Grim Fandango Remastered

I'm not the first to call it the best point-and-click adventure of all time, but after all these years I do still call it that. And I've played a LOT of point-and-click adventure games!

I wish I could give this more of a "meh" vote rather than a straight-up recommendation. Of all the classic LucasArts adventure games, this is one of my least favorite. It isn't all that funny, the characters aren't all that interesting, and the puzzles are sometimes downright nonsensical. Most adventure games, I at least always have a sense of what I'm supposed to be doing, so even if the solution is weird, I can at least see how it furthers my goals. Here, much of the time when I solved a puzzle, I had no clue why I was solving it, how it helped in any way, or anything. Many times I had no idea what just happened even after everything played out. It's not a bad game - the graphics still hold up (especially with the remastered 3D models), the music is good, the voice acting is good, and the dialogue is sometimes clever. If you love adventure games, this is one of them, and you definitely could do worse. But if you're looking for a good gateway to the genre, look elsewhere.

Despite GF being on top of some adventure games rankings, and despite loving other LucasArts classics like Monkey Island 1-3 and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Grim Fandango never gripped me back in the day, and it does not grip me now.

This is due to a number of problems that add up. One is the graphics - the game was created during the dawn of 3D when 3D was ugly though cool. And it shows. Though LucasArts did an impressive job with the technology available at the time, GF still looks much uglier than the gorgeous 2D hand-painted titles of the same era - e.g. The Dig, Monkey Island 3 and Broken Sword 1.

The 3D introduced a secondary problem in terms of controls. The original had obnoxious tank control that made movement a hassle. This remaster mercifully adds point-and-click. But we still have to deal with the confusing and dated camera switches from the same era.

A game-breaking bug presents another issue. Toward the end of Act I, there is a spot where you have to switch to windowed mode and to classic rendering mode to be able to progress due to a breaking bug. A quick online search led me to the solution; but it's still kind of lame not to have fixed this in the decade since the release of the remaster.

Another problem are the puzzles. Adventure games always had silly puzzles, particularly a number of the classics of the golden age such as Monkey Island, Simon the Sorcerer and Discworld. But Grim Fandango goes overboard. Practically every puzzle only makes sense in retrospect, and I found myself simply following a walkthrough. There is challenging, and then there is abstruse gotcha.

All of that said, my impression always was that the game's saving grace were the characters and the story. Well, I got to Act II (out of four), and I can't say I care about the characters or the story. The skeletons and the noir vibe are tolerable; but the childish demon driver breaks all tone and immersion. The game can't decide if it wants to be slapstick or noir and succeeds at neither.

So I'm thumbs down here. I think this particular classic is over-rated, and is a good example of why people stopped playing adventure games in the late 1990s.

My Glorious King Tim Schafer

I bought this game when I had shoulder surgery and couldn't use one of my hands. Very engrossing, very beautiful and well written. I enjoyed it a lot

⭐ Rating: 7/10

Grim Fandango Remastered is a solid update to a classic adventure game, though not without its flaws. The original 1998 game was a masterpiece of storytelling, atmosphere, and humor, and this remaster by Double Fine Productions does a good job of preserving that charm while making some much-needed improvements.

The Good:
✅ Great Story & Characters – The game’s noir-inspired plot and witty dialogue hold up remarkably well. Manny Calavera is still one of the best protagonists in gaming.
✅ Updated Graphics & Music – The improved character models and lighting make the game look better while keeping the original art style intact. The remastered soundtrack is also fantastic.
✅ Point-and-Click Controls Added – A huge plus! The old tank controls are still available for purists, but the modernized controls make the game much smoother to play.

The Not-So-Good:
❌ Puzzles Can Be Obscure – Some solutions are frustratingly unintuitive, leading to trial-and-error moments or reliance on guides.
❌ Clunky Animations & Bugs – Some of the remastered animations feel stiff, and there are occasional glitches.
❌ No Major Overhaul – While it's a faithful remaster, it doesn’t go as far as some fans might have hoped in modernizing the experience.

