Rise of the Pirate God
From Monkey Island wiki
| Rise of the Pirate God
"Rise of the Pirate God" title card
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|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Telltale Games |
| Designer(s) | Dave Grossman |
| Series | Tales of Monkey Island |
| Engine | Telltale Tool |
| Release date(s) | December 8, 2009 |
| Genre(s) | Graphic adventure game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player video game |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, Wii |
| Media | Download, DVD |
| System requirements | 2.0 GHz CPU 512 RAM 64 MB video card[1] |
| Input | Keyboard and mouse, Wii Remote, Wii Nunchuk |
| Preceded by | "The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood" |
Rise of the Pirate God is the fifth and final episode of Tales of Monkey Island. It was released December 8, 2009 on PCs. The WiiWare releases occurred in early 2010 with North America receiving the game on February 1 and Europe February 18.
Contents |
Plot
After LeChuck runs Guybrush through with the Cursed Cutlass of Kaflu, Guybrush finds himself inside his own grave in the afterlife. Upon liberating himself from the grave, he realises he is a ghost and is directed by a mysterious ferryman to the Crossroads in order to separate himself from his physical form for good. He carries a shred of life in his inventory and, as explained later, was holding onto it while being killed as his last hope of return.
Upon arriving at the Crossroads Centre, Guybrush encounters a strange eerie man named Galeb who lies a lot (before openly contradicting his own lies), but, seeing as Guybrush wishes to return to Elaine and LeChuck, leads him to the spell used by LeChuck to return from death. Guybrush visits three different realms of the Crossroads and eventually meets Morgan LeFlay, now a ghost too, who is upset over being killed by LeChuck so easily. Guybrush engages in an insult swordfight with her (joined by a headless swordfighter who tags along) in order to reason her back into her senses. Convinced that she might still be of use to Guybrush, Morgan cheers up and decides to help him with his quest. In the meantime, he engages in the search for all the necessary ingredients, the last of which is Morgan's reputation and independence, which she sacrifices to help him. The spell opens a rift back to the corporeal world and Guybrush steps in.
In the corporeal world, LeChuck has absorbed back all of his voodoo and is destroying much of the Caribbean and taking countless lives as he embarks on his final scheme to use La Esponja Grande to suck up pure voodoo energy from the Crossroads themselves. After abducting Elaine, murdering dozens on Flotsam Island, and destroying Spinner Cay and much of the Caribbean, LeChuck sails to the center of the Crossroads within the physical realm thanks to the combined magic of the voodoo-empowered Monkeys of Montevideo. LeChuck has difficulty opening the roads, but Guybrush opens them as he escapes from the land of the dead. LeChuck immediately takes advantage of this and places La Esponja Grande within the Crossroads rip and absorbs massive voodoo energies, turning him into the demon pirate god. LeChuck then uses the same demonic voodoo energies on a willing Elaine, turning her into his demon bride.
With Elaine wickedly spraying him with ghost-zapping root beer every time he goes to LeChuck's ship, Guybrush is stuck in the Crossroads. The Voodoo Lady, still hidden, speaks to him through random animals and tells him to reunite with his corporeal form. Guybrush finds his body in Club 41 on Flotsam and manages to repossess it, effectively becoming a zombie. He confronts LeChuck but is still unable to wield the Cutlass of Kaflu, which is so full of voodoo power that no mortal can touch it. Guybrush decides to shrink La Esponja Grande; he receives a "Diet of the Senses" spell from Galeb and finds the necessary ingredients.
With the Esponja shrinking back, Guybrush clears the rift and Elaine regains control of herself and her normal form. She turns on LeChuck, fighting him and his skeletal minions with the Cutlass of Kaflu. LeChuck, however, easily fends her off and attacks Guybrush, deciding to finish him once and for all. During their fight (which is hardly even one as LeChuck easily overpowers him and mostly just throws Guybrush around), Guybrush puts several objects on LeChuck's ship in place to shoot himself from a cannon through the mast back into the rift with Elaine's help. There, Morgan attacks LeChuck (who follows Guybrush) with her sword retaining him there, but he pushes her back. In order to lock the rift forever on LeChuck, Guybrush uses the remaining shred of his own life while LeChuck is distracted, allowing her to finally stab the villain while Elaine impales him with the Cutlass from the other side, destroying him simultaneously between two worlds.
As Guybrush is left alone, his body seriously damaged, trapped within the Crossroads with nobody around and no means to escape, he remembers the initial spell to open rifts and uses it again, this time with only Elaine's ring as their symbol of unity. He reappears on the Screaming Narwhal in his fully revived body, with Elaine and Winslow aboard, and all three sail into a romantic sunrise.
When the ending titles close in, Morgan is shown bringing LeChuck's remains (in a capsule) to the Voodoo Lady who fulfills her promise of allowing Morgan to return to the land of the living as a Ghost Pirate Hunter, and laughs evilly while holding the capsule.
Characters
- Guybrush Threepwood
- Elaine Marley
- LeChuck
- Voodoo Lady
- Ferryman
- Galeb
- Morgan LeFlay
- Pirate Bill the Swordfighter
- Pirate Kevin the Thief
- Pirate Ted the Treasure Hunter
- Franklin the dog
- Wallace Grindstump
- Bugeye
- Rockrib the Doorman
- Reginald Van Winslow
- Anemone
Allusions to other games
This episode is particularly rife with allusions to the earlier games, especially within the Crossroads of the Afterlife. Some of these are plot-related, such as Guybrush's return as a ghost and then as a zombie (much like LeChuck did in the first and second games), but others are less direct. Some of them are:
- Guybrush believes he's been buried alive again; in The Curse of Monkey Island he fakes his death (at least twice) and is buried alive each time.
- Guybrush finds the Ferryman very familiar; he is probably thinking of the Lost Welshman he met on Blood Island.
- Guybrush steals a tip jar upon his return to the Gateway of the Crossroads and later uses it along with the fishnet to trap the tiny Pyrite Parrots in the Treasure Hunt path. In Curse he steals a similar tip jar from Griswold Goodsoup in his hotel on Blood Island and uses it to trap small golden creatures.
- Grog Machines have appeared before in every game but The Curse of Monkey Island.
- Some of the swordfighting insults are recycled from The Secret of Monkey Island; Morgan's breath-spray line is from The Curse of Monkey Island.
- Franklin is credited as appearing "as himself", as did Walt in LeChuck's Revenge.
- The three destinations in the pirate afterlife—swordplay, thievery, and treasure huntery—correspond to the three trials Guybrush must complete to become a pirate in the first game; Galeb even repeats the Important-Looking Pirate's use of the awkward phrase 'treasure huntery' after a slight pause.
- Guybrush uses Franklin to sniff out the right piece of paper from a big pile just as he did with Guybrush the dog in LeChuck's Revenge.
- The swordfighting part of the afterlife is built on the wrecks of old ships, not unlike Woodtick on Scabb Island.
- LeChuck uses what looks like a giant cotton swab to try to open the way to the Crossroads—just like the key to the Giant Monkey Head on Monkey Island in the first game.
