Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge Special Edition

Despite being bigger in scope and more ambitious (ambiguous?) with its storytelling, I must confess that “Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge” didn’t deliver the same magic as its predecessor. It goes along the same lines and is objectively more fleshed out in most aspects, yet it felt slightly stale for my taste. Maybe bringing LeChuck back wasn’t a great idea after all? Don’t get me wrong, it was a lot of fun – but I have a feeling that everyone’s favorite Monkey Island is always going to be the first they played (unless it was the fourth one, obviously).

Also, I think they went a little too overboard with the illogical puzzles. The game lets you travel around three islands for a much less linear approach, meaning you have more locations and items to keep in mind and deal with simultaneously. If you forget about one detail or an interactive point of the map, you’re pretty much funked. One puzzle that starts on one island might end on another, with at least four or five intermediate steps to be taken going back and forth between different locations. I remember getting stuck for months trying to find all the map pieces, and the payoff was quite underwhelming. The ending was one of the most controversial of its time, and even though it fits the overall tone of the series, it felt like it came out of nowhere with no connection to what we had seen up to that point.

The special edition definitely has better graphics than “The Secret of Monkey Island”, but the animations are still pretty bad. It almost looks like a browser game. The audio commentary was interesting, though.