ToMI: Rise of the Pirate God Review

Here Lies Guybrush Threepwood. Mitey Pirate.

So says the grave of the valiant hero of Monkey Island. And I thought Telltale put the world of their Tales of Monkey Island series in disarray in Chapter 4, but no, Chapter 5 clearly begins even more hopeless. If you’ve followed the series up until now, you’ve witnessed the shocking death of Guybrush at the hands of LeChuck, who returned to his wholly evil, demonized state.

Heroes die, but that’ll never stop them.

The opening cutscene for Rise of the Pirate God unfolds with quite an impressive presentation that feels much cooler than the tarot-powered recaps from the Voodoo Lady in previous chapters. Now, the Lady’s cards lay scattered. The camera pans ominously over them as dialogue from the end of the last chapter replays to remind us of our hero’s fall. Finally, the solemn grave of Threepwood appears and punctuates an effective intro that sets a captivating, yet gloomy tone.

But wait, in a truly brilliant use of the point-and-click adventure genre, the game makes you, the player, the agent of hope. Your shock wears off and you realize you’re in control. When Guybrush’s ghostly fist punches through the earth triumphantly, the moment makes a satisfying start for the pirate adventure. Without any hint from the game itself, your action frees Guybrush; such an intro flows  naturally and its significance is thus subtle and easily overlooked, but the way the entire rest of the narrative moves because of your small, yet important initiative still feels gratifying and cool nonetheless.

The fact that we can see through to Guybrush’s bones probably isn’t normal fare for humans, so he’s still very much dead. At least now he can walk around and enjoy the sights of the mesmerizing Crossroads of the underworld. As I said about the last chapter, Telltale’s graphics engine might use low-resolution textures, but it depicts dark, glowing environments quite well. For a place with as much eternal hopelessness as purgatory, Guybrush’s afterlife at least looks pretty.

Even in death, it’s always a good time for a threesome.

There’s no time for forever with Guybrush, however, as he must find a way back to the land of the living to end the havoc of LeChuck. While Telltale doesn’t weave a tale as epic as Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, Guybrush’s escape from the afterlife is yet a fulfilling story of great puzzles and humorous dialogue.

The Crossroads makes a great setting for puzzles that hearken fondly back to The Secret of Monkey Island’s pirate challenges of sword mastery, thievery, and treasure huntery. I’m starting to think I like Guybrush better dead than alive, for his death means other dead characters, like pirate assassin Morgan LeFlay, can make a welcome return to the story, and it brings Telltale’s highly enjoyable twist on Monkey Island’s insult sword fighting. Chapter 5’s three-way fight makes quite a salient story element: the satisfying challenge comes through as you have Guybrush make proper responses that both insult one opponent and also cheer Morgan up from her post-death depression.

Guybrush’s exploits in The Crossroads eventually brings him back down to Earth in the latter half of the narrative. Story-wise, I find Guybrush’s situation fascinating as he becomes a curiously compelling reflection of his dark nemesis when he ventures out in different undead forms. Even better, his predicament illustrates creative, multi-faceted puzzle design involving both ghost and zombie Guybrush. On the other hand, the tedious switching back and forth between forms marks the one chunk of rotting flesh in the otherwise pristine body of Chapter 5. It felt most tiresome in the Club 41 bar scene where switching between forms to progress in a single puzzle involved long treks between Crossroads areas.

Guybrush is a zombie and he thinks talking birds are weird?

Inevitably, the experience culminates in a thrilling battle against LeChuck, which marks a fantastic return to form for this Monkey Island title. I mean really, as cool as it is for Telltale to experiment with the series, it can’t be Monkey Island without LeChuck as the main villain. If Chapter 4 marked Telltale’s ability to author a great Monkey Island tale so unlike the others, Chapter 5 shows the developer can apply the same effort using the traditional Monkey Island formula.

Back when the first Tales episode released, I enjoyed the new developers’ take, but I thought they had a long way to go to make the writing and puzzles as humorous and fulfilling as those in some of the greater Monkey Island games. I certainly had my doubts in Chapter 3, but Chapters 2, 4, and 5 show just how well Telltale has done. While Tales of Monkey Island doesn’t surpass the best of the LucasArts Monkey Island games, it rivals them in overall quality and definitely makes a worthwhile entry in the series.