I'm loving it so far. It's feels like proper Monkey Island. The music in particular is fantastic. It's just right on the money . The voice acting too is great. The art style has its ups and downs I think. In general it's brilliant though. Particularly on Melee. It really evokes the old games.
I'm ambivalent. It's nicer to look at than Escape From and the remaster of the first game but I'm not keen on the new direction. Game seems promising though, although I've only played a few screens so far.
The big ol', weirdly-proportioned vector sprites are pretty ugly. And the cut-out animation is floaty and weird.
It's not all bad. They've got the crazy perspective on the scenery down. The colours are bang on. And the shading style they're using does a reasonable job at evoking some of the old, crafted pixel environments of 1 & 2.
Worth stating that I've only ever played 1 & 2. The ridiculously detailed pixel art environments are a big part of Monkey Island for me. Anyway, it's not a big problem. The graphics are completely serviceable, and occasionally look quite good.
What's impressing me about this is how they have figured out how to make it so I make progress every time I play.
It doesn't seem too easy but for me at least the puzzles are excellently balanced.
Timbleweed had me reaching for hints about 6 times before the end but one hint was needed near the start which didn't bode well.
Overall, I thought it was really good. Absolutely nailed the feel and atmosphere of the earlier games, some good lines in there, I played the whole thing with a smile on my face.
I don’t think that the puzzles were quite up to the standards of the high water marks of the genre (DotT wins this hands-down, the split time periods allowed for some really excellent puzzle solutions), and while I appreciated the improved controls generally speaking, I did think that the inventory could have used some work. Also, they really should have added a try everything with everything else button, possibly in the hint book. Everyone ends up doing that at some point during a playthrough.
The story was good, it was well-framed, and tracking down the “dead, dead, dead” achievement was genuinely quite touching. I did find myself becoming vaguely uncomfortable with how much of a dick Guybrush is to absolutely everyone he meets, and I thought for a while (super minor story spoilers ahead):
Spoiler:
that the storyline was going to pick up on that, but sadly not.
But yeah, overall, it was really good, probably the best point and clicker since the genre attempted to go 3D.