Grim Fandango Remastered (PC) Review

Adventure games tend to focus more on the storyline and, therefore, they are usually more original than all those Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto titles. One of the most unique is this little tale from the great beyond, which follows Manny Calavera, who, although dead, must work his bony behind from nine-to-five, in order to pay for his past deeds, and move on with his… afterlife. His job? Selling travel packages to the Ninth Underworld, with saints boarding the #9 Express Train, and lowlifes having to walk the whole distance - or worse.

Unfortunately, his co-worker Domino seems to get all the "good stuff," while he always ends up with the worst customers in post-existence. Manny, being a competitive guy, steals one of Domino's clients and hits the jackpot, with a woman that is as pure as she is beautiful (for dead standards). Does she qualify for the golden ticket, though? Well, it seems that something is - more - rotten in the Department of Death, and the skeletal hero must find out what, while trying to save this beauty - and himself.

Thus starts an epic adventure of crime, mystery, romance, tons of hilarious conversations between a variety of characters, and, strangely enough, lots of heart, despite the morbid setting. Mixing calaca figures that dress and behave like people in '50s films, and locales that have that special atmosphere of vintage America, this game has indeed a very special aura. Even better, the extremely well-written dialogue is backed-up by great voice actors that make many of today's professionals pale in comparison with this title's lifeless skulls.

Should this revamp make fans of the genre happy? Not exactly, since nothing has been really improved. The new shader, and implementation of soft shadows, makes the 3D models look better, but the old, pre-rendered backgrounds have been left intact, making characters look a bit out of place - not to mention the very rare use of the new lighting mechanism. Furthermore, cut-scenes have also been left as they were, slightly pixellated and all, and, finally, changing the aspect ratio to a widescreen 16:9 stretches everything, making the view pretty ugly.

On the one hand, the gameplay, which was the original's most flawed aspect, is just a typical example of an adventure game; explore, talk with people, solve problems, and so on. On the other, though, the controls are a mess, making the already obscure - but fun - puzzles even harder, not to mention the vast amount of bugs that lead to even more frustration. Finally, the various animations of Manny interacting with ladders, vehicles, doors, and other things, are surprisingly slow, and can't be skipped over, turning the process of searching around into an annoying chore.

What has changed here? What has been 're-mastered'? By all means, absolutely nothing! It's still easy to get stuck in "invisible" barriers, or enter areas unintentionally, and it's still occasionally hard to interact with objects. Finally, everything, from choosing an item from the inventory, to simply going from point A to B, is as depressingly slow as it was before. Grim Fandango Remastered remains a good game, but since this isn't just a game, but a revision of the original, it should be experienced, criticised and scored as such.