"Tales of Monkey Island: Enhanced Version"?

[Qwazin]

The Siege of Spinner Cay really surpassed my expectations of what I thought would be capable of making in terms of a new Monkey Island game. I really think the music, the humor and especially the storyline so far stands shoulder to shoulder with some of the best Monkey games. It takes the characters into what I hope is new territory and brings something fresh and unexpected to the series. It's up there in my top 3 right now.

With Telltale wonderfully continuing the story of Monkey Island, I feel that it's a shame how flashy graphics and live-recorded music has been mainly put to use in "Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition". It feels kind of dissatisfactory when LucasArts, the company with big budgets and money, spend their time on reviving an old game with an old story that already is fantastic, and leaves Telltale with a so-so-budget to move the series forward. Don't get me wrong, I am VERY happy things are going the way they are for Monkey Island, but once all the episodes of Tales have been released, I can't help but feel the game might risk not getting the attention it deserves because of it being somewhat weak in the graphics and musical departement. (Re-use of character models being one of the examples of the side effects of having a low budget and working towards a short deadline)

To me this IS Monkey Island 5. Once with all episodes put together I'm sure it makes for a pretty darn epic story, and when it's packaged and put on shelves in it's collected glory, I want it to stand strong with the other series installments and not age as badly as Escape from Monkey Island did. Siege of Spinner Cay shows already that Telltale is slightly improving their games episode by episode. I'm curious if pherhaps episode one will feel aged by the time the final episode is out.

The first three Monkey Island games always seemed to take big, bold steps into new territory in the graphics and music departement, and I feel this game has a great magical monkey feel that could be even more fantastic with big budget looks and sound. So my question is, once Telltale has finished all the episodes of Tales of Monkey Island, would it be a good thing to make an enchanced version of it with updated graphics, music and overall a more polished version of the game and release it as one whole game? Even if you are happy with Tales as it is, do you think it would be worth it? I dunno how much money and effort would be requierd, but I sure wouldn't mind. What do you think?

[Sanin92]

Personally I LOVE the graphics, the only thing I would love is different character models and the cracks in the ground and sky to be fixes, maybe a little more differences in the jungle too, other than that I really love the graphic.

For the sound, I really liked that too, I would say live instruments would be better, but its nothing THAT BAD.

[Fealiks]

Putting it on the shelves as a full game when the series wraps up would be great. They wouldn't need to make too many changes or improvements though, just polish a few things and go where size limitations couldn't take them before. I'm not sure if it would be received too well though since people might see it as money-grabbing, so it might help if they released some other stuff with it. For example, things have been said about Guybrush appearing in Project Natal, so that might be a nice thing to squeeze in (along with a Sam & Max episode or two maybe). Again though, not sure how likely or possible that'd be (probably not very).

[Rather Dashing]

LucasArts didn't "leave" Telltale with a low budget, that's just how Telltale operates. LucasArts didn't give them money and say "Make a Monkey Island game for us", this isn't a matter of "commissioned work". They made some sort of contract under which LucasArts got some benefit for allowing Telltale to use the Monkey Island license, for whatever reason the LucasArts folks thought it was a good idea. Maybe because they'd worked with the people before, maybe because they thought "Original creators from the earlier games" would sell better, I don't know.

Telltale is just a smaller budget company. This isn't even necessarily a bad thing, considering the customer support and game quality from a lot of big-name publishers and developers.

[BobTGoldfish]

Originally Posted by Fealiks

Putting it on the shelves as a full game when the series wraps up would be great. They wouldn't need to make too many changes or improvements though, just polish a few things and go where size limitations couldn't take them before. I'm not sure if it would be received too well though since people might see it as money-grabbing, so it might help if they released some other stuff with it. For example, things have been said about Guybrush appearing in Project Natal, so that might be a nice thing to squeeze in (along with a Sam & Max episode or two maybe). Again though, not sure how likely or possible that'd be (probably not very).

Sam and Max Season 1 was released on the Wii.
and in the store I work in it sells really well (helps that I'm the one pitching it.)

[OCKi]

Would be nice with an upgrade on the sound department..
Probably ain't gonna happen though! For now, let's cherish the game as it stands, and be happy there even exists a fifth Monkey Island game.

[hansschmucker]

Gameplay wise, I'd say: don't change a thing. But of course better speech quality would be welcome (although I only noticed any significant problems in e2 so far) and a good package where you select the chapters ingame instead of having separate games wouldn't hurt either.

Graphics wise, I'd have to say: what for?

[Spadge]

Increasing the sound quality would be very, very big improvement. Sanin92 mentioned the cracks in the ground sky and Guybrish's hand. I think that has something to do with the Wii, but I'm not sure how. It would be great if that can be fixed.
Oh and I wouldn't mind seeing DeSinge's Lab in that Episode 2 cutscene instead of a painted backdrop.

[tbm1986]

I have graphics and sound on maximum (9).

Sometimes it slows then jumps in moving the camera (and that's probably my machine, considering it has Vista64, only 2GB RAM and onboard graphics/sound) but apart from that, I'm happy with my graphics.

The sound when hooked up to my two-speaker hi-fi is acceptable (I'm told a 5.1 setup is required to get the best out of the game).

All the acting sounds perfectly natural, except for Elaine's, which could be at least partly due to the sound compression.

I could tolerate re-use of character base models but in a professional game, it shouldn't really happen.

There were a few typos in the voice text in ep2 (most notably 'burry' and 'Esponga'), that I'd like to see fixed for the DVD.

