Frankly, I waited a long time to buy Grim Fandango because I was put off by the game box. The art on the box looks so stylized and the game's vision so intensely personal as to seem almost freakish. I mean, a game about skeletons? Still, I know of gamers who think that Grim is the Last Great adventure game -- plus Grim has consistently placed near the top on the GameBoomers annual Twisty Lists.

As it turns out, judging this game by its box was a mistake. The Land of the Dead is actually a fascinating, wondrously surprising and beautiful place. Grim Fandango pulls the gamer into one of the most compelling, unusual and creative worlds in gaming. It has a terrific story, subtle humor (well, subtle except for Glottis), vividly colorful graphics, lively music and exceptional voice acting. Somehow the game designers have managed to make the skeletal characters believable and full of personality. I found myself caring more for the characters here than I ever would have expected.

Grim Fandango follows the exploits of Manny Calavera, who has a highly specialized, though low-tech job in the Land of the Dead. Manny is a Grim Reaper. He "reaps" dead souls, and then tries to sell them the best equipment they can afford for making their way to the legendary Ninth Underworld. Manny is stuck in this job in order to pay off a mysterious unnamed debt he somehow incurred in his past life.

There are strange goings-on in this world. Manny stumbles across a conspiracy, comes close to being sprouted (a second, more final form of death), joins a revolutionary organization by default, and sets off on a long journey in search of a beautiful female client who just might be the means of his salvation.

The puzzles in Grim are fun, but tough. They are intricately woven into the narrative (in places they ARE the narrative). Many of the puzzles are made up of multiple steps requiring actions in several different game locations. The puzzles (though very different in type) remind me of the complexity of the puzzles in "Riven". You accomplish seemingly obscure things in Grim that you later realize have had an important affect on the plot. (In "Riven" you enable obscure mechanical devices that you later realize have affected some distant but important part of the gameworld).

The bad news -- this game is entirely keyboard-driven. Grim Fandango was my fourth keyboard graphic adventure. By now I should be used to the keyboard as an input device, and I AM better at it than when I started. However, using the arrow keys in Grim Fandango is still a frustrating experience.

Hotspots in this game are signified by Manny's head movements. He looks up or down to show that you can interact with a particular object or person. This works most of the time, but is needlessly frustrating when Manny is at a distance (did his tiny head move there, or not?) or when the hotspots are close together (you miss that he looked down because half-a-step before he looked up). "Escape from Monkey Island" (EMI) greatly improves this style of interface because as the main character encounters a hotspot, the name of the item flashes across the screen. In EMI, it was much easier to see that certain areas contained closely-packed hotspots because you could watch for changes in the on-screen text.

The inventory system in Grim can be quite clumsy. This is especially problematic during timed puzzles which require the player to get exactly the right inventory item and use it quickly. There are several ways to access inventory in the game. The only easy way, which I discovered after playing about halfway through the game, is to hit the "I" key and then scroll quickly through the items using the right and left arrow keys.

In every keyboard game I've played, the character you are attempting to control has a tendency to bounce off unseen barriers and head in the wrong direction. This was less of a problem in Grim than in EMI or "Odyssey: The Search for Ulysses" (perhaps because most of the barriers in Grim were pretty obvious). Still, there were pathways in the game that I repeated endlessly because I had sent Manny just a little too far to the left or a little too far to the right, and then I had to retrieve him and try again. After awhile, I limited my exploration in certain locations because the to and fro-ing was such a pain in the neck (of course this meant that I sometimes missed things).

You will not find any mazes or sliding tile puzzles in this game.

There is a ptach that I would recommend applying before you start the game. I only used it when I realized (after multiple attempts) that a certain timed puzzle was physically impossible (this will most likely be a problem if you have a fast CPU -- not that my CPU is terribly fast, but I guess it's fast enough).

If possible, avoid playing Grim Fandango on a new super-fast CD ROM drive. Level load times were quick on my 40x drive, but the in-game videos were jerky and the sound in the videos stuttered. My slower CD/RW drive had much longer load times, but the videos played smoothly. Since the animations/videos in the game are superb, it's worth the long load times in order to enjoy the videos fully.

So is Grim Fandango the Last Greatest adventure game? No, but it does have that rare magic that keeps you up, gaming late into the night because you're dying to know what will happen next. It's one of the few adventures that left me with a terrible feeling of emptiness once it was completed. Never has something so Grim given me so many hours of pleasure.

Becky,

Grim is one of my favorite games of all times. I agree that the keyboard interface and box art can be offputting. I am glad that you gave it a go anyway and had such fun.

I think Manny is one of the most endearing characters crated and I missed him at the conclusion of the game. I even loved Glottis, though I know some found his vroom vrooms annoying - I didn't. Glottis rules!!

I love your review. Every time you have written up something about a game - it is always such a worthwhile read.

Laura

I waited for the same reason. In fact, I didn't buy it at all until after I'd played a loaner and found out how good it was. I really had not expected to like it at all. But after hearing so many people say how great it was, I figured it was worth a try - as long as I could try it for free. Now I have both a boxed version and a CD version (which I bought for a backup because it was so cheap).

