A new main character?

[LowMoralFiber]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I'm sorry, but people love Guybrush far too much to want to play as anyone else. Multiple protagonists worked for King's Quest, but like people said earlier, Monkey Island= Guybrush Threepwood, Guybrush Threepwood= Monkey Island.

[prizna]

Come on no new main characters, I know this isnt a TV series but it will work the same way.
There are a lot of tv series that ended by replacing the main character. It just doesnt work. If they had a new main character it wouldnt be the same game anymore.
The only reason they have a new main character on TV series is because the actor/actress doesnt want to do it anymore but the creator of the show wants to keep the series running, In a game the character cant "leave", the worst is that Dominic Armato may not want to do the voice again but I dought that will happen and even if it did happen they would just get a new voice artist to play as Guybrush.

[Hee Ho Ho]

hmmm... i guess i would like zombie threepwood

mummy threepwood

skeleton threepwood

ghost threepwood

baby threepwood

grandpa threepwood - with walking stick for advanced puzzle solving

imagine that, a different threepwood to solve different puzzles!

[Jen Kollic]

While I'm certainly not keen on the idea of a Monkey Island game where Guybrush isn't the main character, (as previously mentioned, Guybrush = Monkey Island) I wouldn't be averse to a MI game where you can switch between characters Day of the Tentacle style. Like, say, Guybrush, Winslow and Morgan. Or maybe Guybrush, Elaine and Morgan so that I can coninually have Morgan and Elaine interact while giggling maliciously to myself.

[Hayden]

I just like the idea of a Morgan spin-off game. Action/Adventure. They don't even have to make it an official MI game, it could be called "Morgan LeFlay: Ghost Pirate Hunter" (the line spoken by Morgan in the scene after the credits). Either way, a Morgan spin-off game would in no way hinder or endanger the series. It could either be a prequel showing all of LeFlay's pirate-hunting adventures before Tales, or maybe it could be a game showing the events in Morgan's life after Tales - possibly undertaking a mission for the Voodoo Lady, maybe just a journey of Morgan finding a way to get her old body back, or maybe just more pirate-hunting. Hell, I wish I could design this game!

[Icedhope]

Remember what happened in MGS2 with Raiden..

[Avistew]

I'd be fine with a monkey island "spinoff" thingie where the main character isn't Guybrush. As long as it's not Guybrush's son/daughter, please -_-'.
Otherwise, new character or different main character would be fine by me. It would just need a subtitle, and to be a spinoff rather than the same series. I think that would work better that way.

[StarEye]

Originally Posted by Icedhope

Remember what happened in MGS2 with Raiden..

Yeah, a large bunch of really narrowminded whiners completely overreacting like there was no tomorrow - all because of a new character being the lead in a fantastic game. Seriously, that's just stupid. MGS2 was great, Raiden was great, and the initial disappointments wears off, once you get to see Snake from a new side. I suspect something like that could happen to Monkey Island too, and people will judge the game solely on the new character instead of the actual quality of it. This is why developers are afraid of taking chances.

[SBres]

Siege of Spinner Cay. When...

Guybrush gives text commands to LeChuck. That was an awesome way of executing this. It's only for a short time, Guybrush is still really who's being controlled, and it's funny.

I also wouldn't mind a rare occurrence of another character who's close to Guybrush saying "Hmm, I'm not sure what to do here... What would Guybrush do?", giving you temporary control over them for a single goal. Perhaps using the old "It looks like we'll have to split up and each open the chests at the same time" sort of thing, or Guybrush is knocked out and the goal is to wake him up, or something like that. But Guybrush still needs to be the main protagonist of the story.

[Andorxor]

No,atleast to a completly new character as protagonist.But Morgan and Elaine in a Final Fantasy 11/2 like spin off would be cool.

[techie775]

I thought there were rumors originally that you'd get to play as Elaine in MI4. Would have been interesting to see how they'd do it.

[Otis]

No! I do not want to play a Monkey Island game without controlling the character of Guybrush Threepwood at all times. (Well technically you get to control the Voodoo Lady for a while in ToMI. I didnt mind that, but anything more than that is too much.) Guybrush it is and will be. End of discussion.

