Monkey Business

THE LONG-AWAITED MONKEY ISLAND SEQUEL BRILLIANTLY MODERNISES THE POINT-AND-CLICK ADVENTURE

MON Return to Monkey Island PS5, XBOX SERIES, SWITCH, PC, LINUX, MACOS

The mischievous opening confidently asserts that this is the authentic Monkey Island experience we've come for: sharp, self-aware, and brilliantly silly. It'll bombard you with gags, but the characters you meet are more than comic props, and the cunning stream of interwoven puzzles has been modernised to keep the pace up without losing the satisfaction of problem-solving. It's a massive success.

The prologue whips you through an homage to classic Monkey Island moments before thrusting the shambling Guybrush Threepwood back into his past. Older, more tired, and more challenged by holding his breath, Guybrush has grown in tandem with us, as have Monkey Island's classic characters and locales. Everything and everyone here has gone on a journey. Wally the cartographer has been reshaped by finding his confidence without losing his charming spirit. Even LeChuck seems to have found a softer side despite remaining the furiously irritated villain we adore.

Everything is different, but familiar in Return to Monkey Island, from its characters and narrative to its revised interaction- and puzzle-solving systems nineties, but it isn't stuck there. The story is consistently engrossing and energetic, but revealing too many details would be beneath LeChuck himself, so we'll keep things general.

After starting out in the first game's Mêlée Island, our hero Guybrush takes to the seas to explore vintage locations such as Monkey Island itself, as well as entirely new lands including the tormented, eerie Terror Island and Brrr Muda, an icy landscape inspired by the Viking age. Guybrush is once more in pursuit of Monkey Island's infamous secret. LeChuck, too, has returned to the quest.

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