Grim Fandango Remastered Review

Dia de los Muertos

Dave's Review:

Grim Fandango Remastered is one of those games I always read about back in the day, I wasn't really big into PC gaming when Grim was first released so I have no prior knowledge going in to this. I have always thought the art style was excellent, Even with the updated look this game has one of the best art Styles rarely seen in games. For this review I asked my buddy Rob, to write his perspective since he was a big fan of this game when it was first released. You can read his thoughts further below, but for now on to my impressions of the game.

Grim Fandango is an adventure game, and one of the first to get away from having a pointer to interact with the world instead Mani's head rotates to the objects he is interacting with, which at first I had a hard time getting my barrings, but with time became more natural. First thing to point out that this is not like the Adventure games we see today. If you are familliar with The TellTale games series, they are much more straight forward and a lot less cryptic with what you need to do. If you have never played this game before like me you will find yourself lost at times. However I didn't find myself frustrated at all, in fact the game made me feel smart once I guess what needed to be done giving the player a sense of accomplishment. 

The game is set in the 8th underworld, and plays out over the course of  4 chapters, represented by years. My personal favorites would be year 2, and 3. The game has an excellent "film noir" style that I personally think more games should have. The voice acting is top notch especially for the time the game was made. Remember the how bad the voice acting was in the Resident Evil games? Both came out around the same time. 

The game can take you anywhere from 6-25 hours to play through depending on if you are new to the game or if you are a seasoned pro. I actually felt compelled to go back and see how long it would take me once I figured out all the puzzles. Like most adventure games once you have beat the game you won't find much more reason to go back and play it. Yet I felt attatched to these characters and found myself playing the game over right after beating it. 

Grim Fandango may have been one of those games I missed when it was first released but I couldn't be more happy that Double Fine made this Remastered version. This is now one of my all time favorite games and I strongly recommend you go and spend the $15 to pick it up. Also the game is cross-buy and cross-save. I played the game on the PlayStation 4, and the Vita, both performed similar, but the PS4 version looked better with the Remastered visuals. 

GET IT NOW!! 

Rob's Review:

This is the Lucas Arts Classic that you have all been waiting for, also one of the favourite games of my teen years!

You are Mani, a Reaper who is stuck in the land of the dead due to a debt that is owed to the higher powers as a travel agent.  Your lot in the after life is to work off the debts by selling the newly deceased travel packages in order to smooth their 4 year journey.  At least this is where it starts out......

Double Fine has done a great job on this game, updating some of the models and graphics but not so much that it becomes unrecognizable from the classic we know and love.

One of the things that I immediately noticed was the addition of the camera relative controls as opposed to the tank style controls.  This made the game easier to move around (although in the options menu you can switch to tank style.....there's even a trophy for it!).

The only drawback that I can think of is the same with any kind of adventure game (think Monkey Island, Kings Quest, Space Quest) is that the replay value is limited...but at $15 you really can't go wrong.

Whether you're new to the game or a long time fan there is only one conclusion that can really be drawn from this....If you're a fan of wit, old style adventure games, and believe Robert Frost can scare pigeons you owe it to yourself to get ready for a humerus adventure and play this game!

BUY IT!!!!!!!!!

PS: if you're a fan of these games a Day of the Tentacle has been announced by the guys at Double Fine!