[Jen Kollic]

Originally Posted by Andorxor

But Morgan and Elaine in a Final Fantasy 11/2 like spin off would be cool.

Now I have this mental image of an FFX-2 style game where for no reason whatsoever Elaine, Morgan (who is inexplicably alive again) and Carla form a pop group. You know, to fight evil with their music or whatever the hell reason they gave for it in FFX-2. Elaine would be Yuna, Morgan would be Rikku and Carla would be Paine, and it would be absolutely cracktacular and probably terrible.

...but I would SO play that.

[Reaper Lyn]

I dunno... I don't really think it'd work. I think Guybrush is too iconic of the series. It's his series, really... could we replace the playable character? It would depend on the way it's implemented. Would it be just a temporary change of character, like if two people split up to solve different puzzles (and as noted before, that sort of already happened, with the Voodoo Lady)? Or would it be an entire game based in the Monkey Island universe, just with a different character?

I play the Phoenix Wright games, and after the third game they switched the player character entirely. I haven't played 'em yet, but it sounds like the fans are pretty divided on whether or not they're good. A lot of the controversy is just based on the fact that you no longer play as Phoenix...

Guybrush is such a central character, it seems like it would be hard to create a game with "Monkey Island" in the title where you didn't play as him. Perhaps giving a different title, separating the new player character from the "main" MI series, would be the way to go if something like that was ever created.

[techie775]

It doesn't happen to often that they switch who is the main characters in Adventure Games. I thought a bunch of people were angry and confused in King's Quest III before they beat it that you weren't playing as King Graham. In Leisure Suit Larry 3 and 5 you spend part of the game as Passionate Patti. Even in Fate of Atlantis you have the option of solving half the puzzles as Sophia instead of Indy. Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken and Last Crusade did it too. So this nothing new. Although I can't imagine playing a whole Monkey Island game as some one else, it'd be interesting to control someone else to help Guybrush out with a couple of puzzles(not like he did the voodo lady in ch4).

[Avistew]

Originally Posted by Reaper Lyn

I play the Phoenix Wright games, and after the third game they switched the player character entirely. I haven't played 'em yet, but it sounds like the fans are pretty divided on whether or not they're good. A lot of the controversy is just based on the fact that you no longer play as Phoenix...

The Ace Attorney games are a good example. Because they did two things.

A) Apollo Justice, that is like Phoenix Wright with a different main character. Even if you put aside the fact that the writers went apeshit on this one (the basis of every crime is that not only the murderer, but all people involved are stupid, crazy or both), it's really not that... different. They didn't give Apollo enough of an edge or anything for it to justify switching the main character and having a huge time gap.
They were trying to reset the series and although the game was enjoyable, in my opinion they mostly failed.

B) Miles Edgeworth. Here, you play as another character from the original series. The main opposition of Phoenix Wright. But although it's the same universe, same characters, same timeline (takes place right after the first game, well, the first case does, then it goes back in time), it's completely different.
It's not about trials, it's about investigating. And while you did plenty of that in the original Ace Attorney game, it's different enough that it's new. What's more, the character is known and already had a huge fanbase, which justifies a game with him as the main character easily.
It's fresh, it's new, it's different. It's still Ace Attorney without being Phoenix Wright. it works.

The first example is what, in my opinion, didn't work well. They tried to "reset" but at the same time didn't: Phoenix is there in the game, you even play as him for part of the game. However, all the lovable characters from the earlier series are gone. They brought back a character they had introduced in the extra case the added for the DS port of the first game, but she had changed a lot and was mostly unhelpful... It was trying to be half-assed, I would say. And although a lot of things were good, a lot were bad, too.

So there is definitely a good and a bad way to do it, in my opinion.

EDIT:
There is a third thing they did, I can't believe I almost forgot.
In the third game, where Phoenix is still the main character, well, you play part of the game as Edgeworth and part of the game as Mia. So they were already switching things around a bit, and it worked.
(I disliked the third game for other reasons, but the character switches were definitely something I liked a lot.)

[GuruGuru214]

Originally Posted by avistew

The Ace Attorney games are a good example. Because they did two things.

