The Secret of Monkey Island

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North American box art.

The Secret of Monkey Island is an adventure game created by Lucasfilm Games and released for MS-DOS in 1990. It is the first in a series of Monkey Island games and uses the popular SCUMM engine.

I first saw this game at a friend's house. He had the LucasArts adventure box set (EGA version) and showed me saved game locations from various games, including the ending of Monkey Island. I never got a chance to play it then, but the game looked pretty cool. Hearing more and more about the series over the years, I finally decided to play it around 2015 and beat it with only needing a couple hints.

Status

I do not own the game, but I have beaten it, though I required occasional hints.

Review

  • Overall: 5/10
  • Best Version: DOS VGA remake?

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

  • The script is pretty hilarious, lots of funny dialog options.
  • The graphics are quite beautiful, even in the EGA version.

Bad

  • You're unable to choose a lot of the dialog options because the game cuts-short many conversations. The only way to read these options is to keep reloading the game, which is a pain in the ass.
  • Like many adventure games, some of the puzzles are particularly difficult to solve and don't make much sense. I can attribute this to trying to pad the length of the game, trying to sell hint books, or laziness from the developers. Either case is annoying.
  • Several parts of the game are just too silly and ruin the experience (but only temporarily).

Ugly

  • Nothing really, this game is pretty solid.

Media

Documentation

Gallery

Videos

Download

This is the LucasFilm Games Passport to Adventure game sampler. It contains an MS-DOS demo version of The Secret of Monkey Island, Loom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure.

Titles

Language Native Transliteration Translation
English The Secret of Monkey Island
Japanese モンキー・アイランド ユーレイ海賊大騒動! Monki Airando: Yurei Kaizoku Osodo! Monkey Island: Ghost Pirate Turmoil!

Links