Tales of Monkey Island hated more than Escape??

[BlankCanvasDJ]

I think Tales would have worked great as a single standalone game. It has Telltale's best story and every episode flows well together. Every Monkey Island game is broken down into very distinct parts anyway, Tales would fit right in.

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by Ashton

But what can you say.....

This.

[Bubblechan]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

Considering that Dominic Armato was contacted about SOMI:SE first, even if just by a hair, it seems far more likely that(as Dave Grossman says in this interview) it is far more attributable to Darrell Rodriguez at LucasArts than to Telltale Games.

Please Darrell come baaaaaack.

[Hayden]

Originally Posted by doodo!

I like all the games about equally

That's essentially how I feel. Some are slightly better than others, but when it all comes down to it, I love each of the games equally. Yes, even 'Escape...'. I actually didn't realize there was so much negativity towards EfMI before I started hanging around on the forums.

Originally Posted by doodo!

Realistically the only reason some people hate Escape is because of it's graphics, it's controls. Well that's how I see it.

Yeah, I think that this would be true in most cases. Because, in all seriousness, the game really wasn't that far behind the likes of 'Curse...' and 'Revenge...'. The writing was as strong as ever, there were some really cool characters, the puzzles were generally quite enjoyable, the storyline was fine (in my opinion) albeit a little silly, but I can look past the silliness.

It's just that the graphics would have caused an automatic bias towards the game from a lot of players. From the very beginning, they wouldn't have given the game the same chance as, say, Curse. They would have had a negative attitude towards everything in the game. The silliness that you and I mentioned wouldn't have been overlooked, and the slightly weaker jokes would have been hated rather than just ignored, the storyline would have been resented regardless of whether it was good or not, and any changes to the existing canon would have been despised by these players: overall, their opinion of the whole game would have been altered from the beginning just because of the graphics and control system, and that's a sad thing. It may not have been a massive bias, but it would have been enough to ultimately change someone's opinion of the game pretty drastically down the line.

The same thing probably would have happened to many who didn't like the art and graphics in Tales.

Originally Posted by Mermaid

Well, I can't say that I particularly like Tales's graphic style either. After giving the game a chance I found that the great animations made up for this, though. Yet I'd prefer a style a little less cartoonish for a next game.

Really? I personally really liked the graphical style of Tales. I actually quite like that whole cartoon-y, non-realistic look and I feel that it suits the style of the game. But, hey, it's just different opinions in the end, isn't it? It's a good thing that you still played the game the whole way through and gave it a proper chance... unlike some people.

Originally Posted by Falanca

It's the first time ever I've seen people nitpicking over something without even completing the 10% of the entire material.

Yeah, this is what annoyed me. If people are going to make a judgment of the game, then they should at least play a substantial amount of the game. Then they go and blast their opinions about without giving the game a proper chance. Ignorant, impatient, idiotic people.

Originally Posted by Joop

I had this discussion with a friend of mine yesterday.
We're both big Monkey Island fans, the only difference is that I gave Tales a chance.
I love Tales, even though it has it's drawbacks.
My friend just kept longing for the big bombastic big boxed adventure games of 10-15 years ago.
He didn't like the way the episodic formula worked with Monkey Island, and that's why he didn't give it a chance.

That's sad, he really is missing out. I initially didn't like the idea of episodic game distribution. But I decided to give it a chance (hell, I wasn't going to miss out on a new Monkey Island game, episodic or not ) and as soon as I'd finished 'Launch of the Screaming Narwhal' I was hooked. I loved being left with a cliffhanger, I actually liked looking forward to the next episode, and I really enjoyed being a part of the discussion and speculation that went on here in the forums in between episodes. It resulted in a greater gaming experience. Plus, in the end, I had a gaming experience that lasted over the course of half a year, instead of a few days.

Originally Posted by Cantatus

The quality of graphics are fairly meaningless to me. I think one of the big faults of the game industry nowadays is how much importance is put on how good the graphics are. As long as the game has great gameplay and a quality storyline, I'm hooked.

