@@BMaskIf that's not what the devs intended, it ought to be. Hey while I've got your attention, thought I'd throw in my two cents: I agree you presented a good case for why LeFlay could have worked well in the story. Seemed you were implying her as one of the new Pirate Leaders? Wanted to say, I think I get where the creatives were coming from; that this new generation has no connection to Guybrush, no familiarity, and helps solidify that tone that the world is moving on without him. You'd sacrifice some of that with old faces - though, yeah, we could have used a little more time to get to know these new guys...
Oh absolutely, like I said in the video I'm equally conflicted by whether or not it's better or worse than what they decided on as it stands. I guess ultimately as long as we connect her to the girl in the game's intro the overall intention still works!
I don’t know why people were so hung up about the ending not revealing what the secret was. I mean, it’s pretty obvious what it is when you think about it. It’s the three-headed monkey. Duh.
I love how we are getting a return of point and clicks in recent years with the Sam and Max remasters, Putt Putt on Switch, Grim Fandango on Switch, and now Monkey Island returning
feel like it’s also important to give a shout out to the indie ones as well. Seeing people like Jacksepticeye playing There Is No Game Wrong Dimension legit made me super happy for reasons outside of a big guy playing a game I like
I'm glad that you went into what LeChuck represents and the dark ways in which he reflects Guybrush, which I feel have gone a little under-analyzed. The game frequently points out how deluded and shallow his feelings about Elaine and The Secret are, and when you combine this with the lines that are frequently drawn between him and Guybrush it makes an interesting point about both characters. While LeChuck and Guybrush are both obsessive, destructive, and delusional (Flambe nailed it when he said "You two deserve each other"), Guybrush never lost his love of the fantasy. Guybrush wants to find The Secret because he wants to find a place in the world again, while LeChuck wants to find it because he thinks that it will arbitrarily get him what he wants. To LeChuck, Elaine and The Secret are only a means to a selfish end. This is why Guybrush gets to pass on the fantasy of Monkey Island to his son, while LeChuck is last seen either fighting Lila for The Secret in Hell forever or as a dilapidated animatronic doing the same motions over and over again.
I was about to write a LONG essay post on this, but I think this'll sum up my thoughts a bit more succinctly: If MI1 is about being on the ride, and MI2 is about getting off the ride and seeing the animatronics, Return is about giving back in to the fantasy and craftsmanship of the ride. And given what Ron wrote and what his vision for what MI3 would've been was...yeah that seems about right. Especially for a LucasArts title. Like any theme park ride, things change over time and new people take over. I don't really see this as Ron being pretentious or glibbing people over getting too meta; it's too genuine and too understanding of what came before to take it that way, at least for me personally. It feels less like Ron and David abandoned plot threads from other games in favor of telling those stories, more like they aren't their stories to tell. ...Whether or not that was executed well is another story, but regardless: It's not their ride anymore. They'll always have final say because they made it, but it's not theirs anymore. But so long as the core of the ride stays the same, I'm kind of okay with that. Hell, if nothing else, the fact that you not only unintentionally lived what Ron was probably experiencing/writing himself over the years, but to have it pretty much confirmed by the man himself, if not emblematic of the point he was making, has to feel at least somewhat cathartic. EDIT: Also these games are just super cozy at heart. That's really the core: so long as IT has fun, I'll have fun. Again, kinda like a real theme park lol
I think it all clicked for me at the fishemen's society quest. How clear it all was when I realized one of the longest puzzles in the whole game which span a characters from all over the game is a puzzle about crafting an engaging story, with said characters explaining to you that just telling a story isn't enough, but how you craft it. I also noticed how the story itself was an event from Tales, which Ron gave creative input to. Fitting for a puzzle about telling a story, hearing feedback, and adapting It for the people's enjoyment. I have always struggled with Monkey Island. I love the franchise and has ever since I was a young lad. the first one I played was funny enough MI2 on a pirated (heh) copy on my dad's ol computer, with the first played soon after and brought legitimately after seeing it at a store. As such, growing up and understanding the implications of the franchise always divided my brain: One part of me admires what ron tried to do and say while the other still felt hurt about the idea the ending making it feel like there was no worth on the characters. I feel this game does what rarely any game of it kind does and what, when you think about it, storytelling is all about: COMPROMISE The ending, the talk with mini guybrush and Elaine at the end all add to what makes the ending so great: It allows ANYONE to craft their own canon and legitalizes any future MI game to still work in either narrative. Are any future instalments just more stories Guybrush the theme park flooring inspector is telling to his family? Yes. Are they new events in the wacky magical piraty world Guybrush lives in, with the theme park is just another of Stan's schemes using Guybrush's adventures as a way to make profit? ALSO Yes. It can be molded in any way you want and I feel that's a beautiful thing. Monkey Island is about Stories, and the ways we interact with them be them real or fantasy
Great comment. That last paragraph really feels like the key, storytelling is and always has been in our own hands, and no game has epitomized that more from the very first sequel than Monkey Island
Great take. While reading it, I realized I have fewer problems with the "it's a kid's fantasy" storyline than I thought I had. Because, when I was a kid, I built these Lego cities with loads of characters. And every friend had their own character and over the months we'd have great adventures. Those were all made up and the characters weren't real. But that doesn't matter. That meant something to us and to me. I still remember some of them. It was just playing on the one hand, but on the other hand it was great and meaningful. The same can be said for MI2. While the "it isn't real" narrative may be pityful for all those pirates, it's kind of heartwarming to think about this kid that had unstrained, almost naive, but great meaningful fun.
