Tales of Monkey Island Ch. 2 - The Siege of Spinner Cay is here!

[Junaid]

Oh man that was epic

The good:
- The swordfight in the beginning
- Morgan leFlay, great new character
- Winslow, not too memorable in chapter 1 but really funny in this one. His strange obsession with the map-pointing was gold
- Hated the re-use of character models in chapter 1 (Wiii!!!) but they're pretty good in this one, especially the tall one (just replace the nose, eyes, hair and beard and you can have a lot of these walking around)
- The amount of actual pirates. I think this is the first time in the whole series that we've actually seen a bunch of pirates trying to plunder the place... well.. living pirates anyway...
- The slight fantasy aspect, the merfolk.
- Something big actually happening to Guybrush (his hand).
- The human LeChuck thing is very interesting (and how idiotic is Guybrush for letting Elaine go with him)

The slightly bad:
- Sound quality in the royal chamber was really bad, although it got a lot better when they left that place.
- Marquis de Singe's background. My pc is pretty old so I have to play on the 3rd graphics level and the pixel-y background was really distracting in that scene

Anyway, you nailed the thing I love most about the Monkey Island games; the story
Can't wait to see this adventure continue!

And man, my hands are itching, I really want to do a TMI comic...

[Tjibbbe]

Christ, just last month I was telling everybody how Narwhal was the best Telltale-game to date, and now this. Bloody amazing. Some favorite bits (full of spoilers of course, go play the game!):


- After the glorious return of Chuck the plant last month, we get the awesome Loom-bird and his red herring from SOMI. Awesome.
- Nice cans.
- Hugh the singing manatee.
- You'll never know until you ask.

But above all, the fact that this story is, more than anything else, all about Guybrush. This is his most personal quest yet, in many ways. This is the first time I actually felt interested in Guybrush's relationship with Elaine. Yes, I know how creepy that sounds. But really guys, this is the big epic event Telltale has been working towards all these years. Telltale has always been awesome, but this...

Man, this is legendary.

Yeah, I'm loving it. Oh, and I love the art direction. Three cheers for Ryan Jones, and everyone else on the team.

[pantagruel]

loved everything
loved the parts with le chuck, he was awesome!!!

interesting details, like, when you arrive at spoon island, if you look up above the tree line you can see little le chuck up there wandering around

but i can't agree about winslow
even though he was funny sometimes, he has no charisma to mee

[Secret Fawful]

Favorite bits -
The swordfight. Why did Telltale have to throw such a difficult puzzle at me so early. Awesome.
As soon as I watched the intro on Youtube and saw that Guybrush loses his hand, I knew he'd end up getting a hook on it. The idea was too piratey to pass up, and it's just wonderful.
I love that you see a bit of De Singe at intervals in this series, because it really feels like the parts in LeChuck's Revenge where you saw him in his castle at various points, plotting.
Characters are starting to get memorable in this game now. I doubt I'll be forgetting De Singe, MacGillicuddy, Morgan Le Flay, Winslow, or Trenchfoot and his partner.
Human LeChuck was hilarious; I was surprised you could actually make me like him, but I still sense something is not quite right with him. You was making too many suspicious faces during the episode. It seems like Elaine is suspicious too. I have a bad feeling about letting Elaine go with LeChuck to work with the monkeys.
Elaine has the Pox now, and I think that's a great piece of development for her. I just hope that the story doesn't collapse under its own weight by Episode 5.
The music was really mysterious, and the pacing was great. De Cava's shack was a great way to get some foreshadowing for the Sponge; they've really given it the mysterious aspect it needed; like its the Ark of the Covenant of this story. And the part at the end was VERY well directed; I was on the edge of my seat; it had a great payoff too.
All of the many locations. It was so much fun to go exploring all those islands; it felt just like Monkey Island 2. and the fact that each one had a purpose was great. It was just a fun time waster. I also liked the skeletons strewn about. Everything felt so much grander and more piratey.
I loved the Fish Jokes book; I literally sat and read all of the jokes; its fun to have little things like that to waste time on.
Also as the poster above mentioned, the little detail of being able to look at the cliff in the distance and see LeChuck walking around on it. That was funny, in the distance he looks like he's waddling.

My least favorite parts -
The jungle maze being brought back again. I was ready to see the last of that. And thankfully, with what happened, I'm guessing we won't see any jungles in Episode 3.
The barbecue puzzle. I mean it was clever, but it was frustrating, and the payoff when you melt the Pyrite Parrot wasn't fun because I love that "character".Thankfully that was remedied at the end or I would have been sad to see it go.
We finally get back to MI nighttime, but we won't even get to see it now. That was too bad, but I can't wait for the next episode.

[Novotnus]

The jungle maze being brought back again. I was ready to see the last of that. And thankfully, with what happened, I'm guessing we won't see any jungles in Episode 3.

Yes - in Episode 3 there will be a maze in you-know-who's guts : )

[Erica]

Does anyone know how to get Chapter 2 on Wii? I went to the Wii Shop Channel and can't find it.

