Escape from Monkey Island/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Broken Base: This game was hated by a lot of the series' older fans when it came out, due to the graphics, controls, plot, rehashes, retcons and frequent errors (in the PC version at least). But conversely a lot of people grew up with this (and possibly Curse) as the only Monkey Island games they knew and so recall it fondly. By the time Tales Of Monkey Island came out, the demographic had shifted, and Escape was generally considered in a more positive light.
    • Still, even if you only compare it to Curse, it's disappointing, especially given that Curse was arguably the best game of the series, with the same or better sense of humor and vastly superior graphics.
  • Contested Sequel: Widely considered to be the weakest game in the series. The Retcon as to Toothrot's true identity doesn't help.
  • Disappointing Last Level: The player is stranded on Monkey Island for the last third (almost half) of the game to fight an annoying rock-paper-scissors style fighting minigame and have tons of exposition and retcons dumped into his/her lap. The grand finale almost makes up for it though.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Escape gets this treatment from fans who are unhappy with its quality or confusing retcons.
  • Porting Disaster: In the Playstation 2 version, the quality of the voice clips is wildly inconsistent throughout the game. Most of the time, they sound fine. But sometimes they sound like they're being played back through a telephone. This is sad, because in most other respects, this version is actually superior to the PC original (better graphics, a control scheme that's better suited for the PS2 controller, etc.).
  • Scrappy Mechanic: Monkey Kombat might have been tolerable if not for the fact that the game forces you to write down both the stance switching commands (of which there are about twelve) and which stand beats which, since both are randomized on each playthrough and the game provides no reference for them. On top of that, it can be a chore to learn the switching commands early on, as your opponents have a nasty habit of immediately switching into whatever stance beats the one you start off with and just staying like that for the rest of the fight, meaning that you'll be on the losing side of many Curb Stomp Battles until you've learned enough commands to actually get anywhere.
  • The Untwist: "Charles L. Charles" is an extremely transparent pseudonym. Honestly, were any players at all surprised at his real identity?
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