Poll: Why the Monkey Island 4 hate?

[Optimus Hagrid]

This crops up a lot when discussing the Monkey Island series - people seem to have a massive vendetta against the fourth in the series, going so far as to ignore its existance.

Me and my friend probably played equal parts of Monkey Island 2 and Monkey Island 4 when we were younger, and we thought both of which were pretty funny with cool puzzles. Looking back on the games recently, I like the puzzles in 2 (classic Lucasarts stuff) but it's not as funny as I remember, but in 4... well, I found it funnier, but with some shitty puzzles and terrible controls. But I wouldn't say it was a bad game, or that worse than the previous titles.


So, what didn't you like about Monkey Island 4 which has been given this poor reputation?

edit: I should probably mention, I can appreciate why Monkey 4 isn't as good as the other games. I just don't think it's that shitty.

 

[Jandau]

Monkey Island 4 wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as the earlier games.

The first one had the original premise, the second one was bigger and elaborated on it a lot, the third revamped the graphics and still had a fair bit of freshness to it.

The fourth... well... It was kinda ugly for starters. The move to 3D didn't do the game any favours. The controls were terrible and the move away from the classic point'n'click did even worse than the graphical change. And finally, that "something" that made the earlier games great just wasn't there. It all felt a bit forced and contrived.

MI4 was still better than most adventure games out there, it just wasn't able to contend with the previous entries in the series, and all the changes that were made were for the worse, pissing fans off further...

 

[LavaLampBamboo]

It was massively ugly, although I suppose they tried their best.

But the puzzles were often convuluted and some of the writing feel over a little.

And they played with the canon too much. I know Monkey Island has a pretty flexible storyline, but the whole Monkey Robot thing just seemed desperate.

 

[TheDuckbunny]

Monkey Island 4 wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as the earlier games.

The first one had the original premise, the second one was bigger and elaborated on it a lot, the third revamped the graphics and still had a fair bit of freshness to it.

The fourth... well... It was kinda ugly for starters. The move to 3D didn't do the game any favours. The controls were terrible and the move away from the classic point'n'click did even worse than the graphical change. And finally, that "something" that made the earlier games great just wasn't there. It all felt a bit forced and contrived.

MI4 was still better than most adventure games out there, it just wasn't able to contend with the previous entries in the series, and all the changes that were made were for the worse, pissing fans off further...

Basically everything there is to say.
I also really liked Monkey Island 3 as far as the graphical style, the fourth one really lost its charm in going 3D, I think.

 

[Optimus Hagrid]

Monkey Island 4 wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as the earlier games.

The first one had the original premise, the second one was bigger and elaborated on it a lot, the third revamped the graphics and still had a fair bit of freshness to it.

The fourth... well... It was kinda ugly for starters. The move to 3D didn't do the game any favours. The controls were terrible and the move away from the classic point'n'click did even worse than the graphical change. And finally, that "something" that made the earlier games great just wasn't there. It all felt a bit forced and contrived.

MI4 was still better than most adventure games out there, it just wasn't able to contend with the previous entries in the series, and all the changes that were made were for the worse, pissing fans off further...

I think you nailed it.