[ChemBro]

Originally Posted by Erica

Does anyone know how to get Chapter 2 on Wii? I went to the Wii Shop Channel and can't find it.

You have to wait for the release on WiiWare. Today (or yesterday) is (was) the release for the PC-version.

[Erica]

Thanks for the information; I was so hoping to play today but I guess I have to wait.

[Secret Fawful]

Originally Posted by Novotnus

Yes - in Episode 3 there will be a maze in you-know-who's guts : )

Is it sick of me that that sounds incredible hilarious and fun?

[EwenW]

Tales has been wonderful so far. The story is great. The characters are great. The throwback references are great (Guybrush whistling) and the writing and voice acting are perfect. This episode was even better than the last. 5 stars in my opinon.

I was worried about the mer-people but throwing them right in there at the start was a fantastic idea and they fit in with the Monkey Island world really well.

The new characters are really good. Winslow really came into his own in this one and was hillarious. The pointing at the map joke had me in stitches.

Morgan Le Flay is a brilliant new character too. I think the Guybrush-Winslow-Morgan crew is going to be great. They should add one more member (crew of four) and here's hoping its Murray! Think of the possibilities!

Human LeChuck has been a blast so far and the 'use', 'look' conversation was genius.

I think that the character of Guybrish is the best so far. The writing is spot on!

My only negative point was that I was worried the maze was going to be repetative but thankfully it was much shorter than the maze from Narwhal.

I always feel like the episodes could be longer but, thinking of Tales as a whole product, its going to be of at least equal length to the others.

This has definately been the best addition to the Monkey Island series since Curse and, if Telltale can top this episode (which could be difficult), then this could be the finest outing yet. Although topping LeChuck's Revenge will be next to impossible.

[Astro Gnocci]

This has definately been the best addition to the Monkey Island series since Curse and, if Telltale can top this episode (which could be difficult), then this could be the finest outing yet

They proved they were pretty good at topping themselve, tho, so i wouldn't worry

[Fealiks]

I loved the music from De Cava's hut, and I loved that whole scene in general for some reason. I can't wait for the next chapters. Hopefully they'll be a bit darker now, which is a key element to old Monkey Island games that I don't want to see die completely. I loved the dark/scary parts in LeChuck's Revenge, but after that the darkness started to decline which made it feel less like Monkey Island... it would be amazing if future Tales chapters could have some more moments like that. I think that'd definitely be one of the main things that would bring it closer to the originals.

[Javi-Wan Kenobi]

Any news on when the WiiWare version is out?

[tbm1986]

Finished! Following review is encased in spoiler tags for those who haven't played/finished it yet:

Pros

• Morgan being a fan of Guybrush is a nice touch (and she is fairly hot)
  
• Cobb the seagull with a red herring!
  
• First (swordfighting) puzzle was very clever and challenging (but the poxed-hand-Rock-of-Gelato puzzle helped)
  
• Winslow has been given much-needed extra depth and is quite witty!
  
• Elaine has the pox? Nice one! (she could be feist without it, mind)
  
• LeChuck's new character actually works! Could easily have backfired
  
• If you're going to put merpeople in a pirate comedy, make them different from other fictitious merpeople and make them an amusing yet likeable concept: double-check
  
• Re-use of models can work without making every character look the same! Loved these characters, all very memorable
  
• Pirates are plentiful, stupid yet dangerous
  
• De Singe appearing in a cutscene every now and then is a necessary plot mechanism and I'm glad they realised that
  
• An appearance of Coronado de Cava would have been a bad thing in the end, so I'm glad they left him out
  
• Nice cans! (I thought so too)
  
• The puzzles (from what I remember) were all central to the plot
  
• Island-hopping!
  
• Puzzles were harder yet not impossible
  
• Rewards for hard work came at the right times
  
• Graphics, sound and story all blended together beautifully
  
• They know how to utilise 40 megs!

Cons

• How did Le Flay get in/out of Flotsam Island? And how did De Singe contact her? (don't recall any satellites, cellphones or carrier pigeons)
  
• How could you be so cruel as to make me kill off my favourite parrot ever? Poor thing...
  
• Long, easy-to-get-lost excursions through a jungle/maze again
  
• More than one swordfighting insult would have been nice (but I'm glad they didn't get sidetracked in insult swordfighting)

All in all, hard to knock. Did all I could have hoped for and more! 10/10

[Crys]

Previewing made me lose the nice, long review I had just finished writing x.x So here's the Cliff Notes version:

The Good:

- The whole intro. Great spin on swordfighting. Also, the fact that Guybrush has a fan after years of no-one believing his stories is just awesome.

- Le Chuck as a good guy? Like the previous poster said, it could have backfired like whoa, but you made it work! Great source of humorous moments, especially as Guybrush gets a little revenge by messing around with the Big Bad for a change.

- Overall good puzzles. Especially the intro and the fake turtle.

- Travelling between islands reminded me of the Knuttin' Atol/Jambalaya island part of EfMI (in a good way). It gives the player a sense of freedom to go back and forth and makes for more structured puzzles (like the rubber tree, for example).

