I finished Return to Monkey Island, and...

It's here, and it's good: another instalment of the Monkey Island series with everything it's known for. Fun times, adventure, puzzling, people to talk to, storytelling, good jokes, bad jokes. I finished the game in 15 hours (on hard mode, with no hints) and had a great time.

Monkey Island games have always been very forgiving and user-friendly, even in the brutal 90's. Return to Monkey Island even more so. It's all point-and-click, any frustrating quality-of-life issues have been polished away, there's a very straightforward hint system (that you can ignore) and a Casual Mode which takes away some harder puzzles. Best of all the puzzle solutions are very logical and give you regular "ah-ha!" moments! No cheapness here. And no way you can put the game into a "dead end" state, plus you can't die (with one exception, and that's Monkey Island tradition).

If you've played previous Monkey Island games, there's enough continuity and fan service to feel rewarding. Like meeting old friends. If you haven't, you don't need to; there's enough fun right here to keep you looking for more.

The art style is polarising. Some love it; some hate it. I think it looks excellent and plays well both at 4K and on smaller Steam Deck-size screens. Don't let the screenshots put you off; in gameplay it comes to life. However if you try it and it still bugs you, it unfortunately won't get better.

The game itself can be a bit "weird". It's super-polished but in places breaks the fourth wall, goes all meta, and gets strange. It's done well and adds to the game (and is par for the course for Monkey Island titles)... It's a labour of love that very much reflects the personalities and experiences of series creators Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman. It's 30 years since the original games; they could have just let them stand for themselves, but then they never addressed the "Secret" of The Secret of Monkey Island. So in writing this game they have both nothing, and everything to prove.

Well they proved it. If adventure games are your thing, Return to Monkey Island is for you.

...

N.B. Linux players, I can report that this game works pretty well on Linux, but you'll want to check the ProtonDB entry on Return to Monkey Island[www.protondb.com] as there may be some tweaks required. Laptop users, I can report that this game runs well on integrated graphics; you don't need a huge GPU.