A) Apollo Justice, that is like Phoenix Wright with a different main character. Even if you put aside the fact that the writers went apeshit on this one (the basis of every crime is that not only the murderer, but all people involved are stupid, crazy or both), it's really not that... different. They didn't give Apollo enough of an edge or anything for it to justify switching the main character and having a huge time gap.
They were trying to reset the series and although the game was enjoyable, in my opinion they mostly failed.

B) Miles Edgeworth. Here, you play as another character from the original series. The main opposition of Phoenix Wright. But although it's the same universe, same characters, same timeline (takes place right after the first game, well, the first case does, then it goes back in time), it's completely different.
It's not about trials, it's about investigating. And while you did plenty of that in the original Ace Attorney game, it's different enough that it's new. What's more, the character is known and already had a huge fanbase, which justifies a game with him as the main character easily.
It's fresh, it's new, it's different. It's still Ace Attorney without being Phoenix Wright. it works.

The first example is what, in my opinion, didn't work well. They tried to "reset" but at the same time didn't: Phoenix is there in the game, you even play as him for part of the game. However, all the lovable characters from the earlier series are gone. They brought back a character they had introduced in the extra case the added for the DS port of the first game, but she had changed a lot and was mostly unhelpful... It was trying to be half-assed, I would say. And although a lot of things were good, a lot were bad, too.

So there is definitely a good and a bad way to do it, in my opinion.

EDIT:
There is a third thing they did, I can't believe I almost forgot.
In the third game, where Phoenix is still the main character, well, you play part of the game as Edgeworth and part of the game as Mia. So they were already switching things around a bit, and it worked.
(I disliked the third game for other reasons, but the character switches were definitely something I liked a lot.)

Okay, so the first and third cases have been applied to Monkey Island, and it seems the general consensus is that the first would be awful and the third might be interesting (though I admit, I've paid little attention to this thread, so that could be selective reading by me). But what about the second case? How might that be applied to Monkey Island?

If we stick with the "play as the established opposition with a large fan base" think, we get a few options. Play as LeChuck, play as Largo, or maybe (big maybe) play as Dinghy Dog or DeSinge. I'd say maybe Ozzie Mandrill or Pegnose Pete, but I think those two would cause riots. But while taking another look at a series from the point of view of the villain is always interesting, I don't think it would really work here. Besides, LeChuck himself admits to not being very good at adventure game type tasks.

So now we expand from Guybrush's rivals to the rest of the series. And that pretty much leaves us with the options of playing as Elaine or Morgan. Again, this one's been discussed to death, and I personally don't see a game starring either of them living up to the standards of the Monkey Island series. We'd have another Escape on our hands.

Originally Posted by GuruGuru214

Secret, LeChuck's Revenge, Curse, and Tales are all phenomenal games. They've earned a place in history as some of the best adventure games ever. When you compare Escape to them, it becomes the Louis Stevens of the series, if you will; the (formerly) youngest child who isn't as smart or athletic as its siblings and doesn't have any particularly exemplary qualities of its own. It's not a bad game, it's just part of a series where the expectations are higher. And for that, it gets picked apart to no end.

[LeChuck1986]

Wasn't the reason of not playing Phoenix, because he got suspended for tempering with evidence to win his case?

On-topic: No, no new main and no spin-off

[GuruGuru214]

In-game, yes, but that explanation was just a plot point invented to explain why you're playing as someone else. In reality, there's nothing that forced the developer's hand to make someone else the main character, they just wanted to and wrote the story around it.

At least, that's how I understand it. I just started playing the first game after my friend let me borrow it on Saturday. I'm finished with the first four cases, so I only have one left.

[Avistew]

Originally Posted by LeChuck1986

Wasn't the reason of not playing Phoenix, because he got suspended for tempering with evidence to win his case?

That's how it was justified in the game, yes. But when you have played all the games, you know it's nothing compared to what he's done before, which makes the idea completely ridiculous.
And the fact that they make the story start later, with Phoenix having a girl, etc, basically means he's still the star of the game (everybody's going to want to know who's the mother, why he was suspended, etc) but you're not playing him.
The main character as a result is just completely overshadowed by Phoenix, which seems silly since the point was apparently to make a new series with a new main character.
I'm not sure if they're planning more games with Apollo but if so, I'm hoping they're going to be about him and not Phoenix. They game him a complicated enough backstory that they have plenty to work with.