The Curse of Monkey Island (Introduction)
In this article, I will explain the general flow of the game, its challenges and the characters as well as my opinion of the ending and general comments about the game. I will not reveal too much about how to acquire objects, what to say when, all that can be viewed in my video on my youtube channel.
This is a point and click puzzle adventure game, involving pirates, gathering information from characters in the game, as well as collecting items. One can interpret Guybrush as a good guy trying to save the love of his life, but, in fact, as one plays the game it becomes fairly obvious that he is just after fame, money and inflates himself and his skills as a “mighty pirate” by his own account.
I accomplished the challenge of completing this game in one sitting.
I would recommend this game to anyone who is starting out in gaming, and to those who want something intimidating and easy to follow. In addition if you like puzzles and brain teasers this is the game to play.
You will need to do a lot of pointing and clicking, looking at objects, and talking to people in order to complete your mission. Also, as you talk to people and dialogue options pop up, use your wits to guess which is the right answer or question. Also, it's a good idea to notice the various objects that appear clickable in any given part of the game.
When we first meet Guybrush, he is stranded in the middle of the ocean in the Caribbean on a little tugboat writing a journal about how he is hungry, and of his love Elaine. As he sails on, he is captured by the evil zombie undead pirate LeChuck, his nemesis, as they both vie for Elaine's affections.
The mission is simple throughout the game, save Elaine.
Part 1:The Demise of the Zombie Pirate LeChuck
As he is drifting in the ocean toward an Island known as Plunder Island , he ends up captured by the evil LeChuck and thrown into the ships holding area where he meets Wally who joined LeChucks team. Guybrush using his wits, collecting items and by convincing Wally he is a wannabe fake pirate manages to escape from captivity. The ship capsizes and Guybrush ends up in the ship's treasure hold where he finds a diamond ring, and other items such as a bag of wooden nickels. He then escapes and ends up on Plunder Island.
Part 2:The Curse gets Worse
Once on Plunder Island, he meets up with Elaine Marley, the love of his life and proposes to her by giving her the ring he found in the treasure hold of LeChucks ship. Wally appears and notices the ring and informs the duo that the ring carries a disfiguring curse, and within minutes Elaine is transformed into a solid gold statue. Now, Guybrush’s mission begins.
As the game progresses Guybrush faces many challenges to accomplish his mission of breaking the curse and saving Elaine. Upon entering the town of Puerto Pollo on Plunder Island, he first visits the Voodoo Priestess (you have to go to her first before anything in the town opens up) and discovers that Elaine has been stolen by a group of mangy pirates in Danjer Cove. She informs him that the only way to break the curse is to replace the cursed ring with a pure one, and this pure ring can be found on Blood Island. The ring carries a very sad and emotional love story which we learn about once Guybrush gets to Blood Island. The Voodoo priestess also mentions he will need three items to get to Blood Island safely: a map, a crew and a ship. He then sets out on Plunder Island to acquire the items.
Guybrush also buys some chewing gum from the gumball machine, takes some paste and a pin stuck in a voodoo doll, all these items will come in handy much later on in the game.
After the Priestess, the order in which this game is played is of no significance, but there are parts which I found challenging but doable.
First stop, the theater where upon examining items like a pirate coat, a magician hat items appear Guybrush takes them for later use.
Next stop, The Barbary Coast pirate barber shop, he meets the three pirates that he has to convince to join his crew and sail to Blood Island. Each pirate has a different method Guybrush must use to get them to join him. These pirates are Haggis McMutton, Cutthroat Bill, Edward Van Helgen. Guybrush talks to each pirate to see what challenge he must face to get them to join his crew, and at the same time collects several objects by using his wits to outsmart them.
When Guybrush enters, Haggis McMutton is cutting Captain Rene Rottinghams hair, who later becomes an antagonist to Guybrush. Now, throughout the game in order to acquire the objects needed Guybrush has to get characters to leave by using trickery. Guybrush notices a pair of scissors stuck in the ceiling above the barber chair, Haggis tells him they can cut through anything, they ended up in the ceiling when Haggis was cutting hair too fast and they flew out of his hand and into the ceiling.
