Review: Tales of Monkey Island, Chapter 5

Those of you who have been following my reviews of the episodic adventure Tales of Monkey Island by TellTale will know I’ve had very little bad to say about the game, overall. After playing through dozens of ho-hum point-and-clicks, many that suffer from poor writing, irritating, uncreative puzzles, and frustrating bugs, the latest romp through the Caribbean with Guybrush Threepwood has been a breath of fresh air. But how does the momentous finale, Rise of the Pirate God, stack up against the other four episodes? As Guybrush would probably snicker and say, “Does it sink or swim?”

This episode finds us directing a ghost Guybrush, who must try to get back to the world of the living and reclaim his body so that he can save his wife and the world from the newly re-Zombified evil Pirate LeChuck.

Sadly, whereas the conclusion of the epic series should have been the strongest (or at least one of the best) episode, I found it severely disappointing. While previous episodes shown through in nearly every category, this last chapter fails most of them (especially compared to the previous entries in the series).

For example, the writing isn’t as strong as in previous episodes. Don’t get me wrong here — I understand the tone is a little more serious this time around, but I found the repetition of lines annoying (more of that later), and worse was the poorly developed narrative. This is the episode that is supposed to wrap everything up, and it falls a little flat, with the ending giving you a “meh” feeling instead of a “wow!” one. Worse, to use another Guybrushism, the story isn’t as well fleshed out as it could be. I realize not everything has to be wrapped up with a bow (especially if you want sequels), but I still felt like the story could have been told better. (One important note: make sure you watch the entire credits!)

Another failure, in my opinion, was the fact that the locations were not only relatively unexciting, but I know I got really tired of seeing the same places over and over again with little to no change, and you are often very restricted in those locations. For example, Lair of the Leviathan was great because the locales were interesting and varied. You would think spending most of your time in pirate limbo would give you a wealth of creative possibilities, but especially when looking back on it, the Crossroads is actually a disappointing and unexciting place. While I realize that may have been intentional in some ways, it doesn’t make for very exciting gameplay, especially when you spend at least half the game there.

Worse, when you do get out of the Crossroads, you are extremely limited as to where you can go, making things far less interesting than they could be. Perhaps TellTale was going for the theme of entrapment and restriction to go along with Guybrush’s situation, but again, this doesn’t make for exciting gameplay. For instance, you hear about how LeChuck has transformed the world (i.e., destroying some locations, etc.), but you never get to really see any evidence of his work, other than meeting a few ghosts he killed and seeing the ominous orange/red sky in certain later scenes. I’m asking too much, you may say, and this is an issue I may not have lamented nearly as much if it weren’t for the biggest failure of all (in many ways): the puzzles.

Throughout the Tales series, we’ve been treated to a broad range of puzzles, many of which are not only surprisingly unique (even for hard-core veterans of the genre), but also fairly logical and mostly entertaining. However, I don’t think I found a single puzzle in Rise of the Pirate God fun. Why? One word: repetition. Obviously, repetition is inevitable, especially when it comes to puzzles. Still, episode five almost turns it into an art form, if you can do that. My first gripe is the amount of trekking back and forth you will do in order to solve various puzzles: a WHOLE lot. Add in my distaste for the navigation, and this makes much of the game even more tedious than necessary.

It gets really annoying having to go back and forth and back and forth to the same places all the time. Yes, I know this is often part of adventure games, but this episode makes it almost painful. On top of that, at least three puzzles involve even more repetition, as you must use trial and error in order to solve certain puzzles, meaning you must talk to the same people over and over and hear the same dialogue over and over. You can click to skip some of the dialogue, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying and dull. Add to the fact that many of the puzzles are unintuitive, forcing you trek back and forth trying to find a solution, and some may decide to use YouTube (or a walkthrough) just so they can move on and find out what happens.

Not so say that it’s all bad: you still have the great character of Guybrush (excellently voice-acted, and well animated as usual), to carry you through, and you do get to interact with some interesting items and characters throughout your journey. Despite its more serious tone, it continues the levity of the series, and while not as funny as previous episodes, you will find yourself chuckling occasionally. The environments, while not as creative and varied as I would have liked (especially considering the overall redundancy and repetition of the episode), are still well crafted, with some scenes possessing a great amount of detail, and the varied versions of Guybrush are certainly creative and do lend themselves to some interesting puzzle situations. You will also have some creative puzzles, if not quite on the same scale as some of the previous ones, which help break up some of the monotony.

Despite the disappointing failings of this last episode, overall, Tales of Monkey Island is an enjoyable, well-made adventure game certainly worth playing, especially if you enjoy the genre. I also have to give an enormous amount of credit for the quality work TellTale puts into the series as a whole. Even if this episode left me a bit disappointed, the fact that it is nearly perfect when it comes to bugs and so forth is commendable (especially for this genre). I’m sure due to the success of this series we will see more from TellTale (Sam & Max 2010, perhaps?), and hopefully they will improve on the faults of the first to make an even better game experience, and one I am eager to try. Still, I definitely look forward to playing through the whole series again from beginning to end, and in the long run, that is one of the highest compliments any point-and-click adventure game can receive.