Grim Fandango Remastered - a 17 year journey
Tim Schafer occupies a sweet spot both in gamer culture and in my heart. In the former, because he is one of those designers that we point to as a sticking point in our ongoing battle of "video games are art." In the latter, because he co-created or created the games that, in the formative years of my life, forever instilled in me a love of point-and-click adventure. The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle...these were the titles that me and my siblings sat down to watch and play together. I still have very fond memories of me, my brother and my sister all giggling at Guybrush Threepwood meeting Mancomb Seepgood, or at Purple tentacle developing (horror!) tiny arms which he immediately puts to dramatic effect.
Sadly, I missed out on a vital part of the Schafer ouevre: Grim Fandango. Oh, we wanted Grim Fandango. We wanted it baaaaad. But we couldn't have it. See, this was the 90's, and at the time my family - a Mac family - had only recently upgraded from our ancient Apple IIc to a Power Macintosh 7200, a considerable investment at the time. That Power Mac got us hooked on gaming, but sadly, it could not fill the Grim Fandango hole in our hearts. This was the time when SCUMM, the trusty engine which supported all those LucasArts classics, was phased out. Instead, it ran on the Sith engine, a Windows-based piece of software, and so we were unable to get it running. So I didn't get to experience Grim Fandango...it seemed for forever.
But then the hand of fate intervened, and Disney's acquisition of LucasArts spelled not doom but hope as several old Intellectual Properties were released into the wild. With the assistance of Sony, Schafer snatched up his old baby, and, through a series of flukes and twists too numerous to count, including the incredible preservation of the original soundtrack and fan-patches up the wazoo, we got Grim Fandango, REMASTERED...17 years after the original came out. Better late than never, right?
So look, let's get something out of the way straight off for anyone who's been following this blog for a while. Grim Fandango is not scary. It is not meant to be scary. Why, you might ask, am I then talking about it on our Scary Blog? The answer is simple: aside from it being one of the greatest games of all time, it is completely and entirely about the delicate topic of what happens when we die.
You play Manuel "Manny" Calavera, a reaper/travel agent who spends his days in the city of El Marrow, located in the Land of the Dead, trying to expedite the passage of the departed on their way to the Ninth Underworld. Manny is trying to work off a debt he owes for unspecified crimes he committed in life, and seems doomed to be stuck as he regularly is given deadbeat (pun definitely intended) clients who can never seem to afford the most luxurious travel option available: a golden ticket on the Number Nine Train.
Desperate to score a good client, Manny goes full Glengarry Glen Ross and swipes a lead from his co-worker and nemesis Domino Hurley. The lead is Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, a saintly woman who seems like the ideal candidate for a Number Nine ticket. However, Manny's computer system curiously refuses Meche's status, and she is forced to embark on the journey to the Ninth Underworld on foot. Partially out of guilt, and partially because he smells a rat, Manny pursues her with the aid of a literal speed demon named Glottis. From there, Manny and Glottis spend years traversing the Land of the Dead, having adventures, starting businesses, and uncovering a nefarious conspiracy to boot.
Mixing genres and concepts is a Schafer hallmark (like combining the mundanity of a summer camp with the awesomeness of psychic powers in Psychonauts). Here he tosses Noir, Aztec mythology, Mexican Tradition and pop culture into a blender and just hits purée. And lord, is it beautiful. The art direction alone for the game is reason enough to check it out, with literal and stylistic references to Day of the Dead working in perfect harmony with the dapper sensibilities of Casablanca. The soundtrack is a great mix of jazzy big band and more traditional orchestral suites. But where the game's mixing of myths and ideas really shines is in the writing.
A key part of successful comedy is to never have the characters overtly question the zanyness of the world around them. This is the world they know, after all, and the best way to let the comedy grow is to embrace the crazy head-on. The more they live in it, the more the audience does too, and it pays off in dividends with each new, random thing that happens. By the end of the journey, we're not questioning how or why there's a gondola run by miniature versions of Glottis that services the gateway to the Ninth Underworld, we're just keen to see what comes next.
Indeed, that is the message at the heart of Grim Fandango's look at what lies beyond. You can't know what'll happen. Nobody can. The important thing is to kick back, enjoy the ride, and have fun until the journey's end. Most assuredly Grim Fandango is one journey you don't want to miss out on.