt to take her hand in marriage since he did exactly what she said to do, drop dead. He had also transformed his crew into a group of undead minions to assist him in his conquest.

A game many consider to be an adventure game classical staple for many generations before and after its release, and while definitely good, I don't necessarily think its great. The humor is definitely the highlight here. The story and humor find a great balance between everything like set-up, delivery, and punchline. So many iconic lines I know understand after having played through this game. The puzzles though? Surprisingly really easy. I only got stuck on one part at the end of the game, but other than that I was genuinely surprised at how easy most of the puzzles in this game were. Some are intentionally easy as part of the joke, but then some aren't so. Not to mention the game stalls out a little in the first half with Insult Swordfighting and the Grog Prison Puzzle. It does a good job laying the groundwork for the rest of the series to come.