Also it can not be understated how much that last letter when you finish the game feels like the most warm hug ever to the player the fans. Comes out from the screen and touches our souls.
@@zenithquasar9623 I felt the other way around. I won't make a long essay to explain myself since I feel B-Mask did it amazingly not only in this video. So I will try to digest the strong points of what I feelt was a warming message to us loaded with affection and sincerity: 1- The game started as a fun idea that was really just trying (and achieved) to emulate adventure. 2- Success meant that the expectations grew bigger and bigger and people started fan theorizing and creating their own tall tales (a good storyteller knows this is an intended effect showing you got the attention you searched). 3- All is embraced, all is allowed, there is not an end to Gaybrush's adventures, but the curse long overdue chaining him to become a souless mockery of his starting point is lifted. He can now be free from its origin and pursue other treasures. After all. That was his original goal: to be a pirate and live the adventure. All this is also tangled with the realization of how time passed and its effect on every person, be them players or the creators.
There was always something underlining about the series to me that I couldn't ever put the finger on it, specially when listening the main theme song. Then, watching your video, it clicked me in the outro: this cozy, comfortable feeling of fantasy and joy, this storytelling experience to share your thoughts -- both the wonder and the snarky -- shared among people. Sure, not everything is perfect, executed well or hit with everyone, but it is always a fun ride that stays with you and always brings new experiences in each revisit. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Oh hey, it's me at 35:44 for a split second. I stand by what I said, and I genuinely hope to see more adventures of Guybrush Threepwood in the future. Return is exactly what we needed, even if we refuse to accept it.
So I've never played the Monkey Island games, but I *have* played the Danganronpa ones, and lemme tell you, this is a VERY familiar reaction from a subsection of fans about a very very similar thing lmao. Love your videos man, keep up the good work!
The fact this video only has a few thousand likes is absurd. B-mask is genuinely one of the best creative people on this website, and he deserves way more recognition.
Twin Peaks and Lynch. Metal Gear and Kojima. No More Heroes and SUDA51. Monkey Island with Gilbert. When the originals take charge of a project that was always their own, it always leads to a different feel and uniqueness. While they can often be imitated by others, they can never be duplicated and Monkey with Ron back in the chair, just has that feel of 1 and 2.
@@BMask Whilst I wasn't a fan of the game as a whole (not just the ending) I appreciated that it tried to do something different but I felt like it was so heavy handed with the meta commentary that it just took me out of it
Seeing some of the comments you put in the video is a shame. I think there's such a good conversation to be had about this game but it always turns into an argument. Kudos on the vid I enjoyed it
I had a thought while watching this, about the nature of stories and life and all that... My dad died in 2012 and growing up we (me my dad my sibling my mom) would play these games together, sitting around the computer calling out ideas. My experiences with those stories from the first 4 games are also experiences with my dad. And no matter what comes next in this series, i will always replay those older ones (not 4, i did not like how you controlled guybrush) and remember sharing time with my dad. Playing return and having those precious games recontextualized as stories a dad was telling his kid really hit me in that regard. And any bew MI game, I will play it and will still akways be connected to my father because of thise games, the stories, the experiences, that led to the current game. I don't have an elegant way to tie that to anything about the secret or metafiction or anything like that, but this just starting running through my mind. Great analysis!
You touch on the point yourself, but what I loved most about the game was that it really includes Curse, Escape and Tales as legitimate entries in the series, whilst also giving us a pretty clear portrait of what Ron's third game was originally conceived as. It would have been so easy to portray games 3, 4 and 5 as 'what ifs' that 'didn't really happen' and say "Here's what REALLY happened". In fact, I think I might like those games MORE in retrospect now that they sit more comfortably alongside Ron's entries.
I'm 49 now - played the original game when I was 15 when I played The Secret of Monkey Island, gathered around my A500 with my 3 best friends trying to work all the puzzles out - it took us quite a few weekends to get through it. By the time M2 came out I was 17, this time we gathered around my friends 386, and being a little bit older and wiser, it didn't take us so long to finish it - we were all quite puzzled by the ending at the time, and spent many hours discussing it and piecing together all the clues from both M1 and M2 - none of us hated it, we all thought it was clever and funny - but meta endings weren't very common in the early 90's - now every franchise seems to do it constantly. It was undoubtedly a game that in some way changed all 4 of us in the way only really good art can - and we would often talk about it years later. I missed the following games - I had followed R+Ds advise from the end of M2 by that point and started talking to girls and lost interest in gaming. In 2022 I heard about Return, and was mildly interested, but just too busy with life to play games - so it wasn't until early last month, realizing I was on the verge of burning out, I decided I needed to do something fun that I hadn't tried in years - and picked up this game. I loved every minute of it - no doubt a big part of it was the nostalgia - but I honestly think it was very much up to the standards of Monkey 2. Agree I found the puzzles very easy even on the difficult level - I finished the game in 3 sessions, probably no more than 6 hours - not including replays to try out the different endings and dialogue options etc. - but it was genuinely fun and touching, and made me think - just like the first two games.
