That's good to hear. One of the pirates from Chapter 1 didn't quite impress me with how he was designed--he seemed like a generic Telltale character. The later episodes DO look better, though, so I'm looking forward to it. The death designs in Chapter 5 look like they could fit right in with Blood Island in Curse. Just made the order.
I don't mind a reduced freedom since that was true for Curse and Escape. MI2 is really the only one that did island-hopping to a great extent. Indeed, that's one feature that could arguably be a called a flaw for MI2. If you disliked running around in the earlier Telltale games, well...