Return to Monkey Island is out on Steam – what do players and testers think of Guybrush Threepwood’s latest adventure?
Return to Monkey Island made its PC launch on Steam on time last night. Reason enough to summarize the opinions of the players and testers.
That’s what the Steam players are saying
Previous reviewers on Steam are happy: After more than 500 reviews the verdict is “extremely positive”. Return to Monkey Island has an approval rate of 96 percent, which should actually be beyond any doubt. However, there are limitations to cheering. On the one hand, there are German-speaking users who regret the lack of a German voice output. That means Return to Monkey Island comes with English voice output and German subtitles. On the other hand, the tough critics of the graphic style will not have struck at all for the time being and therefore will not even have a say.
Nevertheless, the developers of Terrible Toybox, above all Ron Gilbert, did a lot right when you look at the user opinions. After just a few moments, you’re right in the Monkey Island feeling of the 90s. “Pure Monkey Island feeling from the first second,” writes one user. Once you get into the game, you wouldn’t think about the new graphics at all, according to several users. Even skeptics are no longer deterred by the unfamiliar graphics. A user writes: “The graphics are strangely the way you remember the 90s adventure – but without being 90s adventure graphics”. A user “criticizes” the integrated complete solution, because then there is no need for hours of trying around – that can of course also be seen as a positive thing. Otherwise, it comes across positively that the dialogues can now be rewound and read and the controls are very quick to use due to the minimalism.
That’s what the critics say
The majority of critics are also very pleased with Return to Monkey Island. On the test collection page Metacritic the adventure gets an average of 88 percent from 22 reviews. The “worst” test comes in at 75 percent, the best at 100 percent. So there are hardly any outliers downwards. At our Colleagues from PC Games the new Monkey Island gets an 80 percent. The euphoria is a bit lacking, but Return to Monkey Island is an “absolutely likeable, classic point-and-click adventure that reflects on old virtues, but doesn’t get stuck in the past”. The plot and gags could be expanded, but the puzzles were well balanced. The idiosyncratic ending is also mentioned. At Eurogamer sounds similar, the “daring comedy” of the original games is missing here. There are a lot of nostalgic moments, but 2022 is simply not as legendary as it was back then – which may not even be possible.
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