Well I certainly cannot relate to the criticism. I played the game early on as a teen (and every few years since) and while, at times difficult, I never thought the puzzles were "confusing", it seemed like a pretty organic combination of styles of puzzles built into the game. The head turning dynamics I have also found to be quiet pleasant as it made me relate to the character more.
Not that criticism is bad but Grim Fandango seems to one of the most if not most loved adventure games (just visit and adventure game forum or subreddit). So one can take it apart and think about the individual parts but the whole is certainly a masterpiece of a game.
There was one particular puzzle involving an elevator that stumped me as a kid. I played the remaster years later and still couldn’t figure it out so I looked up the answer.
Cheating in multiplayer games is obviously indefensible, but I’ve never been above cheating in a single player game. Games are a relaxing outlet for me and if I get frustrated long enough I’ll look up the solution.
That said, I will have one of two reactions upon spoiling a puzzle. I’ll either realize that the answer was right in front of me and I’ll be disappointed I didn’t spend a little more time on it, or I’ll realize I would never have figured it out and be glad I went for help.
The elevator solution was an example of the latter.
As much as I love Jimmy Maher's articles, he has a certain bias against any adventure game that's not streamlined. So, he levels similar criticisms against pretty much every Sierra games, Full Throttle and pretty much any adventure game that is not polished to the level of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle.
He's not completely wrong and the tendency of adventure games to sometimes veer into puzzles that are more moon logic based did I think contribute to the fall of the genre but I do think that he overemphasizes those faults and has a tendency to describe puzzles that are merely hard as impossible to figure out.
Also, I disagree with his criticism of the interface, as a kid it definitely didn't bother me, if anything I find it less frustrating than the amount of pixel hunt in some adventure games.
I remember watching my teenage cousin play it as a young child and being really drawn in, then when he let me play I remember getting frustrated because I had no idea what to do, it ended up being more fun watching him play
I definitely found the world a bit harder to navigate for solving puzzles than the 2D games but the really horrible puzzles in grim fandango were the time based ones that the engine could do but not remotely well. There was one in particular with a wheelbarrow that was fairly easy to figure out but an insane pain to coordinate with the game's controls on our PC
I never liked Grim Fandango despite recognizing its importance. I think it's too weird in a bad way. For me, it lacks the optimistic fantasy of LucasArts previous entries and is just too, well, Grim. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece like, for instance, Monkey Island 2.
I think one understated problem Grim Fandango had is that it's too adult.
Today "adult" often means "there's sex and/or gore", but the content is still simple and juvenile. But Grim Fandango isn't like that, it's just full of themes that probably confused the heck out of almost every kid that tried to play it.
Like the very first chapter throws you right into office politics. You deal with stealing a job from another salesman, sabotage a pneumatic tube messaging system, and sneak into your boss' office.
It all makes perfect sense for adults familiar with office work and all the movies it references. But I recall I tried it when I was maybe 14 and I couldn't make head nor tails of it. I didn't even realize the pneumatic tubes were actually a thing.
Things like Monkey Island and even Full Throttle are far more accessible.
Here's the thing - I remember playing it as a kid and so many things, arguably most of it, went way over my head: the whole travel agent thing and getting ahead in the office, dia de los muertos, the references to noir, the weird but gorgeous mexican art deco combo, I knew nothing about any of it. But I still loved every second of it. It made the world feel very rich and real even if I didn't fully get it, in a way that other games around the time just were not.
Also this is not too dissimilar to how adult life that surrounds every child is to a child. You're sort of used to living in a world that has workings beyond your comprehension and just going along with it. I didn't get what exactly was going on but I did understand /something/ was.
I'm listening to a review of The Great Mouse Detective (1986) which has a similar ethos, as did other content targeting young people from that era. Also I recall picking up books as a kid that were certainly not meant for children and adults back then didn't even blink, and I think it stoked my curiosity and interests and pushed the boundaries of my understanding, as well as prepared me for growing up. I don't think I ended up being a worse person or being traumatized in any way. Part of me wonders if kids' content being much more sanitized these days is a mistake.
> Today "adult" often means "there's sex and/or gore", but the content is still simple and juvenile.
