A blond pirate. A bearded ghost. Grog. Insults. Monkeys. Three-headed monkeys. Lots of monkeys. Ron Gilbert. Ok, let’s stop, so it is obvious that we are talking about a graphic adventure by LucasArts , to be precise Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge , released for MS-DOS and Amiga (and other platforms) in 1991, a year after the great success achieved by The Secret of Monkey Island .
MONKEY ISLAND CHARACTERS 2
Classic point and click adventure, this second part of the adventures of Guybrush Threepwood and the undead pirate LeChuck sees the two antagonists frantically searching for a hidden treasure, the Big Whoops who, according to the tales, hides a terrible secret. If the first Monkey Island was characterized by cutting beats like the saber blades used in duels and by a hilarious and well-kept graphics, as well as by an epic soundtrack able to catapult you directly into the Caribbean of the seventeenth century, Monkey Island 2 is not to be less.
Very often, unfortunately, the sequels of beautiful games disappoint the expectations but LeChuck’s Revenge does not betray the expected and royal hours of authentic enjoyment, between surreal scenes and very successful characters such as the aforementioned Guybrush and Lechuck but also Elaine Marley, Largo LaGrande, Wally and Captain Marley’s crew, consisting of Horation Torquemada Marley, Rapp Scallion, Rum Rogers and Young Lindy. Each of these last 4 characters owns a piece of the map leading to Big Whoop .
GAMEPLAY AND CONTROLS MONKEY ISLAND 2 LE CHUCK’S REVENGE
The game is controlled entirely with the mouse , except for a sporadic use of the keyboard with which the game menu is called up to save the game or load a previous save. By the way, nowadays we have perhaps forgotten the feeling of waiting for the loading of a game: we want everything immediately and in a certain sense it is right, it is the passing of time. Frantic times, which often do not allow us to fully enjoy these video games we love so much. Returning to Monkey Island 2, the player controls the young Guybrush Threepwood, who can perform numerous actions including walking, talking, using objects, examining, closing, pulling and so on.
Next to the actions that can be performed there is a box depicting the inventory, which contains all the objects collected during the adventure. Just like in the first chapter and in almost all the point and click adventures published between the late 80s and early 90s, even in LeChuck’s Revenge you have to solve puzzles if you want to continue in the game. To do this you will have to collect all the objects that can be taken from the screen where they are located. There are no – or very few – useless objects and, precisely because it is not possible to run into a Game Over , you must necessarily make the most of all the objects and each element or character with which you can interact.
GRAPHICS AND LONGEVITY, GUARANTEES LUCASARTS
Although, as previously mentioned, it is not substantially possible to lose, Monkey Island 2 can be faced in a slightly simpler mode, in which the puzzles are proposed in a less demanding key. The enigmas and puzzles proposed in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge cannot be solved with the sole use of logic: that helps, of course, but it is necessary to enter the story and understand how the intrinsic comedy of the characters can lead them to reason and act. The puzzles that you are sometimes faced with in the game can be very difficult, which is all to the advantage of longevity.
This is guaranteed not only by how the difficulty is calibrated, but also by the pure fun given off by the LucasArts masterpiece. Replaying it, perhaps a few years later, is a classic and we are not ashamed to say that since its release on the market we have started and finished it at least 4 or 5 times. Despite this, every time we see the game intro, the desire to guide Guybrush in his incredible adventures remains the same or almost the same as that which pervaded us back in 1991. The translation into Italian is noteworthy, but if you know it well enough. English language we advise you to play it untranslated: by doing so you will appreciate little linguistic gems that inevitably got lost in the translation process.
MONKEY ISLAND SOUNDTRACK 2: 10 AND PRAISES
To be unanimously recognized as a masterpiece, a game must then be able to count on a soundtrack and musical themes of great effect. Thanks to the compositions of Michael Z. Land, who had already worked on the first chapter, Monkey Island 2 is as pleasant as it is brilliant. The soundtrack adapts to the situation you are facing or the atmosphere of the moment: entering the saloon the music will be that typical of a bar of the time, while in the carpenter’s house the noises of the craftsman’s tools will prevail. The musical themes are always light-hearted and pleasant, very catchy, perfectly in line with the games of the golden age of LucasArts.
We have come to the end of this adventure (not graphic, but narrative) and we hope to have transmitted even a modicum of the enthusiasm that this genre of games transmitted to us at the time and still pervades us today, almost 30 years later. It is really a shame to see how this type of point and click adventures have lost appeal over the years, even if in recent times noteworthy titles have been released such as Thimbleweed Park, which also bears the signature of that genius Ron Gilbert.
GENRE: Graphic Adventure
YEAR: 1991
DEVELOPMENT HOUSE: LucasArts
PUBLISHED BY: LucasArts
PLATFORM: MS-DOS, Amiga, Mac OS, Atari ST, Sega CD, FM Towns
SUPPORT: Floppy disk, CD-Rom
THE FOLLOW-UP IS: The Curse of Monkey Island (1997)
