Escape from Monkey Island

aka: EFMI, Flucht von Monkey Island, Fuga da Ilha dos Macacos, Fuga da Monkey Island, Houdao Da Taowang, La Fuga de Monkey Island, MI4, Monkey Island 4
Moby ID: 2606
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Guybrush Threepwood has finally defeated the zombie pirate LeChuck, and married his sweetheart Elaine Marley. The happy couple is returning home from an exciting honeymoon. But as they arrive on Melee Island, they notice some very strange changes. A mysterious stranger who calls himself Charles L. Charles is organizing a campaign to become the next governor. The Australian businessman Ozzie Mandrill is turning the Caribbean into an attraction for tourists. And on top of that, Elaine's mansion is being demolished! Naturally, it's up to our hero to revert the things back to normal, even if that means traveling to exotic islands and solving puzzles on the way.

Escape From Monkey Island is a direct sequel to The Curse of Monkey island, and is the fourth game in the Monkey Island series. The gameplay relies mainly on inventory-based puzzles and branching dialogues, just like in the previous installments. The interface is similar to that of Grim Fandango: mouse is not used, and the interaction is done via context-sensitive commands that appear on the screen whenever you navigate Guybrush close to an object. The game utilizes pre-rendered backgrounds and 3D character models.

Spellings

  • 猴岛大逃亡 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 猴島小英雄4:逃離猴島 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

389 People (311 developers, 78 thanks) · View all

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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 68 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 192 ratings with 15 reviews)

Aye, ‘tis a black day for adventures: the last great series is dying.

The Good
When talking of recent Hollywood comedies like American Pie or Road Trip, you would most likely describe them as really funny movies, though no necessarily good ones. That description fits perfectly well on Escape from Monkey Island.

The fourth instalment of the famous series of adventure games is still guaranteed to make you laugh. Nice dialogues and the occasional slapstick animation make for a relaxed and humorous ambience that encourages you to press on -- eager to hear the next punch line.
However, the feat of being a funny game is lessened if you take into account that all the good gags are either allusions to past episodes (“Oh yeah? You fight like a cow!”) or even the recycling of humorous mechanisms introduced with Monkey Island 1 (take a closer look at the course of many dialogues). As EFMI contents itself with cycling through all the well-known characters and locations, it neglects the need for originality.

The Bad
A good adventure needs to be thrilling like a film, yet interactive like a computer game. That is to say that its two most important features are the presentation (scenario, characters, plot) and the puzzles. Unfortunately, Escape from Monkey Island is weak in exactly these two categories.

Suppose a friend invited you to her home, and for one reason or the other she didn’t give you her house number. You’d be forced to ring at every door in the entire street, probably going through some embarrassing situations. This is a lot like the puzzles in Escape from Monkey Island: you know the task at hand, but there’s often not the slightest hint on the next step for fulfilling that mission. You’re thus inclined to go from door to door, sorry, location to location, trying anything, sensible or not, to see if you’re lucky.
An example: to enrage one old businessman, Guybrush has to spray cologne at a stuffed animal in the guy’s mansion. This is a strange puzzle all right, but what is more, you are never told that the animal might be of any use, nor that the man might react to the perfume. Consequently, you can only find the solution by guessing. This is a grave mistake in design -- to solve a puzzle, you need to know that it’s there. The majority of puzzles in EFMI are unnecessarily complicated due to a lack of hints and guidance. Don’t get me wrong -- I don’t want to suggest that the solution should be apparent. But the parts of the problem should be. As a mathematician would put it: you cannot solve an equation if there are too many unknowns. It is ample evidence of incapacity if a game forces its players to resort to wild guessing and trial-and-error item usage rather than logical thinking.

Ryan Prendiville has stated in his review that “A few of the puzzles in the game were near impossible, but they were rare.” Although this is true, it is not the point. The point is that not a single puzzle in the game is really cool.

