Grim Fandango

The Good
LucasArts brought joy and excitement to adventure fans during their most dominant era - the early 1990's. However, like many other genres, adventure games underwent a crisis during the troublesome second half of the decade; unlike some other genres, they never truly recovered. I think that LucasArts' own output during that time was inferior to what they have achieved before. That is, with the exception of one game, where the company's creativity suddenly broke out with unseen power - only to be silenced for good afterwards.

Grim Fandango can be described in three words: hardcore classical adventure. Which means that it does not follow the fashionable route of Myst, nor does it dumb down gameplay in favor of long cutscenes and whatever else the dramatization of the genre has brought with it. This game has puzzles, and many of them are tough - but, with a few exceptions, they aren't abstract; they are organically woven into the game's texture, inseparable from its world. It is not one of those games that throws thousands of puzzles at you without giving you any clues - no, the clues are there, yet due to their sheer complexity, the puzzles are often difficult to solve. Being a very large game, it also demands a lot of concentration from the player.

Grim Fandango follows the classic LucasArts rule (no dying, no getting stuck), and the amount of experimenting with items is somewhat reduced by the inability to combine items within your inventory - but do not think for a second that this makes the game any easier. Typical inventory-based puzzles are relatively rare compared to complex machinery-oriented tasks you'll encounter in many parts of the game. But the strength of its puzzle design lies in the fact that those puzzles are neither isolated nor self-sufficient. There is still plenty of fun item-collecting from the good old comedy days, and rich dialogue branches to explore. In short, there is variety and challenge - two essential components of good game design.

Grim Fandango is a large game - both in terms of longevity and the size of its world. The developers struck a perfect balance between free-form exploration and focused advancement, giving us generous playable areas that take a while to complete, but also changing the scenery drastically in each of its several long chapters. Thus, the game avoids both the radical streamlining of Full Throttle and the monotonous hub-exploration of The Dig. The sheer magnitude of its world reminded me of Zak McKracken - of all LucasArts adventures, these two are the only ones I would describe as "epic".

The game's world is a stylish masterpiece possibly surpassing everything the company has done before in pure artistic value. I have never seen its main stylistic components united in the same work - let alone in such a seamless and convincing fashion. Whoever first came up with the bizarre idea of mixing film noir with Art Deco and Mexican mythology deserves a special prize in a competition for original settings. Even a weaker game would be worth checking out just thanks to the unique world.

This world has been carefully crafted in meticulous detail, turning simple office rooms into chef-d'oeuvres of visual design. Colors, angles, decorations, architecture, furniture, character faces, street lamps - everything is recreated with almost decadent opulence, brilliantly reflecting the main themes of the game's story. The pre-rendered backgrounds are splendidly rich and colorful, and well-animated 3D character models are combined with them immaculately. In general, Grim Fandango is one of the most lavishly presented adventure games of all times.

Grim Fandango also has one of the best stories ever to grace an adventure game. In a world where this genre has been firmly associated either with lighthearted comedy or the enigmatic vagueness of Myst-like impressionist style, Grim Fandango rises with its gripping plot full of intrigues, corruption, romance, and much more. It is world-embracing, intimate, touching, complex, and emotional. The most remarkable aspect of this story is that it depicts several years of the hero's life (or, in this case, life after death). While most games usually describe only a short episode they consider noteworthy, Grim Fandango draws all the right conclusions from its structure and weaves an epic tale with all its heights and lows, showing how time changes people and things, and how easy it is for us to gain or lose everything we have.

There are plenty of locations in the game, and most of them are original and memorable - the port city Rubacava with its casinos, luxury hotels, mafia bosses, and tattoo parlors, the depths of the sea, the mountains, etc. All those locations are extremely detailed and filled with people and objects, so that a strange melancholic and even nostalgic feeling envelops the player - it is just like real life, yet the real life is so far away. Yet at the same time the game is endearingly humorous. It liberally pays homage to film noir, crime novels, and other literary and cinematic styles with a dedicated realism that intensifies the dark comic effect: the supposedly desolate, mysterious afterlife turns out to resemble our world in everything - particularly in sin. Who could help smiling watching the scene where Meche removes her stockings in a perfectly captured "femme fatale" style?..

