A little over a month ago the entire Monkey Island community was suddenly awakened from its slumbering state with the announcement of Telltale’s ‘Tales of Monkey Island‘ and the first chapter being only five weeks away from release. For quite some time many Monkey fans hoped Telltale would acquire the rights and develop the next installment of their beloved franchise, but few thought they’d live to see it ever happen.

Well, it did and today we see the release of chapter one, ‘Launch of the Screaming Narwhal’. Four more chapters will follow on a monthly basis. With mighty big pirate boots to fill, the big question of course is: how did Telltale do?
Well, no need to worry: they did excellent. Our beloved franchise is in good hands! On with the review!

So, what does this very first chapter bring us? A whole lot! Most of you probably already know the premise, but let’s just run through it quickly.
The game opens with LeChuck, having Elaine tied up on a ship, performing a voodoo ritual on a monkey. Guybrush shows up to save the day with his Cursed Cutlass of Kaflu that has to put an end to LeChuck once and for all. Unfortunately things go horribly wrong for our mighty pirate hero: LeChuck turns human, Guybrush’s hand is infected with the ‘Pox of LeChuck’, things blow up and Guybrush washes up on Flotsam Island.

This first segment serves as a little tutorial to get you familiar with the controls and how to interact with items or characters. This works well and you’ll get hang up on the simple controls before you’ll notice a familiar plant on the deck.

On Flotsam Island Guybrush has his work cut out for him. The winds on the island are always blowing inward, making it impossible to leave Flotsam. Guybrush of course is eager to get back to his wife and arch-nemesis. This brings our hero through a heap of adventures as he must find a ship, start a bar brawl, help a treasure hunter, and find a way off the island while dealing with a mad scientist who wants to cut of Guybrush’s infected hand for study.

Art and Animation

Just like the previous Monkey Island installement, ‘Tales’ is in 3D. The big difference with EMI though, is that the 3D is now really utilized with a moving camera.
This works really well in the game and it absolutely adds to the feeling that you’re actually in the shoes of the hero, when walking around on Flotsam Island. (Well, until you realize you are staring into a monitor of course.) The camera is used in a good way and never gets in the way or has any annoying angles. When Guybrush looks at something it changes angle to focus on the item, an expression of Guybrush face, or pans around the entire screen.

Backgrounds and environments are perhaps a tad bit simpler than 2D drawn backgrounds, but the 3D environments are very detailed nevertheless and there are many objects in the game that serve no other purpose than letting Guybrush make a sarcastic comment or make you laugh in any other way.  Be sure to check out the row boat on the beach for example.

The sets of character expressions are really well done.  Guybrush smiles, raises an eyebrow or his eyes looks around uneasily, all depending on the words coming out of his mouth. This works very well and helps set you in the right mood for a conversation. The supporting characters have less expressions but the animation is still handled quite well.

Controls

You can control the game with the keyboard, the mouse, or both. You control Guybrush with the WASD keys or the arrow keys and hold down shift to make him run or you can use the mouse, left-click and hold to drag Guybrush around the screen. The inventory is brought up by pressing <tab>, i, pressing the mouse wheel, or by moving the cursor to the right side of the screen and clicking. All very easy to control and compared to EMI you won’t easily keep running into walls.

There are no options like ‘Look at’, ‘Pick up’ etc. which makes the game perhaps a bit simple. You just click on anything that makes the cursor light up and see what happens. Maybe Guybrush says a funny comment, maybe he picks it up, or maybe he opens it. Adventuregamers from the old days may think it’s bit too simplified, but it is also nice not to have a lot of clicking every time you discover something new.

Story and dialogue

Conversations with characters are often funny and never too long. You can pick what to say from several options, however Guybrush often will not say exactly what you choose. He might say something that will steer the conversation in the direction you intended though.

The dialogue writing is excellent. This is of course a very important part of any Monkey Island game and it is handled perfectly here. Elaine is very calm and sarcastic when she is tied up and Guybrush always has a hilarious comment to throw out here and there. For example, we find out Guybrush has some trouble getting along with his mother-in-law (who doesn’t). Overall the humor seems a bit more ‘edgy’ than the previous games, similar to MI2, but it never feels forced and this chapter already seems funnier than any of the previous games.

Dominic Armato, once again voicing Guybrush, delivers his lines spot on. Alexandra Boyd, from CMI, briefly returns as Elaine. Earl Boen does not return as LeChuck, but the new voice actor, Adam Harrington, does a fine job and sounds very menacing as LeChuck.
The voices and the music by Michael Land will make you feel right at home. It all fits right in with the other Monkey Island games. We get a nice new version of the intro music, a bit shorter and again, similar to Monkey 2, just like the rest of the music in this new game. The Flotsam town music has a very similar feel to Booty Island and the Flotsam jungles have a feel like the jungles of Dinky Island, where you can easily get lost in.

Final thoughts

The length of the chapter is quite satisfactory. While of course everyone would like the game to be longer (myself included), the length seems exactly right.
It can take around four hours to play through the chapter with examining everything and talking to all the characters using all options. Experienced adventure gamers won’t get stuck, but the built-in hint system might come in handy for some. Guybrush will then give you subtle suggestions on how to solve the puzzles.

All in all Telltale’s first Monkey Island chapter is surprisingly well done and it feels like a good mix between Curse and MI2, while still bringing its own unique flavor to the series.

Telltale really nailed it with good story, snappy dialogue, spot on atmosphere, fun animations and designs, perfect voice acting and beautiful music. What more could Monkey Island fans want?

Now it’s looking forward to chapter two as this one ends with not only one, but two cliffhangers.

This review was written by a Monkey Island fan for Monkey Island fans.

5 out of 5 skulls!