This is an odd one. As a game it kind of blows. The setting and core concept are poorly explored and don't match Metroid or the puzzle design. A facility like this simply should not require different explosives and lasers to unlock doors on fairly benign levels. The enemy design is balls. Literally. The final stretch with constantly draining health, trying to get to health machines before you die is a pain in the arse rather than tense, especially as it isn't always clear what will progress you. Trial and error, and save states were necessary.

But the mechanical stuff is grand. Minor changes to things like your morph ball bombs (your ball now pulses rather than drops bombs) show an intent to be different, and I learned things about the shinespark I never knew before.

I just wish it was in a better game. One for the fans, if nothing else.

Just about the only way you could have made another Monkey Island. A striking visual style, a simple and straightforward gameplay style that facilitates classic point n click puzzle solving, painful amounts of self-awareness and a combined amount of reverence and light mockery of what came before.

For the most part it reminds me of Curse, until a later act opens up and becomes VERY evocative of Lechuck’s Revenge. If you’re going to be like any two games in the series that’s what you need to hone in on, the best Gilbert game and the only truly excellent post-Gilbert game. But JUST reminding me of the other games would make for nothing but a tired carbon copy, and I feel like what we’re given here has enough fresh ideas and interesting twists on the world that it stands as its own thing. A thing that mostly asks “after all this time, is it worth it”.

There’s an idea running through this, that the irresponsible way Guybrush ruins everything in his path to his ultimate goal is as destructive and obsessive as LeChuck’s, and when this outing has him joining LeChuck’s crew, and teaming with a new trio of dastardly and calculating pirates, all in the name of finding the Secret of Monkey Island™️, it’s hard to argue otherwise.

There’s even a… vibe, a sort of weird unease with him and Elaine, two people clearly in love, but… things are weird. Elaine ‘misplaces’ half of a picture of her and Guybrush (the Guybrush half) to a seagull. Her own aims of an anti-scurvy lime initiative is undermined by Guybrush taking the prototype flyer design workshopped with Stan and immediately giving it away, preventing copies from being made. She calmly explains how Guybrush’s decisions have caused harm on the walk to the final area. They aren’t strained, the two clearly love each other to a disgustingly cute extent, but things aren’t perfect either.

I feel like this could have gone somewhere for the ending, but we get another fun meta ending playing into the framing device of the whole game instead, which just kind of ends the story and we get a nice bit showing that the two are still together and happy with their kid, which is nice. Probably less of a bummer than what we could have got, but with another left-field ending like this from Gilbert and co. you just kind of wish that they cared a little more about giving a sense of closure. But then I like Twin Peaks so closure is for losers, actually.

The only thing keeping this from five stars is how often I got stuck on slightly laborious puzzles, but the hint system is generous enough that it didn’t hold me up, and I’m not so proud as to NOT use the in-inventory hint system, I know my limitations, but sometimes just hearing the answer makes you sigh at how awkward some puzzles are. Nothing as bad as in Broken Age, but definitely ones that weren’t as fun or thought out as they could have been.

But that aside? Amazing game, gonna replay the whole series soon just to relish in it all again.