I just want to say a big thank you. THANK YOU Rare Team to restore my hope in SoT with this update. It came at the right time of my life.
You played an amazing game here. And I am not talking about Sea of Thieves, nor the update, nor Monkey Island. I am talking about how you kept the silence avoiding spoilers; how you manage to build a great story worthy of a franchise with so many old-timers-fans like me. Yes... boomers like me who can be very hard to satisfy when you try to create continuity of something we love. People that nearly lost hope on video gaming story telling got an amazing time playing it even when not all of the content from the publicity video was in the release as I blindly expected.
You are making a GREAT product. I feel full of joy when I play it. And I think that it is a lot of saying considering that I started in the IT industry in the early 90s because I wanted to build a game like Monkey Island some day (never happened anyway). This update brought me back to years ago to the day I saw SoT for the very first time on a stream and I thought "wow... this game is made by A LOT of monkey island fans like me! These people probably memorized sword-fighting-insults to say 'hello' in the every-day's office. These people has the spirit! I love them already!"
An awesomely positive aspect I feel, is that the build of these release didn't have the "Disney pressure" like PL had. I feel almost no executive nonsense-orders from non-player managers/directors. I feel it is made from pure heart. And I am enormously thankful for that.
The music, art, story, everything (except few silly details)... everything IS perfect. The wall decorations inside the SCUMM bar kept me hyped constantly. How you managed to make everything match?. I can play the original 1990 MI today remembering Legend of Monkey Island with tears of joy.
Bugs like the twisted right arm after putting on the disguise of cook, or the ship-name changed after finishing the adventure might be inevitable within such big release. Specially when you want to keep the secret even from Insiders to avoid any leaking. I respect and totally agree with that. I know that you will fix them very soon. Because that is what happens when you love what you are doing.
I played 4 times already. First as personal solo because I always prefer to start that way. Second to get the (very well thought) commendations. 3rd and 4th because some friends and my sons wanted to play it with me. I think I will give it another shot today. Just for fun.
With this message I am not saying that I am blindly in love of it "just because of monkey island". No. Because there are things that I didn't react very well when I saw them. But none of them where about terrain art, music, story, ambience, voices, etc ... None of them were any really important aspect of the game. They were mostly executive decisions like having Kate Capsize in every outpost which I understand it is because the company in general is now supporting lazy-whining-kids a bit too much.
About the characters: Kate, all the customers at the bar, the men of low moral fiber, the long beard Guybrush, the lookout, the storekeeper, Otis, ALL AWESOME ARTWORK! But some of them are a bit weird. I dislike the Guybrush mustache on the game menu which looks like having a piece of rubber pasted under his nose. The aspect of the cook is far from the cook I know. Or the fact that some character shaping are not like the originals probably because of legal reason of having the model already used in a different SoT original character as I feel it happened with Mancomb and the Pirate lord, or the Citizen of Melee and the Mysterious Stranger. At least, that was my very first impression when I played SoT for the very first time.
Now, a different aspect I found is this weird dialog:
I understand this event happened before Return to Monkey Island. In RtMI, Guybrush is surprised to see Wally at a Melee Island shop. But the ghost located at the "Wally's shop" says "This is not Wally's shop anymore". IMO, that dialog doesn't match the timeline because in that case, the Pirate Leaders shouldn't be in the Scumm Bar either. In the original Melee island, the sign of that shop says "Ye Olde Rubber-Chicken-With-a-Pulley-in-the-Middle Shoppe Serving your rubber-chicken-with-a-pulley-in-the-middle needs for over 50 years." Might happen that Wally just arrived and is preparing the new shop, but in that case, the dialog have to be changed.
Anyway. I consider The Legend of Monkey Island a master piece. Thank you all again for it. And I DEEPLY DEEPLY DEEPLY hope this quality remains for the future releases.
I honestly and sincerely wish you all the best.