Yo B I am deeply appreciative of this video. I have a lot of thoughts that I would struggle to put into words, and a lot of it has already been put into better words by you or by Ron or by the No Clip documentary. I think my favorite line in this video is "how something that isn't real can still matter". I feel like that's truly the heart of a lot of the controversy behind this series, it can really suck to get to the end of the roller coaster and have to get off and admit that wasn't a "real" adventure. I think from the beginning that's what this has been about, but it's also been about storytelling and how you can have an idea but that doesn't mean every thought and decision you have will reflect that, because it's just people telling a story and people change and grow and contradict their own thoughts and beliefs. I hope a lot of people resonate with this video in the way I did. In the same way we resonate with the games in the series, whether or not they're "cannon" or made by Ron. I also strongly recommend the No Clip documentary on the series because it was really cool and impactful to have the entire story told with the people who started it all, glad it did come out before this so you could have that resource.
I'm so glad you liked it! I felt there were a lot of people out there who felt this way but weirdly didn't have a video of their own vocalising those thoughts. Really wanted to correct that, and excellent comments like this are still giving me more to think about, even after having made my own decisions on what I felt it was saying.
I just watched a 44 minute video on a subject I know nothing about and care even less about and throughly enjoyed it. Not only do I enjoy your videos on subjects I care about like Frasier and the Fantastic Four but even subjects I don't care about, and hate when I have to hit the pause button because something else is demanding my attention. And I'm someone that has trouble focusing on videos that are 20 minutes long.
I just like the idea of monkey island being a funny story that Guybrush tells his kids even if they are inconsistent stories and having fun doing so it’s about a park worker who got so sucked into his job and loved every moment of it he got lost into the fictional side
It reminds me a lot of (SPOILER) Orion and The Dark. What starts as a goofy story about learning not to be scared of the dark turns into a father bonding with his daughter through stories, helping her overcome her own fears and creating something deeper and more meaningful together that is carried through to future generations.
I agree with you a lot. I enjoyed Return and I'm very happy it got made. Maybe the ending was a little disappointing in terms of not paying out the in-story stuff yet again, but I also really liked the meta-commentary of it all while viewing the game in a meta sense, and you really do get so many clues throughout the game not to take it at face value. I guess before I played it, I had been hoping for another game that would stick to in-universe and take itself seriously, but after playing Thimbleweed Park, and now this, I get it. This is Ron Gilbert and this is what he does. He's not a corporation trying to make something blandly appealing to the widest audience possible, he's part of a creative team consisting of human beings with creative vision and preferences. They have every right to make this game they way they wanted to make it, as a commentary on the journey of the whole game series, and they ended up making a nostalgic and touching experience that celebrates the act of telling stories and indulging in playful fantasy, constantly recalling to me why I've loved this series since I was a kid playing Secret of Monkey of Island on my dad's Amiga.
Sometimes art expression is going to rub people the wrong way not because of anything intentionally offensive, but just from the creative functional choices made. This game’s response was an example of this and its message was also about that.
I really do wonder about the "Ron sucks at writing endings" people. Do they think he was just like writing the story linearly, got to writing an ending and thought "ok I know I've been building all these threads up but I'm going to throw them all away now" like did we play the same game? The Monkey Island I played was an extremely contrived set of fun, entertaining set pieces with interactivity but always the unbreaking knowledge that everything about what you're experiencing was meticulously planned. They're not immersive narrative experiences, they are, by design, like theme park rides! It's a commentary on and a response to the genre itself and the ending of MI2 was a way to bring that into stark relief. It didn't make the games feel hollow, it's what made them interesting and memorable. What actually always felt really fucking hollow and meaningless to me was the wedding ending of Curse. That locked that game in as just a series of meaningless fun set pieces with absolutely nothing to say, and the set pieces were fun but that's not something that stays with you and encourages you to think deeply about what you've just experienced, look at things differently on replay etc the way the first two games did.
Great video about your journey with this series, Ron's journey, and well pretty much everyone's at this point. You're great at setting out the different perspectives and not excluding people from the story, but instead observing over the bigger picture. Amazing stuff.
I think the _best_ thing about Return was the ending, specifically the last moments. Guybrush, sitting on the bench, appreciating a simple, pure moment. I've grown up playing Monkey Island, like most of us have. Secret was actually my first game (not my first Monkey Island game, my _first_ game). I've not just grown up playing Monkey Island, I've grown up _since_ playing it. I'm 36 now, and that little moment, when Guybrush sits on the park bench, I _never_ would have appreciated that as a kid, not even in my 20s, but in my 30s, that one little moment of peace was the perfect reward for playing the game. He's not racing off to the next adventure, immediately, just taking in that moment. The whole game is very much a "no man can step in the same river twice" kind of story. The start, explicitly everything having changed over the years, the familiar with unfamiliar elements, and the ending, turning out all the lights and leaving the park, showing you see the past differently now to how you saw it in the moment. I think the people who hate the ending are mostly people who haven't yet had this feeling in their own lives, or who might have, and _strongly_ rejected it when they felt it. I don't want to talk down to them and say they don't understand, or they need to grow up, I just want to say to them that maybe they should revisit the game in a few years.