You should think that the pirate scenario is idiot-proof, and to a certain extent this is true. Even though Escape from Monkey Islands stains the pirate flair with a half-hearted attempt at consume criticism, there is still magic in the idea of a Caribbean adventure. However, every scenario is only as good as the characters that make it come alive. The persons populating EFMI are uninspired stereotypes. LucasArts has done a remarkable job at turning Guybrush’s and Elaine’s relationship into the strong-woman-weak-man cliché that even daily soaps are ashamed to use any more. Guybrush is stripped of everything but his childlike naiveté and left to be humiliated at every occasion, pirates are toothless Disney-type cuddly toys, and arch-enemy LeChuck is reduced to a rather clueless brawler with few scenes. Does it even matter that the vindictive, bloodthirsty ghost pirate first appears at Guybrush’s mansion for a brief chat, then walks the streets of the town without anyone seeming to care too much? The plot is weak, full of holes and altogether hardly a reward for the player’s efforts.

Let me give one last comment on the presentation and control of the game. Mark Isaakson said in his review that “The more free flowing gameplay (less use of the mouse) is an interesting move, but in the end, it's a good one.” I do not see where the abolishment of the mouse contributed to a more free flowing gameplay. On the contrary, I am now forced to control the protagonist by hand, aim at objects, avoid bumping into obstacles, scroll endlessly through the inventory and use 11 (!) keys to perform actions, all of which I could do with one single click of the mouse.
Personally, I think the rendered backgrounds with their plastic look to be cold and empty, but that is a matter of taste.

The Bottom Line
Escape from Monkey Island is not a bad game, but it is definitely a disappointment. Lacking the sparkling brilliancy of its predecessors and suffering from some severe mistakes in game design, the weakest episode of the series is also a step backwards for the whole adventure genre.

Windows · by -Chris (7762) · 2023

No. Not very good. Don't you dare make another one Lucasarts!

The Good
This comes with the typical Lucasarts quality. The soundtrack is ok (if worse than Grim Fandango's), the graphics are ok (if worse than Grim Fandango's), the cutscenes are adequate (if worse than Grim Fandango's), and the characters and their personalities are typically well brought across (if not as good as Gri...well you get the point). Some of the locations are enjoyable, I particularly liked the diving game. The voice acting is generally good (even though Guybrush is too significant a personality, and should never have been given a voice no matter how good the actor). Some of the voices were brilliant however, the hippie diving judge for example.

The Bad
Look lets get one thing straight: just because it's a game that's trying to be funny, it doesn't mean it IS funny. Monkey Island 1 was slightly amusing at times, so was Monkey 2. Monkey Island 3 was NOT. And neither is this, only even less so. This is not funny AT ALL! It has less wit than most children's cartoons. Watch some if you don't believe me. This is told like a story for 5yr olds. It is NOT funny. Got it? Some of the ideas are drained to the last drop, like Monkey Kombat, which wasn't very interesting to begin with. Monkeys are cool, but it's not a selling point so don't fill the game with them. The cut-scenes look worse than Grim Fandango's and that was made 2 years before; the camera doesn't swoop gracefully and artistically like the aforementioned Lucasarts title. It's too static, and they're never very interesting anyway. The plot is dull. Ideas are rehashed mercilessly. The series should have stopped when it still was respectable. Now it's a cash in, and even the critics still applaud it.

The Bottom Line
About as worthwhile as Rocky 5. Seems even Lucasarts aren't daring to be original anymore. This is typically well presented but lacking any substance or worth. Great adventure games look at this, laugh and call it names behind it's back. The series, once great, is now a cash-horse. Just try and remember the days when Lucasarts created Loom. Remember all the talent they once had. Someday people will look at this and say it's bad the way they say no3 was bad. They thought it was brilliant when it was released yet look at it now. Lets hope they pull it off for the next one, otherwise they'll take the Bullfrog route.

Windows · by Shazbut (163) · 2002

More fun than a barrel of monkeys!

