I'm gonna go against the grain here and admit that I love this game. It's at least tied for my favorite in the series (with LeChuck's Revenge), so I feel compelled to come to its defense and explain why it's worth a try, especially if you enjoy Monkey Island games.

The most common complaints about this game are its controls and it's puzzles, especially Monkey Kombat. I'll address these in order.

CONTROLS:
As you'll note, this is not a point-and-click adventure game like the rest of the series, and I'll concede that this was a huge risk and ultimately a huge mistake on the part of the developers as it went against MI tradition. In this game, you use your keyboard/controller to scroll through dialogue options and "look" at items to interact with them. It is definitely jarring at first, especially if you're coming off of playing the other MI games. BUT. They are NOT hard to get used to. I think people exaggerate how much the controls ruin the game. You get used to them. I repeat, YOU GET USED TO THEM. They're really no more complicated than any other computer game that utilizes a keyboard (hit "I" for inventory, use WASD or arrow keys to move and choose stuff, press Esc for options; it's not insanity).

PUZZLES (sans Monkey Kombat):
I think this game has some great puzzles. They're challenging and often silly, but that's what I like about them. You have to look hard for clues, talk to NPCs, take notes sometimes, think outside the box. Admittedly, as a child, I had to consult a guide a lot. But as an adult who revisited the game after 10+ years, I had little trouble with the puzzles/enjoyed whenever I was stumped. Maybe this game is a bit harder than the others (I don't think so), but I think that shouldn't drag it down; welcome the challenge. Even tho it's not THAT challening.
***however I will gladly admit a certain puzzle to do with "skin" is a pretty absurdly hard puzzle lol***

MONKEY KOMBAT:
Related to the above, I have always seen Monkey Kombat as just another, albeit maybe harder, puzzle and I can't believe the general consensus is that it's bad. I LOVE Monkey Kombat! I'm dead serious. It is a challenge! You have to take notes! But I promise it's not crazy difficult. It's like learning a new card game. If you took the time to learn stuff like Gwent or Triple Triad or if you play Sudoku or literally any other puzzle game, I promise you can figure out Monkey Kombat. It's nothing more than another puzzle. The catch is that you won't find the answer to it on the internet so you have to use your brain. Please give it a try before knocking it.

STORY:
I don't know if people like or dislike the story, but I personally think this is one of MI's best stories due to its themes around consumerism and tourism, which has ALWAYS been a big MI theme. It's a wild, winding story with lots of twists, turns, and revelations, but that's what makes it a fun ride.

OTHER THINGS I LIKE:
- Voice acting is the best in the series, imo
- Music is the best in the series, imo
- Graphics are obviously dated, but anything non-CGI holds up well, imo

Please give this game a chance. It's received a horrible reputation that I think is undeserved. Just because it's different doesn't mean it's bad. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

If you can live with the forced 640x480 resolution and clunky controls, there is still a great game locked in there wanting to get out. Great voice acting, fabulous sense of humour and fiendish puzzles.

Apparently Escape has always been controversial. I say 'apparently' as I was completely oblivious to this controversy when it was first released... until I started exploring online. When it was released in 2000 I (and my entire family) absolutely loved it. It felt fresh as well as more cinematic - I loved the story, graphics, jokes, music, Monkey Kombat, ending... everything! We played it together for hours, and still to this day some of my best memories of Monkey Island were playing through Escape for the first time with my brother and sister. We finished the game feeling fully satisfied and thirsting for more!

At the time, if I were to rank them, I would have said:

1. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
2. Escape From Monkey Island
3. The Curse of Monkey Island
4. The Secret of Monkey Island

Yes, I am a diehard fan, so if it has the title 'Monkey Island' on it I'm bound to enjoy it and bore any listener to tears about how great of a game it is. However, before someone thinks Escape was my first exposure to the series, I played them in order. As they were released. To be more specific, I played MI1 and MI2 in 1992, Curse around 1998 and Escape in 2000.