- Great characterization of Guybrush. I always thought of him as someone who is witty, but makes a mess out of things because he is impulsive and can't keep himself in check, not because he's stupid. Newer games of the saga made him out to be someone overly naive, which I never liked. So thanks for bringing the old Guybrush back!

- As always, a great performance by Mr. Armato!

- The musical references to MI2 & 3.

- Nice cans.


The Bad:

- The seahorse artifact puzzle. Unless this is a glitch, it's very easy for a player to get derailed here. I figured out the solution very soon, but when I tried getting the parrot into the chest, I got caught. It took a lot of time, the obligatory use-everything-on-everything method, and exhausting all the dialogue options until I decided to try the parrot again after I'd roped the pirates into a staring contest. The first failure can very easily make the player think they're on the wrong track.

- The jungle. I was glad to see it was far smaller this time around, but since there are no puzzles requiring correct navigation, there's no need for the player to have to walk through the whole forest to get to known places. After discovering a few locations (like the well, or LeChuck's cliff, or the turtle altar crash site) it might be a good idea to make them landmarks on the map.

- The over-usage of the "Look behind you! A three-headed-monkey!" type of puzzle. While I love hearing the phrase itself, the kind of puzzle where all you need to do is distract someone to look away gets a little tiring. We saw it in the previous episode, and we've seen it in games before many times over.

------

All in all, a very good release! Eagerly awaiting the next installment, guys!

[heavybassX]

I hope Murray returns... or better yet LARGO LEGRANDE!

[SubSidal]

Originally Posted by Crys

- Great characterization of Guybrush. I always thought of him as someone who is witty, but makes a mess out of things because he is impulsive and can't keep himself in check, not because he's stupid. Newer games of the saga made him out to be someone overly naive, which I never liked. So thanks for bringing the old Guybrush back!

I second that!! Great Guybrush personality!

[a3HeadedMonkey]

Originally Posted by Crys

Previewing made me lose the nice, long review I had just finished writing x.x So here's the Cliff Notes version:

The Good:

- The whole intro. Great spin on swordfighting. Also, the fact that Guybrush has a fan after years of no-one believing his stories is just awesome.

- Le Chuck as a good guy? Like the previous poster said, it could have backfired like whoa, but you made it work! Great source of humorous moments, especially as Guybrush gets a little revenge by messing around with the Big Bad for a change.

- Overall good puzzles. Especially the intro and the fake turtle.

- Travelling between islands reminded me of the Knuttin' Atol/Jambalaya island part of EfMI (in a good way). It gives the player a sense of freedom to go back and forth and makes for more structured puzzles (like the rubber tree, for example).

- Great characterization of Guybrush. I always thought of him as someone who is witty, but makes a mess out of things because he is impulsive and can't keep himself in check, not because he's stupid. Newer games of the saga made him out to be someone overly naive, which I never liked. So thanks for bringing the old Guybrush back!

- As always, a great performance by Mr. Armato!

- The musical references to MI2 & 3.

- Nice cans.


The Bad:

- The seahorse artifact puzzle. Unless this is a glitch, it's very easy for a player to get derailed here. I figured out the solution very soon, but when I tried getting the parrot into the chest, I got caught. It took a lot of time, the obligatory use-everything-on-everything method, and exhausting all the dialogue options until I decided to try the parrot again after I'd roped the pirates into a staring contest. The first failure can very easily make the player think they're on the wrong track.

- The jungle. I was glad to see it was far smaller this time around, but since there are no puzzles requiring correct navigation, there's no need for the player to have to walk through the whole forest to get to known places. After discovering a few locations (like the well, or LeChuck's cliff, or the turtle altar crash site) it might be a good idea to make them landmarks on the map.

- The over-usage of the "Look behind you! A three-headed-monkey!" type of puzzle. While I love hearing the phrase itself, the kind of puzzle where all you need to do is distract someone to look away gets a little tiring. We saw it in the previous episode, and we've seen it in games before many times over.

------

All in all, a very good release! Eagerly awaiting the next installment, guys!

This is an excellent post & I hope Telltale read it. You put it better than I ever could & are all very valid points. Especially the points about the jungle & key places you've discovered appearing on the map.

Also the puzzle with the staring contest. I was sure I had to put the parrot in the chest, but when they kept seeing me, even though I got them to look away, I just figured I was on the wrong track. I ended up solving it the same as you by trying everything & exhausting all the dialogue options.

When this season is over & put on a DVD, the game is crying out for these changes to be made & a point & click walk system to be patched in. It could be the best MI game ever if that were to happen.

[Hardtack]

Finally tonight I have had the pleasure of playing this fabulous episode! From beginning to end I thought this was an excellent adventure, and was completely floored when I noticed a pirate named after me! LOL....Coincidence...I think so. But nonetheless it had me grinning for quite a while. Great job guys, and can't wait for the next one!

[Fealiks]

Originally Posted by SubSidal

I second that!! Great Guybrush personality!

Yeah, definitely. The dimwitted Guybrush of EMI was fun at points, but it wasn't Guybrush. This is Guybrush.