Hi, member of the non-vocal majority here. I wish more people experienced Return To Monkey Island on it's own terms. When I look at the initial hatred at the game's art-style, and the hatred towards it's ending, I can't help but feel these are opinions stemming from people having set-in-stone expectations that were not being met. I admit, when I first played Return To Monkey Island and I got the T-Shirt, I had a chuckle but ultimately I felt let down. There was a period of time before the game was over where I just felt nothing. Then came the scene afterward where adult Guybrush had the option to say that the secret isn't definitive, it changes with time and with who is telling the story. That line - plus the bonus Ron & Dave letter at the end of the scrapbook - got me to rethink my time with Return. I had fun with Return... I engaged with it's puzzles, I laughed lots, I got giddy with excitement when I saw old faces return, and I eventually realised... the destination may not have been great, but the journey REALLY was great. That realisation just devastated me... I was touched soo deeply that I genuinely sobbed - happily - over Return's ending (and I look back on it fondly), because it didn't matter... all that mattered was being able to spend more time in this wonderful fictional universe, engaging with it's world and it's characters, just one more time.
You know, I think this game's meaning hit home a little late but as someone who wants to tell stories, the ending note spoke more to me than pretty much anything else I've ever seen in a game. That for me was the real secret. But that said, I burst out laughing wholeheartedly that the only thing in that chest was a shirt. Also, I was a bit like "What the f***, Guybrush?" becasue of what he did in the pursuit of the secret. It's also kept me excited to tell my own stories, in my own ways. PS: I think I haven't ever quoted a film scene as consistently as that fish people bit in PotC 3.
Superv essay. I loved it as usual. Great timing too. I'm at a loss of words here. I think you did an amazing job and I can tell you put your heart and soul into this video as Ron and Dave and their team did with a return to MI
Great video, I guess a lot of us who appreciated Return had a similar experience to the one you describe, loving the game as a kid, having a hard time letting go because of how much it touched us and influenced our personalities and lives. Return doesn't say "games are meaningless, grow up", it says "The meaning of games (and fiction in general) is what YOU take away." In my ending of choice, while the Monkey Island world is not real, Elaine and his kid ARE. They are the most important people in his life, he shares his hobby with them and they love him and share some of the excitement, despite not being into it AS much. And it seems that Guybrush internalized throughout Return, that this is fine. The Monkey Island games are not real and can't possibly be. But the people who made them, played them, discussed them endlessly and found each other through them, ARE.
I noticed that you included a clip from Toonstruck (1996). That game feels more relevant now than ever with the current state the animation industry is in. 🙂
great video, great analysis and editing! and what i maybe love the most about all the monkey island games (and or the endings) is that it triggeres all kinds of emotions and memories (getting the first one as a kid while on holiday with my dad, all the way to Return, still feeling connection to that ....)
Now... I'm sort of a different mind about this. I do, in fact, love Ron Gilbert's versions of Monkey Island... but I don't disagree with Yahtzee. The ending is HILARIOUS to me. And I don't even discount Gilbert's message here--I understood EXACTLY what he was saying the entire way there. Of COURSE the MEANING of the ending is about how unsatisfying a specific answer would be. Of COURSE his vision for the games was about the facade of piracy, its literal theme park re-interpretation, rather than anything vaguely resembling reality. But the presentation is giving the audience the ending of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. No matter how many times you say "We can't possibly come up with a satisfying conclusion to this" it does not make up for the lack of a satisfying conclusion. It is an appropriate THEMATIC end to the story, but not to the plot or the characters. So you can either take that in humor, the end of a farcical anti-plot where the lack of conclusion is a prank played on the audience and therefore the entire joke (which I do) or you can feel blue-balled by the lack of a conclusion, which a lot of other people do. I get it. The thematic throughline that gave vision to the work is important. But if it WASN'T meant as a screw-you to the audience, then that belies a misunderstanding of story presentation--which I feel like a lot of avant garde art misunderstands as well. Stories are not their theme. They're an experience. And the experience that Ron Gilbert has crafted is to blue-ball the audience. *Which is funny.* And probably infuriating.
People keep saying there was no conclusion to the character arcs or that there were dangling threads- but the arc for everyone is the discovery of the secret. Everyone who chases it becomes inanimate but Guybrush gains control of his narrative. Don't know what bizarre intrigues people have told themselves were set up outside that because the entire thing pays it off perfectly, and I left incredibly damn satisfied.
Yeah, was also satisfied with the story and thematic wrapup. I didn't need another LeChuck boss fight, but I admit I would've loved another surrealist crescendo of anachronistic clues as we breach the reality chrysalis ala MI2. But the tonal smash cut as you enter the Melee Island alley is also very effective and probably a better fit for this story.
