Grim Fandango Review: A Film Noir Masterpiece with One Fatal Flaw

Grim Fandango is a game that I wanted to love. I grew up playing LucasArts adventure games, my favorites being the excellent Monkey Island games. Grim Fandango was one I never got to play and never could get my hands on after it disappeared from the world at large during the adventure game genre’s decade long remission. When it was announced that Grim Fandango was going to be remastered and rereleased after being lost for fifteen years I was excited. However, after playing I was half disappointed. I say half disappointed for the most part I loved this game, but there was one fatal flaw that damn near ruined the game for me. So let’s get to this shall we.

Let’s start with what I loved about this game. The story is one of the most creative and imaginative ones I have ever had the honor to experience. You play as Manny Calavera, a travel agent in the Land of the Dead whose job it is the reap recently deceased souls and give them travel packages to their final reward based on their deeds in life with saintly souls getting tickets to go on the Number Nine, a train that leads to the Land of Eternal Rest in four minutes instead of four years. After going through a rough patch of getting less than saintly clients, decides to steal one from his rival Domino only to discover that she, despite of being one of the most virtuous souls imaginable, seemingly does not qualify for anything but a long walk. This tips Manny off that there's something wrong in the Land of the Dead and so begins his four year journey to uncover the corruption that is stealing the just rewards of saintly souls, meeting lots and lots of interesting characters along the way.

All Character Models have gotten updated textures, thought you can switch to the original textures at anytime by pressing L3 and R3(PS4 Version).

The story is simply brilliant and one of the best film noirs narratives in any form of medium. The writing is brilliant and combined with the stellar voice work every character feels vibrant and alive(despite the fact everyone is dead). Almost every character is memorable and I can guarantee you will remember their names long after playing. The art style is beautiful combining the harsh shadows and gritty atmosphere of film noir with colorfully, beautiful architecture inspired by Art Deco and Aztec designs to create something truly gorgeous to behold. Finally, the soundtrack is perfect capturing that film noir tone with a latino twist and is a joy to listen to. All in all, the story, characters, art style, and music are enough for me to recommend this to anyone.

New dynamic lighting makes Grim Fandango's already fantastic presentation and makes it even better.

However, Grim Fandango suffers from a fatal flaw and that flaw is that it is a horrible game. Grim Fandango is an adventure game and the goal of most adventure games is to solve simple puzzles to move along to the next story bit. Modern adventure games like Telltale's The Walking Dead have very simple puzzles the player must complete before the next story beat will begin. Grim Fandango has puzzles to solve to get to the next story beat, but they are anything but simple. I am going to say that Grim Fandango without hyperbole has the worst puzzles I have ever had the misfortune of playing in any adventure game.

Grim Fandango's art style takes inspiration from Art Deco and Aztec architecture.

To properly communicate how bad Grim Fandango’s puzzles are let me tell you how to solve one of the game’s earliest puzzles. You need to get into the mailroom to steal one of your rival’s clients so how do you get in. Lockpick the door, trick the mechanic into letting you in, nope first you have to get two deflated balloons from a clown outside your office building, next you have to go into the packing room and fill the deflated balloons with two different chemicals, then you have to put the balloons in the pneumo tube in your office to get the mechanic to go into the mail room, and finally while the mechanic is distracted unlock the door so that when the mechanic leaves the door stays open. There is no logic in that puzzle, no flow to follow, only madness and every single puzzle in the game is like this. It is simply unbearable.

Mercedes "Meche" Colomar is a saintly soul denied her ultimate reward by corruption plaguing the Land of the Dead. 

After that massive rant I pulled about Grim Fandango’s puzzles you may think that I would not recommend it, but like I have said the story, characters, art style, and music more than make up for it. If you plan on getting this game print out a spoiler free walkthrough and just use that to solve the abysmal puzzles. No sane human being can solve those puzzles without help. Grim Fandango deserves to be experienced, its just a shame that the game part of Grim Fandango is so horrible compared to everything else the game has to offer. Grim Fandango is available for PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, and PS Vita for $14.99.