The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition - anyone else kinda disappointed?

CaptainD · Tue 18/01/2011 16:41:50

I just wondered if anyone else felt like I do that the Special Edition of SoMI was a bit of a missed opportunity. The game itself is still fantastic of course, and the music / voice acting is great, the backgrounds are nicely painted etc... but there's no new content (surely a couple of extra puzzles could have found their way in there?) and the animation is disappointing (presumably they exactly matched the animation frames used in the original?). I can't help but feel this could have been an amazing restoration of a classic game with a bit more effort.

Also, did it surprose anyone else, looking back, just how sparse many of the locations were? Quite a few had only one or two hotspots. I'd really criticise an adventure game for that nowadays!

On the plus side, the sequence of Guybrush robbing the Governor's mansion still made me laugh out loud.

Snarky · Tue 18/01/2011 17:22:53

You don't mess with perfection. I absolutely would not want any new puzzles or anything like that.

I didn't particularly like the background style or the character designs in screenshots I saw, and heard that the animation was very jerky (like you said, they did match them frame-by-frame to the original), and the UI didn't seem very good, either, so I steered clear. I'm perfectly happy with the game the way it is.

cianty · Tue 18/01/2011 18:12:48

I only have the second Special Edition and I very much like that. I think it is superior to the first Special Edition though.

And yes, you don't mess with perfection so changing any of the puzzles would have scared off any of the die-hard oldtimers. That would be a huge no-go and most likely decreased the sales.

Dualnames · Tue 18/01/2011 19:18:00

I've played MI2: Le Chuck's Revenge Special Edition, and yeah, I switched back to old mode. What's awesome however, are the voice comments from Dave, Ron and Tim. Some are very hilarious and well, just for that, it's worth it imho. But well, what did you expect?

OneDollar · Tue 18/01/2011 20:12:25

Yeah, the first special edition felt a bit rough to me. Some of the new backgrounds have places where you can clearly see the scaled up pixels of the original art that someone forgot to draw over. There's also at least one place where the walk behinds haven't been done properly and some of the character art is a bit odd (Guybrush's hair and Herman Toothrot are particularly bad). Still, I got it cheap in a sale so I'm not complaining. Much.

Nearly everything was improved for MI2:SE though. The art is better, the animation is really smooth (far more frames in the special edition), the interface is easier and the commentary is a really nice touch. I preferred the original* art of MI1 over the special edition, but I think the MI2:SE backgrounds improve on the standard ones. I was never much of a fan of the hand painted, colour reduced originals though.

*Ok, not really the original. The 256 colour versions.

CaptainD · Tue 18/01/2011 21:56:52

Glad to hear MI2 is better, that's the next game on my To Play list!

Forgot to mention the UI, which I thought was pretty awful at times... I did revert ot the classic mode for some puzzles simply to use the old UI. :

I didn't mean they should change any of the puzzles btw, just maybe add a few new ones in.

monkey0506 · Thu 20/01/2011 17:58:22

For me the ability to play the games in all their original glory on my Xbox 360 was well worth the points. SoMI:SE I thought wasn't as good as it should have been though, for many of the reasons mentioned. Particularly the close-ups were rather disappointing due to the fact that they only painted over the existing frames, and didn't add any new ones at all. Better lip-syncing for the few close-up shots in the game was actually something I was looking forward to..and was let down.

MI2:LCR:SE (despite the horribly mangled logo "LeChuck's Revenge: Monkey Island: Special Edition 2"?? ..seriously..what the hell??) vastly improved on the points in which SoMI:SE fell short. I still personally felt that Guybrush's face looked rather flat in the second SE, and Herman..I don't even want to talk about him (in either one, but particularly the second one)..but, they did improve a lot. For the console version, which is the only one I've played, the ability to directly control Guybrush's movement without having to press a button was actually very nice.

Anyway, I enjoyed both SEs well enough, but the second was a much better remake than the first.

Jared · Sat 22/01/2011 00:14:17

I'd say the MI2SE was quite a wasted oppurtunity for them to restore some of the content Ron Gilbert had planned that had to be left out for disk space reasons in LeChuck's fortress, though. (I haven't actually played it, but I think it's safe to assume if they did something that major I would have heard about it)

The idea of the SEs was just to modify the SCUMM resources for both games, though, which definitely is a cool idea because even when you're playing the 'new' version it's still a game with 20 year old code they've just polished up. Doing that gives you some limitations, though.

When I heard about the SEs first thing to pop into my head was two games of jaw-dropping luscious Bill Tiller artwork with the CoMI interface, but that would definitely have been a hell of a lot more work, more pricey for us, less money for LA and probably not have the same nostalgia kick...

Igor Hardy · Sat 22/01/2011 00:44:08

I enjoyed hearing the voices in the 1st SE and seeing it all recreated in a different art style. But it's more like a cool fan edition for me, then a real ultimate Monkey Island.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Sun 23/01/2011 03:35:17

Both games looked like they hired some mediocre flash artist from newgrounds to do a slapdash job so they could make some quick bucks off guybrush's revived corpse.

Matti · Sun 23/01/2011 03:58:23

Quote from: ProgZmax on Sun 23/01/2011 03:35:17
Both games looked like they hired some mediocre flash artist from newgrounds to do a slapdash job so they could make some quick bucks off guybrush's revived corpse.

Seconded. Also, Gubrush's hair is reason enough not to play it.

theo · Sun 23/01/2011 21:12:08

Quote from: ProgZmax on Sun 23/01/2011 03:35:17
Both games looked like they hired some mediocre flash artist from newgrounds to do a slapdash job so they could make some quick bucks off guybrush's revived corpse.

I couldn't agree more.

mode7 · Mon 24/01/2011 00:55:02

Yes!
I couldn't agree more. When I heard MI:SE coming out I got really excited and bought it without thinking twice. It kinda was a disapointment. Especially the BGs looked so rushed and scribbled that I couldn't believe this was supposed to be a professional product. The characters also lacked a lot of their original charm - but then again this might just be nostalgia. - But anyway, I enjoyed it - mostly because of the voice acting.
Therefore, my expectations were lower for part two. And I liked this one a lot better - but then again it's hard to screw these BGs up and they were begging for hires even back then.

I think both of these games were still worth their money even though they could have been sooo much better.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Tue 25/01/2011 02:07:25

The really sad thing is that if you watch the official trailer for Monkey Island 2 it's done entirely in 3D and looks absolutely wonderful. Talk about false advertising..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzs8_PilN54

The thing is, if they'd put some real effort into it so it looked like the trailer I WOULD have bought it.

Whoever they got to do the 3d models of guybrush and lechuck really did a wonderful job translating the originals.