Tales of Monkey Island: Lair of the Leviathan Review

The last Tales of Monkey Island episode left us off with Morgan LeFlay once again boarding our ship and once again dueling our lead character. This time, though, the Screaming Narwhal is literally consumed by a giant manatee, leaving them inside the belly of the beast. It’s your job to get your ship out, find La Esponga Grande and remove the pox that has ravaged the pirate population.

Tales of Monkey Island: Lair of the Leviathan is easily my favorite episode thus far. It has a great deal of well thought puzzles, clever comedy and a storyline that manages to pull together nicely. You even get to talk to giant manatees. I particularly found the not-so-subtle political jokes to be quite hilarious.

At one point in the game, you find the missing crew of De Cava (a Spanish explorer that you first meet at the beginning of the game). Apparently they’ve been inside the manatee for some time and somehow got separated from their leader. The missing crew formed a democratic pirate organization known as the Brotherhood.

Guybrush wants to get into the group, but first he has to go through “enhanced initiation techniques”. In order to win admission into the group, though, you have to win the vote of each member. Your challenge is to turn the “no” votes into “yes” votes by satisfying each member of the Brotherhood. By default they vote no, that is, until you do favors for them or win a challenge that they have (i.e. a pirate stare off).

After being disappointed in episode 2 of the series, Tales of Monkey Island: Lair of the Leviathan was a pleasant surprise. With witty dialogue, puzzles that rely more on logic than guesswork and a story that keeps you intrigued, this is a game that is worth buying even if you haven’t played any of the other two. If I haven’t sold you, just remember: you talk two manatees into dating! That makes it all worthwhile.