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Tales of Monkey Island hated more than Escape??

posted by Ash735 on - last edited - Viewed by 367 users

With an article over at Kotaku asking about the chances of a new Monkey Island game done by the original creators (apparently Dave doesn't count), there are actually a lot of comments that seem to show a lot of hatred to TellTale Games and Tales of Monkey Island from the community, which I'm actually surprised at:

[quote]I never got into the Telltale installments of "Monkey Island", since the visuals are really.. well, they are not that good (to say it in a polite way) and I read much about the games being too easy.[/quote]
[quote]Yeah i bought the Telltale Monkey Island series on the principle of supporting Monkey Island, played about halfway through the first installment and haven't been back to it. The sub par visual quality is what really let that "Tales" series down and i just couldn't get past it.

I also bought the first MI:SE on principle of supporting more MI games in the future, I tried playing the updated version and hated it, the animation (i know they wanted to keep it the same as the old version but it just didn't work) and the character design were some of the worst I've witnessed considering the wealth of original source material to draw from. MI2:SE is a marked improvement but still, I'd love to see a fresh new adventure game from the original creators, Monkey Island or not.[/quote]
[quote]I concur. The game is good though the graphics aren't, imo. It just seems genetic esp how most of the characters use the same polygon base.

It isn't just MI, but also Sam and Max.[/quote]
[quote]Even though i bought it and tried playing it, in my mind I'd just rather forget they put that 'Tales' series out.[/quote]
[quote]Yeah, but honestly for me it did not feel like an authentic Monkey Island game play and visually wise,[/quote]
[quote]What about TellTale?

[quote]The people thinking that the Tales of Monkey Island' quality is remotely close to the two originals are strange.[/quote]
[quote]I'd love to see them do a new Monkey Island full length game. No offense to the episodic one, it was good, but it did not compare to the originals (and the best IMHO was the 3rd game, Curse of Monkey Island).[/quote]

63 Comments - Linear Discussion: Classic Style
  • I like all the games about equally but I really don't care for all the damn map puzzles at the beginning of Tales...I started replaying it recently and stopped because I reached my mapium potential...

    As for the graphics I thought they were great, better yet the game actually ran on my computer. I'm a happy costumer who ran the game on low quality and played it through. You can't really expect much better from an episodic game either.

    There's underlying genius behind the games graphics that critics and Joe and Sally may not realize, but they're not game designers most likely...

    Nor am I , but seriously the game was great for an episodic adventure, even if they reused graphics, they clearly had to cut corners and have experienced Lucas Arts staff collaborate with experienced TTG staff to make this project even possible.

    Realistically the only reason some people hate Escape is because of it's graphics, it's controls. Well that's how I see it. As for graphics, I grow up with video games, I've seen far worse, in that time everything was going "real" 3D and it may not have been the top of the list but it will never reach the bottom. Either way the "graphics" give me a surreal experience that the 2D graphics didn't offer in the same way.

    The controls although difficult at first are rather easy to understand and comprehend. I never really cared that they were different. It just made puzzles more interesting and innovative to me, it was a unique experience again adding to the experience.

    The story, I forgive a few plot holes, and stupid ideas, after all I thought the game was funny and it did make me laugh. I had fun playing it. I don't have any real rules for the story, I love the games but they're not sacred to me...

  • Well, I can't say that I particularly like Tales's graphic style either. After giving the game a chance I found that the great animations made up for this, though. Yet I'd prefer a style a little less cartoonish for a next game.

  • This thread assumes both games are "hated" in the first place. :P

  • It's the first time ever I've seen people nitpicking over something without even completing the 10% of the entire material.

  • The quality of graphics are fairly meaningless to me. I think one of the big faults of the game industry nowadays is how much importance is put on how good the graphics are. As long as the game has great gameplay and a quality storyline, I'm hooked.

    And really, I don't think Telltale's graphics are bad in the least. They may not be photorealistic, but they have a nice style to theme.

    @Joop said: My friend just kept longing for the big bombastic big boxed adventure games of 10-15 years ago.
    He didn't like the way the episodic formula worked with Monkey Island, and that's why he didn't give it a chance.

    I've heard the complaints about the episodic formula before, and I've never understood it. If you don't like episodes, just wait until they all come out and play them back to back. Same difference pretty much. It's not like there are huge gaps in the timeline between episodes.

  • I still can't wrap my head around how somebody can say the graphics from Tales are bad while proclaiming their love for Monkey Island 1 and 2. So it's obvious that they are capable of looking past graphics and judging the game underneath, they just refuse to do it for Tales for some reason.

    I love Tales, personally, I actually rank it higher than the first game when it comes to enjoyment. Sure it wasn't perfect. I agree that the map puzzles got a little tiring (but then, almost every MI game has at least one annoying maze/map puzzle). I was also turned off by the overuse of the same character models, but they got better and better about that as the series went on. It's a shame so many people were willing to cast judgment after playing such a small amount of the game.

  • I think the graphics in Tales are fine, the writing is nice, and the controls are passable. Overall, I think it's a good game that stands up well next to the other games of the series.

    However, one of the interesting aspects of episodic gaming is that the games improve over the course of the series, which is good, but the flipside is also true: the worst parts, generally, are at the beginning. The part of the game where people get their first impression is also, sadly, where the bulk of the flaws are, and I don't think people are being unfair when they point out that Tales makes a pretty terrible first impression. For instance, I understand what they were going for with the generic repeated pirates, but to a new player, or somebody who remembers the series fondly and is suspicious of whether Telltale was qualified to make this sequel, it does come across as a sign of incredible laziness. Even though the move wasn't driven by laziness, it sends a very clear, lazy message. They changed this later, but for a lot of players, the damage was already done.

    The only solution I can think of to this would be for Telltale to make a free, short, Episode Zero type of demo for each series, at least a couple of months before the first real episode, in order to gain important feedback regarding the direction that they're going. This allows them to incorporate that feedback, along with whatever other improvements they make, into the first proper episode, so when the game launches it can make a better first impression.

  • What do people want? Photorealistic graphics in a Monkey Island game? What's the point in that?? Oh yeah, and they probably want a dark and gritty Guybrush that has internal confilcts when he has to steal something from someone. I don't want "The Dark Brush", thank you.

    But it's true that if people don't like something from the start, they won't continue or try it again. I guess that people on the internet are too busy doing other things...
    I had a similar problem with the first chapter. I played it all the way through, I laughed, I enjoyed it, I was smiling from ear to ear while playing it, but for some reason I had no rush in playing the next chapter. But when Chapter 2 came, I got hooked. I know that a lot of people dislike this episode, but I love it. Of course, as it went along, it got better. And that's exactly what I loved about the concept of episodic games. I couldn't wait to see what happened next!
    So imagine if ToMI would have been one single game, released in one date altogether. Would the twists have had the same effect? Would people connected with the characters as much as they did? Probably not, because the story only works with the episodic format. It's like a TV show: You can't wait to see the next episode and see what happens next.

    Just my complicated two cents.

  • I think Tales would have worked great as a single standalone game. It has Telltale's best story and every episode flows well together. Every Monkey Island game is broken down into very distinct parts anyway, Tales would fit right in.

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