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)

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

A wonderful game, and yet a terrible disappointment

The Good
There's no such thing as "Monkey Island" without the excellent music. This time, the original MIDI theme got escorted by a full orchestra- including trumpets and drums. It's a pleasure just to hear the game... The character's voices are wonderful, with each character having a unique accent which adds a new layer of personality.

And, of course, there are the jokes- there's nothing I can say about them... They're there, they're nice (not very original, but nice) and that's about it.

The Bad
It's a lethel dose of Monkey Islandlessness... There are many qoutes and ideas that got ressurected from the original Secret of Monkey Island, and I simply don't feel it's a new game. I meet the same characters who has the same jokes (Carla and Otis?! C'mon...) I've the same opponents and the same challanges.
Another problem is the new point of view. The game has an odd, isometric 3rd person perspective, and the controls are odd and uncomfortable, resembling Alone in the Dark. Personally, I prefer using the mouse to point and click like a normal person, rather than running around with bowls of pretzels.

The Bottom Line
Or like I said to my friends- Monkey Island 5 will be...
Holocaust on Monkey Island - The First Person Shooter

Windows · by El-ad Amir (116) · 2001

Collapsed under the weight of too many monkeys

The Good
Escape can still be funny. The humor in the dialogues does get stale very soon, but there are some situations that, while not necessarily reflecting the unique Monkey Island tone, can be amusing. The Scumm Bar turning into a sushi bar is a typical example of the new humor, its symbolic representation: the time of the pirates has passed, modern consumer culture takes over. No, I didn't like this direction either, but at least the game is consequent enough to base a large part of its story on it.

There is nothing wrong with 3D graphics. They have a certain cartoony edge, and some of the character models are appropriately disproportional. Sure, the game loses an even larger chunk of the mysterious Caribbean atmosphere than its predecessor with the perpetual brightness, but it does fit the new colorful locations and themes.

The puzzles of Escape are truly a coin with two sides. There are some really good ones. I enjoyed the bizarre clock puzzle in the swamps of Lucre Island. The diving competition was tricky and fun. One of my favorite ones is the puzzle with the two parrots on Jambalaya Island. It's a pity those interesting activities co-exist with obscure tasks that often make little sense.

In general, the parts that had nothing to do with previous Monkey Island games were the best. Clearing your name on Lucre Island, diving against Marco, figuring out how to get the bronze head on Jambalaya Island. Those parts were fun and refreshing. But Escape wanted to outdo its predecessors in everything, and that was a big mistake.

The Bad
How do I say this... Something's missing here... let's call this something a soul. Everything seems to be in place, but nothing feels fresh, and the series' unique charm is gone. Escape tries to be holier than the Pope himself - to be more Monkey Island than Monkey Island. The result is remarkable: the game becomes a parody of itself. There is so much recycling here that any new and creative idea can't be perceived anymore. Or, better to say, it is forgotten once the mechanical routine of Monkey Island-ness takes over again. The good parts of the game are drowned in the monotonous mumbling of endless Monkey Island mantras: "You fight like a cow... I'm Guybrush Threepwood, a mighty pirate... Yes, darling... Swashbuckling sea scum..." and so on. There is too much of it. Too much to bear and too much to digest. Those phrases have been recycled so many times that they became meaningless. They are not funny any more, because repetition is the worst enemy of humor. Strangely enough, Escape suffers precisely from what it laughs at - consumer mentality.

This kind of thinking leads me to believe that the game was conceived as some sort of a fan tribute, where elements are used and re-used with the happy, blind stubbornness of a neophyte. Phrases from earlier games are quoted verbatim and characters make totally unnecessary cameo appearances. The game thus becomes an empty container for all possible Monkey Island stuff. Characters who were funny become pale shadows of themselves: they finally managed to ruin Stan, and the hilarious skull Murray is degraded to the level of a harmless curiosity.

This is connected to another aspect that suffered in Escape: the atmosphere. In the previous games the exotic Caribbean setting was treated halfway seriously, the occasional well-placed anachronisms only emphasizing the romantic flair of sea adventures and treasure hunting. This game doesn't feel like that at all. Of course, its whole idea was to show the influence of capitalism and globalization on "authentic" pirate stuff, but the result was an almost complete loss of true Monkey Island spirit. This series was never strictly a comedy, it always had place for real feelings and real pirates. In Escape, everything is a caricature. Pop culture references have lost their former subtlety and are now on full rampage. Voodoo and ghosts are treated with toothless negligence. Pirates have turned into friendly gimmicks for tourists.

The puzzles are a mixed bag. Some of them are way too obscure, while others are surprisingly easy and not rewarding enough. The "pinball" puzzle on Monkey Island is a pain to solve, as there are no clues provided. On the contrary, the manatee puzzle on Jambalaya Island is disappointingly simple, although it was supposed to be one of the central issues in that part of the game. Monkey Kombat is a nice idea, but the moves are too hard to remember unless you write them down, and the whole thing becomes boring even before you realize that the entire finale of the game is based on it. The elegance and smoothness of gameplay, shared by the three earlier games, cannot be felt anymore.

The Bottom Line
I had a tough time with this review. I finished the game two times and there were moments I enjoyed quite a bit. But truth has to be told: the magic is gone. Escape is deceptively familiar, luring fans into a sponsored orgy of recycling that casts a shadow over the series. There's too much Monkey Island in it, and not enough true creativity.

Windows · by Unicorn Lynx (181780) · 2014

[ 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.