Final Verdict:
Grim Fandango Remastered is a great way to experience this legendary adventure game, but it still feels like a product of its time. If you love classic LucasArts adventures or enjoy unique storytelling, it’s definitely worth playing—just be prepared for some old-school puzzle frustration.

Would I recommend it? Yes, but mostly to fans of adventure games. 🎭💀

I've been granted the opportunity to play this one without any nostalgia goggles, and even then, it's perhaps one of the best games I've ever played, hands down (hell, the writing beats a good many movies and books I've seen). The aesthetic is on point, and if you look close, you can see a ton of background details lifted from real-life Maya Revival and Art Deco buildings. That's probably not a major draw for every player, but seeing the 3d render equivalent of a Family Guy reference to Hugh Ferriss's work made me snort.

Caveat emptor, however! Save often! There has been one time wherein I lost progress due to the game crashing. While "only once" may not be so bad, it still sucks.

It's still fantastic, however. Highly recommended.

A GREAT GAME FOR PROBLEM SOLVERS AND THOSE WHO ARE ABOUT TO BECOME PROBLEM SOLVERS. Not for those with a short attention span.

good luck

Played it as a kid, so a bit biased. One of the "must plays" from the old adventure game era.

+
unique story with original characters
phenomenal voice acting and music (I still listen to the OST)
overall art direction is perfectly balanced
-
outdated mechanics
remaster fixed bugs but still feels buggy at times

9.5/10

Wonderful music, masterful voice acting and script, and an incredibly clever story line! The world is so rich and diverse. It really makes you want to explore every inch of the game and learn about each quirky character. I would love to see more of this type of game development.

I found out about this game when i was like 13 and have thought about it ever since i finally got it on sale back in like november and played thur the whole thing with my girlfriend the wait was worth it fucking amazing time please buy tim and the gang always putting up a billion on the scoreboard

I got stuck so many times in this game, and while I loved the story and characters, I found the puzzles and their progression a bit too linear. A lot of them felt overly complicated or just plain frustrating, which might be a big turn-off for some players. I personally had to rely on guides and walkthroughs to get through most of it. Still, it was a great, funny, and beautiful ride!

frequent game breaking bugs

Nice game but..
Save often, save to many slots.
There are a buttload of bugs, some of which are game breaking. Basically the intro location was the only one where I didn't have a bug that required reloading.
And many of the solutions are quite moon-logicky. Can't fault it too much for that, that was the standard back then, but still.

Also, for a remaster that came out 2015, it looks like crap. It's not much of a remaster. Glottis body is still around 5 poligons with a low resolution texture, just not as low resolution as the original. Basically save for some slightly better textures, this looks like the original. Go watch a comparison video, often times you couldn't tell which was which.
So, if you have the original, there's no reason to get this. It looks like a 2001 retexture of this 1998 game, not a 2015 remaster.

This transparent money grab by Tim Shafer and the fact that it's very buggy and many puzzles make little sense makes me want to not recommend this - but it's a nice game from the story and feeling and you can't get the original any more.
So.. take the recommend with a grain of salt

lowkey one of the best games with proper storytelling and soundtracks , even though i'm on year 1 so far

I remember at the age of 9, sitting just outside the Department of Death HQ watching the festivities of the Day of the Dead with Peter McConnell's magical "9th Heaven" playing in the background while my dad sat next to me, invested in the story and watching me walk up and get my eighth worm "balloon animal" from the carnival.

27 years later, 9th Heaven pops on my Spotify playlist every now and then, and the memory of that big yellow donkey float, the celebrations, and my dad and I playing this masterpiece together makes me shed a little tear.

Utilising the same engine as their successful predecessor "Escape from Monkey Island", LucasArts delivers a brilliant story centred around the two things that are certain for all of us in life - Death and Taxes. Well, the latter in some format... play to find out! As with LucasArts games of the time, the sound design is BEAUTIFUL.

Love this. Thank-you for all of the childhood memories, LucasArts.

One, if not THE, best puzzle game ever produced. Thanks to the remastered version, I could dive back into this gem from my childhood!

