When we last left Guybrush Threepwood at the end of Episode 2, he met back up with Morgan Le Flay and was about to find La Esponja Grande. What he didn't expect was to be swallowed up by a giant manatee!
Title: Tales of Monkey Island: Episode 3 (Lair of the Leviathan)
Released: September 2009
Spoiler lie ahead, arr. You be warned!
I'll say it now: this is already my favorite episode, and I've yet to play the fourth or fifth so far. But when you include Murray the Demonic Talking Skull, things are definitely going to be more lively. So Guybrush, Morgan, and Winslow are left within the gullet of the giant manatee and discover not only their first goal of Coronado de Cava, but that they are partially on their way to their second goal of La Esponja Grande! The problem lies with the manatee itself, and this starts the first half of the episode.
Morgan is placated into being Guybrush's pretend wife, disarmed of her sword and left to idle her time in the digestive tract of their captor. Coronado has lost his mind over the years he has spent in the manatee, and his crew were lost to the depths further in. We continue to see many of the puzzles that make the Monkey Island saga unique to the point-and-click adventure pool (which isn't as deep as I'd prefer). His continued sass gets him in trouble time and again, but it also serves as getting his butt out of the frying pan after it landed him in it in the first place.
One of the interesting bits that comes in play is the pirate face-off that he ends up performing against one of Coronado's crew, Bugeye. In order to obtain the cochlea, he must unanimously be voted into the Brotherhood (with a long title having to do with the manatee's stomach), but Bugeye is a fuddy-duddy spoilsport and easily finds fault in the blonde pirate. So they have to make original facial contortions to try and spook one another. The combinations you are able to pull together are rather limited, but amusing to see at the same time.
And I did mention Murray earlier. He was brought into the Monkey Island lifestyle during the much more animated Curse of Monkey Island and has appeared through that and Escape from Monkey Island, the fourth in the series and the first made in 3D. His mannerisms and quirks made him a hit from the third game and, to see him in this, it really brightened my day playing the game. He is so bent on causing chaos and instilling evil into the world around him, but he is only a skull. So Guybrush ends up utilizing him for his own means and manipulates him. Who's the real evil mastermind here, huh?
As I said, the interior of the manatee is only the first half of the game. Once you manage to solve the ultimate puzzle there, you are jettisoned out onto the ocean surface once more, this time with the remainder of what you found inside, and your goal is to dive down and get your prize. But now you have to help court the manatee! What is this world coming to when you have to actually work for your rewards?! But this is where you also end up bringing together items from earlier in the episodes, being the locket from the first episode in fact.
While this episode focuses exclusively on Guybrush, we are still given some light glimpses into what Elaine and LeChuck are doing, and this sets it up splendidly for a "What happens next" with the last two episodes. With the way this episode ends, it leaves you expecting something grim, because after all the time you spent learning some of the characters, it gets twisted and you're like, "What?!" Or that could've just been me.
To be continued... arr...
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