Grim Fandango: The best graphic adventure

It is not the first classic graphic adventure that comes remodeled in a remastered version, but Grim Fandango has something special. This is the artistic summit of Lucas Arts, his most round adventure, his most ambitious history and his most brilliant work artistically speaking. The adventures in the underworld of Manny Calavera captivated us 17 years ago and, as if time did not happen in the Land of the Dead, this masterpiece has aged really well, also in the land of the living.

The graphic adventures age much better than the rest of genres, since they are centered, above all, on the history, the characters, the plots and the puzles. And it also helps that we have never abandoned the mechanics that Tim Schafer pulled out of the sleeve for this adventure, abandoning the classic point and click and driving the protagonist with the arrow keys. That is why it is really attractive to play Grim Fandango in 2015. Everything works, its playability is familiar to us, as are its fixed cameras at different angles. Just like we did 17 years ago we do not have a tutorial, but we are thrown into the adventure without explanations, without any slogan of what to do with the controls (or the mouse). At least in 1998 we had a complete instruction manual in the box.

But the use has no mysteries, and we learn to use it in two minutes. In the version of PC it appears a small graphic menu of actions on the objects with which we can interact. But in the version of PS4 and PS Vita we will activate the appropriate option just by pressing 'X'. We will save the objects by pressing the 'Circle' key and we will access everything Manny stores under his clothes with the 'Triangle' key. Although the version of PS Vita allows a mixed mode, using its touch screen if we want, we can click on the screen to direct Manny or bring up the menu of actions. Surprisingly, the PS4 controller is much faster, smoother and intuitive than the classic mouse. Who would have said it?

But once this first obstacle of control is overcome, the truly complicated begins. And it is that the graphic adventures of before were really more complicated than those of now. Returning to play Grim Fandango I have realized the exigency of these adventures of Lucas Arts. In those that appear now, such as those of Telltale, the resolution of the puzzles or the unlocking of situations or conversations to be able to advance is usually logical, almost the only possible way. But that does not happen in Grim Fandango. Here you have to be creative. Very creative. How can you get some dove eggs with a cat shaped balloon, a fire extinguisher and a loaf of bread? Well, that.

And this difficulty will cause you to get stuck on numerous occasions. But, as we did before, the only way to find the key is to talk to all the characters, exhaust the different conversations and combine all the possible objects in an endless task of trial and error. The biting comments of Manny and the other characters will give us many clues as to what we are doing wrong, or else. In the end, while we despaired to get an object or unlock a puzzle, we enjoyed the excellent story and clever dialogues of the game (with the excellent dub to the Castilian that had and the original version).

Throughout this four-year Manny Skull journey through the underworld you have to talk to a huge list of characters, collect a lot of objects and combine them in the most creative (or crazy) ways possible. All through an adventure of black cinema that mixes Casablanca with the tradition of the day of Mexican deceaseds. Everything with a soundtrack of priceless jazz and characters deep and interesting, even the most insignificant in history. A good advice is to enjoy the dialogues, without haste, listening to each and every one of the stories, the sarcastic comments and all the conversations possible. This is the only way to get the juice out of Tim Schafer's memorable story.

The duration of the game, of course, depends on our expertise and the time we spend in getting out of the problems posed by the adventure. But, playing with calm, we could reach the 12 hours of adventure. Of course, as in the classic game, here you have to go to the pause menu to save the game manually often. Here there is no autoguardado and the game reminds us to the beginning of the adventure.

Technically speaking, the game has also aged really well. And that's because their excellent artistic design, with those straight characters of little polygons, can be very current. Thus, although the characters have been debugged in the remastered version, like the lights, shadows, objects, etc., the backgrounds are the originals, and they shine just as well. The penalty is that you have to play with two bands on the sides of the screen and that is somewhat annoying. There is the option to pass it to 16: 9, but the result looks pretty bad.

This remastered edition includes a number of special features, among which the option of comments from developers stands out. If we activate it we will be able to listen to some of those responsible for its original development (including Tim Schafer) telling anecdotes or stories of how they came up with a puzzle, why they created that character, etc. In most cases they do not spoil the puzzles and it is fun and curious to listen to them, especially if you are a big fan of the title.

In general, returning to play Grim Fandango is a gift in itself and, in the case of this remastering, although it could have had some more tweaks (16: 9 really, helps in the game, ...) the result is excellent. Special mention has the fantastic control on PS4 and PS Vita, which makes us completely forget about the lack of mouse. Excellent opportunity to play again, which is, perhaps, the best graphic adventure in history.

This has been my small critical contribution to this amazing game, now I would like to know your opinion to expand the analysis. Let's open debate.

Regards, Antonio.