Exactly, except I don't even care that much about gameplay (when it comes to controls and interfaces). People put too much emphasis on the surface of the game - what it looks like, how it plays, which buttons you have to press to make the character do a particular thing and whether or not those buttons are to hard to push. Really, what is really important is the story (as you said), the plot, the characters and their depth and development, etc.

Originally Posted by Cantatus

And really, I don't think Telltale's graphics are bad in the least. They may not be photorealistic, but they have a nice style to them.

Much agreed. I don't think realistic graphics would work for Monkey Island games. It just wouldn't suit the whole feel and tone.

Originally Posted by BlankCanvasDJ

I still can't wrap my head around how somebody can say the graphics from Tales are bad while proclaiming their love for Monkey Island 1 and 2. So it's obvious that they are capable of looking past graphics and judging the game underneath, they just refuse to do it for Tales for some reason.

Haha, yes! A great point, and I agree. I guess the only thing that really separates the two is nostalgia and bias.

[Alcoremortis]

I still haven't gotten my brother to play anything more than the first episode of the series, or, in fact, Monkey Island games besides Escape, which he loves (though he did just start playing LeChuck's Revenge: SE a week ago).

Maybe I'll convince him some day...

[Hassat Hunter]

*cough* Graphic Whores *cough*

Originally Posted by doodo!

Realistically the only reason some people hate Escape is because of it's graphics, it's controls.

Why thank you. I obviously must have imagined the poor humour and annoying puzzles.
It's so good you know exactly what I think and feel, much better than I do myself...

Originally Posted by Falanca

It's the first time ever I've seen people nitpicking over something without even completing the 10% of the entire material.

You must not browse the internet frequently?
Then again, maybe I got a major overdose of it lately being an Alpha Protocol fan. The amount of bias people have against that game with completing 0% of the material (oh yeah) is shocking.

Hell, even one guy came to the official forums, stating he didn't play the game but Obsidian HAD to fix his list of issues, which where totally true because of 3-rd hand info obviously (sarcasm dripping off here!), otherwise the game would remain to suck.
You can imagine he didn't quite get a warm welcome from us all.

[doodo!]

I should have said most people. LOL. Well, some times I do use the wrong words then it looks like I believe one extreme . I do think that being on these forums I've seen people complain mostly about graphics and controls though.

[StarEye]

I like the EMI graphics and controls. It works well, don't see why anyone would have any more problem with them. Grim Fandango controlled worse, being much more clunky, but that didn't stop it from being one of the greatest adventure games ever created. As a matter of fact, I think it controlled better than Tales did - at least it didn't have a ton of unnecessary steps to do something (like combining objects).

Now, an adventure game classic that really controlled badly was Gabriel Knight 3.

[Vainamoinen]

When ToMI was announced, I was really, really upset about graphics and controls, and I wrote rather lengthy texts about this which do not really matter nowadays. Both things have turned out less of a nuisance to me. The episodes were a great experience, and the real nuisances were somewhere else.

I feel that the reception of Tales was a rather positive one. Of course, there are critical voices still, and of course some points are valid (from those who have actually played the episodes). Personally and subjectively, the following things were particularly annoying:

• Persistence of cameras. What was that all about? Every episode had supposedly non-painted pictures. Photographs of DeCava, Guybrush, the Voodoo Lady; Guybrush mentions to LeChuck that he "has to get his camera", and in the afterlife, Guybrush is even photographed. That wasn't a targeted anachronism, it was just all over the place!
• Yes, the re-use of character models was outrageous! One of the main reason Nipperkin just had to die was that he's just so similar to Winslow.
• Noogie was one of the worst characters ever. I found DeSinge OK in my recent game, but Noogie... someone has seen too much "American Pie". It just wasn't funny.
• As stated one hundred times: Someone forgot the ending of the game due to lack of time and space. I won't ever get over this.

Comparing ToMI to EfMI, of course, really sets things straight. I played EfMI through once and sold it as fast as I could. Escape reproduced the series, brought nothing new, repeating the bad stuff and leaving out the good stuff. This game had next to no pirate flavour, while the Tales achieved really great things in this respect.

