Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2: Siege of Spinner Cay Review

The second episode in the new Tales of Monkey Island adventure series takes gamers to the titular Spinner Cay, where they must attempt to solve the mysterious pox illness that’s sweeping over the world. Along the way, you’ll meet mermaids (or mermen, not really sure), find your love Elaine, and attempt to engage in good old pirate diplomacy to break a stalemate.

As usual, you are in control of Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate, as you navigate through this latest piece of episodic content. Right off the bat, you’ll notice that the scenery is quite diverse, much more so than the first episode (at least at first), and that the dialog options are much more varied than the first episode as well. These were two complaints with the first game that have been addressed by the developers, although at some point you go to a jungle scene that is mostly identical to the first game. Another complaint with the first game was the recycling of character models. That didn’t bother me at all, though, and the developers did include a few new models for this episode.

The Monkey Island franchise is known for its exploration and its humor, and Siege of Spinner Cay delivers more of both than the first episode. The writing is sharper, and the cast of supporting characters is much more entertaining this time around. I enjoyed the humor much more in Spinner Cay than in the previous episode, and selecting the different dialog options actually resulted in Guybrush speaking out the lines, unlike Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. The game’s length remains about the same, and although it all depends on how much you get stuck, you’ll be done with this episode in 2-3 hours, or about the same amount of time as the first episode.

The graphics in Siege of Spinner Cay are much more diverse, at least until you reach the jungle area. Still, there are several small beach islands to explore, the jungle area (less labyrinth-like this time around), and the titular Spinner Cay, which is really colorful and vibrant. The overall presentation, including audio, has been improved, and you can see that much effort was put in to ensure a better overall experience than on the first episode. Of course, those looking for flaws will still find some muddy textures, recycled character models, and rather small overall area sizes limiting the exploration.

Minor quibbles aside, Tales of Monkey Island: Siege of Spinner Cay is more beautiful than the first episode, features more dialog, more scenery, and contains much more humor than the first episode. The developers have addressed a lot of the issues in the first episode, and although length may still be a concern to some, those who enjoyed the first one will have even more to like here. As usual, the episode leaves you anticipating the next release, wondering just how much more trouble Guybrush can get himself into.