"You can't hide from the Grim Reaper. Especially when he's got a gun."

Grim Fandango is SO GOOD! I finally played and completed this game this weekend. I'm 26 years late to this party BUT I have to say, what a work of art!
Low polygon count be damned -- there's such character in these characters. Great music, art, writing, and puzzles. If you are like me and haven't played, go to Steam and get a copy. Make no bones about it. It's a great game!

I don't get fascination over this game. Sure, the characters and the world are charming and loveable but you have to smack your head against the wall over and over again to get some of the puzzles. The most infuriating thing is that you come up with the right solution in your head but if you miss at least one trigger in the sequence - you'll fail, try other ridiculous attempts, fail again, give up, look at walkthrough to find that your first idea was correct but you missed that one damned trigger, and execute things correctly. And this happens more than once. Kudos to people who managed to beat the game and enjoyed it but be warned that Grim Fandango is a cat in the bag. You may immensly enjoy it or you may drop it because of the reasons above.

Fun story, (mostly) easy to use interface, and fully playable with no hiccups. It's easy to see why this is considered a classic- it has a ton of character and a light hearted take on hard-boiled detective stories. I imagine Dashiell Hammett would have had fun playing this, and I can't imagine any fan of point and click games having less than an absolute blast with it.

I played a lot of point and click adventures in the 90s, but never this.
It was nice to go back to a non-hand-holding style of play, although a couple of the puzzles didn't really make sense!
Worth it though. Definitely worth it.

You know when you find an old film noir movie on telly at 3 AM, and you think 'this looks ancient, I'll give it five minutes,' then suddenly it's morning and you've watched the whole thing? That's what playing Grim Fandango Remastered is like. Except everyone's dead and speaking in puns. Brilliant.

I first played this back in '98 when I was probably wearing something embarrassing and had questionable hair. But unlike my fashion choices from that era, this game has aged like a fine wine - well, mostly. The writing's as sharp as a comedian doing their best material at the Apollo. The dialogue's got more wit than a room full of Oscar Wilde types at a cocktail party. And the story? Imagine if Raymond Chandler wrote a noir detective story, but everyone's a skeleton, and it's set in the Mexican Land of the Dead. Mental, innit?

The music's this gorgeous love child between a smoky jazz club and a Mexican fiesta - absolutely brilliant stuff. The characters stick in your mind like that awkward conversation you had with your boss at the Christmas party. You've got more personality in this bunch of skeletal misfits than you'd find in the entire cast of most modern games - and they're literally just walking bones! There's our hero Manny Calavera, who's basically what you'd get if you crossed a travel agent with the Grim Reaper and gave him a sense of humor drier than the Sahara.

Now, let's address the elephant in the room - or should I say the pixelated skeleton? The remaster's like when you see an aging rock star who's had a bit of work done - the important bits look better, but you can still tell they're from the '90s. The backgrounds are about as high-res as my first mobile phone photo, and the 4:3 aspect ratio means you've got these black bars on the side like you're watching an old episode of Friends.

The puzzles? Some are proper head-scratchers. There were times I felt like I needed a PhD in skeleton logic to figure them out. Other times, the solution was so obvious, I wanted to give myself a slap. It's like when you lose your keys and spend 20 minutes looking for them, only to find they're in your hand - that kind of feeling.

But here's the thing - despite its wrinkles and gray hairs, Grim Fandango is still an absolute masterpiece. It's like that old pub that hasn't changed its decor since the 70s but serves the best Sunday roast in town.

