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Classroom Facts
Classroom facts are not a strength of Monkey Island. While the game does revolve around puzzle solving, the puzzles usually follow a logic that is more fantastic than anything else, encouraging players to look at the game's challenges not in a real-world sense but in more outrageous one.
Creativity & Imagination
By the Player:
Players are fairly limited when it comes to creative freedom in Monkey Island. The game's plot progresses quite linearly, and each of the game's puzzles has a very specific solution that the player must find to continue. The game is, however, fairly open, and each of the game's chapters allows players to explore an area collecting clues and puzzles freely. The challenges in the first chapter of the game alone can be solved in any order at all, though ultimately players progress through the same major events in a predetermined order no matter what.
By the Developer:
The original Secret of Monkey Island proved hugely influential on the entire adventure game genre, and this new release helps the classic title reach a wider audience than ever. While this title is a remake of an older game, the changes help it to truly stand out even among recently developed titles, and in any case the game's clever puzzles, memorable characters and extremely strong sense of humor remain strong even today.
The new graphic style contains some really top-notch work, including lovingly redrawn characters and impressive new versions of every area of the game that manage to stay true to the original while adding plenty of new depth. The script is now completely voice-acted, and an enhanced soundtrack helps bring the game's world to life much more effectively than the sparse original score.
A new control system helps the game flow much more smoothly as well, and the ability to switch from the new special edition version of the title to the complete original version is a great touch. A new hint system also helps the game - which includes a number of tricky puzzles - to be more accessible, offering three levels of hints at any time, the last of which uses an onscreen arrow to point players in the right direction.
Business Skills
Business skills aren't really a significant aspect of Monkey Island. Players are able to collect gold during the game, but the amount available is finite and it has to be spent in specific amounts and on specific items to progress at various points throughout the game.
People Skills
Monkey Island is a strictly single-player game, though a very high percentage of it is made of conversations between Guybrush and the pirates and other characters that inhabit the game's world. These characters often have various problems that Guybrush will need to help them solve, and the dialogue choices that players make constantly effect the game's conversations. Players aren't able to build relationships with these characters outside those already dictated by the game, though, and acting one way or another towards any given character isn't really going to affect the flow of the game.
Problem Solving
Problem solving in Monkey Island involves solving the many puzzles that the game throws at the player. Solving these puzzles generally involves collecting various inventory items and figuring out how to use them to solve various issues, usually by collecting clues and information from the game's many characters. As a traditional adventure game, players are never challenged as far as hand-eye coordination or reaction time, with the game instead revolving around point-and-click puzzle solving. The original title had players choosing from a list of commands like Use, Pull and Pick Up to interact with the world. While these options are still available in this new version of the game, a simplified interface helps to smooth things out by choosing relevant commands based on the situation at hand. This allows players to focus more on the logic-based puzzle solving than anything else.
Most of the game's puzzles require the player to correctly read clues in various pieces of dialogue, and the majority of the game's puzzles follow a kind of comedic logic. When a man in prison tells Guybrush that he'd like some rodent repellant for his cell, the solution is simply to walk to the local pirate shop and ask for some. A more elaborate puzzle has Guybrush training to overcome the most talented swordfighter on the island; after the local instructor reveals that the true secret to battle is to insult your opponent, Guybrush must go through a series of battles against wandering pirates, picking up a set of useful insults and their corresponding comebacks in order to defeat his most powerful opponent in a round of insult swordfighting. While this may not sound intuitive, it's this unique kind of logic that the game sticks to, and as players dig into it, the game begins to make some sense.
The game's puzzles vary wildly, and over its length players collect plenty of different items and meet dozens of memorable characters, always encountering new ideas and new challenges right until the end.
Simulation
Monkey Island is not a simulation game.
Popularity
Monkey Island has been well-received since its release. Reviewers have generally praised the game's updated features, and stressed that the game's memorable puzzles and sense of humor stand up as well today as they did at the influential game's original 1990 release.
Controls & Options
Monkey Island includes standard audio and visual options. Players are able to switch between the new version of the game and the complete classic version at the touch of a button without interrupting the game's flow whatsoever. A hint system allows players to get three progressively stronger hints at any point during the game.
Tips
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition received an E 10+ from the ESRB with descriptors for Alcohol and Tobacco Reference, Comic Mischief, Mild Cartoon Violence and Suggestive Themes. |