Grim Fandango is full of characters, and most of them are singularly memorable. The protagonist himself truly grows as a person - initially not particularly reliable, even a bit of a crook, Manny is gradually revealed as a courageous person, able to love deeply and without compromises. The lovable demon Glotis provides mild comic relief, but he is also a great friend with a magnanimous soul - a seemingly excellent pianist as well. I have rarely seen an adventure game with so many characters, each occupying a relatively important spot in the rich tapestry of the story.

The Bad
I wasn't as offended by the interface as some other fans of point-and-click adventures, but I can't say I liked it. You can only interact with an object if you physically approach it, at which point Manny will tilt his head in the general direction. This means you'll have to run around a lot in a busy environment, which doesn't fit the pace of adventure gameplay. Camera angles change frequently, and keyboard-based character navigation is uncomfortable no matter whether you choose the camera- or the character-dependent control scheme. I don't quite see why it was impossible to use the mouse for movement and cursor-based interaction.

Grim Fandango is highly creative, and yet there was a tiny something in the gameplay where symptoms of crisis in adventure game design could be felt. I welcomed the high difficulty level, but a few puzzles were tricky in an illogical and somewhat contrived sense - I felt that there was rather too much precision required to solve them. Then again, it is infinitely preferable to simplifying the gameplay, and luckily for the most part they balanced the puzzle difficulty remarkably well.

The Bottom Line
It was a long way from Maniac Mansion to Grim Fandango, a glorious road decorated by quite a few masterpieces. Born within a crisis that has befallen its creators and the adventure genre in general, Grim Fandango is one of LucasArts' best offerings. It is the most mature and complete manifestation of their design philosophy and a fitting epitaph to their work, a powerful final chord crowning their beautiful symphony.

The Good
Graphically this game was quite cutting edge at the time. I just finished it in 2004, quite some time after it's 1998 release, yet it didn't seem particularly dated. This is a commendable achievement that few games can claim. Part of what makes the graphics remain fresh to this day is the creative and interesting scenes you find yourself in throughout the game. There is a consistent neo-aztec feel to the architecture which is quite cool and has yet to be recreated to such an extent. Additionally, there is a consistent lack of repetition in the environments that modern games could learn alot from. The character models are varied and full of character. It's amazing to me how much personality the designers put on a skeleton's face.

The sound in the game is quite nice as well. The music fits the various environments quite well, the sound effects are great, and the voice acting is superb throughout. Some of the best voice acting I've heard in a game actually. The conversations are crass and entertaining. The sound helps immerse you which is necessary for third-person adventure games. The sounds all suit the events that they are matched too, which is another thing modern games could learn from.

The gameplay is pretty good for the most part, though see below for some complaints. Character control is through the keyboard, as was common in that day and age. It is, of course, and adventure game, which means the challenge in the game is figuring out what it is you're supposed to do. I must admit I'm crap at adventure games and I always need a walkthrough of some kind, but even with this handicap, I found that the tasks you're supposed to engage in are logical about 50% of the time. It IS difficult at times to see what items you're supposed to manipulate. If there is any weakness to this game, it's in the gameplay.

The story is superb. I found myself enjoying the main character immediately, which is yet ANOTHER thing modern games could learn from. It's a compelling story, the characters are quite humorous, and above all, it's an enjoyable story. Sometimes the conversations lead to confusion about what one is supposed to do, but at all times your 'main' goal is clear. I play adventure games for the plot alone, and I was quite impressed by this one. It's not an epic-hero story, unlike most RPG's and some action games, which is a nice change. It's a fun, engaging detective story that I think everyone can enjoy.

The Bad
The only weakness in this game is in the gameplay. A good 50% of the puzzle solutions are absolutely obscure. The decision of which inventory item to use where and when is quite frequently illogical in my opinion. This could be because I haven't the knack for adventure games, I grant that, however, I think there is a latent difficulty to this game that isn't due to my lack of cognitive capacity. This flaw is made worse by the difficulty in finding all of the necessary items to solve problems. This gets annoying quite quickly, but there are a myriad of walkthroughs available on the internet, as a simple google search will show. So while this flaw is noticeable, it's not a major problem to playing the game.

The Bottom Line
I would recommend it to anyone. It can be found for practically free from game vendors. It's got a wonderful plot and the characters are great. It's almost a perfect example of how good a game can be. I was even more impressed for the fact that i'm not usually an adventure gamer. This is a 'must-play.'

