Richard: I think I'm at a disadvantage because I haven't ever really liked any non-LucasArts adventure games other than Zork Grand Inquisitor. (And, I guess, Myst and Riven). All the ones I've tried have seemed like adventure game puzzles tied together with a relatively cliched story; the LucasArts games in their "golden age" felt more like stories that happened to be told in the adventure game format.

Still, I think the first two Monkey Islands are the only ones that really had that sense of Storytelling Uber Alles. The others tip over into an attempt to replicate something else: a movie, a Warner Brothers cartoon, an underground comic, etc.

Larry: Yeah, even though y'all had Monkey 3 completely designed by the time I showed up, I still got attached and I can't tell how objective I'm being about that game. But it's completely baffling to me whenever I read somebody claiming that the game suddenly went from sinister to silly with the third one. The closest I'd come to agreeing with that is acknowledging that all the dark stuff was gathered together on the second disc, which most people don't remember as strongly as the Plunder Island stuff.

I think part of it is that people are good at identifying when there's something they don't like about a game, but are terrible at identifying exactly what it is. And with the third one, it's like you say: there was a template to work from, because by the time it came out, the first two had already built up this cult following of people who would (and did) complain endlessly if anything were changed or left out. So it was kind of a no-win situation: you're not free to go nuts and completely innovate, but that sense of experimentation is the most appealing thing about the first two games. It's telling that the most memorable stuff about the third game is what was new: different art style for the background and character design, and the new talking skull character.