Return to Monkey Island Reviews
A brilliant return to the series at its best that modernises the point-and-click form.
Return to Monkey Island expectedly comes packed full of smartly crafted puzzles, funny dialogue, and memorable characters. But as series creator Ron Gilbert returns to the series’ director’s chair for the first time since 1991, it unexpectedly offers a lot of heart, too. It is an adventure gamer’s delight.
A deft and heartfelt journey through nostalgia.
Return to Monkey Island is everything I wanted and more. Daft humour with plenty of dad-worthy gags, puzzles to both frustrate and delight you, lovable throwbacks around every corner, and all while being effortlessly enjoyable. It feels like Monkey Island has fittingly come full circle with this title in many ways, and yet I can’t help but be selfish and want more Guybrush from Gilbert. There’s still room in the scrapbook for more adventures, and if we’re lucky, maybe we won’t have to wait 30 years for the next title.
Return to Monkey Island is a heartfelt and nostalgic return to a point-and-click adventure series that had long been left behind. It's fun, smart, and intuitive, with a story and presentation that is surprisingly self-aware. Whether this is your first brush with Guybrush Threepwood or your sixth, Return to Monkey Island is a swashbuckling adventure you won't want to miss.
Return to Monkey Island is profoundly nostalgic and relentlessly funny, and I'm once again a kid, laughing at Guybrush's umpteenth last-ditch efforts to distract his opponents with, "Look behind you, a three-headed monkey!"
The iconic point-and-click adventure series returns with a heartfelt and nostalgic adventure that any mighty pirate would be a fool to miss.
Return to Monkey Island is yet another game in the Monkey Island franchise that makes only a slight effort to reflect the ever-shifting gaming landscape, while confidently clinging to the DNA that made it so beloved in the first place. And if you’re looking for the secret to creating an enduring franchise, you could do a lot worse than that.
In that, it feels like the rare auteur-driven game – where it’s not just self-aware fun, but also a piece of art with something to say about the past, the present – and even how our changing understanding of ourselves, and our stories, can color the future. It’s brilliant, and exactly what I hoped it would be.
I love Return to Monkey Island, and I'm excited for you to learn its secrets, too.
Return to Monkey Island is pretty much as perfect a sequel to such a series of classic games as one can get.
Return To Monkey Island might be playing the entire nostalgia hand, nevermind the card, but it's also a very good modern point and click game that makes a perfect new entry to a beloved old series.
Return to Monkey Island reaches into your heart, rips out your desire to know THE SECRET, and clenches it in front of your face. As hard as it would be to concede that The Secret of Monkey Island™ might always have been a McGuffin, it's agonising to contemplate that your 30-year longing for the Monkey Island 3 might be just the same. Delighting as you tremor, Return presents to your transfixed gaze a phenomenal point-and-click adventure, bubbling with passion and fun. All the way through, you will hope, achingly, that the big reveal is coming – and then…
Return to Monkey Island feels like a bridge linking some of the absolute best point-and-click adventures of gaming's younger years with the sensibilities of the modern world.
Return to Monkey Island is an enjoyable game that I will definitely be telling my nephews and niece to play. It left me wanting more and now that the introduction is over, the next installment should provide the story progression that I was hoping for with this one. If nothing else this game will serve as a reminder to never say never. Ordinarily when a small company is bought out by a multibillion dollar conglomerate it usually goes quietly into the night never to be heard from again. The fact that this game was made at all is a truly remarkable accomplishment. Terrible Toybox and Devolver Digital have overcome the impossible and opened the door for more. Until then might I suggest playing through the entire original series as well as befriending the three headed monkey that’s behind you.
With all the wit and charm that you would expect from Gilbert and Grossman's writing, Return to Monkey Island is a decades-long reverie made reality and absolutely essential for fans of the series.
Impressive efforts with a few noticeable problems holding them back. Won't astound everyone, but is worth your time and cash.
A hugely successful reboot for the beloved point 'n' click adventure, that achieves its comeback without sacrificing either its sense of humour or some enjoyably tricky puzzles.
By officially revealing the Secret and bringing the series full circle, “Return to Monkey Island” is deliberately closing a chapter in the franchise’s life. It’s not the end of Guybrush Threepwood or Monkey Island, but it’s a swan song for the bygone era that birthed them.
It's not a perfect game, it's probably not the best Monkey Island. But, of course, it is a heartfelt love letter to everything we love about graphic adventures and, in short, a fun and nostalgic experience.
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