I liked the Tales for:

• Morgan LeFlay. She wasn't the deepest character ever, but she was the most complex being in a MI game ever.
• Guybrush. His irresponsibility and childlike devotion to Elaine were greatly played out.
• the great old-fashioned puzzles and great recycling of old ideas in "Lair of the Leviathan". I feared the belly of the manatee was a bad idea, but I was mistaken.
• Pirate atmosphere. The pox, nighttime environments, the swordfights, the battles at sea, the carribbean islands.
• The music. While I still don't think that iMuse really worked with Tales, some of the compositions really stuck in my brain.
• Facial animation. There was some really great stuff in there, including the pirate-face-competitions.

See, I can not remember a single good thing about EfMI, while I could add to the positive points above anytime. My final scores: EfMI not more than 3/10, ToMI at least 8/10. They're just not comparable...

[S@bre]

Remember that the WiiWare size limits prevented TTG from doing astounding graphics. If they wanted graphics a'la Devil's Playhouse, they'd have had to either drop the Wii version or essentially develop two separate visual versions of the game: one for PC and one for Wii. Ultimately, what we got visually was more than sufficient, and still looked brilliant in some areas.

[BlankCanvasDJ]

Originally Posted by Vainamoinen

• Persistence of cameras. What was that all about? Every episode had supposedly non-painted pictures. Photographs of DeCava, Guybrush, the Voodoo Lady; Guybrush mentions to LeChuck that he "has to get his camera", and in the afterlife, Guybrush is even photographed. That wasn't a targeted anachronism, it was just all over the place!

I'll give you the complaint about the ending, but really? This? I can see your point but Tales was probably the least anachronistic Monkey Island game to date. The first game had electric lighting, the second had a vending machine, the third had a roller coaster(!) and don't even get me started on the fourth game. The series is built on anachronisms.

[Trenchfoot]

Originally Posted by S@bre

Remember that the WiiWare size limits prevented TTG from doing astounding graphics. If they wanted graphics a'la Devil's Playhouse, they'd have had to either drop the Wii version or essentially develop two separate visual versions of the game: one for PC and one for Wii. Ultimately, what we got visually was more than sufficient, and still looked brilliant in some areas.

But isn't The Devil's Playhouse available for Wii too? Or they have a different version with comprised graphics and music?

No fair, the brilliant music of ToMI deserved live instruments! Just imagine a full orchestral version of "The Swordfight"... Aaaah!
And there I go again praising the soundtrack... Someone out there is rolling their eyes.

[Darkmire]

I think the haters of TOMI are mostly people that are stuck in the past (or are bad at puzzle-based games). It was easily one of the best Monkey Island games yet. Easily. Telltale fleshed out a cast of characters much more than most games ever dream of. It's almost an unfair comparison. The puzzles and hints were perfect, the humor was not only in line with previous games, but very fresh and amusing. And the way they handled the storyline (by relating it to the past games while also moving forward) was perfect. And surely the Tales series will only get better if they make a second season.

[S@bre]

Originally Posted by Trenchfoot

But isn't The Devil's Playhouse available for Wii too?

Nope. Was released for PC, PS3, Ipad and Mac, with the two dominant platforms focused on in development being PC and PS3.

[OzzieMonkey]

Originally Posted by Vainamoinen

• As stated one hundred times: Someone forgot the ending of the game due to lack of time and space. I won't ever get over this.

Wait, what? Forgot the ending? There was an ending, wasn't there? Did you not see the after credits sequence?

[Mataku]

I gonna be honest here, altho i found ToMI to be a fun experience (first time i played an episodic game while it was being released, most of the fun was just talking and theorizing about the plot), I found the game has about zero re-playability factor for me.
It's just a nudge above EMI, that has zero PLAYability factor (started playing it 7 years ago, still stuck in chapter 1 and have no will to continue).
why no re-playability? because there's nothing worth replaying. older MI games have always been incredibly thick and detailed in the trivial. you could talk to people and go into long conversations with them about pretty much nothing that is important to the story, for no other reason except to tell a joke. you can go into a room and have about 20 item hotspots, non of them are usable or important, but each could have a funny response. Tomi pretty much had non of that. the game felt thin and linear. Almost everything you could interact with was either a person, a pickable object or a part of a puzzle. (and before people go "oh, but there's that thing in that episode that was awesome", please look up the word "almost" that i used )
For me, TOMI is a good story that just happened to have the MI characters in it.