I'd been thinking for a while now that this series has to be one of the biggest examples (and champions) of "the journey matters more than the destination" that I can think of. Does the ending (or the lack thereof) really make the joy you had getting there "false"? Nobody goes to a theme park ride for the ending. You go into the ride, and the game, and any media, knowing it's fake yet you enjoy yourself anyway and get invested in the stories being told. These stories, these experiences, they touch you and change you, and *that's* what makes them truly real. The person who exits the ride is a different person than the one who entered. And I think that is much more important and beautiful than any "True Secret of Monkey Island" could ever be. Having to get that message across while also not discounting any future or past stories told in this series must've been an incredibly hard task for the devs, and I can't respect them enough for it. Thank you for putting my thoughts into words much better than I ever could!
VINDICATION!!!! And brilliantly put as well. I adore the highly subjective elements of return, especially the ending. In a way, despite causing so much division, it brings everyone together in their love for Monkey Island. Their Monkey Island. Highlighting that in essence, a story, regardless of interpretation, has the power to entertain, provoke, and most importantly, inspire.
I really, *really* hate that take Yahtzee had over the ending (the whole "not caring" wording hitting a bit of a raw nerve with me), but I heavily respect the decision to at least see where he was coming from even if you disagreed too. The effort to bring up previous context is commendable.
Well done. Excellent and well said B-Mask. I've been a bit pensive about the end of Return, having said that the last message was a glimmer of hope that more adventures lie ahead but now, now I also understand much better the whole game and the games that came before. Thanks, sometimes you need a guy on the internet to give his point of view, a little explanation and yes video about the matter. To realize some things. I'm grateful, keep it up (as in I appreciate your vidoes) and yes that's a nice thought. Wow, I wonder what comes next myself.
Personally even when I got to the end I was telling my friends "It is a good game that has An Ending." I got what it was going for but I just wasn't into it, was never that deep into adventure games or Monkey Island admittedly. I never joined any of the hate mobs on the game and I always thought that was the worst of fandom as a force, that overpossesiveness for lack of a better term. But even when I quietly preordered and played it for myself I was underwhelmed by the conclusion made by the metanarrative. But your retrospective and framing of it does make me feel more affectionately whelmed by the ending. May as well bring some cursed, only somewhat-related topics up too. The feelings I had while playing Return and the way you put a lot of what I felt into words made it feel clear to me. Return to Monkey Island achieved what Homestuck''s Epilogues had tried to pull off (in its much bleaker manner), and without a genuine undercurrent of worry that the writers might honestly not like the series or the people still engaging with it. Especially with the "Canon belongs to YOU" angle. If some Monkey Island fans felt that a nice little game like Return was mean or calling them out with THAT ending, with the series being what it was, they might genuinely have a stroke from what a hypothetical "combative" author could do. The fact Return garnered a very similar form of negative response from a contingent of fans, up to and including rejection of the meta-narrative from the original work out of frustration, is really interesting to me. Even when the story does offer sticking with things being exactly as they appear as an option, people got mad. Do modern fandoms in general just end up having this kind of reaction to being told the specifics of what is or isn't "canon" in a long story does not really matter, and the work is whatever you want/need of it? I wonder if Homestuck Beyond Canon will end up in a similar place to Return to Monkey Island, both in terms the story feel and negative fan reaction, now that it's back to being updated and sticking with the myriad of Events that came before. Because as I keep up with the updates and reflect on a lot of my still-negative feelings for many of those Events, and more positive thoughts on how the team is progressing them, I always did kind of like the overall meta message. Especially so now with Andrew Hussie staying more in the background, giving commercial licenses to big HS fan projects like Vast Error so they can make more of a living from their work. That makes it feel like the door is open not just in fan imagination, but in real life with real progress being made to open it up a bit. But I dunno I'm rambling now.
