Tales of Monkey Island Episode 5: Rise of the Pirate God (Wii) Review

The end is beyond nigh for Guybrush Threepwood since he has already passed to the other side following a run-in with the nefarious evil pirate LeChuck and the Cutlass of Kaflu, although despite waking up in a fresh dug grave down in the spirit world he really hopes he can regain corporeal form in the not-so-distant future and be reunited with his wife. After all, it would hardly be fair for the self-proclaimed Mighty Pirate to meet his end after working so hard to right his initial mishap. Sure, he might have unleashed a strange pox upon the land, causing true pirates to come over in a psychotic rage from time-to-time, and maybe it could be seen that he leaves a trail of destruction and chaos wherever he treads. However, over the past four chapters he did lose his hand, see his wife charmed by a now humanised LeChuck, get betrayed by his biggest fan Morgan LeFlay, get hunted down by a strange French scientist called De Singe, search high and low (including inside a manatee!) for a big sponge that turned out to in fact be rather miniscule, and face trial for numerous petty crimes that were not his fault, all in the effort to rectify mistakes from his not-so-distant past. The guy really does need to catch a break...

Rise of the Pirate God sees LeChuck return to his evil form after absorbing the extent of the Pox's voodoo power from La Esponja Grande, then wedge said sponge into a vortex that links both the spiritual and living worlds. Why? In order to become an all-powerful being and finally wed his true love, the current Elaine Threepwood - who is now technically free from the contract of marriage, since the "till death do us part" bit of the vows has taken place with Guybrush now residing in the underworld. The last entry into the five-chapter story arc has plenty of twists and turns, lots of intrigue and stacks of humour throughout, making it a fitting conclusion to what will hopefully be the first of several seasons of Tales of Monkey Island.

Players can control Threepwood in a few different ways during Rise of the Pirate God. Holding down the A button on the Wii Remote will bring up a compass-like circle, with the directional pointer swirling around to whatever position you wish to move in simply by keeping hold of A and moving the controller around (holding B as well to make Guybrush run). The easiest way to move the Mighty Pirate, though, is to use the analogue stick and Z button on the Nunchuk ,as this provides much closer and more accurate control over movement in general, removing any potential frustration when the camera switches from position-to-position as other sections of the current location are reached. Objects and people can also be interacted with merely by pointing the on-screen cursor in their direction and tapping on A. Usually Guybrush will come up with some witty retort or insight into his surroundings, pick up certain items that may be of use later, or jump into conversation with whichever character you clicked on.

Upon collecting a useful item, it will be stored in the inventory screen that can easily be accessed by hovering the cursor over the right side of the screen. Each item can be selected and placed over a magnifying icon to obtain more information on it, whilst an attempt to join two items together is also possible for solving puzzles. However, the game is not overly reliant on the 'use X item with Y object' mechanic, where players must try numerous permutations until a solution is found. Instead there is a pleasing amount of timing- and logic-based quandaries mixed in, as well as a twist on an old fan-favourite piece of gameplay, to keep a high level of variety. Telltale Games has managed to steer the WiiWare Tales of Monkey Island series through a potential minefield of issues over the five chapters and come out on shining, sailing off into the sunset on a wave of success.