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If you asked people to name their favourite Monkey Island game, chances are Escape From Monkey Island wouldn't be a lot of people's first pick.
Released in the year 2000, the first 3D entry in the series is considered something of a "black sheep," due to the game's use of tank controls instead of a point-and-click, frustrating puzzle segments (who can forget Monkey Kombat?), and its controversial changes to the game's lore (Herman Toothrot is Elaine's father, now?!).
Nevertheless, that doesn't mean it's entirely without merit, with the fourth entry in the series still having a ton of redeeming factors, from its fantastic soundtrack to its beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds and some genuinely clever gags (such as a literal fourth-wall-breaking darts-based joke and Guybrush being unable to beat the property developer Ozzie Mandrill at insult sword-fighting due to his inability to understand Australian slang).
It's because of this, I've always had a desire to see the game (and its predecessor, Curse) remastered, to see the game(s) presented in the best possible light for modern audiences, with enhanced visuals, alternative control options, and other quality-of-life improvements. As far as we know, there are no official plans to make this happen; Lucasfilm Games is currently focused on supporting a range of Star Wars titles. As a result, one fan named Boingus has stepped up to try to fill this particular niche, "remastering" the game over the past five years (h/t: legendofmi).
Explaining the motivation for the project, Boingus said in the announcement video, "Monkey Island was a huge part of my childhood. I didn’t have the internet, or a walkthrough, or some big fancy computer. I grew up on a farm, and so I played the original Monkey Island games on DOS. Not DOSBox, DOS in 2003. So, for Christmas one year, my dad got my family a big computer with enough power to run Windows XP, and as an extra for my brother and I, my parents got us a crystal case copy of Escape From Monkey Island. And since then, I’ve played the game once or twice a year every year."
Because of this affinity with the game, Boingus decided to revisit the title himself, upscaling not just the backgrounds, but the model textures to bring all of the cutscenes into 4x the resolution of the original, and even suggesting an optional point-and-click control scheme could be on the way. There is something of a catch, however, as Boingus admits in the video that generative AI was used in the creation of the mod. That's despite personally not being much of a fan of the technology himself.
"I just want to be the first to say, I'm not a fan of generative AI," says Boingus. "I get it. I understand why people, especially artists, are not exactly happy about it. But, unfortunately, we're talking about 4000 images that have to be worked on here; as a one-man show, my options were pretty limited.
"But with that being said, I've upscaled, manually redrawn, reworked, and finalised every single image that appears in this game. I've made manual edits to fix just about all of the AI slop that I could find, and I had the opportunity to sneak in a couple of Easter Eggs as well."
The finished result definitely seems to be impressive enough for some people, but as things stand, it isn't exactly flawless.
In the footage shared, for instance, some of the lettering on things like clock faces and signage admittedly looks a bit strange and melty or, in some cases, has been misinterpreted. I also noticed certain background elements missing, including the portraits in the House of Sticks (presumably because the outputted AI results weren't good enough). It seems like Boingus knows this is the case, too, stating, "I'm really hoping people will find graphical issues or bits and pieces of stuff they want to see changed," promising future updates to fix these problems.
Personally speaking, this has just strengthened my resolve that the game deserves an official remaster from a larger studio, one that has the manpower and the access to the Lucasfilm archives to do the job properly, without the need for compromises.