The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition review (PC)

When you're not attempting to combine a staple remover with a banana or wondering how to get past a group of deadly piranha poodles, much of your time is spent navigating dialogue trees with characters that include belligerent buccaneers, cholesterol-conscious cannibals, and a used boat salesman named Stan. Some of the conversations are laugh-out-loud funny, and while the actors' delivery isn't always up to the standard of the writing, the voice work is such a great addition to the game that it's difficult to go back to the original edition. Lengthy conversations with the aforementioned salesman can be a little irritating when you have to listen to--as well as read--his persistent patter, but he's still an amusing and memorable character in a cast composed almost entirely of amusing and memorable characters.

In The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, meeting and interacting with these characters is every bit as enjoyable as it was almost 20 years ago. The puzzles, the humor, and the Caribbean-sounding tunes that keep you company as you ponder your next move continue to defy their age, and even the original visuals still have plenty of pixel-perfect charm. The Special Edition update employs a colorful art style that's more reminiscent of the style in The Curse of Monkey Island (the third game in the series) than other games, but it retains the primitive (but pleasing) animation of the first game. Switching between the two available art styles is something that you'll almost certainly do from time to time just because you can, and it's interesting to see how faithfully and brilliantly such locations as the Scumm Bar and the cannibal village have been updated.

The voodoo priestess predicts Threepwood's future with minor spoilers.

It's possible to beat The Secret of Monkey Island in just a couple of hours if you go into the game armed with a complete solution. However, if you take the time to enjoy it and solve the puzzles yourself, it should last you anywhere between five and 10 hours. If you have a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle, two sticks of cinnamon, a length of rope, and 10 dollars in your pocket right now, the best advice we can give you is this: Spend the currency on The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition and then figure out for yourself what to do with the rest of that stuff.