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Adventure Game Scene of the Day - Wednesday 29 July
Ladies and Gentlemen THIS is the moment you have all been waiting for .. or perhaps in some cases .. dreading. It is time for MONKEY KOMBAT!
The funny thing is that if you compare Monkey Kombat™ to Insult Sword Fighting™, then they are almost completely identical!
Both are fights where instead of fighting for real with weapons and everything, you instead fight verbally with verbal attacks and ripostes. Both requires a lot of trial & error in order to learn the correct “moves”. Both requires that you run around challenging different opponents to practice on, before you are ready for the actual boss fight. Both ...
So why are Insult Sword Fighting™ one of the most beloved puzzles in the history of adventure games, whereas Monkey Kombat™ is one of the most hated and feared???
Well my own attempt at answering that questions is that it is because Insult Sword Fighting™ is much more than just a puzzle, it is also a very funny humorous segment of the game. Not only is the whole idea of fighting by hurling insults at your opponent, a very funny idea, but the actual insults and ripostes are in themselves actually also quite funny.
The idea of Monkey Kombat™ is also a funny idea, but lets face it “Oop Eek Ack .. Ack Eek Oop” is simply not as funny as “You fight like a dairy farmer .. How appropriate, you fight like a cow” or “You’re as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee .. I look THAT much like your fiancée?”
This of course also raises the next question. If Monkey Kombat™ is what you get if you remove the humour from Insult Sword Fighting™ and many players hate Monkey Kombat™, does that mean that Insult Sword Fighting™ is actually a bad puzzle?
In my own opinion NO.
Personally I quite liked Monkey Kombat™, despite the lack of or decrease in humour, I still think that it worked perfectly fine purely as a puzzle. But I am curious to see if any of you have different opinions on the matter.
P.S. In case anyone reading this has just arrived from outer space: Monkey Kombat™ and the screenshot is from Escape From Monkey Island, and Insult Sword Fighting™ is in both The Secret of Monkey Island and The Curse of Monkey Island.
You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ
This of course also raises the next question. If Monkey Combat™ is what you get if you remove the humour from Insult Sword Fighting™ and many players hate Monkey Combat™, does that mean that Insult Sword Fighting™ is actually a bad puzzle?
Definitely. It’s funny, so nobody minds, but from a puzzle design perspective it’s extremely repetitive and requires absolutely no intellectual work—so, a terrible puzzle.
(In my experience, when replaying the game, i.e. when you already know the jokes, the whole thing feels tedious as fuck.)
(The Swordmaster fight, however, where you have to use the retorts you already know against new insults, is a great puzzle.)
Also, %s/Combat/Kombat/g , thankyouverymuch.
Also, %s/Combat/Kombat/g , thankyouverymuch.
Oops .. Damn spell checker 
You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ
What Kuru said.
I will just add that the Curse’s version of Insult Sword Fighting (against Captain Rottingham, etc) was the superior one. Rhyming the insults adds extra difficulty/creativity to the puzzle.
Yes, the whole puzzle if you already know the answers is pretty tedious since it takes a while to just get all the options. In MI and CMI at least it’s really funny the first time you plat it (or after forgeting what’s happening) but in EMI it’s just boring from the first time you play it since the the joke gets old really fast.
What Kuru said.
I will just add that the Curse’s version of Insult Sword Fighting (against Captain Rottingham, etc) was the superior one. Rhyming the insults adds extra difficulty/creativity to the puzzle.
Ditto, the Curse rhyming add-on pretty much perfected an already excellent gag and puzzle. Combos like that are rare as hell in adventures.
I didn’t like the monkey combat. But I didn’t loathe it. Until my game froze after finishing it and the last save was way before starting the whole thing. That made me actually drop the game. In some other circumstances I might have picked it up again after cooling down a bit, but I guess I found something more interesting to play. I didn’t really like the rest of the game either, felt clearly inferior to the awesome CMI. But I guess I should play it and then go for the Tales episodes. Though I don’t have a cd/dvd reader on my comp…
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I love in The Secret of MI how you learn the answers to the insults when you encounter the pirates, and then use them against different insults when you encounter Carla. It works really great, and the exchange is super witty.
