#2: Grim Fandango Remastered

It's been a while since I actually completed the game itself, but I've been inspired to talk about this game again after playing through it in its entirety with a group of people on my friend's PS4. As well, sometimes I will probably just refer to it as Grim Fandango, as the games are pretty well the same (as is my understanding).

---------- Grim Fandango Remastered ----------

When I was growing up in the late 90's-early 2000's, most of what I played were the few games I owned for my Sega Genesis and Pokemon on my Gameboy Color. However, I was introduced to the point-and-click adventure games of Humongous Entertainment, especially taking a liking to the characters of Putt-Putt and Freddi Fish. Even though I had trouble with the extremely easy puzzles (being a child and all), I enjoyed them all the same. That was pretty much my only foray into the genre, until the summer of last year, when I was first introduced to Tim Shafer's PC masterpiece Grim Fandango in its remastered form. Ever since, I have been developing a steadily increasing addiction to Point-and-Click games, and I'm spiraling out of control.

Now, its first worth noting that, having never played the original game, I cannot really talk to much about its remastered quality, but after looking into it a little bit, it seems that the graphics have essentially been updated and the game can now be played on all modern PC's. This is welcome, as it was already in 3D, and the screenshots I've seen of the original aren't that bad. You can definitely tell the age behind it, but that's to be expected from most any older game. A change as drastic as Ducktales Remastered did not feel needed.

Grim Fandango spans the course of a four year long epic as we follow Manuel "Manny" Calavera throughout the Land of the Dead on his quest to find Mercedes "Meche" Colomar as he gets entangled in a criminal empire spanning from El Marrow all the way to the End of the World. There are a plethora of interesting characters to interact with and do quests for as you solve puzzles on your journey and make friends and enemies alike along the way. BY far my favorite character is Membrillo, whose depressing attitude and living conditions are just too good not to smile at. He even has the best quote of the game, which always manages to give me chills ("We may have years. We may have hours. But sooner or later, we push up flowers"). Also, the setting of the Day of the Dead is worth mentioning, as it feels fresh and the landscapes are vibrant while still having a somewhat somber and dulled feeling to it, as is typical of most film noir, well, films. It makes its presence known not only through the designs of the character and the marking on there skulls, but also through the significance of every year (or chapter) beginning and ending on the Day of the Dead.

The puzzles in the game, as I expected going in, range from simple just by sheer luck, to absurd by any means. Some areas, such as the entirety of Year Four, I flew through with ease, whether I reasoned things rationally or simply happened into the solution. Others, such as pretty much all of Rubucava in Year Two, left my struggling to understand how any one item related to anything else. I usually am against looking up solutions, even if I get stuck for hours at a time, but I had to look up how to solve the forklift in the elevator puzzle, as I knew to drive the forklift into the hole as it appeared, but couldn't for the life of me understand that there was a lever on the side of the lift to raise it. My bad. I am an idiot.

All that said, Grim Fandango has placed itself within my Top Five Favorite Games of All Time pretty securely for matters as the humor, the settings, the wonderful characters and witty dialogue, Bobby Hill angel, and perhaps most importantly, the music. The sting at the very beginning of the game is so powerful and wondrous that not only do you understand the film noir implications, but you can immediately tell how cinematic the following experience will be. There are even those that argue that it could be made into an animated film of its own, to which I say why bother, the game is already a fantastic blend of the mediums of film and video games. Taking one of those elements out, even in order to produce it on its own, would only detract from it.

I completed these game wholly both times I played it, and both times required two playthroughs to do so, giving me four playthroughs of the game all together. Being the remastered version, it has achievements and trophies on its respective platforms, and all of these have been collected in order to achieve 100% completion. It isn't that hard to get the majority of them either, as you get a lot of them just for exhausting dialogue options with all the various characters that litter the Land of the Dead. In all reality, this is a reward in and of itself, especially in a game such as this, so even if you aren't attempting to get 100% completion, as the dialogue and lore for all the characters carry their own importance. There are others that are a lot more difficult, though, especially when playing on the PS4, as often times for a few of the trophies anyways, I hadn't done alternate actions as the required me to push the square button rather than the x button, which is already difficult as the square button is rarely used in the game as it is. Its just as well I suppose, because most of these can be gotten either through the dialogue or just testing various different item and people combinations and interactions, and if you aren't already doing that in a Point-and-Click game, then you'll have a hard time to beat the game normally.

I'm not the type of person that adds a new "favorite game" to their list every time one comes out that they vaguely like, but Grim Fandango has fixated itself in my top five and I don't see it leaving anytime soon. The wonderful characters, fantastical story, and cinematic feel can only build onto a classic that now has an ability to reach an entirely new generation of people who hopefully will feel the same.