That's indeed an unfortunate fact. In fact, most "adult" stuff is actually for teens or young adults. Teens love sex and gore, they want to be edgy, they want to prove they are not children anymore. Actual adults, the kind with jobs and families, are usually passed that. They may still enjoy their sex and gore, but it is just one theme like another.
I think a good way to make a difference between "teen adult" and "actual adult" is to look at the age and environment of the protagonists. Is the main character a teenager or young adult? Does it involve a school of some kind? Then it is probably for teens. Is the main character middle aged? Does it involve work, especially office work? Are there parents among the protagonists? Then it is probably for adults. Sex and violence are secondary.
That's a really interesting perspective. I grew up around when adventure games were popular, and I learned a lot about the grown-up world (and in fact, American world) through adventure games.
Sam and Max had so much Americana that, playing as a non-American, got me into the deep cuts of American culture. I think a lot of it was contextual. I didn't get all the references at first (e.g. who's John Muir for instance), but the context made it possible for me to figure it out.
This is a great assessment that I never realized until you said it. There are so many games from that era that I played that fit that mold. I was playing Leisure Suit Larry as a 10 year old! I can’t imagine parents these days letting their kids play that at all!
I'm about the same age but personally I had the opposite experience. For me it was refreshing to play something more mature, more 'intellectual', even if I'm sure a lot of the jokes washed over me.
I agree about the accessibility, but Full Throttle is by far my least favorite lucasarts graphical adventure. It's really quite depressing and I deeply dislike the main character.
Maybe it needed a Leisure Suit Larry style age verification:
All politicians are
a. hardworking.
b. honest.
c. ethical.
d. on the public payroll.
Correct answer: d.
"Gone With The Wind" is about
a. outer space.
b. a bank robbery.
c. four hours long.
d. dust.
Correct answer: c.
Two bits is
a. all it takes to consume a "Big Mac."
b. computer talk.
c. about a dollar.
d. the former cost for a shave and a haircut.
Correct answer: d.
I thought this game was up there in my favorites as a kid, don't think me or my younger sibling noticed personally, but the puzzles were really hard for sure. Either way we beat it between each other taking turns I remember. Oh yeah, the tank controls were a little less shit with a gamepad - back when there was a dedicated port for those no less
I also remember these games easier to beat before the internet was so pervasive and these kinds of things were the best way to pass rainy days, we'd draw out notes and maps on paper and all sorts of stuff to beat them - different times now, people's attention is way more scattered
And most of all, the classic movie Casablanca. I played Grim Fandango as a 15 year old kid and I when I eventually saw Casablanca many years later it was like, this feels familiar, why… oh wait!
That said, like others here as a kid I loved the adult culture references even when I didn’t fully get all of them.
Jimmy is right about Grim Fandango's gameplay failings, and it's unfortunate, because the game has enough narrative content that they could have just trimmed away a lot of the adventure game puzzles. But visual novels weren't really a thing in the west yet, and in that era there was a lot of emphasis on playtime as a metric that reviews would focus on.
Ironically, one of the most forward-looking approaches to extending playtime without relying on obtuse puzzles had been already pioneered (in a flawed way, certainly) by Sierra, the company which often served as the contrast to LucasArts' reputation for innovation. I'm talking about The Colonel's Bequest, which elaborated the classic adventure game score system into a kind of scavenger hunt, a precursor to achievements in today's games. Grim Fandango would both aesthetically and thematically have been a great fit for that kind of "find the secret scenes" style of replayability.
The article talks about how Lua "has gone on to become a staple language of modern game development", but could have given more credit to Grim Fandango for that. It was the first game to use Lua and and its success was what put the language on the map when it comes to gamedev.
Excellent article and absolutely fair points by the author. As a kid I completely fell in love with the characters and ambiance, but got hopelessly stuck in Act 1. In fact, I don't think I ever made it out.
But man, what a great story and what a beautiful style. I always half expected to see Hollywood pick this up and turn it into a movie. Just imagine what the folks at Pixar could do with this (with Tim Schafer as executive producer, of course).
It’s much too eccentric for the Pixar formula. They are family movies first and foremost. Characters need to be understandable and relatable to an eight-year-old.
The Pixar movie with similar themes is 2016’s “Coco”. It’s a fine production, but the themes are much less adult than in Grim Fandango.