I don't have any horse in the race for Homestuck, or Monkey Island. I'm not really familiar with them(besides watching B-Mask's videos), and don't know how I would feel about the different games and reveals, so don't take this as a commentary about either. But in a general sense: Some people just can't stand in-your face meta elements. The context matters, obviously. Personally I never minded a bit of fun with Fission Mailed, tutorial prompts talking about buttons or game mechanics, or Psycho Mantis reading your memory card in the Metal Gear Solid series. But on the other hand, I had zero patience for the in-game excuses in MGS2 for repeating elements, and in my opinion, doing them way worse than in MGS1. The actual theme of the game, the message, is quite positive. But what I _wanted_ was an exciting and funny spy story full of engaging characters which used the familiar framework I liked but took it to somewhere new. What I didn't want was some meta, knowing continuation that focused a lot on the player and didn't provide a meaningful change to the setting or resolve its plotline, and failed to have characters that at all endeared themselves to me. That feeling might be familiar to some Monkey Island or Homestuck fans. Kojima made Metal Gear Solid 3 afterwards, so there's no hard feelings from me, that's exactly the game I wanted. But my point is, for some players it doesn't matter at all what sort of point you're making by going meta, 'cause you already lost them by going in that direction to start with. What I wanted wasn't for the story of MGS2 for example to provide a more flattering portrait of the player. What I wanted was for the story to in no way acknowledge that I, or some larger "fandom" I guess I'm a part of, even exist to start with. It's not something I think is interesting or fun as anything more than a little joke. Even if what the message is saying is entirely validating, like, "whatever you think is best is what's right", it's frustrating to people with this mindset, 'cause what I think is best is _not_ doing this meta stuff. To be clear, this doesn't mean I inherently reject the message being presented(it depends, obviously), or that I don't get them(though admittedly, this also depends). I just think a meta way of presenting those ideas is annoying. For example, I already know that whatever piece of fiction is a piece of fiction, and can be engaging and worthwhile even though it is not real. If the characters in a game interrupt the story tell me that, I'd sit there thinking, yeah? So what? That's obvious, isn't it? Can we get on with the piece of fiction I was engaged with again? To me, pointing out the artificiality or stepping outside the story in that way to tell me something usually feels tedious, especially when it's something super obvious you're laying out. I don't think it's too hard to grapple with, I think it's boring, and any additional points the dev wants to make isn't coming across in a favorable light. Even though the writer is talking more directly to me, it makes me actively disinterested in what they have to say. I can only speak for myself, and I've never sent any hate to Kojima or anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if other people dislike this sort of stuff for similar reasons. The fact that it's meta at all is way more damning than anything being said.
@@Kriss_ch. I will say I think MGS2 is kind of a masterpiece. If we always gave in to what players wanted I don't think we'd have half of the most interesting games out there- or that I would ask questions of myself and where I stand as a human being outside of the game itself, which is an inherently powerful thing to achieve. People who complain ironically have more than their share of what they prefer to fall back on- so I will always argue the case for the opposite with those who feel the opposite given the chance.
@@BMaskThat's fair. Even if I get frustrated sometimes and can't quite change my own perspective on those things, I can at least appreciate that for other people they get meaning like that out of it. And I think the way you ask yourself those questions and the meaning you take from it, is at least part of what keeps me coming back to watch your videos. If I was making an MGS2 video, it'd just be a takedown of parts that annoyed me. But if it was you, you would really take those ideas they presented and run with them to the conclusion you came to, and it would be much more interesting as a result. In that roundabout way, I'm also getting enjoyment out of MGS2 through the medium of others. To bring it back to this video, Yahtzee's review is fun and all(and I agree he's got plenty of good points), but I definitely get the sense you're the one seeing the bigger picture, and this video will stick with me a lot longer than his did.
Monkey Island was one of the first games I ever "played", sitting on my mother's lap and suggesting what she should click on. The ending of 2 confused me, and was a little scary, even. I was glad when Curse just ignored it and got back to the wacky pirate adventures. That's the one I ended up replaying multiple times as I grew up, and it's my favorite. Escape was fun enough, but I only played a few of the Tales games because it felt like whoever was writing them didn't have the same wit or charm. I saw this new game was coming out, and honestly I was one of the people turned off by the artstyle. Not enough to leave hateful comments, just enough to go "eh, not for me." I honestly didn't know there was a whole behind-the-scenes thing about the original creator leaving the series, with fans clamoring for answers, and fighting about the "truth". But watching this video, it makes a lot of sense! I'm glad I watched this, because I know if I just played Return, I would also be pissed at the ending. But now that I know the reasons behind it, and the themes he was trying to communicate, I can respect it. And I'm glad to Ron, that he was able to return and do what he wanted here. I still think I'd just prefer a wacky pirate adventure, and don't need the meta-narrative baggage. I like the characters and the running jokes. But I'm also okay with them existing in this hazy mythos, where each game can pick and choose what it wants to consider "canon". and I don't think there should be an in-universe reveal of what the Secret Of Monkey Island is, because it's funnier to always remain a mystery. Good video, thanks for making it! I hope they bring back the vegetarian cannibals in the next one.
Even if the ending had played it straight with "Yeah, it was all just the theme park ride." It'll always confuse/sadden me to see how vitriolic a lot of people get at fiction that reveals in the story, that it is indeed fiction. From the examples I can think of in my head of when this has happened in stuff I've personally experienced, it's not out saying "You're dumb and bad for being invested in this story and these characters." Their point is almost always about how wonderful and powerful fiction is. How it's genuinely cool that you can care about words on a page, or pixels on a screen. That's a thing of beauty, whether you see behind the curtain or not, This should make a lot of sense to everyone especially when you consider just how much time, money, and effort are spent into even the "ugliest" and "simple" of games and stories, most people don't do all that work and stress without caring at least a little bit ya know? They're not maliciously rubbing their hands together thinking about telling all the gamers to "go outside and take a shower" or whatever, they're sharing the pure passion of crafting fiction and its effect on reality/others. And that's really cool to me, imo.
While I still haven’t played Return to Monkey Island, watching this video makes me want to go and play through, not just return, but the whole Monkey Island franchise. Well done B-Mask.
