Game review: Grim Fandango Remastered (2015)

in #gaming5 years ago

The game that I'm going to be going over today is a remaster of Lucasarts final adventure game title in the 90's, and it's one of their most beloved. So, of course it was a huge god damn commercial failure when it came out, because raisins. It's called Grim Fandango. Grim Fandango is an adventure game that was the baby gravy masterpiece of director Tim Schafer and the last game with him at the wheel. It was their first adventure 3d video game, and is what I would consider their most mature, character driven game released in the 90's. I mean, that is unless you saw their XXX rated Stormtrooper game. Never before has a game studio recreated a masterpiece of tentacle porn and naked dudes in helmets.

I never got to play the original game, for a few reasons. The main one being that I was a 6 year old kid when this game came out, and came from a poor family. I believe I was still probably jamming on a SNES fucking shit up as Godzilla and occasionally slapping my nuts on some faces on the good old Mortal Kombat up until 1999-2000. However, I'm sort of glad I didn't know what to expect when I went into this remaster, as I was pleasantly fucking surprised by what I got out of it. Never before has an older adventure game made my nipples as moist as this one. 


The story of the game takes place in the "Land of the Dead", which is a crossing ground for the recently deceased before they reach their final resting place, typically the Ninth Underworld. People who did good deeds in their living life are rewarded access to better ways of journeying to the Ninth Underworld, with the best of which being the option of marrying a carrier pigeon and riding it off into the sunset while it pecks at your dilapidated asshole.  Number Nine train. Those souls that were bad, however, typically end up having to make the trip on foot across the land of the dead and dealing with perilous and dangerous  environments/creatures/souls. This trip on foot typically takes around 4 years of time, though a fair amount of souls end up losing hope and just get a job somewhere within the land of the dead instead. 

To help determine who deserves what, the DOD exists (Department of Death), and the travel agents within handle things case by case and act as Grim Reapers to take them from the land of the living to the land of the dead. The main character of the game is one of the said travel agents, Manny Calavera. It's hard to really dive into the story without going into specifics and spoiling things. Beyond what I've already written, I'll just say this to sum things up. The story is funny, touching and deals with a more serious topic; the loss and regret we often feel. It's about overcoming the mistakes you've made in the past and moving forward. Or, maybe it's about how weird skull fucking is when you're all just skeletons. Either way, it's a good tale. 

Now, the graphical and technical side of this remaster are something else which I do wanna delve into, however. Now, as I mentioned before I never played the original. However, after playing this remaster I did go check out gameplay from the original game for a comparison. Pretty much all of the technical and graphical changes from the original are very subtle. It still looks like you're still playing a game from 20 years ago, but should you actually go back to play the original you'd notice the difference easily. Especially in regards to the controls since it's now point and click, with the old version using tank controls which I know everyone sucks peepee for. (Though if you want tank controls they're available to use, especially if you want to 100 percent the game as there is an achievement/trophy for doing so.)

I would say the biggest and most notable change for this remaster compared to the old game is the higher res models for the 3D characters as well as the textures used. This is both good and bad in a way. It's bad in that the backgrounds are still 2D and haven't been buffed much at all due to limitations (I would guess), so the characters don't fit as well with said backgrounds. However, the characters no longer look like someone dropped ass onto a paint canvas while committing heinous acts of fart porn, smearing the characters all about and blurring their details. The same thing can happen with quest items, where they stand out heavily compared to the ground or walls, making it pretty obvious you're supposed to pick that item up. I personally didn't mind the characters standing out heavily compared to the background due to their more defined details. But, if you happen to, there's an option in game to switch back to the old school graphics. 

The game has a beautiful art style which I think works wonderfully with the remaster, even when playing on a large TV or monitor. This is thanks to the widescreen mode working well, and the shadow detailing being excellent. I would say in general the remaster worked wonderfully for the technical side of the game. The only thing I can think of that I wasn't a huge fan of was the cutscene graphics not looking too good. This is because the models haven't been updated, and probably couldn't be without just redoing the whole cutscene from scratch. Otherwise, I have no complaints on this front. Except, maybe we could have used more naked birdmen and skeleton titties. 