[Vainamoinen]

Originally Posted by BlankCanvasDJ

I'll give you the complaint about the ending, but really? This? I can see your point but Tales was probably the least anachronistic Monkey Island game to date. The first game had electric lighting, the second had a vending machine, the third had a roller coaster(!) and don't even get me started on the fourth game. The series is built on anachronisms.

My problem was that it was so recurring that it stopped being an anachronism. It did not feel displaced any more, it didn't feel targeted. Just thrown in. A minor annoyance, maybe, but one that stuck with me.

Originally Posted by OzzieMonkey

Wait, what? Forgot the ending? There was an ending, wasn't there? Did you not see the after credits sequence?

There was a standard, bland and illogical conclusion to the very basic storyline element "Guybrush is dead" clipped at the end of the "Tales". This "ending" lasted 60 seconds and left dozens of painstakingly and carefully established story threads of the episodes untied (as has been discussed to death in this forum). The after credits sequence was meant as a cliffhanger and not as a conclusion to anything.

Originally Posted by Mataku

why no re-playability? because there's nothing worth replaying. older MI games have always been incredibly thick and detailed in the trivial. you could talk to people and go into long conversations with them about pretty much nothing that is important to the story, for no other reason except to tell a joke. you can go into a room and have about 20 item hotspots, non of them are usable or important, but each could have a funny response. Tomi pretty much had non of that.

That's really interesting, because I actually enjoy TTG's love for detail and the possibility of "exploring" a scene by clicking on relatively unimportant hotspots.

[Hayden]

Originally Posted by Vainamoinen

There was a standard, bland and illogical conclusion to the very basic storyline element "Guybrush is dead" clipped at the end of the "Tales". This "ending" lasted 60 seconds and left dozens of painstakingly and carefully established story threads of the episodes untied[...].

This is the sort of problem that will be encountered when it comes to pumping out an episode each month. Having only a month to produce an entire episode is, in my opinion, too short. It's way too restrictive and it can often reflect on the finished episode, which it has done in this case. There would almost definitely have been a longer ending and a more satisfying conclusion to ToMI's story, but the deadline would have most probably disallowed Telltale from creating one. This is why I think that, if Telltale were to make a second season of Tales, that the episodes should be released every two months.

This way, they will be able to flesh out the story more, develop the characters more, expand the environment and locations in which the episode takes place (thus enhancing the game's exploration), put in more dialog options, insert more selectable items into the game, create and integrate more puzzles into the game, give themselves time to write more jokes, as well as allowing themselves to have that extra time that is needed to fix bugs and refine the game.

If the episodes were released every second month, then it would result in a higher quality episode each time, and it would also fix the re-playability issue that Mataku mentioned.

[Spadge]

Originally Posted by Hayden

If the episodes were released every second month, then it would result in a higher quality episode each time, and it would also fix the re-playability issue that Mataku mentioned.

I have to agree. The Devil's Playhouse seemed to suffer because of this too.

[Vainamoinen]

Originally Posted by Hayden

This is the sort of problem that will be encountered when it comes to pumping out an episode each month.

While I find the idea of a bimonthly episode release schedule tempting (imagine that: 6 episodes would be one glorious Monkey Island year!), my original idea was that the way the ending turned out was due to bad planning. When they reached episode 5, they had some dozen story threads dangling in the air, and one episode was just not enough to conclude all of them. The entire season was about building suspense, intrigue, etc. - which was skillfully done; it was a storytelling beginner's mistake to not reveal certain things during other episodes to make a short, sharp ending possible. It wasn't the time left - when the end of the fourth episode was reached, a fitting conclusion in one episode might actually have been an impossibility.