Welcome to the very final episode for the Tales of Monkey Island series which was highly expected by the all fans of our beloved swashbuckling mighty pirate, Guybrush Threepwood. Continuing from 'The trial and execution of Guybrush Threepwood', many answers will be revealed along with some great drama moments. We do really hope to see more in the very near future, but for now we have to savor the moment and enjoy this great episode. To our great surprise, we FINALLY do have some sword fighting, albeit not as much as we had hoped for, but nevertheless at least we do get our hands a bit dirty.

We last left Guybrush killed by that double crossed Ghost/Zombie LeChuck. LeChuck has used Guybrush so as to give him a grown up Esponja Grande for his evil deeds. He played a huge role all along in the betrayal until he unveiled his true evil self. In fact through the death of Guybrush, Le Chuck has put all of the fans under great anxiety as to what would happen in the ultimate chapter. How will our hero ever get back from the dead?

You start off in the afterlife where all dead pirates go, and you will first meet a familiar Grog Machine near the ferry boat. The Grog machine is there for the simple reason that you might get bored waiting for the Ferry to the crossroads and you might want to take a Grog, Cherry Grog, Grog lite or Grog XD. The same Grog machine which can be found in other titles in the series. Your first quest is to try to make your way to the crossroads by hitching a ride from the ferryman who is very keen in talking to you... with his only words being 'Aye' or 'Naye'. Well he will talk more when you start pestering him along with a dark humor characteristic.

If you would try to compare the character with the old school Monkey Island series... specifically from The Curse of Monkey Island, I would compare him with the same ferry man (aka the Flying Welshman) who takes you to Skull Island from Blood Island where eventually he ends up getting lost after the lighthouse light got broken. Also the misshapen of Guybrush giving him a half-magnetized compass will accidentally doom the Flying Welshman to a lost quest in the mist. It is also good to mention that in the first part you will encounter a dog hoofing around in the graveyard which is mostly familiar with the dog found in The Curse of Monkey Island on Blood Island's cemetery. As already seen from the past chapters of the series you will again meet a number of quite familiar characters from the series. In fact in this episode our hero Guybrush asks the boat ferryman if they have already meet.



Your main quest is to find a way from the Underworld back to your body and save Elaine from the clutches of LeChuck. This can be achieved by making your way to the Center of the Crossroads which is the point where dead pirates take a path to their eternal enjoyment. Thus like the others before him, Guybrush has to choose from Thievery, Treasure hunting and Sword fighting. You must then investigate and try to find your artifacts to do the voodoo spell on the crossroads to affect the spell that Le Chuck once did in order for him to return back to the physical world from the spiritual realm. Therefore you need to emulate LeChuck and take the same path to get back in order to save Elaine and also the rest of the Caribbean World.

In my opinion the comic relief present in this episode is quite pleasing as it has a good number of jokes and humoristic dialogue that resemble the good old comments and jokes that were so abundantly present in the previous Monkey Island series thus delivering huge laugh-out-loud instances.

With regards to gameplay, the game utilizes the Telltale Games system with the use of the WASD keys to move the character around and the mouse to point and click on objects in the scene. The scroll button on the mouse is used to pop-up the inventory or otherwise one can just move the mouse to the right hand side to scroll the inventory on screen. The inventory can be used to use the items with something in the scene or combine two items from the inventory.

Difficulty-wise, the game is not impossible to pass and with some crafty skills you can make your way around the game. For the classic sword fighting fans, as stated before... there is a small part of swordfighting but not that much to satisfy the need from the old series.

The only drawbacks can be found in its controls which are 'sometimes' fiddly, but the rest of the game and the inventory as quite nifty. I was also slightly disappointed with the camera views as sometimes it would become difficult to determine where you had to go as the exits and paths were a little bit concealed to you... apart from that the game is a mini-classic, especially with the hilarious and superb animations!

Conclusion

The Tales of Monkey Island is a must have for all Monkey Island fans and newcomers to action/adventure games. The game is the righteous sequel and rival of the saga including the increasing of the quality of the comic relief, while supplying the comic shading/ graphics and all the Monkeys you need (although they are only seen in the intros).

Rated: 8.5/10

[www.telltalegames.com/monkeyisland]