If you're wondering whether to pick it up, let me put it this way: If you can handle graphics that make Minecraft look like a 4K nature documentary, and you're not the type to throw a wobbly over pixels the size of your dad's garden shed, then for god's sake, play this game. Because under those chunky pixels is more charm than a con man at a pensioner's bingo night. And that's not just the nostalgia talking - though I have had a few drinks.

crashes a lot

One of the best games I've ever played. Amazing story, puzzles, writing, world, characters, music, and voice acting. A must play In my books. the only issues I have were some minor glitches and one crash. the glitches were completely inconsequential. The crash was due to me making an obscure series of inputs that the game couldn't handle (the inputs were something like trying to put away an item while exiting a vehicle in the middle of a screen transition in one specific area). Don't let one crash I had turn you away from this masterpiece just save often enough an it'll be fine. If I recall the game itself even tells you to save often. You wont regret playing it unless you despise point-and-click adventure games and the trial and error that comes with them. Even if you do hate sometimes obtuse puzzles that are par for the course with this genre there are plenty of walkthroughs out there for this game that will still let you enjoy the story, characters, and soundtrack. Play this game if you haven't. It's one of the greats.

A classic masterpiece

this game has engraved its self into my life i love the story

Grim Fandango: Your Destiny… is to Purchase this Game.

Grim Fandango is a true gaming classic, and often touted as one of the greatest point & click games ever made, even if it was also the reaper that felled the genre. Although, like any old game, the bones this remaster is built on are a bit rough, this game is as eternal as a soul in the afterlife. Now it’s time for me to make like Manny and implore you to buy this game.

Steam Deck Support:
I played it 90% docked, but with correct setup, the trackpads make this game easily playable, and it feels almost natural to play a point & click that way. I don’t think I need to comment on how well it runs.

Grim Fandango is a game that has been stuck with me since I played it as a kid, believing it was never going to hold a candle to the masterpiece that was Monkey Island. The game’s vibe was just so unique and its premise so wild, that my brain gave up trying to compartmentalise the experience, created a new core memory instead, then sat down for a drink. It’s hard to write an elevator pitch for what Grim fandango is: It’s a weird blend of cultures and ideas that draw from film noir, art deco and latin american folklore. Manny Calavera, a failing afterlife salesman for the DoD (Department of Death) is forced by his conscience into an unwitting adventure across the land of the dead, spanning multiple years.

Four Years in Heaven

Let me tell you about that vibe. People will quote Mirror’s Edge and Skyrim as examples of how art direction ages better than graphical fidelity, but in my mind Grim Fandango is the purest example of that. Remaster or not, this game looks as beautiful as the day it released.

A benefit of using a static image as each map is that it allows the creators to play with composition and lighting in a way that would normally be undermined by player control. Pre-rendered scenery also gives the devs better control over lighting, and here they have leveraged that opportunity to such an effect that it would make a ray tracing core blush. Often, I find point & click games don’t make enough use of this opportunity, but not Grim Fandango. The developers are constantly playing with camera angle and shot size, drawing inspiration from the same cinema the game constantly pays homage to. Examples abound: shots from Manny’s sleazy office building are reminiscent of CCTV footage, while those from lonely bars place you in the seat of a tired and nameless patron.

Film noir’s influence is hard at work making every scene as brooding and mysterious as possible, but there are other influences too. Grim Fandango somehow blends the grayscale of film noir with the explosive colour of a Mexican holiday in a way so natural that I just assumed the two were made for each other. Amongst all of these huge successes in creative direction, Grim Fandango’s soundtrack manages to stand out. Like everything else in the game, the score is an eclectic mix of influences ranging from sombre mariachi, through Hitchcock-esque orchestra, to smoky jazz. It’s hard to write about how well the music works given it’s a medium I have scant knowledge of, but the impact here is certainly felt. Grim Fandango's score supercharges a game that is already dripping with atmosphere into something even modern games struggle to match. I do wish the music was blended a little better though: Songs restart every time you change screens, which means unless you stop to listen, a lot of ambient tracks won’t be heard all the way through. In particular, Manny’s demonic companion Glottis has a secret performance so good that I had to double check the voice actor wasn’t moonlighting as a blues vocalist.