Next stop, go through the undergrowth using Haggis scissors to cut through it, and end up at a sign that says snake crossing, get swallowed by the snake. Guybrush manages to escape from the snake and at the same time collect several items needed like a reservation card to enter the Blondebeards Chicken which is a restaurant. Guybrush will use tricks and wits to accomplish his goal.
The most challenging parts to this game:Getting Edward Van Helgen to join his crew, at first you must sufficiently insult him for him to consider any challenge. There is a duel banjo playing part. The idea is to mimic each single note he plays when he pauses after plucking several notes in succession playing the letter, once you defeat him there is one last thing involving a pistol.
Haggis McMutton challenge is a caber toss, a test of strength as Haggis will not serve under a weak captain. Basically, tossing tree trunks end over end. In this part, a nice cheat trick is done to defeat Haggis.
Cutthroat Bill wants to see riches, treasure. Captain Blondbeards gold tooth gains favor with him once presented.
The Beach: Brimstone Beach Country Club and Smorgy
In this portion, Guybrush will meet a surly cabana boy, who insists that only those who have a membership card can enter the club, use the beach etc.
He is quite surprised when Guybrush presents a card and takes some towels to enter the beach. After Guybrush meets Palido Domingo, a shifty character who lies about knowing about Blood Island, after a few neat tricks, the map is peeled off Palidos back.
The Lemonade Stand: Kenny Foulmouth
After obtaining the mug from Palido, talk to Kenny who is minding the lemonade stand, he has a bottomless mug policy for lemonade and it costs a nickel. In fact, the mug he pours the lemonade in has no bottom, so he cheats customers. Guybrush inadvertently switches the mugs and gets Kenneys pitcher causing Kenny to leave the stand. Fill the pitcher with red dye and head to Palido.
Danger Cove
This is the place where the ship (The Sea Cucumber) is found that Guybrush will use to sail to Blood Island. Using a small rowboat found on the beach, get to the ship get tarred and feathered return to Plunder Island and go straight to Captain Blondbeard who mistakes Guybrush for El Pollo Diablo (Devil Chicken) he hits him with a pan, and Guybrush ends up inside the Sea Cucumber ship. There are two other characters Captain Fossey (first mate) and Captain LeChimp. The idea here is to get Fossey to leave and take the map where Elaine is hidden and steal the ship.
At the theater, upstairs Guybrush will see some old style controls, which is in fact a light puzzle and to solve it use the map from the Danjer Cove pirate ship.
Part 3 Three Sheets to the Wind
When this part begins, Haggis will ask if Guybrush is more of a fighter captain or a captain who uses wits, this will determine the level of difficulty either in the sea battles or in the sword fighting insults.
Captain Rottingham’s ship appears and he boards the Sea Cucumber, challenging Gubrush to a sword fight, in which he explains that the only way to win is to use rhyming insults. Guybrush loses and in turn Rottingham takes the map to Blood Island. All the while, the crew are ignoring Guybrush.
The second challenge once all items are acquired, is to fight the pirates as you sail the seas and plunder their treasure. As treasure is plundered, Guybrush will sail to Puerto Pollo Port, where Kenny the former lemonade stand owner is now selling cannons and heavy artillery. It is from him that the upgrades to the ship's cannons are done.
Remember during the sword fighting insults, rhyme as best you can, sometimes the correct answer will not always appear so this might have to be done a few times.
The most challenging part is defeating Rottingham; his insults are more peculiar than the other pirates, but once he is defeated it's actually quite funny how his personality changes from the cocky, obnoxious guy to a kind of wussy wimpy child.
Part 4 The Bartender The Thieves his Aunt and her Lover
This is my favorite part of the game, as the puzzles are relatively simple to solve. The characters are much more interesting. I will classify each section of this part and talk about it in detail without too many spoilers. It is here that we learn the significance of the ring, and much more.
The first part is that when the ship encounters a storm and ends up wrecked on blood island, Haggis informs Guybrush that the crew have decided to leave him and return to the barber shop, thereby a mutiny. He further states that the ship is pretty damaged and needs major repairs, it's also low on tar for some reason and some needs to be found as soon as possible or they are all stuck there for good. Guybrush is on his own, he picks up a bottle and walks away.
Now, another series of adventures begin. There are several areas on Blood Island, no mention of a town.
The Hotel
This is where Guybrush meets Madame Xima, a fortune teller, the object is to retrieve five tarot cards that will become very handy later on in the game.
