Back to Monkey Island (PlayStation 5) review

We find the mighty pirate Guybrush Threepwood sitting on a park bench, a little older but not necessarily wiser. It conveys an important story of Monkey Island Secret A familiar young man. The story it takes place is basically the greatest success of his first two adventures, with very few elements a curseAnd the to fleeAnd the Tales. Guybrush searches for clues on Melee Island at the same time as his opponent, the ghostly pirate Le Chuck. He enlists the help of familiar faces, such as sweetheart Elaine and slippery used boat seller Stan. There are also some very welcoming and charming new companions, like the cynical Luke Smith, whose name is all about the nose of comics here.

It’s hard to describe how satisfying Return is for longtime adventure game fans. Developed from director Ron Gilbert thimbleoid park Engine, contextual interaction, dialogue, and bewilderment to the point of feeling brand-new. Gone are the cumbersome mechanisms like backtracking between familiar sites and filtering conversations. Instead of automatically switching from one screen to the next, it seems like you’re always right where you want to be. The puzzles themselves are no longer ridiculous exercises in the combination of elements, here everything has a superficial logic. And thanks to its richly detailed art style, there’s not even any pixel-hunting to speak of.

There is a hint book available in stock from the start, which contains several levels of clues, ranging from gentle alerts to detailed descriptions of the solution.

To limit the improvement of the quality of life, there are two difficulties: the hard mode (described as a full-fledged monkey) is really normal, where the series and genre buffs have to go. The casual mode interrupts the puzzle chains, which means that the effort of multiple locations to find an item becomes just a simple case of picking it up from the ground.

The dev team put extra effort into making the game look smooth using a console and this really shows. As anyone who’s played point-and-click adventures on the PS1 can attest, moving this pointer is slow and frustrating. The controls here are intuitive and set the standard for adventures that would normally feel right at home on PC.

Ultimately, with Return to Monkey Island, original creators Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman have not only endeared the genre they helped popularized, but also revitalize it.