Grim Fandango Remastered Review (Danjori)
A brilliant piece of work. Grim Fandango is just as sharp, witty, and exciting as I imagine it was in 1998. This was my first time experiencing Grim Fandango, or any third-person point-n-click for that matter, and while my play-through had some snags, the endless charm oozing out of every last pore, or er, bone, from this world and its inhabitants had me yearning for more. While I definitely got stuck on some puzzles, the solution rarely seemed absurd or illogical, easing frustrations. I think the constant backtracking and filtering through dialogue is an unfortunate consequence of not knowing a puzzle's solution, but I really don't think they're as obtuse as you might imagine.
However, this remaster is not everything one would hope for. Crashes were fairly frequent, and many animations or models were straight-up broken. I appreciate the option to use the original graphics, which I used the whole time, but at its core this version still has a lot of jank. It's very much still playable, and I'm not sure how it compares to the original release, but just SAVE REGULARLY and you'll be alright.
Grim Fandango may be one of my favourite stories I've had the pleasure of experiencing, and I'll be thinking about its fully realised characters and their outstanding performances for a long time, perhaps til I end up in the Land of the Dead myself.