I’ve started playing a classic game inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead. You play a Grim Reaper who’s not so great at his job, but ends up discovering a conspiracy in the afterlife. I’m playing through the remastered version of the game and so far, it’s pretty entertaining.
Grim Fandango‘s world leans into the fantastic and the absurd. With it’s excellent dialogue and underdog hero, it leans into a humourous tone. You’ll want to explore all dialogue options with every character just to see what they say in response.
The game works as many old school tradition point and click adventures do. You click to move around areas, inspect items, and move to other areas. You can pick up items and use them on other objects in the world.
The core gameplay is in solving many of the puzzles within the game. Exploration is key, as is thinking outside the box. I struggled with some of the steps to make progress, but I have seen much worse logic in other games of the genre.
Though the graphics have been updated in this release, they still look a little dated. That being said, the Day-of-the-Dead design style still make the game interesting to look at, especially with the unique characters you will encounter on your adventure.
The remastered version is fully voiced, meaning you won’t have to read if you don’t want to. The voice acting injects a unique identity into each character, which sucks you into the world the developers have created.
Unfortunately I’ve hit a wall in the form of a bug that soft locks the game. I’ve tried all the workarounds in the linked thread, but nothing seems to work for me. I guess if I’m to continue this game, I’ll have to download a save file that skips this section of the game.