The Good
What an odd name Grim Fandango for a game is. I can understand the "Grim", because of the way all the characters look like little Grim Reapers, but with clothes on. "Fandango" is a Latin-American or Spanish dance, so if someone comes up to you and says "Do the Fandango", you'll know what they mean. And no, the plot is not about all the characters trying to out-perform each other in a dance contest.

After writing a negative review already, I decided to give this game another go. LucasArt's Grim Fandango tells the story of Manuel "Manny" Calavera, a travel agent who is employed by the Department of Death to sell travel packages to the dead on their way to the underworld. Unfortunately, one of his colleagues seem to get the best clients, and he suddenly has a bad reputation for not selling enough packages, and he is on the brink of getting fired from the job.

The game's description says that Grim is a masterpiece, and when I played the game all the way to the end, I can see why. The game is divided into four years, and each one of them contains marvellous 3D graphics. Every time I walked Manny between locations, I noticed how each of them is well designed, particularly the towns of El Marrow and Rubacava, LSA headquarters, the creepy petrified forest, and the coral mines where slaves do nothing but make lightbulbs for a living. The objects themselves look beautiful, and those that I found interesting to gawk at include the blimp that flies stationary over Rubacava (Too bad you cannot enter it.), the submarine and the octopus that guards it (The octopus looks scary as he keeps a close eye on you wherever you go.), and, most of all, the Number Nine train that carries people to the underworld.

The music and sound effects are nice. Most of the music inside the game is a combination of Spanish- and Mexican-style music. I prefer not to listen to this type of music, but I must say when a piece plays somewhere in the game, they reflect the situation that you are in, whether it is a love scene or running away from someone.

You control Manny's actions by using the keyboard to walk around and pick up and manipulate objects, and you will use the keyboard a lot. (Sorry, Grim uses LucasArt's new GrimE interface instead of the SCUMM interface used in earlier games, and due to restrictions on using the new interface, mouse support is just not possible). This means that you have to memorize at least ten commands, but they are easy to remember once you examined the help screen.

Whenever you accomplish something that is a requirement of the game, you will often watch a cut-scene. These cut-scenes look a lot detailed than the ones in earlier games, even those in The Dig is no match for those in Grim. And once you have viewed the cut-scene, you have the option of watching it again if it happens to be your favorite.

Like other adventure game should, you have the option of saving and loading games, and you can save as many games as you like and not worry about disk space, since each save game is just under 1MB. Me, not only do I like to save at any location that takes my breath away, but also at places where I could get myself in trouble. What is interesting about saving games is that at the top of the save/load game screens, a part of a painting is created to show you how much of Grim that you have completed. If you have many saved games, including the one where you are one step toward finishing the game, you can use the up and down arrow keys to quickly cycle between saved games to see how the painting is formed piece-by-piece.

There is a little bit of humor in the game. The things that Glottis, your demon partner, does is funny such as when he gets fired from his job and tells Manny that it is like that the DOD reached in and pulled his heart out, he actually does so and toss it in a spider's web, and this makes it rather difficult for Manny to release the heart from the web. Another highlight is going to the cat tracks in the second year and hearing the names of the cats that are competing, with names like "Hairball Surprise", "Smitten Kitten", "Meowy-Wowy", and "Kitty Kitty Bang-Bang".

The Bad
When I first submitted a review of this game, an approver told me "What??? I don't believe this. How could anyone find Grim Fandango boring?" Well, I meant that the game was boring the first time that I played it, but when I played it the second time, I found the game enjoyable. However, it is boring to have Manny take almost a minute to walk across the screen. I ended up holding down the [Shift] key to make him run from one place to the next. In fact, the walkthrough that I used to complete the game encouraged me to run rather than walk.

The Bottom Line
This game's install program has two types of installs: "Small" and "Large". My advice: Don't choose the "Large" option, unless you can wait for it to finish 20 minutes later. Grim Fandango comes on two CDs, but there was no need for the game to fit on a second CD, which is completely useless expect when you are installing the game.

Grim Fandango is a very good game with relaxing music and breathtaking 3D graphics, with a little bit of humor added to the mix, I believe that everyone (kids or adults) will find this game a joy to play.

Rating: ****