This review is pretty dead (hah) on. I’d been trying to crack Grim, off-and-on, basically ever since it came out; each time I was foiled by the clumsy interface and inscrutable game design. It’s not as player hostile as the old Sierra adventures but it sure comes close.
Finally I caved and watched a longplay on YT, and I have no real regrets. Great game, but that’s probably the best way to play it. Life’s too short.
What a time that was for gaming. Everything felt special. I am afraid to revisit these old greats though, in case seeing them today ruins the illusion of the past.
I agree with a lot of what he writes, but it's still one of my favorite games. I have faded memories about how frustrated I was running around trying to understand what I was supposed to do next, and strong memories about how the game and its world made me feel.
An excellent game for its time. The remaster is well worth it.
One unfortunate aspect of classic games is how dated mechanics can get. It’s a problem that music or movies don’t really have, besides maybe feeling a bit cliché.
In the case of Grim Fandango, the tank controls are a bit awkward, some puzzles are actually quite difficult and require logic that would only make sense to a point and click adventure gamer from the 90s.
It deserves to be enjoyed and remembered, just because of its sheer style and creativity.
> One unfortunate aspect of classic games is how dated mechanics can get. It’s a problem that music or movies don’t really have, besides maybe feeling a bit cliché.
Silent film would like a word. Er, uh… an intertitle.
Lots of modern viewers find films made before digital editing weird, or even near-unwatchable. The editing isn’t quick enough, shot pacing feels too slow.
Acting styles have changed over the years. It can take some work to be able to enjoy film acting from decades ago.
Older special effects are an acquired taste. I’m thinking of things like pirate movies where the ships are very-obviously models in a tub of water, easy to tell no matter how good the models because the water itself looks “small” in motion.
On the music side, older music will be mono. Tons of old blues legends exist only in scratchy, terrible recordings. Older music sounds different than more recent stuff and could not have sounded like the modern kind, because they could only mix so many tracks without ruining the sound, since each down-mix meant a re-recording and a loss of quality. Newer tracks will almost always use visually-aided editing that includes adjusting vocals by eye rather than ear, which changes the way things sound a lot.
Those point-and-click puzzles never felt like anything but time fillers to me. It's interesting to think about the "could have beens" of Western visual novels instead, or at least Telltale-style story games.
The remastered annoyed the hell out of me because it was so buggy. I ragequit the game because there was some point that I had gotten to where one of the characters bugged out in a cutscene and wouldn't move the game forward. I had to reload a save and play about 30 minutes just to get back to the same point. This happened multiple times, too. it's a good game, yes, but the remaster is seriously full of bugs that it's difficult for me to recommend.
Yeah it's one of those games that fits the "thinking about grim fandango vs playing grim fandango" memes.
The characters, the writing, and the story are all so incredibly good. I love that game and I actually think about it a lot lol. But those "puzzles" are just inscrutable.
> Taken as a game rather than the movie it often seems more interested in being
It's interesting how movies today seem to be the "top" art form: there are books, comics, videogames that want to be movies, but never in the other direction. (There are books and games based on movies, but they are clearly secondary.) I wonder if there could be some other art form that would be "above" movies in this sense.
Makes sense considering that movies are usually self-contained art pieces while games these days more of then than not try to upsell you DLC or microtransactions and TV series tend to be so drawn out that hey are cancelled before getting to the point.
Books are the odd one out in that they don't have this problem and as a result are still considered prestigious (probably moreso than movies) but instead suffer from lack of audiovisual communication.
It’s funny, because movies still have the prestige television and games do not, despite both of them outstripping cinema in many ways. Movies have become increasingly global common denominator, with razor edge finances, and have ceded so much ground to TV it’s ridiculous.
An example of this: watch Kramer vs Kramer. It’s a great movie, with a big name cast telling an emotional story. Try to think of a more recent movie like it.
Always worth mentioning: if you're a fan of Grim, The Journey Down is a game that borrows a LOT from it, while taking advantage of the advances made in the interim.
Very interesting article, I feel like some of the criticisms also apply to Broken Age. I was well into that game before I realized (ok, looked up) that a puzzle needed you to toggle characters. This functionality was never mentioned prior to that. Some of it just felt so janky, but interesting art and story.
The pre-rendered backgrounds were breathtaking in the 90s, but today the old off-line ray tracing looks worse than what modern games can render (same goes for the original Myst).
