Hello everyone, hope you're all doing well and welcome to my Retro Review of Grim Fandango! Right off the bat I have to admit that I don't have much experience with these kinds of classic adventure games. They were never something I was interested in growing up and now the genre is basically nonexistent. Even though adventure titles aren't popular anymore I still see this one come up from time to time, with people talking about how great it was. When I took a closer look at this I was intrigued by what I saw and it turns out there's a remastered version available on modern consoles, so I was excited to finally give it a shot. Now that I've had a chance to play through the game, let's dive in and I'll tell you all about it.
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Grim Fandango is an adventure game developed by LucasArts and directed by Tim Schafer. This was originally released back in 1998 for the PC and even though people loved it, the game sold very poorly. Unfortunately, for the developers of Grim Fandango, their project was completely overshadowed by some really big games. Classic titles like Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, Resident Evil 2, Spyro The Dragon, Metal Gear Solid and Half Life all came out in 1998, so this little adventure game never stood a chance. In fact, it wasn't long after it's release that the adventure genre pretty much died out altogether. Things were changing and the world of 3D games had much more to offer than story driven, point and click experiences, but Grim developed a cult following nonetheless.
The game takes place in the Land Of The Dead, where souls go after they die to determine how they will travel on to the afterlife. If you've been a good person and led an honorable life you'll get a ticket for the Number Nine Train, which will get you there in four days. If you've led a not so good life you'll have to walk instead and that will take you four years. A lot of people that don't get a ticket get tired of walking and eventually just give up. So now the Land Of The Dead is full of lost souls that permanently reside here in the form of a skeleton. Most of them will take on some sort of job, hoping to earn enough good will to be able to afford a ticket on the train and that's where you come in.
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You play as Manny Calavera, a travel agent working for the Department Of Death, who's basically a Grim Reaper that escorts people from the mortal world to the afterlife. The travel agents also review the person's life and determine what mode of travel they qualify for. At the start of the game you begin to realize that the agency you work for is crooked, always giving you the bad people so you never make a good commission.
Manny gets tired of this, so you do some sneaking around and make sure your next client is a special one. You snag yourself a very honorable soul, a woman who will definitely earn a ticket for the Number Nine Train, but she takes off on foot before you can finish the process. This starts your journey to try and track her down across the Land Of The Dead and the events that follow end up changing your life forever.
Since this is a story driven experience I don't want to spoil anything that happens after this point. I'll just say that the game takes place over the course of four years that are each broken down into separate acts. The story and voice acting is very well done, with great writing overall and a lot of excellent comedic moments. You'll travel to many interesting locations and interact with a bunch of memorable characters that all play a part in unraveling the mystery. The game is heavily inspired by the Day Of The Dead celebration in Mexico, with lots of skeletons and bright colors, but is set up like an old film noir crime drama where you play as the detective.
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This is one of the last true adventure games, which for some people, myself included, comes with a pretty steep learning curve. The gameplay is all about talking to everyone around you to trigger a specific dialog option, exploring your surroundings to figure out where everything is, collecting a bunch of different items and trying to put it all together somehow to solve a puzzle so you can progress to the next area. In a modern game you'd get a lengthy tutorial that explains how all of this works, but since this was made in 1998 it just throws you right in, expecting you to already know the formula for these kinds of games.
This means you might get stuck once in a while and hit a dead end, especially with a few puzzles in the last two acts. Some can be fairly obvious if you're paying attention and others can be strangely cryptic, requiring you to use certain items in ways most people wouldn't normally think of. If this happens it's totally fine to use a guide for help, but once you get used to the game's mechanics you probably won't have much trouble figuring most things out for yourself. It's all about the story and characters anyway, so you're better off using a walkthrough than giving up altogether. This four year journey will take you around twelve hours to complete, depending on how familiar you are with this genre.
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As someone who has very little experience with adventure games I was surprised by how much fun I had playing through this. Figuring out how all my clues fit together and finally solving a puzzle for myself was incredibly rewarding. The tone and style of the game is very unique, with a compelling story that I immediately became invested in. It hooked me in right from the start and I wanted to keep playing just to see what would happen next. There are so many great locations and memorable characters, especially your sidekick Glottis, the big orange demon that drives your car.
Some of the 3D models are a little janky and take some getting used to, but the environments are fantastic overall with some impressive levels to explore. I can see why so many people consider this to be one of the greatest games of all time, especially if you played it when it first came out. But if you're new to adventure games, or maybe you're playing this for the first time today, it might feel a little dated and not have the same impact. Regardless, I would still highly recommend giving this a chance. It's a well crafted experience with a lot of personality and I'm going to give Grim Fandango a grade of.......................................
B
Thank you for reading my review of Grim Fandango, I hope you enjoyed it!