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If I can only play ONE Monkey Island game...

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Baryn

Banned
Dammit, I don't have time for all these games! >( But I've never delved into this classic series. :(

Which is the best and most important Monkey Island of them all?
 
Baryn said:
Dammit, I don't have time for all these games! >( But I've never delved into this classic series. :(

Which is the best and most important Monkey Island of them all?
Click to expand...

That's the kind of thing you just don't ask. Play all of them in order (even because there are some awesome references you'll miss out if you don't play them).

My fave of them all is MI2, though.
 
Should: The Secret Of Monkey Island (you need to play the games in order, story-wise)
Best Gameplay: LeChuck's Revenge
Funniest: The Curse Of Monkey Island
Most 3-Dimensional: Escape From Monkey Island
 
My favorite is easily Monkey Island 2. One is certainly fantastic too, though.

Three never did much for me, so I never played four... but I haven't really seen anyone rave about four.
 
You should really play the first three in order. They're not that long (depending on how quick you can solve the puzzles) and all three have great moments that are considered pinnacles of adventure gaming. It will probably take you less than 30 hours to beat all three. Play the fourth one only if you're really bored, as it feels really disconnected from the rest of the series.
 
The third one is the best of the series, but yeah, they're short games, so just play all of them. Well, the first three. The fourth one isn't very good. Lucasarts adventure games were mostly amazingly good games, but Escape from Monkey Island... not even close. Compared to most of the rest of the games in the great Lucasarts adventure game lineup, EfMI looks pretty bad... merely average, in comparison to greatness. Oh well, at least the first three were great...

Oh, and if you (or anyone else) do really want to play EfMI, DEFINITELY play it after the other three. Seemingly half or more of the jokes in the game are in-jokes or references to stuff from the first three games. The first three games had occasional references, but nothing like what they did in the last game... each of the first three stand up well on their own as well as fitting within a continuing story.
 
If you really don't have that much time, play them all, and if you don't have the patience and get stuck, don't hesitate to grab a guide. Play it the way it was meant to, but don't stop just because you have the lack of time to play them all. They all should be visited imo, good times all around.
 
I've you've never played a monkey island game play the Curse of Monkey Island (mi 3) first as it's the most accessible and has voices etc. Great game.
 
Play Monkey Island I first. It's a classic game that sets up the series and you'd miss out on too many inside jokes (one of the things that makes MI so great) if you started off with II or III.
 
Yup. Must agree with this. 2 was one of the best ones. But you have to play Monkey Island 1. I just managed to find some old copies and played through MI1/2. Good times. Really good times.
 
Curse of Monkey Island is the least dated of the four ('Escape' actually looks worse because of the crappy 3D), and is also the best IMO.
 
Definitely Curse of.. if you don't plan on touching the first two. I haven't even completed the first but i've gotten through Curse twice, great adventure.
 
As said before, Monkey Island 2 is hands down the best game in the series, but you won't get the most out of it without playing the first game first. That also happens to be the second best in the series, so go for those two.

The series never reached the same heights again.
 
nothings stopping you from playing the first three, so play them all!

but to be honest, I played MI2 before MI1 and I didn't feel I was too out of the loop, so if you must, start with MI2. In my opinion, 3 is every bit as good as 2, I'd suggest at least playing 3 as well
 
If you can only play one, I would recommend Curse. It's ageless and a very polished game. That being said, the first game is right behind in quality (it's probably the funnier game).
 
Okay, I'm going to go with the general concensus and play the first one. If it really is very short, I guess I'll see if I can get through more over the weekend!

Thanks everyone!
 
It's hard to say because the first two are better than the third. But the third has beautiful art. Just don't limit yourself and play them all.
 
Second one is probably my favourite (switches between the first and the second regularly), but Curse of Monkey Island is probably the most accessible.

Though I would strongly recommend playing the first one. If you don't happen to have horrible taste, you'll want to play the sequels as well. Secret of Monkey Island also has a great overall mood. Just magical.
 
Monkey Island 2 is great, but I don't think it is as much enjoyable playing it without playing MI first.
I mean, the jokes and the characters become even more awesome, knowing more about the background thanks to the first MI.
Also both games aren't all that long to play, so really, you should play MI and MI2 and wish Ron Gilbert did a new one ('cause the two after MI and MI2 haven't been as good imho)!
 
I really loved the first one. A lot. But I think the third one is my favourite, mainly due to the whacky art. Before 3 I always imagined Guybrush to be different, even though the dialogue still made him seem silly, but in this game the character design underlines the dialogue really well. LeChuck also becomes less and less threatening during the series.

I wish that there were more adventure games like that nowadays. Full Throttle, Indiana Jones, Sam'n Max, The Dig, Day of the Tentacle...I loved those to death.
 
3 has great visuals and voice actors but if you don't start with number 1 (which is still one of my favourite games despite looking like colourful pong) it'd be a little like starting half way through the Sam & Max Episodes, it's all about the fan service and the continuing jokes.
 
Monkey Island 3! (Monkey 1&2 are great but really aged with a lot of technical limitations), Monkey 4 is barely decent.

Actually you gave me an idea! I'll play it again in the next few days :D :D
 
Lucasarts is nuts for not porting those games to DS, PSP, Wii, DLC. Yes scummvm, but still ... I would pay good money for an official collection.
 
In spite of the absolutely tragically cut-short ending, I thought MI2 was the best.

Ending almost killed it for me. It's like a Monty Python Holy Grail-like "shit we ran out of money and we have to end it now" thing.
 
beelzebozo said:
i liked curse the best personally. the amount of detail they were able to put into monkey island by that point was incredible; it looked like an animated movie you interacted with, and the voice acting was clearly a focal point during development.
Click to expand...



Same here, the voice acting and visuals were astounding. Great atmosphere and definitely one of my all time favorite games.
 
Do them all or at least the first 3. Also check out The Dig and other Lucas Arts classic adventures. If you'd really like to play some of the better classic adventure games then make sure to track down Return To Zork and Zork:Nemesis as well.
 
Curse of Monkey Island is probably the best entry point since it has good visuals, good voice acting and a good scrip.

While the first two are great games they live a bit on nostalgic forgivness and probably won't impress people as much who have not played them before.
 
I can only echo what others have said before me in this thread: play the first one first. The story is all pretty closely connected as are the references to the other games, so starting with the first one is the best way to go. (You wouldn't get the stump jokes if you played the later ones first)

If you don't want to play the rest after beating the first, you have no soul.


Oh, kinda off topic, but for those of you who have the "Monkey Island Madness" disc that came with some copies of the third game, have you ever tried opening up a media player while the disc is in? It lets you rip a copy of the game's soundtrack to your library-it's pretty cool.
 
I guess I'm in the minority in regards to MI3.
I've always thought Curse to be a "disgrace" because of the graphics (they turned Guybrush into a caricature of himself compared to the previous art for the character). Beautiful backgrounds and animations, but the characters... It's like they tried to make the characters look more funny, without making them be more funny (at least going from memory, I remember being really disappointed by the end of Curse as I didn't feel it to be as fun as LeChuck's Revenge or Secret), which is what was so cool about the first 2 MI for me.
To this day I still prefer the beautiful pixel work done in LeChuck's Revenge over Curse.
 
If you REALLY only want to play ONE game, let it be Curse of Monkey Island. Anyone who says MI1 or MI2 is only saying that for nostalgic reasons. MI3 has incredible graphics, the best music, excellent voice-acting, and just great humour and puzzles.
 
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