The remastered version has been released before AI upscaling got interesting. I wonder if a re-remastered version could be made look better.
I played through GF with GameFAQs open next to it, and had an incredible time for it. All the frustration stripped away and left with just the story, soundtrack, dialogue, and appreciation for the fun creative puzzle designs without bashing my head against them. I felt guilty for doing it that way; it's nice to know it wasn't my fault for being too dumb!
[+] [-] vvpan|1 year ago|reply
Not that criticism is bad but Grim Fandango seems to one of the most if not most loved adventure games (just visit and adventure game forum or subreddit). So one can take it apart and think about the individual parts but the whole is certainly a masterpiece of a game.
[+] [-] cainxinth|1 year ago|reply
Cheating in multiplayer games is obviously indefensible, but I’ve never been above cheating in a single player game. Games are a relaxing outlet for me and if I get frustrated long enough I’ll look up the solution.
That said, I will have one of two reactions upon spoiling a puzzle. I’ll either realize that the answer was right in front of me and I’ll be disappointed I didn’t spend a little more time on it, or I’ll realize I would never have figured it out and be glad I went for help.
The elevator solution was an example of the latter.
[+] [-] sersi|1 year ago|reply
He's not completely wrong and the tendency of adventure games to sometimes veer into puzzles that are more moon logic based did I think contribute to the fall of the genre but I do think that he overemphasizes those faults and has a tendency to describe puzzles that are merely hard as impossible to figure out.
Also, I disagree with his criticism of the interface, as a kid it definitely didn't bother me, if anything I find it less frustrating than the amount of pixel hunt in some adventure games.
[+] [-] Rastonbury|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] forgotacc240419|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] glimshe|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wetpaws|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] dale_glass|1 year ago|reply
Today "adult" often means "there's sex and/or gore", but the content is still simple and juvenile. But Grim Fandango isn't like that, it's just full of themes that probably confused the heck out of almost every kid that tried to play it.
Like the very first chapter throws you right into office politics. You deal with stealing a job from another salesman, sabotage a pneumatic tube messaging system, and sneak into your boss' office.
It all makes perfect sense for adults familiar with office work and all the movies it references. But I recall I tried it when I was maybe 14 and I couldn't make head nor tails of it. I didn't even realize the pneumatic tubes were actually a thing.
Things like Monkey Island and even Full Throttle are far more accessible.
[+] [-] makmanalp|1 year ago|reply
Also this is not too dissimilar to how adult life that surrounds every child is to a child. You're sort of used to living in a world that has workings beyond your comprehension and just going along with it. I didn't get what exactly was going on but I did understand /something/ was.
I'm listening to a review of The Great Mouse Detective (1986) which has a similar ethos, as did other content targeting young people from that era. Also I recall picking up books as a kid that were certainly not meant for children and adults back then didn't even blink, and I think it stoked my curiosity and interests and pushed the boundaries of my understanding, as well as prepared me for growing up. I don't think I ended up being a worse person or being traumatized in any way. Part of me wonders if kids' content being much more sanitized these days is a mistake.
[+] [-] GuB-42|1 year ago|reply
That's indeed an unfortunate fact. In fact, most "adult" stuff is actually for teens or young adults. Teens love sex and gore, they want to be edgy, they want to prove they are not children anymore. Actual adults, the kind with jobs and families, are usually passed that. They may still enjoy their sex and gore, but it is just one theme like another.
I think a good way to make a difference between "teen adult" and "actual adult" is to look at the age and environment of the protagonists. Is the main character a teenager or young adult? Does it involve a school of some kind? Then it is probably for teens. Is the main character middle aged? Does it involve work, especially office work? Are there parents among the protagonists? Then it is probably for adults. Sex and violence are secondary.
[+] [-] wenc|1 year ago|reply
Sam and Max had so much Americana that, playing as a non-American, got me into the deep cuts of American culture. I think a lot of it was contextual. I didn't get all the references at first (e.g. who's John Muir for instance), but the context made it possible for me to figure it out.
[+] [-] kevml|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nanna|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] thefaux|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] m463|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ajkjk|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jamal-kumar|1 year ago|reply
I also remember these games easier to beat before the internet was so pervasive and these kinds of things were the best way to pass rainy days, we'd draw out notes and maps on paper and all sorts of stuff to beat them - different times now, people's attention is way more scattered
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] libraryofbabel|1 year ago|reply
That said, like others here as a kid I loved the adult culture references even when I didn’t fully get all of them.