Game controls are jittery. On my machine, the cursor doesn't have the same responsiveness as in the other MI games or the desktop. The character movement via mouse was probably conceived for the Wii and while I've got the hang of it, I appreciate most have reverted to centuries-old arrow keys and WASD. Due to inhibited cursor movement, combining items is real pain in the neck.

Hooking all the episodes together, perhaps with chapter-specific credits being in the menu, like in SMI: SE, would be nice (it is a MI game, after all).

[youmaycallmemurray]

I don't know. I mean it's obvious they're pushing the limits here, but to me it seems that there are far less characters and areas to explore than in a standard MI chapter, and that's a bigger problem than the graphics or sound quality imo.

[Hayden]

I absolutely love the game as it is but I guess an enhanced version may be good just to fix up the few bugs that appear in the game... I guess they'll fix 'em up when they release Tales onto disc...

[Laserschwert]

By the way, what's "enchanced"? The combination of "enhanced" and "enchanted"? I'll have that then...

[Qwazin]

I can't really care for spelling or accuracy with the relationship between Telltale and LucasArts as long as I got the message accross. I must admit though that everytime I've read "enhanced" on the internet I've thought of it as being pronounced "enchanced". I guess I think it sounds cute.

Now I love Tales of Monkey Island, but what I'm asking is that if you could, without seeming unappriciative and whiny, have a full blown game exactly like Tales but with higher polygon rate, detailed textures, smoother animation, better composed backdrops, live-recorded music, varied character designs and less glitches, would you be interested? This would probably be more of a project for a console game I suppose. Think of it as ToMI but with the sandards of a top notch Xbox 360 game.

When playing Siege of Spinner Cay, what really got to me was walking through the jungle and seeing the pirate skeleton leaned next to a tree in the foreground. That kind of composition in enviourments really made me feel like I was playing a Monkey Island game. It reminded me of Purcell and co's background work. But, I also thought about how much even more awesome it would be if it had been a more detailed, big budget game.

I know alot might be reacting to this as "Oh screw Qwazin, he doesn't appriciate Telltale's hard work on bringing the Monkey Island series back", but I do. I just think what is already great could be even greater, and with Telltale doing such a good job with LucasArt's franchise, I don't think it'd be completely wrong of them to give old Telltale a hand in budgets and crew to pimp this sucker out. I'm just speculating and fantasizing. I by no means think this is a realistic proposition. Just think about it. Wink wink.

[Aise]

I surely hope for full translations.. Not for me, I love English voices and would be just fine with Italian subtitles, but all of my friends would just love translated voiceovers too..

[stemot]

There were no cracks in the ground or the characters in Ep.2

[jortlaban]

Yes... an enhanced version would be very cool.

The graphics don't really need an update (exept the background matte could be made tear-free), but the casio-sound of the music would be great if it was updated by real orchestrations.

I don't like the Monkey Island 5 idea... Tales of Monkey Island IS a great game, but there is a whole demographic behind the choice of name...
yes, it IS the fifth installment in the series, and I actually see this as a genuine Monkey Island adventure, but they chose this name for a reason.

I don't know how other telltale games are on DVD, but I would like to see at as just one game on the final DVD... the rest of the Monkey Island games all have chapters, so they would "just" have to stitch them together without cutting anything.
I would hate to have to install 5 seperate chapters from one DVD.

[Farlander]

Not regarding the enhanced version, but... honestly, I don't see what's the big deal with "imaginary" Monkey Island 5 and if ToMI is MI5 or not. Mostly because, there is NO Monkey Island 3 or 4, calling Curse and Escape like that is like calling NFS:Porsche Unleashed NFS5 (though, many people do call it like that... dunno...)

The series' names got themselves into "*something* of Monkey Island", and I wouldn't call that a bad thing. I mean, LucasArts, if it would like, could as well make a NEW Monkey Island game set between Curse and Escape and call it, like, Honeymoon of Monkey Island, therefore transforming MI4 into MI5 (chronologically), and ToMI, into what, MI7? O_O Meh, just messing with your heads

Besides, there is an advantage in NO chronological numbers. I mean, take Devil May Cry series, for example. I do NOT know for sure, but it goes something like "DMC2 is set before DMC1, DMC3 after DMC1 and DMC4 before DMC2". Of course, I don't remember for sure now, but that kinda proves my point that chronological numbers sometimes can be quite useless.

[jortlaban]

It would actually make a whole lot more sense if they would call it something in the line of Curse (which is allready taken, so that one is out of the question).

allthough Curse does cary the name "Monkey Island 3" in a small circle on the box in most versions, Escape isn't called MI4.

"The Pox of Monkey Island" could be fitting at the moment, but we still have to see if the pox carry on until the last episode.
I'm actually pretty satisfied with the name "tales".

[Farlander]

"The Pox of Monkey Island" could be fitting at the moment, but we still have to see if the pox carry on until the last episode.
I'm actually pretty satisfied with the name "tales".

Uhm... what's the point of thinking a fitting name for Tales of Monkey Island if it's already called Tales of Monkey Island?

[pleeyer wan]

The tought of a more polished version: graphics- and musicwise makes me gleefull!
Although the music is nicely put together, is does indeed sound too "electronically" to my tasting.
The little errors in backgrounds and in characters could be ironed out too...
To me, this is the next monkey island... maybe just because I've been looking forward to it for so long... just like the rest of you I 'spose