Return to Monkey Island is the adventure game equivalent of Spider-Man: No Way Home. No, wait, don’t go there! Listen. Most people would agree that No Way Home is a great, very entertaining movie, even for kids who have never seen a Spider-Man movie starring Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield. But if you have memories of past movies with Peter Parker, No Way Home will evoke even more nostalgia and even evoke real emotions in many ways.

Return to Monkey Island is a similar journey, with series creator Ron Gilbert returning to direct the series for the first time in 30 years. It’s a fun, beautiful, polished, well-paced story, full of hilarious and challenging puzzles for anyone who appreciates a good adventure game. And Return wisely offers up a “Guybrush’s Scrapbook” on the main menu as a fun, visual way to recap previous Monkey Island games with Guybrush as the narrator. But for someone like me, for whom the early Monkey Island games were part of the formative years of my gaming adolescence, this reunion with aspiring pirate Guybrush Threepwood feels like a homecoming. In that regard, I liked the not-so-hidden trivia cards sprinkled throughout many scenes that test your knowledge of the franchise.

The most obvious difference between Return to Monkey Island and its predecessor is its art style. Gilbert could have gone the pixel art route for even more nostalgia, but instead opted for a bolder, more modern look. To be honest, I wasn’t excited when I first saw it. It’s a far cry from the games I love, but that was also true of the first Monkey Island game after Gilbert, Curse of Monkey Island, which used the Disney cartoon-like style I adored. Return’s art direction is more abstract, but somewhere in the 11 hours it took me to play through the story, I began to love it. It makes heavy use of the color palette, and its exaggerated character designs fit well with Monkey Island’s sense of humor.

At first glance, however, you wouldn’t mistake Return to Monkey Island for another game in the series, but its fun music could easily fool you into thinking you’re still in 1991. Composers Michael Land, Peter McConnell, and Clint Bajakian return with a pleasing new work. The Caribbean scores and has done a lot to make the game feel like a proper throwback to Monkey Island. The same goes for the voice cast, especially Dominic Armato as Guybrush Threepwood, who brings an understated, earnest sensibility to a game full of absurd scenarios, but isn’t afraid to be a little sarcastic when the situation calls for it. Everyone in this world knows Guybrush is a well-intentioned jerk, but they can’t help but root for this hopeless underdog and are still friends with him. Armato’s performance is a big reason why I felt the same way. There’s a certain innocence to Guybrush.

So what’s the plot? Return takes place immediately after Monkey Island 2, but in a clever way that I didn’t expect. It gives us a new side to Monkey Island, one whose big heart is quickly revealed in a playable prelude that I won’t reveal here, but which will return again and again. The overall story revolves around the search for the secrets of Monkey Island, and that search revolves around Guybrush’s never-ending rivalry with zombie pirate villain LeChuck, and his not-really-there love triangle with Elaine Marley. In fact, Return sticks much more to the underlying mystery than any of its predecessors, which is repeatedly played up to comedic effect. Our decades-long doubts about whether Gilbert will uncover the true secret of Monkey Island are reflected in the game. Even Guybrush’s wife Elaine wonders why our hero keeps hanging on. We visit famous locations such as Merry Island and of course Monkey Island, and take us to new places. Similarly, familiar faces return (like Merry!) and many new characters are introduced. Say hello to Miss Locksmith, who we’ll be visiting on a few occasions; she’s well aware that her name is a pun.

Happily Puzzled

A good story and memorable characters are only half of the equation for a classic puzzle game. The other is a series of challenging and satisfying puzzles to solve, which form the basis of a great point-and-click adventure. Return delivers greatly in that regard, always including a comical thread that runs through the traditional problem of which item to use on which person or place at every opportunity. Solving the puzzles filled me with a dopamine rush just as it always has, and in the 2022 version of Monkey Island, I learned how to get around the notoriously arcane “adventure game logic” that often turned people off the original back then.

The puzzle structure and solutions don’t really break any new ground, but none of them are so abstract that once I figured it out, I found myself wondering how on earth I’d come up with the solution. And as is often the case with these games, I was never frustrated enough to want to give up and try again later with a fresh mind, although I did get stuck in the mud at times, like I did when playing Had to. Use the Apology Frog to regain the favor of Meloe Island’s Governor, Carla. So I made use of the Guybrush Clue Book here and there, always available, and quickly learned that I didn’t have to completely swallow my pride before relying on it. It’s a very welcome evolution of a feature first introduced to the series in 2009 with LucasArts’ remasters of Monkey Island 1 and 2, and can be used without feeling guilty because it’s not just a spoiler-filled book like a walkthrough.

Instead, you’re given hints step by step that will lead you in the right direction, but still maintain the satisfaction you get when you finally solve the puzzle yourself. In fact, the Clue Book was the only one that told me something that I didn’t really want to know at that moment. The new To Do List also helps me keep track of everything I’m working on and trying to solve without feeling like I’m being led as a minion.

Verdict

After decades of believing that Gilbert would never make Monkey Island 3, I was not at all disappointed by the ending of Return. It actually moved me, and made it clear that Gilbert cares about these characters just as much as we fans do. I expected Return to Monkey Island to be entertaining. I expected there to be excellent, and often crazy, puzzles and hilarious solutions to the puzzles. This is evident in the writing, the art style suited to experienced readers, and the wonderfully upbeat music. But I didn’t expect it to have so much heart. For the past 30 years, Monkey Island has been known solely for its comedic talent, but Return reminded me of why I first fell in love with Guybrush Threepwood. What longtime fans will get from this game will no doubt be very different from what newbies will get from it. But I can say that Return to Monkey Island meant a lot to me even before I clicked “new game,” and it still means a lot to me today. And there’s more after the credits roll.