It takes strenght to make a return to the ones past, it takes greater strenght to respect contribution of others to it. It is honestly fascinating how in the todays climate it is kind of given that "original author" will make things right or attempt to revitalize any series by just dropping everything by others, so it fascinating how Ron Gilbert seems to grow out of it and embrace the meta narrative of meta narrative, which is honestly is way more compelling than original twist could have done in the modern years. His Monkey Island games do manage to tie meta commentary with character work way better than Thimbleweed Park, which honestly felt gimmicky and a plot device, well foreshadowed one, it was never the issue, but lacking in depth of the commentary on stories that Monkey Island games manage to get out of from each of their twists.
I think the thing you forgot to consider in your original video,is that when it comes to longer content on youtube, most arent actually 'WATCHING' the video, we're 'LISTENING' to the video. Its not that people arent paying attention or cant put 2 & 2 together, life is just busy with work, school, chores, kids etc. So we cant put aside 40mins-hour up to watch a video. We have to put it on in the background while we make our commute, or not have the time to watch at all.
I love that this game embraces both sides, Monkey Island is one of the few series in my opinion that uses the meta narrative effectively in the form of "it was all a theme park." This game doesn't invalidate either outlook, honestly it being framed as a theme park is brilliant. Because now we have precedent to be allowed to have either fact be true going forwards. We can accept the next game as being just another chapter in Guybrush's adventures, or that it's a new ride/expansion at the park. Even if the next game doesn't have a physical multiple ending option for us to choose, it can still be viewed as such. And that's ok. To me, the TRUE Secret of Monkey Island is the pure fact that it's REAL (in a sense). Whether you're on the ride or behind the scenes and work on/see the gears and scaffolding, it doesn't invalidate that it's THERE, you can GO there, it EXISTS. That's honestly the fact of all fiction really, we all know it's technically not real, it's all made up by other people, but they're still stories to get invested in because they're fantastical worlds with likable characters and settings. I think that's why people get nervous at the idea of "it was all faked" is because a lot of the time, the ending feels tacked on, because it isn't baked into the core DNA from the get-go. Stuff like The Matrix, you KNOW it's a fictional world, the people even IN the fiction know it's not physical, but it's something they can still interact with and manipulate, and it's something you can get lost and ensnared in. For the world of The Matrix, it's a fiction people are forced into without their consent and used like they're just objects to be milked for energy (the dark side of capitalism), but with something like the Monkey Island games, it's an invitation. You can come and go as you please, and can come back as many times as you want to. You can accept the fiction around you and immerse yourself in the world and its story, or you can see it for what it is as a theme park and just get a tasty snack while you marvel at how much effort they put into making it. But either way, you can still have a fun time.
When my friend got the first Monkey Island game on his Commodore Amiga, we couldn't get enough of it. The jokes were hilarious, the puzzles often left you wanting to shout out "NOW YOU'RE JUST TAKING THE PISS". But none of that mattered, its cute animation and seriously addictive story made it our favourite game. (After the 89 Batman anyway.)
Wonderful video! Something entirely not important to but inaccurate is that you would not have smelled chlorine on pirates at disney, be because Disney uses Bromine instead of chlorine!
Thank you so much for this. I loved this game so much, I can't understand how people can say it showed that the developers didn't care - to me it demonstrated the exact opposite. It felt like such a love letter to Monkey Island and its characters, and all that they meant to so many people.
i mean, i do see that they care. it's just that Ron Gilbert completely underplayed the ending for me. at least it's not COMPLETELY a "everything was just a dream~" ending. but that's only a small consolation. it felt like they tried to make an elaborate joke, at the completely wrong time.
Never played the games, so I'm on the outside looking in. I'm not a fan of the ending, but I want to give it this credit: Dan could've easily written the bench ending as the player "retreating into their fantasy", but chose not to do so. Instead effectively asking you "Okay, you didn't like my ending, how do you think it ended?" It's polite and respects the player.
I have no nostalgia. Not because I don’t care about anything but because despite the fact that I’m over twenty am very much a child at heart. I’ve never played this game. I love this ending of your own chose. Better than a bad or stupid ending that’s for sure.
I am glad you mentioned the Sea of Thieves: Legend of Monkey Island crossover as I watched your first Monkey Island video before the crossover was announced. Your video gave me some perspective on the series and made me play the first three Monkey Island games before playing the crossover. I would love to hear your thoughts on the crossover even if you haven't played it, I personally loved it and the way it used characters from Sea of Thieves and Monkey Island to tell it's story. (Plus it gave me more Lechuck, which is always great).
B-Mask, have you played The Cave? This game is another piece of the Ron's Monkey puzzle. There are 9 characters (the Time Traveler, the Scientist, the Hilly-Billy, etc.) who explore a mysterious Cave, looking for something dear to them. And to get that object of desire, they are ready to do the nastiest things, including killing other people. Guybrush could very well be a characters from "The Cave" (The Pirate), with the Secret as its object of desire (or Big Whoop in Monkey 2). You can also draw some parallels to the Thimbleweed characters... to a certaint extent (that would be spoiler territory for The Cave!). In general, Ron's games have that feeling of visiting places that may not be real, of a collapsing reality. This was missing in MI3 and MI4, and in my opinion those games -- while good, especially MI3 -- betrayed a bit of the essence of Monkey Island. Tales had a different approach, as Grossman also says in the letter. The core of the game is the trust between the characters and how it evolved. It's true that Return opens the door to many more stories, but in my opinion telling a new traditional MI... doesn't make much sense now. You can do it, but it doesn't make sense. IMHO, they should change narrator and point of view get Morgan back, and try graphic adventures based on building trust and empathy. That would be something Guybrush didn't do, and couldn't do (ofc, Guybrush could still be a key NPC).
