Game Review: Tales from Monkey Island: Rise of the Pirate God

Written by Tom Wednesday, 16 December 2009 09:53

Rise of the Pirate God ends the Tales of Monkey Island series on an epic note. Telltale really delivered the booty with this final installment, and it wraps up what has been a truly magical journey. Those who played through Tales will no doubt look forward to the day when Guybrush embarks on his next adventure. Those who haven’t should be keelhauled if they don’t do so now that the series is complete. Grog mugs everywhere should be raised. The salty dogs at Telltale deserve a hearty toast for a job well done.

Game Details		Loading Reality Scoring

Format	PC (all PC reviews)	Score Meaning: A very good game - probably worth owning. Most gamers, regardless of genre preference, will be able to look past small issues and enjoy it.
Publisher	Telltale Games
Developer	Telltale Games
Category	Adventure	Presentation
ESRB	E	Gameplay
Online Players	0	Graphics
Offline Players	1	Sound
Price	6.99	Value Factor
Release Date	December 8, 2009	Final Score

Tales from Monkey Island: Rise of the Pirate God

The sad part about any voyage through the fantastic is that it must eventually end. Telltale Games has, at last, bid the excellent Tales from Monkey Island a bon voyage in the final installment of the series, Rise of the Pirate God. If that rather dramatic sounding title raises expectations for this final episode, players need not worry. Telltale has given Tales from Monkey Island a sendoff fit for a pirate king.

The game is set in the immediate aftermath of the events that unfolded in the previous episode, The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood and opens with a series of flashbacks to the events that precipitated the now dead Guybrush’s descent into the underworld. Guybrush awakens to find that he has apparently been buried alive. True to pirate form, he sees this as an opportunity to acquire booty, and pockets the first handful of dirt before digging his way to freedom. Upon his surfacing and taking in his surroundings, it begins to dawn on Guybrush did he not survive is latest run-in with LeChuck.

Descending from a graveyard mound bathed in ethereal light, Guybrush finds himself in the dim world of the dead. The player is given control over Guybrush in time for him to explore his immediate surroundings. All around the Mighty Pirate are gravestones featuring humorous epitaphs, with his own occupying the hill from which he has just descended. His only company in the lonely graveyard is a none-too-friendly dog, which offers only hostility when Guybrush approaches it. Further exploration is clearly warranted.

Find fare for the ferry, or prepare to Styx around for a while.

Final confirmation of the swashbuckler’s fate comes when he discovers a boat landing complete with turnstiles and an improbably placed Grog vending machine on the bank of a nearby river. Docked at the landing is a creepy ferry piloted by an equally creepy skeletal boatman, whose job it is to transport the dead of the pirating world to their final fate at a place called The Crossroads. If the similarity to Charon and the River Styx from Greek mythology isn’t readily apparent at this juncture, the boatman’s demand for payment of burial coins drives home the point. Thus the first puzzle in the game, which involves finding the exact change needed for passage to The Crossroads, is presented.

After securing passage to the center of The Crossroads, Guybrush learns from an odd looking denizen named Galeb that it consists of three main areas, each of which represents the final destiny a pirate can pursue before moving on to his final rest in Fiddler’s Green. These destinies include that of the swordfighter, the thief, and the treasure hunter. Not content to pursue any of these destinies with so much left undone in the world of the living, however, Guybrush presses Galeb for information how he can escape his doom and learns that LeChuck was able to do so using a powerful voodoo spell. He then sets about gathering the ingredients for this spell, thereby beginning his journey towards a final showdown with his voodoo-obsessed nemesis.

What follows is the best the Tales from Monkey Island series has to offer, which is saying a lot considering the quality of previous episodes. The gameplay experience is consistent with that of the rest of the series. Objects with which the player can interact are found with some careful poking around with the cursor, and moving Guybrush through the environment is as painless and intuitive as ever. The camera is well behaved as usual, always giving the player proper perspective as Guybrush moves about.

The familiar, easy to use inventory screen is back as well, and players can use it to inspect or combine items while solving puzzles. The puzzles themselves are of moderate difficulty. They provide a decent challenge, but don’t rise to the level of those in Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood, which retain their status as most challenging in the series. In short, the game plays just as fans of the series would expect it to.

Escaping the crossroads of the afterlife can be a dirty process.

Where Rise of the Pirate God really shines is in its writing and visual design. The environments are particularly well crafted, giving players an out-of-the-frying-pan experience as they travel between the gloomy depths of The Crossroads and an ominous world of the living influenced by an all-powerful LeChuck. The soundtrack complements the visuals well, dispensing with the typical, upbeat tunes in favor of appropriately darker fare.

The dialogue is humorous and well-written, and delivered flawlessly by the voice actors. Of particular note is LeChuck’s spoken dialogue, which, while delivered in an appropriately demonic voice, still contains the normal range of human emotion. It is somewhat humorous to hear a menacing voodoo pirate fiend like LeChuck sound annoyed, if not positively exasperated, at the prospect of having his plans thwarted by Guybrush yet again.

The story is excellent, and ties the series up nicely, while leaving the player wanting more. It edges as close to dark and dreary as can be expected from a series that is inherently comedic, allowing the player to empathize with Guybrush as he struggles against the overwhelmingly mighty LeChuck in the process. This is especially true during the game’s final sequence, in which a beaten and haggard Guybrush gives his all in a last ditch attempt to prevail.

4 / 5

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