Another aspect of the game that I really enjoyed the soundtrack they did for this remaster. The songs for just background tracks match the tone of the game so well. I would say a lot of the atmosphere throughout the game comes from the backing music. Whether that be a nice, relaxing jazz track, some upbeat Mexican music or a sad orchestral track that matches with the somber scenes. Well, and there's of course the tense tracks for the moments of doom, but we all love moments of doom anyways. Seriously, though, the music is wonderful and makes up a big part of this remaster. 

One aspect of the game which I absolutely adored was how the world building was done. The design of the world and characters is very much a combination of Mexican mythology and mid 20th century America with a dash of a noir setting here and there. There is a lot of nuance to be found within the world as you play and explore, and I think the design for the games world is of extraordinary quality. Occasionally you wander out of these settings and into a more dark/creepy place that is more bizarre than anything, however, these places always seems right at home within the world. 

You'll also notice as you progress how the world evolves along with your character as he develops over the years that the game spans. The first part of the world you're playing in is wooden and more radiant than anything, however, your second year of time in the game is of a dark noir theme that is reminiscent to something like The Maltese Falcon or Out of the Past. These big gaps of time allow the game to change things up, not only in a location and theme sense but also allow the cast to change up and to give the character more things to strive for and develop. The world always stays consistent and within itself, as well as never forgetting what kind of tone it wants to have. 

Well, I guess I should talk about the things that I didn't like about this remaster now. Can't just sit here with my soft cock in hand and gloat over the game like it's perfect, now can I? First of all I have to say the biggest downfall of this game is the fact that it doesn't have an auto save system. This wasn't a huge deal or anything, except for a time where I hadn't saved for 50 minutes and experienced a bug that trapped me into an area of the game where I couldn't do anything. So, do remember to save quite often in case you wander into a bug or crash. 

Something else I should probably address for those of you who would play this on the PC is that at one point there was an issue with the controls not being responsive. I played on the playstation 4 and never had an issue like this. However, after looking around online I did see a fair amount of complaints of the mouse not working fully as intended for clicking through conversation options as well as menu options. It doesn't happen constantly or anything from my understanding, but can be pretty annoying to deal with I imagine. 

Other than these things, I can't think of much in the game that I could bitch about making my dick all flaccid and shriveled. While I do think the game could use a bit more work here and there, I absolutely fucking love it and would highly recommend it. It's not quite as modern as most remasters tend to be, but I think that works for the charm of the game and keeps it grounded to looking and feeling like Grim fandango should. The game is inspired, full of style and holds things together in a captivating fashion. I laughed plenty of times throughout and constantly felt entertained. I cannot think of a single reason for a new fan or old one to not pick this edition up and give it a try. Unless you're a knuckle dragging troglodyte who only plays Fortnite, then you can just go jump off a fucking cliff and go straight to monkey hell. 


Well, that's it for this review. This is the first game review I've done in awhile so hopefully I didn't come across as a rusty, crusty mess. Hope whoever reads this enjoyed it and maybe found a new game to check out. Until next time, take it easy and sleazy you whorebutts.



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How cool is that! I didn't know about the remake, but I played the original game back then and I really liked it. That was also the first time I got in touch with the whole day of dead thing. Time to play it again! Thanks for your nice review ;)

You should definitely play it again! It goes on sale for dirt cheap as well if you're willing to add it to a wishlist and wait a bit. I got a copy digitally on sale for $2 on the PS4 a couple weeks ago. I'd imagine Steam probably has a similar price when it's on sale.

Hi deadspace,

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Lovely game review you have in there. I really enjoyed reading every word in there and also your review is going to make me try the game for the first time. Lovely write up
Keep the game spirit up always

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