The bartender Griswold Goodsoup revealed after he gets the ingredients to relieve him of his hangover, that is the only way he will talk. He reveals the story of his family the Goodsoups, they were quite wealthy and well known on Blood Island, specifically his aunt Minnie Strone Goodsoup or Minnie who had a weakness for pirates, she became engaged to one but he broke her heart by stealing her ring and leaving her. Later revealed to be LeChuck.
So, the next task is to take the recipe book that appears on the bar, in it there is the recipe to cure the hangover, a pepper, hair from the dog that bit you, and one egg. Sounds weird and gross!
Once Griswold is given the recipe, he gains his demeanor and tells the sad story of his family The Goodsoups. We learn, he is the proprietor of the Hotel. His great Aunt Minnie Goodsoup fell in love with a pirate later revealed to be the infamous LeChuck, he basically took advantage of her stole her diamond ring after proposing, left her at the altar and sold the diamond to smugglers.
There are many puzzles to solve and secrets to learn in this level, each is interesting on its own.
The Cannibal Village(Strange Lights)
This is where Guybrush meets an Islander, Lemonhead who informs him that this village was once full of cannibals, and that the volcano in the village is lactose intolerant. Also, it is revealed that a ceremony is to be held near the volcano where a sacrifice is to be made. Upon hearing all this, Guybrush uses his to get to the ceremony. This is one of the shorter segments of the game, as its mainly collect stuff and trick.
The Cemetery
Here we meet Stan, a life insurance policy salesman who after being freed from his captivity in a coffin by Guybrush. He will give you some stuff that will help you throughout the game. After, Guybrush will cash in a life insurance policy, once he proves his untimely repeated death and obtain lots of money.
The Crypt
To enter the crypt Guybrush has to die a few times, which was predicted to him earlier on in the game. (no spoilers). Here we find the southern belle of Blood Island Minnie Goodsoup's skeleton ghost, as she was known and learn the story of her heartbreak with the evil pirate LeChuck. She is still wearing here wedding band even though she is distraught, but, it helps later on the in the game.
The Beach
You will obtain objects from this area and later speak to a mysterious stranger known as the Flying Welshman who will take Guybrush to skull island once he is given what he needs.
Skull Island
I really thought this part of the game would be the most challenging and I expected an actual skull to be the symbol of the island, instead it was quite different. You will not spend too much time in this level, as all you do is climb up the mountain, get lowered down to the cave in the mountain use an umbrella obtained from Griswold to land you safely in front of the cave where you will meet the smugglers of Blood island King Andre and his partner. The idea here is to outsmart the smugglers in a game of poker to obtain the Goodsoup diamond, which King Andre informs Guybrush will cost an awful lot of money. Using the lots of money from Stan will help here a lot, as well as the tarot cards obtained from Madame Xima the fortune teller. Once the diamond is obtained, the Flying Welshman takes Guybrush back to Blood Island.
Elaine
Area where Elaine's statue is waiting for the curse to be broken, once the Goodsoup diamond ring is placed on her finger the curse is broken. That's when LeChuck and his gang of pirates has caught up with Guybrush and Elaine and takes them hostage.
Part 5:Kiss of the Spider Monkey
In this part, LeChuck has cast a child spell on Guybrush making him a small child. He finds himself in the carnival of the damned. Guybrush as a child needs to make it to the Roller Coaster of Death to get to Elaine. A series of potion mixes and trickery, eventually Guybrush returns to his normal size.
Part 6:Guybrush Kicks Butt Once Again
This last part is the shortest where Guybrush is riding in rail cars on the Roller Coaster of Death, once again he has to use a series of tricks to outsmart LeChuck and eventually kill him. The end of the game is quite endearing and predictable where Guybrush and Elaine are off on the Sea Cucumber.
Conclusion:
This is by far one of my favorite games, it has some challenging parts like the banjo duel with Edward Van Helgen at the beginning, the sword fighting at sea insults. The part I liked the most was Blood Island as most of the puzzles were simple to solve and there was more of a story. I highly recommend this series for a beginner, someone who will enjoy point and click brain teaser puzzle games, with nice animation. It is a friendly game as well, no violence you can stop if you need to and go on. These can be played in no particular order. Overall, I enjoyed this game and will be reviewing the rest as I play them.
