And while this version does suffer from a few technical issues, I think it's time everybody finally discovers the brilliance of Grim Fandango. It offers a wonderfully bizarre story that remains just as funny and creative as it was in the 32-bit era.
But if you're one of those people who missed out on the PC original, Grim Fandango Remastered was worth the wait. Originally released in 1998, it has taken nearly two decades for this old school LucasArts adventure to make its way to home consoles. Sadly, most of my favorite graphic adventures are still stick in the past, but PlayStation 4 and PS Vita owners finally have a chance to discover the timeless storytelling found in Grim Fandango.
I figured that the floodgates would open and a whole new generation of gamers would have a chance to experience Maniac Mansion and Full Throttle. Games have had 17 years to get a lot better about communicating that sort of thing, but Grim Fandango Remastered isn't interested in putting glowing arrows on the ground to help you find your way.After Telltale's success with Sam & Max and Tales of Monkey Island, it seemed inevitable that we would start to see other classic point & click adventure games make a comeback. Tough puzzles became miserable spending as much time as I did trying to get from A to B. Frequently, I'd find myself stumped because I was unaware that if I walked off the screen at a certain angle I'd find a new area I'd completely missed before. My difficulty in navigating the world exacerbated the obtuse nature of many of the puzzles for me. There also isn't an auto-save system, in case you were curious. Players accustomed to the less intellectually demanding adventure games of today are likely to go looking for a hint system, so let me save you some time: There isn't one. I'm admittedly a dummy, but I found a lot of the puzzles to be difficult, bordering on inscrutable. That said, if you prefer the direct controls, they've also been overhauled, replacing a Resident Evil-style "tank" setup with a more intuitive, camera-relative system that should be familiar from other third-person games. Grim Fandango Remastered addresses this with a point-and-click interface that is a massive improvement, if only for the time it saves in not wandering around. I actually found myself switching back to the original frequently, as the new lighting can make characters hard to track when the camera is zoomed way out. This isn't an overhaul it's a museum piece, as evidenced in part by the interesting developer commentary available throughout. Also, Grim Fandango was an early example of 3D characters and, as such, the polygon count is distractingly low if you're going in expecting a modern look.
The game is presented in 4:3, for starters (though you can switch to a stretched-out widescreen view). This slavish devotion to the original is a big part of the expectation-setting new players need to do. Characters and some items are affected by the lighting around them and the jaggy lines have been smoothed out with better resolution, but nothing else appears to have been touched. If you want to get an idea of just how little of the original presentation has been changed, press the button that instantly switches between the "original" and "remastered" versions. The game spans four years, and its endearing characters are allowed to grow and evolve over that time in ways that still feel revolutionary today. The scope and scale of the narrative is also leagues ahead of what most of modern games winkingly refer to as story. It's honestly just a little sad that the heavy Latin influence of Grim Fandango feels just as fresh and invigorating in today's milquetoast landscape as it must have in 1998. The real strength of Grim Fandango is this sweeping story, the brilliant actors that deliver it and the still stunning aesthetic, a blend of Aztec folklore, Art Deco design and a heavy dose of film noir. When Mercedes doesn't qualify for so much as a tricycle, he smells a rat and is launched into an adventure that takes him from his hometown of El Marrow to, literally, the end of the world. He assumes that someone who spent most of their life volunteering is a lock for a much sought-after ticket on the Number Nine, a direct train to the Ninth Underworld. That all changes when the saint-like Mercedes Colomar walks through his door. As a travel agent who escorts the deceased to their final rewards, the best mode of transport he's been able to scare up for his clients lately has been a walking stick. As Grim Fandango opens in the Land of the Dead, Manny Calavera has fallen on hard times (even for a dead guy).