[sladerlmc77]

tbm1986:

This is my personal take. I agree with everything else you've said, Lorn, so please don't be offended by counter-argument.

Oh heck...I doubt if you could offend me if you tried. I'm really interested in hearing the opinions of others, because I think all of this really ties into the whole "tone" thing.

I stand much easier with the merfolk. I thought when references started appearing in LotSN, "they'd better do it MI-like". As a result, they're very different to merpeople found in any other work of fiction and quite funny.

This was part of the reason I had such a hard time writing this leg of the review. It's not that I stand UN-easy with the merfolk. While they were onscreen, I enjoyed them and thought they were very well written, and funny.

In game, they didn't bother me a bit.

Oddly, it was after I STOPPED playing that I started thinking more about them. I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to say that I have a problem with them, but if I do, it might be that they strayed from being traditional mer-people.

I tried to emphasize that in the review, but I'm not sure if it got across well. The fact that the merpeoples gender is ambiguous (at best) does lead to some really funny jokes - but it also left me feeling like the mer-people had come out of left field.

Had they had a "standard" design (as in the concept art for the Curse of Monkey Island credit sequence) I don't think I would've even blinked an eye at their inclusion. Likewise for the "Sea Creatures" that lead you to the mouth...whatever they are, they're nothing like anything we've seen or heard about in legend.

Because of this, AFTER I got done playing I was left questioning the decision to deviate from more standard Pirate myths and legends.

In other words, I dont' think it's so much that I have a problem with inclusion of mer-people, or with the writing involving them. It was more like design decisions that were made about them ended up feeling like a distraction to me, after the fact. I think that can be smoothed over as long as their inclusion plays into what I hope is a deeper plot, but I'm growing concerned that the "introduction" part of the game is stretching into the third part, where it should only take up a third of gameplay.

They rightly took their role in the background. If the episode had lots about the merpeople, I'd have felt it was sidetracking from the quest too much.

I agree. I dont' want MI to become all about the Vacaylians. What I'm trying to get across is that I felt that the design decisions involving them left me unintentionally focusing on them when I feel that I shouldn't be. For me, they're popping out of the background when I wish I could've accepted them naturally. Had they been more traditional mer-people, I dont' think this would've been the case.

If you look at the Pirates of Danjer Cove or the Goodsoups in CMI, they worked well on their own without interfering with the story too much. If you want to look further back to Ron Gilbert's MI games, take the MI cannibals or the Woodtick for examples.

I also agree here. I have no problems with the pirates of Danjer Cove, or the Goodsoups. I'm thinking part of the problem I have here is, outside of the game, I'm left with the troubling idea that Telltale either created non-standard merpeople to either A) Put a unique "Telltale" spin on the legend of merpeople, or B) For cheap and easy laughs. While the laughs were real, either answer would leave me a little bit troubled.

They wrote this very well, I feel, and that we'll find out more during the next episode during Meanwhiles.

Still, it would be nice to have a bit more idea about what's going on with the sponge itself...we need to have more idea of what it could possibly be used for. I get the impression it's NOT just a voodoo exfoliator, and I suspect it's also going to play in with these Monkeys that LeChuck is so concerned about.

I brought these points up as a matter of pacing. I have no doubt that we'll probably get more information about these points in Episode 3, but my concern now is that we have a few too any balls up in the air, and we're still trying establish the general direction of the plotline.

Taken another way, if you consider that most stories contain three acts, with each act containing roughly 33% of the story - and also remember that Tales will contain 5 episodes - that means that at the end of the episode, we're 40% of the way through the story.

We should be well into the 2nd act, but we're still establishing characters and locations, not to mention shaping the overall conflict. It's not that I don't have faith that Telltale has the story nailed down that they want to tell, it's that I worry that their pacing is off.

Starting off Episode One as an intro is fine...it has to be done, but it's naturally going to frustrate players to leave them on a cliffhanger with not much accomplished in the first episode.

A lot of those feelings of frustration could have (and I would argue SHOULD have) been alleviated by the end of Episode 2 - particularly with DeCava. I didn't really expect to find anything out about him in Episode 2 - but I do think the scene at the lead-out of Episode 2 should've at least shown him, perhaps greeting Guybrush and Morgan in the belly of the Manatee - particularly if DeCava *surprise!* ends up being somebody we already know. (Note: I don't particularly think this is the case, but it could've been a great "Holy Crap!" cliffhanger, making us eager for the start of Episode 3).

As it stands now, I feel like we're still in intro territory...as a player, I feel like I've eaten my vegetables. I need some meat and broth really soon.

The rest of your points I think we're basically in agreement on, so I won't cover them here.

As I said, this episode was REALLY frustrating for me to review, because most of what I wrote sounds negative, and it's really not.

I enjoyed this episode FAR and away more than Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, and most of my quibbles are actually minor.

The main points I keep getting stuck on all come back to tone (imagine that!) and (especially now) pacing.

BTW...I'm interested that nobody else has mentioned anything about how harsh I was about puzzle difficulty in this episode.

How do you guys feel about it? Am I being overly critical now that we're in the second episode, or do you agree that we need to see something of a substantially increased difficulty in future episodes?

Next week, I'll probably also pop back into this thread to touch a bit more on LeChuck, Elaine, and Voodoo. I'm curious to see what your guys thoughts are as well!


Lorn