You Might as well Enjoy the Trip

Of course, Grim Fandango’s story has aged like a bottle of Marillo de Oro. Manny starts out trying to sell the recently deceased tickets on the number 9 express to heaven. He then discovers the tickets, and the job that sells them, are part of a rabbit hole of corruption that goes so deep it plumbs the literal depths of the ocean.
This is a story straight out of Casablanca, one sporting naïve heroes, sleazy salesmen, mob plots and La Revolución. It would be boring if Grim Fandango didn’t tell the story so masterfully, and the recognisable tale being told gives the player an anchor of familiarity to cling to in an otherwise alien world.
Along with the story, Grim Fandango’s writing is just masterful in general. Tim Schafer’s razor wit adds a necessary level of playfulness to the otherwise serious story, much like the colours of Día de los Muertos add life to the game’s otherwise shadowy aesthetic. As mentioned earlier, this game is so layered that it cuts across all ages without ever feeling like a sacrifice was made. As a kid, Glottis’s slapstick escapades had me rolling, while adult me is nearly in tears after accidentally forming a worker bee labour movement.

Point & click gameplay often just amounts to puzzles, and even though these are the backbone of Grim Fandango’s gameplay, they’re also where the game tends to fall flat. The Puzzles relying on classic point & click design, notably all of part 2 are fantastic, if a little hard: one hilarious puzzle requires you to exploit glottis’ overindulgence in alcohol to force him to vomit a pool of liquid you can then freeze, disarming a devious domino-based trap for example. Sadly Grim Fandango also has a lot of puzzles relying on its awkward proto-3D movement, possibly as an attempt to force the genre into a third dimension to keep up with the times. These puzzles, and the movement they are based on, are as obtuse as they are frustrating. The camera seems to arbitrarily switch perspectives, confusing your movement even further. Furthermore, Grim Fandango has an absolutely shocking number of timing-based puzzles, which are never a good idea in point & click games. Luckily the game stopped short at causing me to rapidly deconstruct my keyboard, but the fact it got so close is something to be wary of.

The Land of the Dead as a concept is so well developed that it feels like the IP has been around for way longer than a single game. There are so many ideas and influences at every turn that I’m amazed its creators were able to contain them and prevent them from becoming overbearing. Some of my favourite ideas in particular are the use of fast-growing plants as weaponry, the “business scythes” used by the DoD, and the Aztec-inspired pyramid and gatekeeper serving as the final crossing to the underworld.

People throw the word “classic” around often enough that it has lost its true meaning. That said, if any game is a classic then Grim Fandango is, a classic that shines as an example of the heights a now much less prevalent genre once reached. Indeed, as good as Grim Fandango was, it was also a near commercial failure, and one of the reasons Lucasarts moved away from the genre. Grim Fandango is a ride on the Number 9 Express to point & click heaven, and so the only question left is whether you want to buy a ticket?

6/6 – Masterpiece

It's a classic. And it holds up remarkably well; play it!

straight up Grimming it and by "it" hehe, let's just say my Fandango

One of those games that actually feels like an adventure. Visually, this is probably the coolest game I have ever played. The early 3d backgrounds and environments are extremely atmospheric which makes every new screen and area enjoyable to simply walk around in. The puzzles in this game are normally really clever and cool, each one being able to be figured out with only a little bit of trial and error. This game is also really funny, most of the old Lucasarts games are. All in all a goated game for people that walk around life and look at everything all the time.

like playing through your childhood again, just with more flowers.. and actually being able to finish it.

best game forever

Delicious

Superb game

I loved it! The dialogue and innuendos are superb; although I'm not sure how anyone could complete this without the help of a guide in parts! 5/5.

great game, very cozy. Recommend to play if you want a cozy adventure for 10 hours. some puzzles seem impossible to get so dont hesitate to use walkthroughs. Great game.

Timeless masterpiece.

Story, characters very good. Gameplay sometimes very annoying due to the slowness. But bugs and crashes are a no-go. I was no longer able to continue playing in the forest. Despite loading a previous savegame and changing the graphics to 'original'.

Grim Fandango is the Citizen Kane of video games. One of my favorite video games ever (if not my favorite video game story). This edition is the best because it fixes the awful tank controls from way back when.

Still one of the best sets of world/story/characters in video game history.

Good comedy, voice acting and characters. The setting and storyline were really unique and weird in a good way, which I appreciated. I can see why it's considered a classic.