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It has a terrific story, subtle humor (well, subtle except for Glottis), vividly colorful graphics, lively music and exceptional voice acting.
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Truly exceptional.

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Somehow the game designers have managed to make the skeletal characters believable and full of personality. I found myself caring more for the characters here than I ever would have expected.
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Yeah. I never thought I'd care about little skeleton creatures until I actually played the game.

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The bad news -- this game is entirely keyboard-driven. Grim Fandango was my fourth keyboard graphic adventure. By now I should be used to the keyboard as an input device, and I AM better at it than when I started. However, using the arrow keys in Grim Fandango is still a frustrating experience.
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Actually I had little problems with the keyboard in Grim Fandango. I've heard some people had trouble with getting him stuck in the elevator, but I didn't. If he ever got stuck on a door or something, I'd just back him up a couple of steps. Most of the time I ran him around. His short little legs made him easy to steer before he'd run into something. My big problem with the game controls was with the inventory.

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In every keyboard game I've played, the character you are attempting to control has a tendency to bounce off unseen barriers and head in the wrong direction. This was less of a problem in Grim than in EMI or "Odyssey: The Search for Ulysses" (perhaps because most of the barriers in Grim were pretty obvious).
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By the way, not all keyboard games are like this - just the ones where you're moving a 3D character around a static background. With "butt-cam" keyboard games like Outcast and Tomb Raider, you don't have this problem with the invisible barriers. You can pretty much go anywhere.

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There is a patch that I would recommend applying before you start the game. I only used it when I realized (after multiple attempts) that a certain timed puzzle was physically impossible (this will most likely be a problem if you have a fast CPU -- not that my CPU is terribly fast, but I guess it's fast enough).
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The patch is recommended for computers that are 400 MHz and faster. The crash occurs as you approach the giant crushers.

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If possible, avoid playing Grim Fandango on a new super-fast CD ROM drive. Level load times were quick on my 40x drive, but the in-game videos were jerky and the sound in the videos stuttered. My slower CD/RW drive had much longer load times, but the videos played smoothly. Since the animations/videos in the game are superb, it's worth the long load times in order to enjoy the videos fully.
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It is possible to run the game completely from the hard drive and escape both long load times and jerky videos. All you need to do is copy a few files from the CD over to the hard drive. The game will run VERY smoothly and without delays.


Though some people may disagree with me, one thing that really irritated me throughout the game was Glottis' sound effects. Listening to him imitate car noises when I was trying to think how to solve a puzzle really got on my nerves. I wish there had been a "Glottis mute button."

Everybody seems to describe the same empty feeling you get after completing this game. I know exactly what they mean, the characters are so endearing and beleivable that you wish it went on for much longer. After I completed this I spent the next few days playing through my favourite bits and rewatching the cutscenes.
I really wish they would make a sequal to this although I don't know how they would do it.
I know lots of people found Glottis annoying but I thought he was great. There is only one part in the game where his vroom vroom noises started to irritate me while I was solving a puzzle.

Becky,

Thanks for such a well-written review! I am among the Grim lovers! This was one of the first adventures that I played, and honestly...once I got used to the keyboard driven interface...I hardly even NOTICED it! I enjoyed the story SO much, and movement became like second nature for me. Manny is probably my all-time favorite adventure game "star." I do LOVE, love, love, Saavedro in Myst III EXILE, but...not because he as awesome, funny and endearing, to be sure!

I loved April Ryan and Kate Walker and George and Nico and Gabriel and Grace too....BUT.....there's only ONE Manny and he is DA BOMB! Really....my VERY favorite character.

Thank you, Becky, for taking me back down memory lane with your review. I simply MUST play Grim again soon!

Thank you girlgeek! I'd almost forgotten that I'd written this review. It was like reading a review written by a stranger.

I remember the Grim gameworld very well though. To me, that's one of the ultimate tests of greatness in a game -- how long does the world stay with you?

Dear Becky,

I'm so glad that this excellent game got the review it deserves. You touched on its (few) faults as well as its many superior qualities in a descriptive, fair way. This game is my number one favorite, and I suppose that is because of the excellent story and portrayal of characters that people here have mentioned, and the fact that you come away caring for them. Other games have great graphics and fun puzzles and exciting adventures, but this one takes your heart to a different place. We have to remember, this came out before April Ryan, so at the time it was truly distinctive! Well, it still is, IMHO

Well done!
Andy

This game contains my favorite adventure one-liner of all time. When Glottis sees the rows of dominos and ice, I think, surrounding their car (I believe that was it) and he says something like "Who could have done this? WHOOOOOO?????"

Of course Domino did it - classic!

Hi.

Very nice review

I quite enjoyed this game myself but found it "clumsy" to work with

Mouse control here would have added a great deal more enjoyment ... for me, anyway

I loved this game too.... a lot of people don't like the keyboard control, but on Grim as in Monkey Island 4, there's the option to use a control pad, which is what I used, and it made the game much more enjoyable, as you could sit back and relax a bit more.