Months later when I went online I quickly saw the mixed reactions all over fan sites - I was really quite surprised. Was Escape perfect? No... but it seemed like fans were picking it apart for things that didn't even phase me, just because it was different. Yes, the game was now in 3D, it was no longer point-and-click, it had a new villain and LeChuck was more of a sidekick, they changed some of the voice actors, some islands felt less piratey (that's part of the story, common!), some of the back story could have been explained more clearly (Herman Toothrot's reveal is not a continuity error![mixnmojo.com]), yes Melee looks different, yes Monkey Kombat can be a little tiring (but is it really deserving of all the hate?? I really enjoyed it and it reminded me of the insult sword fighting and ship to ship combat sequences in previous games)… but this was a new MI game! Why weren't people just grateful that we got another adventure game, in a time that adventure games were declared dead? Sadly, it made me realize that some fans really just enjoyed bashing it, as if it was some sort of demented sport. It seemed that what they really wanted was more of the same, rather than something new…

With the recent announcement of Return to Monkey Island, the unexpected news of an additional Monkey Island couldn’t have made me more excited! It also inspired me to go back and replay all of the previous titles. As it's been ~20 years, it's been really fun playing them again as they are both very familiar, yet in some ways seem like brand new adventures. They were great and they are great. I love them all, but that being said here are a couple of things I noticed after playing them again many years later:

1. Graphics: They are all dated. All of them. If I had to pick the one that I noticed the most this time around I would have to say Curse surprised me, as I remembered it as looking absolutely stunning, yet now with its low resolution it seems quite... rough. Graphically, MI1 and MI2 are about what I remembered... as even in 2000 they were dated. MI2's art is still beautiful though. And although the characters in Escape look quite sharp and jagged, I was actually surprised by how well it stood up. I also forgot how great the backgrounds are.

2. Story: They all have amazing stories imho. MI1 was as I remembered, but for some reason I MI2 was actually the one I didn't enjoy as much this time through. Don't get me wrong, it's still an absolute classic and arguably the best adventure game LucasArts created, but this time around I definitely noticed how 'dark' it really is, and I'm still not sure what I think of that ending. Curse is great, and they did a marvelous job trying to explain the MI2 cliff-hanger, but I can't help feeling that the ending was rushed. It seemed like they were trying to explain too much in too short of time, and the whole theme park could have been bigger with more locations and puzzles. The ending just came so fast. Now with Escape I'm not going to say that it was better than I remembered, but like MI1 my level of enjoyment was on par as when I first picked it up.

3. Time: As I replayed these games I didn't just do a speed-run clicking on the proper dialog lines and grabbing only what I needed. That being said, I also didn't try every single combination of combining inventory items or trying to hear every line in the game. What I did was something in between, where I tried to listen to as many choices as possible from the dialog trees, and find each of the hints of what to do next so that solving the puzzles made sense and I wasn't just relying on childhood memories of how to progress. As a result, one of the things I was surprised with then was that Escape was the longest game by far! These times are approximate, but I spent about 11. 2 hours playing MI1, 14.4 hours playing MI2, 8.7 hours on Curse, and 16.2 hours on Escape! I’m only mentioning this as Escape is a big game. It is a big, full-on adventure game with challenging puzzles, lots of characters to interact with, and a long, involved story.

Not to get sidetracked or anything, but with the announcement of Return to Monkey Island I’ve noticed something (this is relevant to Escape, so please bear with me… if you’ve bothered to read this far).

Fans are harsh. Strangely, some people just don’t seem to want to be excited. Rather, they seem to be fixating on things that imho shouldn’t matter that much. There’s been a backlash from some vocal fans about the graphics. First, many wanted the same old-school pixel graphics similar to MI1 and MI2 as Ron is placing his story between MI2 and Curse, so that he can write the story he always wanted to tell. Secondly, they have been piling hate upon the new art style that Ron has chosen… based on 4 screenshots and a teaser!

From what I can tell, it seems like every game beyond the original has had its fair share of fan controversy. Many fans didn’t like the ending of MI2, and LucasArts received written letters of complaint for months! Curse was the first game not led by Ron Gilbert, so for years fans have lamented that they wouldn’t know what that ending of MI2 was really supposed to mean. Others didn’t like the character art, while others complained about the treatment of certain characters (e.g. Wally and Elaine), as well as the short ending. With the development of the internet, those complains have become louder, and to be frank, many fans were upset with Escape even before it was released. Seeing that it was going to be 3D turned off many, and to be blunt they never gave it a fighting chance. I haven’t replayed Tales yet or delved into the fan reactions, but it seems that with each successive MI game the creators have had to deal with more and more disgruntled fans, as expectations have only increased with each release.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that Escape From Monkey Island is an absolutely classic adventure game that is definitely underrated and has received a lot of criticism, which I believe is much too harsh and unwarranted. It is a full-on LucasArts adventure game that has so many good things about it, and is an absolute pleasure to play. Unfortunately, it also is 4th in a beloved series and is written by different creators, so regardless of what they did, it would have been impossible to please everyone.