A couple quick caveats:

Some bugs and jank playing it in modern times though, and use a walkthrough if you get stuck + value your time because a ton of the "puzzles" are ridiculously obscure.

Worth it if you're OK with the above, it goes on sale cheap.

grim fandango walked so disco elysium could run

One of the best Point and Click games, still.
Beware - very weird and bizarre but very funny.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's this: nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might as well enjoy the trip.

this needs a film adaptation

Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
The last original masterpiece from LucasArts.

I bought this game at Christmas in 1998, and it took me about three months to finish it on my own in the pre internet era. The one thing I remembered is that I really enjoyed the story, and I'm happy to report it's just as captivating today as it was three decades ago. The gameplay, however, despite the addition of mouse and modern controls, is horribly dated, with some puzzles being borderline impossible. The game should have been a remake instead, but I guess this is the most budget a niche game like this will ever get from Microsoft. Worth at full price.

This is a pretty painful thumbs down for me to give, because I can see the things that made this game a classic and I adore them. The graphics of the time were perfect to bring these characters to life. The world manages to be equal parts colorful, macabre, and mundane, both visually and thematically. Tony Plana is so likeable as the main character that despite half of his lines being used to tell me I’m using an item in the wrong place, I can’t bring myself to hold it against him. Unfortunately, Grim Fandango contains both a game and a story, and neither of those two elements are terrible, I can’t say that they measure up.

As a game, there are too many little frustrations hampering the experience. The telegraphing is horrible, with important details blending into the background, dialogue that is sometimes helpful but often useless, and multiple instances of the design failing to point in the right direction or misdirecting entirely. The two instances that stick out in my mind is when I had to use a sign that was supposed to point me to a hidden underground entrance but that wouldn’t allow me to use it because I was standing in the wrong place or clicking the wrong hand button, and the other when I didn’t realize I was supposed to pick up a item because it worked while stationary, seemingly indicating it had an environmental effect when that couldn’t be further from its intended use. I admit that I was sometimes a bit too impatient and later found out that I probably could have worked out a few of the puzzles I looked up, so if you have time to kill, you could probably give it a bit more time before cracking open a walkthrough, but you’ll probably be dragging out your session by hours. If you aren’t using walkthrough, remember to scan screens with your cursor and use your scythe when you’ve run out of options.

As a story, it’s serviceable, with charming elements. I’m somewhat invested in the main character’s journey, but I find it hard to be invested in his goals. The supporting cast is well-acted, but Meche is painfully dull, Glottis can shuttle between amusing and aggravating, and the villains are stock and unintimidating. Then there’s the plotting. The second chapter, which is already frustrating from a gameplay standpoint because of the size of the area, grinds all of the tension and motivation to a halt. Once things pick back up in the middle of the third chapter, the pacing goes from zero to a hundred in a mad dash towards the end game. When it reaches the end, the game hasn’t built enough intrigue, romance, or excitement to pay itself off. It’s not bad, like I said, it’s SERVICEABLE, but it feels incomplete, especially for a game that has not just the reputation of a classic, but bits of the craft to boot.

If you’re interested in these old adventure games and are prepared for their frustrations, I’d definitely recommend checking it out, but I don’t think I can recommend it generally. I’m probably being too picky, too impatient, because it excels in some qualities, and there is a good experience to be had for the right player, but you should really temper your expectations.

i played this game before and loved it, puzzles were at times at the brink of being too niche/hard for it to be fun. but i looked 1 or 2 up. usually the problem was due to controls or a glitch. played again recently with the gf (videogame noob) and we LOVED IT. such a great story. 9/10 due to some glitches. we had issues with glitches where we had to reload a prior save. one in the last casino was so bad that i had to download a save file from a forum because my previous save that was safe was so far back that we wouldnt have finished otherwise. great game, JUST MAKE SURE TO SAVE OFTEN AND IN DIFFERENT BLOCKS.

I find it funny that I found out who Robert Frost was through this game... And I really don't know how to feel about that