7/18/2023 0 Comments Grim fandango remastered gamefaqsGrim Fandango represents the LucasArts adventure at its most vicious. The hardest thing to get used to now though is the puzzles. Glottis, are you loco? That was a company car! Yeah, and it's even better company now! It’s all lovely, from the colourful streets of El Marrow, the grimy Las Vegas meets 1920s Chicago of Rubacava, the deep sea where monsters lurk and the End of the World, where Manny’s journey doesn’t end. It’s this style that ensures that even though the graphics are rather basic (characters are late ’90s polygon models over 2D backgrounds) it still looks fantastic even now. Style pours out of every design, which is all done like a cross between a Day of the Dead festival and Film Noir movies like Casablanca. That’s the crucial word when dealing with Grim Fandango. It has its own rules, currency, creatures (flying spiders! Hell beavers! Purple Tentacle!), locations, and most importantly style. The Land of the Dead is a wildly imaginative place. Then we have the world, which deserves its own paragraph. The acting is also first-rate, and frankly if it became a film I wouldn’t want Eddie Murphy - I want Alan Blumenfeld back as Glottis. He’s loveably stupid, and devoted to cars, speed and his friend Manny. If Grim was an animated movie Glottis would be voiced by Eddie Murphy or Josh Gad and would sell a million stuffed toys (I’d buy one). It’s his “comedy sidekick” Glottis though that steals the show. Manny is completely likeable, slightly like a Mexican Humphrey Bogart, with plenty of great lines and an infectious determination. Each one I could write an entire review on. The plot holds together beautifully and remains intriguing all the way through, the dialogue is snappy and full of character, the humour dry and dark and when it hits you it’s like a gut-punch of funny, and the characters. Tim Schafer is a fantastic writer, Grim Fandango is his finest work, and every part of the storytelling in the game comes together perfectly. I can’t spell it out any clearer than this: Grim Fandango has arguably the best videogame story ever. And it all revolves around a woman named Mercedes Colomar… Something is rotten in the Land of the Dead, and Manny Calavera along with friendly speed demon Glottis plan on finding it out. Unfortunately he’s down on his luck while previously he was the top travel package agent in the Department of Death he now is only getting cheap penniless clients, while his rival Domino mysteriously gets all the good ones. In the Mexican Land of the Dead, Manuel “Manny” Calavera is working off time for some unspoken crime as a Reaper, a “travel agent” to help newly-deceased souls find their way to the Land of Eternal Rest. Oh well, um, yes, Grim Fandango is the best adventure game ever. Damn, just missed out on Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Next review goals: Half-Life 2 and Deus Ex. And now, 17 years after it came out, I finally have a chance to explain why. Invariably though, one of the answers I will give for the top spot is Grim Fandango. Then I’ll weigh up the pros and cons and my general mood around my top 10 favourite games, before finally settling on one by which point you’ve probably gone home. If you ask me what my favourite game of all time is, my first response would be “only one?!”.
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