Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter One Review

The graphics are crisp, but we prefer the original pixellated art style.

On the island, the game quickly settles down into puzzle solving, item interaction and NPC chatting via witty dialogue options. It actually rekindles memories of the second game, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. Washed ashore, you're stripped of all your possessions and forced to start from scratch. Your first tentative steps involve meeting the cast – there's a local news reporter, a glass blower, a French scientist (a terribly underwhelming villain), a pirate doll-obsessed pirate (a clear dig at geekdom), a ship captain and some old favourites. There's a bar, a jungle, a dock and more mysterious ancient carvings than you can shake a three-headed monkey at.

It's all very Monkey Island. The tone is just about right and the gags good (“Holy ships!”). As a fan, when that unmistakeable Monkey Island music kicks in it's impossible to prevent the hairs on the back of your neck from sticking up like a carpet made of hedgehogs. When Guybrush references the original games (look out for nods to insult sword fighting, rubber chickens and Mêlée Island), you're transported to a time when weekend-long sessions were only broken by booming calls to dinner from the kitchen. Tales of Monkey Island makes you smile, and that is undoubtedly a good thing.

Viewed with a fresh pair of eyes, with those nostalgia goggles off, Tales of Monkey Island's puzzles and dialogue unfortunately let it down. Too often the puzzles feel like item grind – you're stuck so using everything with everything else until something works is the only remaining option. Now, fans of the original games will know that this is nothing new – the solutions to some of the sillier puzzles made no sense at all - but the difference here is the setting, dialogue and characters aren't compelling enough to justify the odd bouts of frustration. Everyone's experience will differ of course, but we found one or two puzzles a little too left of field and unsatisfying once complete.

The puzzles are often plain old boring, too. One in particular, which sees you having to negotiate through a maze-like jungle with the use of a map, is a particularly frustrating affair made more so by the often fiddly, inaccurate movement of Guybrush. Towards the end of the game a key puzzle feels too drawn out - it's repeated, essentially, four times. Great video game puzzles are ones that make you feel smart once you've worked them out, or make you kick yourself when you're forced to ask for a hint. You don't get that from Episode One.

This pirate is Irish and says 'ee-jit'

It's hard to put your finger on what exactly makes Launch of the Screaming Narwhal an underwhelming return to the series. Perhaps it suffers from being the first of five episodes – you feel much of what you see and do exists only to set up upcoming chapters (Guybrush suggests as much when you try to interact with one particular object). At five hours it feels short, despite the fact that its length is deliberate and it's priced accordingly. Because of that it's almost impossible to lose yourself in Flotsam Island and truly engage in its inhabitants. That they're not particularly memorable doesn't help, either.

Still, Telltale's created a perfectly enjoyable game that all Monkey Island fans should at least try. It's not as engaging or memorable as we remember the originals to be, and the puzzles won't blow anyone away, but it's still hugely exciting to play a brand new Monkey Island game, such is the enduring popularity of the early 90s classics. And, if there was any doubt, the game proves that the Monkey Island universe is one that's as compelling now as it was nearly 20 years ago, and well-suited to the Telltale treatment.

You can download episode one from Telltale Games' official Tales of Monkey Island website.