The Good
There is one thing you can always count on in a Monkey Island game -- laughs, and this is no exception. Escape From Monkey Island is revamped with 3D environments and the control system has been streamlined and simplified. I like the new controls, a mouse is no longer used and there is no more of the hunting and clicking that plague adventure games. The environments for the most part are okay but it is really the characters that shine. They skins are really wacky and suit the characters. The voice acting (like most Lucasarts games) is top notch. The game is hilarious and will have you playing over just to hear all the jokes.

The Bad
A few of the puzzles in the game were near impossible but they were rare. At times I thought some of the environments felt cold.

The Bottom Line
If you are not familiar with the piratey goodness of Monkey Island I highly recommend getting the first three. If you have played the first ones this one is just as good.

Windows · by Ryan Prendiville (689) · 2000

[ View all 15 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
*Alarm bells ringing, sirens wailing...* DJP Mom (11333) Jun 21, 2007

Trivia

Controls

Escape from Monkey Island emulates the controls of Alone in the Dark right down to double-tapping the up arrow to run; according to its manual and readme, this was in Grim Fandango as well, but was removed at the last minute.

Extras

The PC version came with a "quick-path" walkthrough that explained how to beat the entire game. However, not much detail was put into it, and no secrets were revealed (both to try and persuade the player to buy the full strategy guide). The walkthrough that came with the PC version was written entirely in bright blue ink, screenshots and all. This was probably to deter "helpomaniacs", people who look up what to do next, and then regret they did.

Names

  • The "bad guy" of the game is an Australian named Ozzie Mandrill. A mandrill is a kind of a monkey.
  • There is a character named Marco Pollo in the game. Beside being a parody on the famous traveler Marco Polo, the name also has another meaning: "pollo" is Spanish for "chicken".
  • On Melee Island (TM), if you ask I. Cheese about his family, he'll eventually tell you about his aunt who was so ugly people turned to stone when looking at her. He also tells her name: Gorgon Zola Cheese. "Gorgonzola" is a kind of cheese, while "Gorgon" is a name of a monster in Greek mythology: whoever looks at it turns into stone.

References

  • The SCUMM Bar and LUA Bars appearing in the game are named after two programming languages. SCUMM is the language developed by LucasArts for creating Maniac Mansion (and then many other games), and LUA is a language developed in a Brazilian university.
  • In the Place of Prostheses, with the machine if you enter the right code then you can get one which has the name as 'Manuel J. Calaverus'. This is obviously referring to Manny Calavera in Grim Fandango.
  • Escape from Monkey Island features a mini-game (obligatory to finish the game) called "Monkey Combat". No need to say it is a parody on the Mortal Kombat series.
  • When you are in Lucre Island jail, if you look at the iron maiden, Guybrush would say, "Iron Maiden! Excellent!" This is refering to the movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, where they get arrested in ancient England, and the king says to send them to the iron maiden. Thinking they mean the rock band, Bill and Ted reply "Iron Maiden. Excellent!" then play the air guitar.
  • On Lucre Island (TM), the parfume stand is entitled "Scents and Sensibilities". This is a reference to Jane Austin's book Sense and Sensibility.
  • On Lucre Island, inside the swamp, you can see a crashed X-Wing there.

Awards

  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 04/2009 - One of the "10 Most Terrible Sequels" ( It changed the handling to annoying keyboard controls and many puzzles defy every logic and have to be solved through trial and error. The atmosphere suffers from sterile backgrounds and modern consumption criticism. Because of its humour and the lack of competition it is still the best adventure released in 2000.)
  • PC Player (Germany)
    • Issue 01/2001 - Best Adventure in 2000

Information also contributed by James Isaac, Jiguryo, J. Michael Bottorff, Ol Sverre Bauge, Unicorn Lynx and Xoleras

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Ryan Prendiville.

Macintosh added by Corn Popper. PlayStation 2 added by Grant McLellan.

Additional contributors: Terok Nor, Swordmaster, Itay Brenner, Adam Baratz, Kirschsaft, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, chirinea, Sciere, Ghost Pirate, Solid Flamingo, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger.

Game added November 10, 2000. Last modified March 20, 2024.