The Secret of Monkey Island (PC) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of Lucasfilm's 1990 graphic adventure for PCs running MS-DOS, The Secret of Monkey Island.

This recording is of the original EGA version of the game with sound played through the Creative Labs' Game Blaster soundcard.

The Secret of Monkey Island was first released on 15 October 1990, which means that today is its thirtieth birthday! Happy birthday, Guybrush!

It hardly seems like three decades have passed since the words, "My name is Guybrush Threepwood, and I want to be a pirate!" introduced me to this special little corner of the digital Caribbean.

The Secret of Monkey Island is, in my personal opinion, one of the top graphic adventures ever made. It belongs to my favorite genre of games, and though I tend to hold a heavy personal preference for Sierra's point-and-click adventures, biases be damned. The Secret of Monkey Island was one of those rare titles that pushed the boundaries of its genre to create an experience that's nothing short of extraordinary.

It came out around the same time as King's Quest V (a thoroughly impressive game in its own right), and though Monkey Island lacked the record-breaking budget of Roberta Williams' then latest work, it exceeded it in many ways: the story was rife with humor that flowed naturally from the excellent writing, the puzzle solutions were far less contrived than you'd find in virtually any other game of its day, and most importantly, Monkey Island didn't allow you to back yourself into a corner by making the game unwinnable. Of all the advances that had been made in computer games up until 1990, that single innovation has got to be the one that I appreciated the most.

As you'd expect from the likes of Ron Gilbert (a genius of game design as far as I'm concerned), it can make you both scratch your head and laugh out loud at the same time with seemingly zero effort. The characters are genuinely endearing and thoughtfully written, and the game's world feels very alive for how small it actually is.

It was also quite an artistic achievement. Like I said before, it lacks the production values of Sierra's bigger games, but that doesn't stop it from impressing. The artists did wonders within the confines of the EGA graphics standard (as they did with the VGA version, released in 12/90). Like we also saw in Brian Moriarty's Loom, the artists at Lucasfilm again turned 16-color dithering into a bona-fide art form. It looks better than it has any right to with such a small (and terrible) color palette at its disposal.

If you've only played the VGA version, you'll probably notice quite a few interesting differences between it and this version of the game. The sunset was removed and the close-up portraits were all changed for the VGA release, and this one is running on an older version of the SCUMM engine - notice how the interface more closely resembles Maniac Mansion than it does Day of the Tentacle?

And I believe that this one is the only version that doesn't have a drunk pirate extolling the many virtues of Loom. Our visiom-impared friend is still here, though, and he looks freaking awesome with that dead orange eye.

I chose to play it using the CMS music because I thought it suited the look of the graphics well, and because it sounds cool. I grew up playing the game on a Sound Blaster, so I'm more used to hearing the FM Adlib soundtrack, but I'm also a big fan of the sound of these PSG arrangements.

And finally, Monkey Island is also a great Halloween game, making the timing of its birthday ideal :) You get ghost pirates, voodoo priestesses, poisoned puppies, a talking severed head, health-conscious cannibals...

And that's not to mention the genius insult-driven sword fighting.

The Secret of Monkey Island is a gaming legend, and there's no way I was not going to pay it tribute today. I've gotten a lot of joy out of it over the years, and I wanted to share some of that with everyone.

However you play it, whether it be the 2009 HD remaster (https://youtu.be/ZIoh59Z3DWw), the 1992 Sega CD port (https://youtu.be/v2wZtbQgYR4), or any of the versions released in between, Guybrush Threepwood's first adventure is well worth your effort to seek out and to savor.

You can also find my playthrough of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge here: https://youtu.be/tY0OwHUS8r4

The Curse of Monkey Island (MI3) here: https://youtu.be/YsLPOrRitz0

I have done a load more point-and-click adventures, most of which you'll find on my PC games playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3gSj_kh1fHvH2JX1zx9xLW4dJHkZlVkp
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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