[+] [-] cholantesh|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] djur|1 year ago|reply
Ironically, one of the most forward-looking approaches to extending playtime without relying on obtuse puzzles had been already pioneered (in a flawed way, certainly) by Sierra, the company which often served as the contrast to LucasArts' reputation for innovation. I'm talking about The Colonel's Bequest, which elaborated the classic adventure game score system into a kind of scavenger hunt, a precursor to achievements in today's games. Grim Fandango would both aesthetically and thematically have been a great fit for that kind of "find the secret scenes" style of replayability.
[+] [-] ufo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] appel|1 year ago|reply
But man, what a great story and what a beautiful style. I always half expected to see Hollywood pick this up and turn it into a movie. Just imagine what the folks at Pixar could do with this (with Tim Schafer as executive producer, of course).
[+] [-] pavlov|1 year ago|reply
The Pixar movie with similar themes is 2016’s “Coco”. It’s a fine production, but the themes are much less adult than in Grim Fandango.
[+] [-] wk_end|1 year ago|reply
Finally I caved and watched a longplay on YT, and I have no real regrets. Great game, but that’s probably the best way to play it. Life’s too short.
[+] [-] blackeyeblitzar|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] account42|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sorenjan|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tetrisgm|1 year ago|reply
One unfortunate aspect of classic games is how dated mechanics can get. It’s a problem that music or movies don’t really have, besides maybe feeling a bit cliché.
In the case of Grim Fandango, the tank controls are a bit awkward, some puzzles are actually quite difficult and require logic that would only make sense to a point and click adventure gamer from the 90s.
It deserves to be enjoyed and remembered, just because of its sheer style and creativity.
[+] [-] vundercind|1 year ago|reply
Silent film would like a word. Er, uh… an intertitle.
Lots of modern viewers find films made before digital editing weird, or even near-unwatchable. The editing isn’t quick enough, shot pacing feels too slow.
Acting styles have changed over the years. It can take some work to be able to enjoy film acting from decades ago.
Older special effects are an acquired taste. I’m thinking of things like pirate movies where the ships are very-obviously models in a tub of water, easy to tell no matter how good the models because the water itself looks “small” in motion.
On the music side, older music will be mono. Tons of old blues legends exist only in scratchy, terrible recordings. Older music sounds different than more recent stuff and could not have sounded like the modern kind, because they could only mix so many tracks without ruining the sound, since each down-mix meant a re-recording and a loss of quality. Newer tracks will almost always use visually-aided editing that includes adjusting vocals by eye rather than ear, which changes the way things sound a lot.
[+] [-] crooked-v|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] alekratz|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] katangafor|1 year ago|reply
The characters, the writing, and the story are all so incredibly good. I love that game and I actually think about it a lot lol. But those "puzzles" are just inscrutable.
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] kweks|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] michelb|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] oever|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cousin_it|1 year ago|reply
It's interesting how movies today seem to be the "top" art form: there are books, comics, videogames that want to be movies, but never in the other direction. (There are books and games based on movies, but they are clearly secondary.) I wonder if there could be some other art form that would be "above" movies in this sense.
[+] [-] account42|1 year ago|reply
Books are the odd one out in that they don't have this problem and as a result are still considered prestigious (probably moreso than movies) but instead suffer from lack of audiovisual communication.
[+] [-] moomin|1 year ago|reply
An example of this: watch Kramer vs Kramer. It’s a great movie, with a big name cast telling an emotional story. Try to think of a more recent movie like it.
[+] [-] worthless-trash|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ucla_rob|1 year ago|reply
Finish Him.
[+] [-] Oarch|1 year ago|reply
The humour was dark and the world building was so nuanced and poetic.
[+] [-] mikeocool|1 year ago|reply
How many games are still being talked about and played that long after the fact?
[+] [-] frmersdog|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Dansvidania|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wileydragonfly|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pornel|1 year ago|reply
The remastered version has been released before AI upscaling got interesting. I wonder if a re-remastered version could be made look better.
[+] [-] thatguymike|1 year ago|reply