Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (Ultimate Talkie Edition) 4K!

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge No Commentary play-through in 4K.
The is the Ultimate Talkie Edition. That is the original graphics with the full talkie from the remake version plus the iMuse music / transitions. Available as a patch here: gratissaugen.de/ultimatetalkies/
Why encode a 320x200 video game in 4K? More information below.
Compression. 4K videos have a higher bitrate on youtube. So even viewing the 4K version on a normal HD monitor will show significant reductions in compression artefacts. (Particularly in the background gradients.) Compare the pixels of both versions!
Scaling from perfect pixels. Even though Monkey Island is 320x200, old monitors stretched the image height by about 20%. i.e. The game uses rectangular pixels! To correct the aspect, the master video was recorded at a whopping 3200x2400. This gives a nice round pixel size of 10x12. This master was uploaded directly to youtube for it to re-encode. Ensuring the best possible looking pixels!

[@solangecossette1374]

Something interesting about this version over the special edition version: The special edition does not have accurate MT-32 (or LAPC-1) music. When the developers recorded the music to use in the "legacy" version, they had to splice up parts of the iMuse music into individual Midi. (This is what gives this version the seamless music tramsitions, missing from the special edition). The problem: When the MT-32 is initialized (turned on), it sets all its instument banks (banks 2 to 9) as default "classic piano", with exception to bank 10, which is the percussion track. You need to sent bank data in the midi file to "tell" the MT-32 what istruments to use for what music travks (banks) they play. Unfortunately, when they recorded the music for the special edition, they must have used an emulator - because the midi info is reset for each song, save for a few. If you send instrument data in one midi file on a live MT-32, it remembers that dsta until it is physically turned off, or, it is told to change instruments. So with the old imuse system, it would "initialize" the mt-32 at the start of the game (ie: instrument 1 is french horn, instrument 2 is trombone, instrument 3 is sax... etc...). Granted, not many people may have noticed, since the special edition has remastered orchedtral music, but when I heard it, I immediayely recognized "oh no, ghey didn't send instrument in the midi file before they pressed record!" Fun little factoid...

[@SolBdaguy90]

This game is LEGENDARY

[@GelNerd]

Wonderful sequel, and very atmospheric - thanks for posting this! One thing to note, watching it and you just hear how good the iMuse system was. Truly a brilliant development from 'TSOMI'. 🐒

[@chumbawampa]

The Ultimate Talkie editions are a God send, with Dominic Armato as guybrush....

[@A-small-amount-of-peas]

Last time I played this I was 13 years old. What a time to be alive

[@Pingwn]

The sexiest pixels I ever seen, thank you for the video! (The only downside is that the guy with the Le-Chuck costume stop Guybrush when he changed clothes, But maybe it's only me...)

[@chris.bradshaw]

Lechuck’s voice is awesomely piratey

[@KraptainKrunCh]

Voice actor died recently.

[@Rhysd007]

BRB - going to sing Welsh folk songs at the bank! Missed that one back in the day!

[@OneShortEye]

Hi there! About a year ago, I asked permission to use your Monkey 1 playthrough for a video. I'm now working on a follow-up about speedrunning Monkey 2, so I wanted to know if I could use clips from this video as well. It's honestly the best-looking Monkey 2 on YT.

[@THESCUMMBAR]

Of course, feel free to use it. Keep up the great work! 👍

[@PadanFain836]

Glorious.

[@firna877]

Did you ever play Torins Passage? I like that one's art direction a lot. Great content love all your videos.

[@kojimafideo5899]

Hey, i installed the talkie patch because i wanted to check it but now i preffer the mute version again. I can't disable the patch deleting the talkie edition folder and reinstalling the whole game. Do you someone know how to come back to the original muted version? THANKS

[@THESCUMMBAR]

Hit F5 to get to the options, and change "Text and Speech" to "subtitles".

[@SwordThatCleavesEvil]

How did you get MT-32 audio working with the Ultimate Talkie Edition? I could only ever get AdLib working.

