Style shift angers people because its a violation of what they liked about the series. The first two games have a very consistent Disney-like style that was common Lucasarts adventure games of the era and earlier. The third game is flashier and more stylized take on the same thing, but ultimately still looks fairly mainstream American animation, a bit more stylized, just more like Don Bluth having a very bad day or Nickelodeon with a huge budget than Disney. The fourth game is essentially the same style as Curse, just in 3D - and it was clearly a bad decision, aesthetically, to go 3D - the tech wasn’t there. Tales, which isn’t exactly a sequel (specifically my understanding is Gilbert regards this as Monkey Island 5, not Tales), is a more successful attempt at essentially the same look as the fourth game.

Ron Gilbert really underestimated the artwork direction Steven purcell(Sam and max) brought.

This is probably the George Lucas star wars prequel effect in action. Some people NEED editors and feedback. After playing Thimbleweed Park, Im convinced Gilbert is one of them. I have no doubt the backlash against him will only get worse as people actually play the game ala the star wars prequels.

> Ron Gilbert really underestimated the artwork direction Steven purcell(Sam and max) brought.

This is it right here.

I don't really mind a game where the characters look "ugly"--that's actually a refreshing change of pace. And could absolutely work in a game about pirates.

However, the artwork overall just looks ... subpar. The backgrounds are so busy that the characters get lost in them. And the animation quality looks very weak.

I haven't read the comments, but it's quite sad to imagine posting about a creative milestone on a personal blog, and having people go out of their way to come to it and express their displeasure.

From a YouTube video on this topic: "Ultimately, the reason some people get upset when a series changes isn't because the new game is new, but because the old games get their future cut off. Getting a sequel you don't want closes the door more definitively than creating a new IP. Nobody wants to see the corpse of something they love puppeted around when it could just be laid to rest."

I think this often gets interpreted as "entitlement" on the part of gamers but is really just misdirected grief. I understand where it's coming from, but it seems like perhaps people should process this grief more personally and not lash out.

The comments are really terrible to read. There was a post with a few examples on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MonkeyIsland/comments/vo62zx/this_i...

I couldn't find any examples of the personal attacks, but I do feel it is too easy to attack someone on the internet, especially when enabled by anonymity. I don't know if Gilbert's site had accountability or community-backed ranking on comments.

MI now looks cluttered and that makes people nervous, cluttering techniques are used in movies to create confusion and anxiety, but only for certain scenes.

Unfortunately MI uses that all the time and everywhere, so no wonder people don't like it.

I personally don't have the stomach to develop in public like this, let alone in front of the gaming community, let alone a beloved franchise. Not even sure what level of attacks he experienced, but I assume it would be enough to push me offline while working. Wish it wasn't like this, but part of me assumes this comes with the territory and you either mitigate it or just don't share work until it's released.

His site had a pretty old-school, unmoderated comment section. So it was probably a good idea to shut it down.

That said, every time I looked at the comments, it seemed like the vast majority were incredibly supportive. So I wonder to what extent he fell in the classic trap of ignoring all of the praise and getting obsessed with the criticism.

Sad to see this. The style looks good to me.

I think so too. Maybe the distinguishing factor is that I'm a bit young to have played MI, so I don't really have any nostalgia for the old style. From just googling a few screenshots I think the new art looks pretty cool.

As a huge huge monkey island fan, I cannot express my profound disappointment with return to monkey island.

I don't think the devs owe you anything, thankfully. There are plenty of other games for you to try out, many of which are actually released and playable.

No they don't owe me anything, but in return I'm free to express my displeasure.