B-Mask, your videos are awesome. I have an enormous amount of respect for you, even if I don’t agree with you, never have you come across as somebody who demands the audience agree with you, just that they understand why you feel the way you do. Keep it up.
I'm trying to think what the central gripe is with metanarratives, when ultimately, all it does is join you as you walk out of the movie theater. like, that feeling of leaving with your friends and talking about the thing you just saw, it wants to participate in that part of your viewing experience as well. I can understand leaving that to the audience, leaving them to their conversation. Maybe it can feel more pure that way, to maintain the fourth wall. Like in the same way, you may not want to know the personal life of your boss. That divide between you and them is a solid boundary you can rely on. The issue is that art tends to resist boundaries, the same way if you work long enough with your boss, the parts where they're a person who does things after work eventually bubble up. It's... intimacy. Maybe not sexual or even romantic, but just the closeness humans can have with eachother when they see eachother as humans. It also means that we need to be more openhanded with our reliance on boundaries like the fourth wall. If someone says something you don't expect, you know it'd be rude to just shut down the whole conversation over it. that much (hopefully) is a given. to push it further, maybe, we could rather be excited when we see something we didn't expect, respond with curiosity. Worst case scenario, it'll give us a more legitimate foundation to lay our gripes on, at least.
Sea of thieves did a good job making a love letter to Monkey island with the story quests the Legend of monkey island it’s a continuation from the curse of monkey island
You took a break because I was correct about Yahtzee quitting the escapist? Was literally all I meant, some of you fellas are way too caught up on semantics
@BMask what I mean is I was unaware that it had ended and it made me extremely sad. I was then relieved when I figured out it was just moved and had a new name
I think those people who were so vitriolic toward you and Ron Gilbert are simply, tragically uncurious. It's sad and I question why they care so much about Monkey Island when they clearly can't think very deeply about anything.
I'm going to try and make this as short as possible. I went to disney last week and the first ride at magic kingdom I did was pirates. First time in 10 years since the last time I rode it and had a good time just like the first time I rode it, much like my experience with the first monkey island. Anyway I'm of the camp that I didn't need monkey island to be this perfect pirate world with no modern things like sodas and t shirts. I just want it to be the world i thought it always was. "What if a world of pirates ran like a theme park?" But instead it's a real theme park that is also just a story being told that also knows it's in a video game.
Man reading through these comments I want to reply to every single one. Instead I'll just leave this extra comment saying that you (and Ron Gilbert) have fostered some really cool communities of some really cool people. I also just have to add how I realized how perfect it is that the art style started as a piece of fanart. I personally was into the style from the beginning but I feel like it's also kind of intentional how it fundamentally is saying that MI is what we make of it, and if anyone doesn't like it they should make it themselves in their own way.
There is a strange delight two see one RU-vidr I follow mention the other (even if they disagree). Zero Punctuation (these days going as "Fully Ramblomatic", an independent version of ZP) often bashes beloved franchises, so I was seeking different take on this game's ending.
Yeah, his RMI review is the most headass take I can remember seeing from him in 16 years of watching lol. It's fine to hate the game or its story for a lot of reasons, but the idea that Gilbert and Grossman hate these characters and hate you for caring about them is objectively ridiculous
I appreciate this but I think what bothered me when I played was that I had never been interested in the true secret of monkey island so it felt like I was being characterised as someone I wasn’t in a cynical ‘how dare you want to know the secret’ sort of way. But I think I also made the mistake of playing on easy mode so the puzzles were too easy for me and then I only realised I’d made that mistake at the end so it all felt like a let down.
@@potatopie8833 even if you aren’t interested generally, the concept is the entire premise of this particular story- and you either project the experience into or through Guybrish regardless of the wider reading. You could only be let down in that sense if you were expecting a story that simply wasn’t being told by the game from the start, and I’m not sure I buy that.
@@BMask yes and I think that’s why I appreciate this video because it has recontextualised the game for me. I mentioned the puzzles on easy mode because when I finished the game I didn’t end up playing the game as I felt it was intended and given that the whole game is the gameplay in a way, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees because I was constantly waiting for the puzzles to remind me of the old ones.
I remember reading those comments on the last video and was taken aback by the negativity. I started playing the first two games because of your video and enjoyed the experience. I am definitely tainted by your video into believing the park ending but whatever I guess. I can at the very least say I enjoyed the game more with that context.
The style of this game may not be for everyone, and the steps it requires may be unknown to a layman, but it's an incredible amount of work, a lot more than previous styles would with today's technology. It may feel different but it's not simple at all, and the exact opposite of lazy
