Grim Fandango Remastered

Grim Fandango Remastered is hilarious, gorgeous and sure to delight adventure fans, but it can also feel dated and frustrating.

Nearly impossible to purchase for over a decade, you can now play Grim Fandango and understand why it’s one of the best adventure games ever made.

The passage of time has done little to diminish Grim Fandango’s reputation as one of the finest adventure games ever made, and the fact that so little needed to be done to modernize it only reinforces its place as a classic of the genre. While it may seem punishing at times to modern gamers, remember that failure is impossible. I wish this new version had incorporated a hint system to make it more accessible to the new generation, but whether you’ve never played Grim Fandango before or you replay it every year and just want to dive into Remastered for the insightful developer commentary track, this is a reverent re-release whose few bygone era warts are minimized by its timeless story.

At the time, Grim Fandango was seen as a bold, experimental game for LucasArts. While other genres had moved to 3D graphics engines, the point-and-click graphic adventure remained stuck in 2D. Grim Fandango saw Tim Schaffer and his team trying to push the genre in a new direction, with a lead character who moved in three dimensions through each scene, his gaze reacting to interactive elements and objects, and new movement, interaction and inventory systems that swapped point-and-click for more visual, intuitive controls. The results weren’t entirely successful – there’s a reason why the genre has returned to point-and-click – but they were exciting. At the time, Grim Fandango seemed like the shape of graphic adventure games to come.