YMMV / Return to Monkey Island

• Crosses the Line Twice: When Guybrush needs to build a mop, he tracks down the rare Mop Tree, which has several mop-handle-like branches. Rather than cutting off one of these branches, he utterly carves out the entire trunk. He even somehow manages to destroy the surrounding trees, with some being shown on fire. In case that wasn't enough, the previously-happy forest animals are now scared and sad, with Ocular Gushers to really rub it in. Guybrush has comments about each animal, casually dismissing them as overreacting in a unique way.
• Fridge Brilliance: How does Guybrush suddenly get from the depths of Monkey Island to Mêlée Island/"The Original Secret" at the end of the game? If one of the series' key inspirations is any indicator, it's likely that the whole theme park has something equivalent to the Magic Kingdom's utilidor system, a series of underground utility tunnels for park employees to more quickly get around whilst remaining out of sight.
• Harsher in Hindsight: During development, fan backlash led to Ron Gilbert deciding to stop sharing previews of the game, stating "The joy of sharing has been driven from me." This quote stung further when the game was released, as its Framing Device is Guybrush finding joy in sharing a story.
• Tainted by the Preview: When the game was announced, fans weren't entirely opposed to the idea of Return going with a more simplistic, highly-stylized 2D aesthetic as opposed to a pixelated look akin to Secret and LeChuck's Revenge or a more cartoony look like Curse and the Special Editions. Come the first proper gameplay trailer, however, and the reaction turned particularly negative, with many feeling the art style and tween-heavy animation are a notable step back that doesn't fit the series at all. The dissatisfaction over the game's art style led to some of the louder detractors going directly to Ron Gilbert's Grumpy Gamer blog to attack him for the design choices, leading to Gilbert disabling all comments on his blog and announcing he will no longer share anything about the game. Opinions have thankfully lightened up post-release.
• That One Achievement:
  • 'Neat Freak', which requires the player to note 8 different messes on LeChuck's ship during the second chapter. The form the player has only contains 5 spaces, and all 8 must be noted during a single game. The solution? Save the game before finding any, find 3, then reload the save and find the other 5. Sounds easy, right? Well, it gets worse... because one of the things required needs to be purposefully arranged by the player at the very START of part two, without any indication that it would be required, and once the player has actually passed the point where the achievement can be obtained, this action can no longer be performed. To sum up: the game will lock you out of getting the achievement if you don't do something you have no idea you're supposed to do, and by the time you realise it, it's too late to fix it. Even reloading the aforementioned save won't help, since it won't take you back far enough. Your only option is to have a previous save already to go (which very few people will have in advance) or to just replay the entire start of the game, prologue-tutorial and all, just to get this one achievement. This is why only 2.5% of players on Steam have it.
  • 'Neat Freak' at least can be done by restarting a single part. 'Free Wally' is for something that happens in part 5; finding Wally in shackles, and having the possibility of unlocking him... if you already had the key. Which means having zoomed into those shackles (which are not highlighted as an interactive item, by the way) as you were on LeChuck's ship, and given the shackles are not there in part 4 (given Wally is captured) and the outside world is locked once you start part 5, you need to load a save from either parts 2 and 3 and play a lot of the game again. The Steam percentage is an equally miserable 2.2%.
• Villain Decay: While LeChuck is still a threat, he's not as laser-focused on Guybrush like in LeChuck's Revenge and lacks the grandeur of his plans from Tales. Because of his sudden obsession with the Secret, he's also not as revered as he used to be, with other pirates willing to take him on and most of his minions no longer respecting him (although they're still afraid of his Bad Boss tendencies). Eventually, while he disposes of both his Dragon and the other half of the Villain Ensemble in ruthless ways, he isn't even directly defeated in a fight, with it being ambiguously revealed that he was nothing more than a fictional character.

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