Tales of Monkey Island: Lair of the Leviathan Review

You have to hand it to Telltale Games as they release new episodes in their Tales of Monkey Island adventure series: The writing is getting funnier, the locales more beautiful, and the story becomes more engaging with each episode. In Tales of Monkey Island: Lair of the Leviathan, the latest episode in a new adventure series, Guybrush Threepwood must battle his toughest opponents yet, figure out the most devious puzzles, and escape from the belly of the beast.

Joining you in this new adventure is a mostly new set of supporting characters, one of which steals the show (no spoilers here) and provides some of the most humorous moments and memorable lines yet in this already funny series. Along the way you will lead the way out of a giant manatee and into the titular lair of the leviathan.

You begin the episode where the previous one ended, inside a huge manatee searching for a mysterious artifact that will hopefully rid the world of a serious, rapidly spreading illness. Which you unleashed. But that’s neither here nor there, as you must somehow find a way out of the beast. Aiding you (well, sometimes hindering you) on your quest are a bounty hunter, a conquistador, and his disenchanted former crew. A nice introduction is provided for gamers that have not played the previous episodes, and it certainly can be played without experiencing the previous episodes, but I would strongly recommend playing the Monkey Island games in sequence.

Immediately, you’ll notice that the developers have once again upped the ante in terms of visuals. The manatee’s innards look great, with imaginative nooks for the trapped pirates. The textures and animations are all enhanced, and the episode features very large character models for the manatees and the ships, the largest in the series and very impressive for a WiiWare title. The audio is also stepped up, with a lighthearted score and the best voice acting yet, including a whole lot of dialog for leading man Guybrush. Unlike the first episode, I found that every dialog option for Guybrush was fully voiced.

Still, the main draw for the Monkey Island series has always been its unique brand of pirate humor, and in Lair of the Leviathan that humor is better than ever. Guybrush delivers his lines with gusto, and all of the characters you meet are unique and interesting. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, one character (familiar to longtime Monkey Island fans) in particular delivers a standout performance. I literally laughed out loud several times during this episode.

The controls are unchanged from the previous episodes, though as I mentioned the animations were smoother this time around. Also, the puzzles were well thought out, and aside from a few really perplexing ones, were reasonable in difficulty. The key, as in any other Monkey Island game, is to think of unconventional ways to use the items in your inventory. Sometimes, the solutions were very difficult to figure out, but once you did, they (mostly) made sense.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Lair of the Leviathan is the prettiest and funniest episode to date. The developers have sharpened the presentation and the writing to offer up the best episode in the series. The episode will cost the usual 1000 points on Wii, and the episode is about the same length as previous entries in the series, which means 3-4 hours tops. For those who enjoyed the previous episodes, this one is the best yet, and for those on the fence, now would be a good time to jump in, considering the way the episodes have evolved. As usual, the episode ends in a cliffhanger that sets up the next one, and after this episode, I can’t wait to see what kind of trouble Guybrush gets himself into.