So, if you can get over the fact that Escape is different, then I am confident that you will find much to enjoy. For me, it’s almost too close to tell, but at this point I might even consider it my favourite Monkey Island game. That’s right. I said it. Move over LeChuck(’s Revenge).

Yay, My monkey Island collection is complete! I hear alot of people saying they don't like this one, I don't know if it's nostalgia but I love it, sure it's not as good as the third but it's still a damn good game!

I LOVE THIS GAME!!!

Turns out, I disliked the control scheme, semi-ridiculous puzzles and transition to 3D graphics more when I was a child. Now, with my 31 years of age, I can legit confirm this is one of the best adventure games out there. Funny, charming and, most importantly, full of monkeys!

I grew up playing the original Monkey Island series, but I missed this entry the first time around. Finally it has been released on Steam, but it appears I shall miss it again this round due to game-breaking bugs and other porting issues.

As of now in Windows 10, the only ways I've found to even play the game are at an extremely low resolution in full screen mode -- which also renders the cutscenes unviewable (the audio plays, but nothing displays) -- OR in a tiny windowed mode via a manual ini tweak. Add to that several game-breaking bugs that, in some cases, seem to necessitate starting over with a completely new game file (or perhaps poaching someone else's save files).

You might notice that many of the the most glowing user reviews have less than an hour logged on this version of the game: these users are rating their nostalgia rather than the actual product they purchased. Although I was initially pleased to have access to this classic again, Disney is insulting us by re-publishing this game in its current state and expecting payment.

Hoo boy... this is a hard one:

Pros:
The voice acting
The humor
The music

Cons:
The controls
Some of the puzzles are unforgiving and frustrating
Monkey Kombat!!!
The kinda mixed-up story
MONKEY KOMBAT!!!

While I don't hate this one, it's definitely the black sheep of the franchise. Also, reason I didn't say anything about the graphics was that it didn't seem fair -3D graphics were still a new thing at the time, and it still carried a Monkey Island vibe. So while I don't think it's a terrible game, it's not exactly great either.

This game has certainly received a lot of negativity which i feel in many areas is highly warranted. Indeed the controls them self were so awkward compared to previous titles, that I was tempted to fall into the same camp as many before me and write this game off as the miss that sank the series. However persevere and you can uncover a rough gemstone of a game that has stepped its problem solving dilemma's back up to a standard on par with the best of the series.

Pro's

- Maintains theme and humour of previous games.
- Puzzles within are a refreshing upgrade from the easier and telegraphed monkey island 3.
- Longer than previous games in the series.
- Wraps up the open plot elements from previous instalments nicely.

Cons

- Controls (These require some learning/mapping. They are certainly not intuative and gone is access to your mouse)
- Graphics, Ack mine eyes! It is one of those games made in the unfortunate era where developers tried to make all games in 3d. Sadly the tech wasn't there properly at the time and this is often done to the detriment of detail and character within a game. This has therefore stood the test of time horribly compared to the pixelated 2d models of the previous games.
- Bugs A couple of endless pathing bugs encountered during play through (forcing a load from previous save) in addition to an early total crash out and issues if minimising the game during play from full screen.

Summary

After over coming the initial hurdle with the controls I did find Monkey Island IV to be refreshing and enjoyable. The Graphics might have been atrocious and the path finding temperamental however the puzzles and humour at the games core were back to the mind boggling levels previously enjoyed in the series. I have enjoyed the game and was disappointed it ended when it was done. However due to the issues encountered, I can only marginally reccomend this title, a sale as always, would make this games shortcomings more palatable.

I played this with my best friend when we were kids. We sat in her room trying to beat this game but gave up after completing the first island. It was just too hard to go on from there. For years we thought we were just too stupid to progress it since we were so young. So, I picked it up a while ago when it was on sale and thought "I bet its far easier now that I'm older."There is no way I am this stupid for a game meant for children. ...right?

This game has been packaged to work well on modern system configurations (my CD copy from 2000 had required some tweaking to function properly). This game worked well on Linux using Steam Play for me as well, including correcting a resolution problem I would experience upon exiting using Wine.

The nostalgia factor is high with this game. The "Tank" controls leave a bit to be desired (users may find themselves longing for the Point-and-Click interface of prior [and later] Monkey Island titles), but this is no different from the experience in the early 'oos.