In Escape, I just cringed when they said Monkey Kombat. I just did not find the reference funny at all.
I loved both the Insult Sword-fighting & Monkey Combat in the MI games - to me they were very similar puzzles the difference being is that you could laugh at the comments in the Insult Sword-fighting but in Monkey Combat you didn’t know what they were saying .....well you did but didn’t know what it meant! 
You’ve just got to imagine that they’re all insults like:
“You’ve got the arms of a gibbon” ...so “You’ve got the arse of a gorilla” or something like that!
To me, Sword Fighting was funny and I liked it. But Monkey Kombat was terrible and I hated it. It almost made me quit the game. Maybe it’s because I played a localized game back then and they did not translate it very well. Later, I god an english copy of the game and I did manage to get through, not without frustration. This kind of minigames must be out of developer minds of AGs, in my opinion. They do not add anything to the playability, just wasting time or to make the game last longer.
In all seriousness, I think “Monkey Kombat” would have been more welcomed if it was a true action sequence. 
I guess designers thought it would be enough to reference Mortal Kombat. But, criticizing Monkey Kombat has been overdone, for no big reason - it’s just a “filler”. The game has enough content beside it, it’s rich, so no biggie. You can “cheat” your way through. I played it for “real” only the first time, and cheated every next time.
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I rather enjoyed Monkey Kombat and think it gets far too much flak. The only reason it’s not in the same league as the Insult Sword Fights is because it’s not as funny and that makes it tedious faster. Doesn’t make it the worst puzzle of all time or a game-stopper, though.
Also, I can’t help but imagining this song playing over the Monkey Kombat (with the necessary word swap, of course).
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
I never got as far as Monkey Kombat. For some reason when I tried to follow Timmy(?) into the jungle I just couldn’t and eventually gave up. Reading the furore at the time over the Kombat I wasn’t too bothered about it.
Life is what it is.
Definitely. It’s funny, so nobody minds, but from a puzzle design perspective it’s extremely repetitive and requires absolutely no intellectual work—so, a terrible puzzle.
Granted, neither ISF nor MK is a great intellectual challenge, but in my experience only few puzzles are, and yes, it can be a bit repetitive and you have to put a lot of time and work into it, but I actually don’t mind that. Even if I it is not a brain teaser then it is still a challenge, and I enjoy games that challenges you one way or another. So I agree that neither from a pure puzzle perspective is the best puzzle ever made, but I don’t agree that they are outright terrible.
(In my experience, when replaying the game, i.e. when you already know the jokes, the whole thing feels tedious as fuck.)
I must admit that I have never replayed Escape, only my original playthrough, but I did recently replay Curse, and even though I already knew most of the insults, then it still managed to make me chuckle a bit.
I will just add that the Curse’s version of Insult Sword Fighting (against Captain Rottingham, etc) was the superior one. Rhyming the insults adds extra difficulty/creativity to the puzzle.
I agree.
I loved both the Insult Sword-fighting & Monkey Combat in the MI games
I rather enjoyed Monkey Kombat and think it gets far too much flak.
Well I glad that I’m not the only one 
Edit:
Also, I can’t help but imagining this song playing over the Monkey Kombat (with the necessary word swap, of course).
That’s funny, I was kind of imagining this song playing in my head.
Everybody was Monkey fighting
Those apes were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightning
But they fought with expert timing
They were funky monkeys from funky Monkey Island
They were chopping them up and they were chopping them down
It’s an ultimate insult and everybody knew their part
From a fainting to a slip and kicking from the hip
Everybody was Monkey fighting
Those apes were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightning
But they fought with expert timing
There was funky Threepwood and little Jojo Jr.
He said here comes the big boss, lets get it on
We took a bow and made a stand, started swinging with the hand
The sudden motion made me skip now we’re into a brand knew trip
You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ
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