Solving puzzles is as satisfying a dopamine hit as ever, and the 2022 iteration of Monkey Island has learned to avoid the infamously obtuse “adventure game logic” that so often made people bounce off of the originals back in the day. Return serves up a hearty helping of them here, always including a thread of comedy running through the traditional question of which item you should use on what person or location at every turn. Happily PuzzledĪn excellent story and memorable characters are just one half of the classic puzzle game equation: the other is a series of puzzles that are both challenging and satisfying to solve, serving as the bedrock of any great point-and-click adventure. Shout-out to Locke Smith, who you’ll visit on several occasions and who is well aware that her very name is a pun. In the process, it revisits familiar locations like Melee Island and of course Monkey Island, and takes us to new ones just as it also brings back familiar faces (like Murray!) and introduces a host of new characters. Our decades of wondering if Gilbert will ever reveal the real Secret of Monkey Island is mirrored in the game, with even Guybrush’s wife Elaine musing about why our hero continues to cling to it. In fact, Return obsesses over the foundational mystery far more than any of its predecessors did, and it’s played up to repeated comedic effect. Its overarching story involves – what else – the search for the Secret of Monkey Island, and that quest revolves around Guybrush’s never-ending rivalry with the zombie-pirate villain LeChuck, and their love-not-really-a-triangle with Elaine Marley. That showed me a new side of Monkey Island: its big heart, which becomes quickly evident in the playable Prelude that I won’t spoil here, and keeps getting called back to throughout.
And what of the plot? Return is set just after Monkey Island 2, but it’s framed in a clever way I didn’t expect.
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