[@THESCUMMBAR]

ScummVM requires the MT-32 ROM files in order to emulate MT-32 audio. These are copyrighted files, so I am afraid I can't link them. But you can find them if you search around.

[@guepardiez]

@@THESCUMMBAR Those are only included in the original (not SE) game, right?

[@alittlebitofwhimsy1122]

Hi, love your videos. What are you using to play these scumm games and what are you using to record them? I have issues trying to use ScummVM as it fills the whole screen creating black bars on the left and right.

[@THESCUMMBAR]

Thanks! I do play using ScummVM and I use OBS Studio to record. Not sure about your black bars issue? In fullscreen I'd expect to see black bars as the games are 4:3 ratio but most modern screens are 16:9. If you want to play in a window, you can switch to one with ALT+ENTER.

[@shaunsteele6926]

is this the Special Edition played with the older graphics? I don't remember the original game having voice acting lol

[@THESCUMMBAR]

It's ultimate edition. It's a fan patch that combines the VGA version with the voice acting from SE. gratissaugen.de/ultimatetalkies/monkey2.html

[@sparkymagnet]

sorry I don't understand, doesn't the remake have voice acting in the original sections already? What's this talkie version for?

[@THESCUMMBAR]

To recover the original musical transitions. Monkey 2 used a system called iMuse to synchronise the music with various on-screen happenings including seamless music transitions between scenes. The remake cut this feature - even in the 'original' mode. The creators talk about how important iMuse is in the remake developer's commentary, ironically.

[@sparkymagnet]

@@THESCUMMBAR You have warranted me another playthrough

[@Jaxxckle]

@@THESCUMMBAR The implementation of the SE audio tracks with the Imuse system has not been added on this patch yet, right?

[@THESCUMMBAR]

I don't think such a thing is possible. The original used tracker music, allowing single instruments to be changed, turned-off, timed to events etc. The SE audio tracks are a pre-recorded orchestral arrangement.

[@philiphowell6336]

Can I run this ultimate talkie edition on ScummVM?

[@THESCUMMBAR]

Yes you can. :) Just follow the build instructions and then add the output folder to ScummVM after. It will be detected as "Unoffical SE Talkie".

[@OMA2k]

Yes, but make sure to get the Roland MT-32 ROMs to play with MT-32, like in this video. It sounds so much better than Ad-Lib.

[@mr.pendleton7121]

OMA2k What about Roland SC-55 or TTS-1 found in Cakewalk?

[@OMA2k]

@@mr.pendleton7121 I don't know about that, sorry.

[@FlockOfHawks]

1:28:40 no idea what he's doing with that monkey , but it sure loox 18+ , as does the subsequent hill with the gaping hole :o)

[@WannabeMarysue]

we've had every other take on the monkey wrench puzzle, so why not a horny take. why not.

[@liukang85]

this is missing all the sound effects. hardly 'ultimate' :/

[@THESCUMMBAR]

I believe this has been fixed in newer versions of ScummVM in the years since I recorded this.

[@brunesi]

It's beyond me how anyone could progress in this awesome adventure without a hint book. Let alone children, as many report to be when played it.

[@THESCUMMBAR]

I was a child without internet or hints when I first completed the Monkey Island games. The answer is: it took a long time. It took me months to complete each. If you got stuck, you just had to take a break and try again another day.

[@BilisiFunfun]

People used to be smarter. By 2030 the average IQ will be 9.

[@itsmebryangh0stboi277]

1:14:58

[@ajax700]

1:12:00 Oh great, they managed to retroactively ruin the fantastic bone song with the screaming in this one too!

[@whackman47]

It is awful.

[@mattyjohnsson257]

4K. LOL.

[@THESCUMMBAR]

See the description for info on why you might want 4K encoding.

[@aniballecter6054]

WTF!!!.. where is the 8bit original music????.... puag!!!

[@THESCUMMBAR]

This is the "original" music, it's just played on an MT-32 (which you could do back in the 90s if you owned one.) You're probably looking for the AdLib version.

[@yousini]

those voices are so miscast, terrible