Retronomicon 10.07.09: Grim Fandango

Posted by Lee Price on 10.07.2009

This week the Retronomicon lands firmly back down to Earth with a bump and keeps going until it reaches the Underworld. 411's Lee Price takes his first steps into retro PC territory with a title that takes the idea that death is but another stage in life's journey just a little too literally as this week the Retronomicon looks at Grim Fandango.

Howdy one and all, this is 411's resident retro guy Lee Price, back to give you another piece of old school goodness. It seems that Desert Strike was a touch more popular than Dino Crisis so score one for the Gulf War over the Jurassic era I guess. I was asked to do Jungle Strike next but I think I'm gonna save that particular gem for another time. Hell I may even slip in Urban Strike at some point too, who knows right? As for me, I'm off my Yakuza 3 fix for a little while and I've decided to play a game that's actually in English this time! For any of my PS2 owning, RPG loving brethren I seriously recommend picking up Persona 4 if you get the chance. Not only do I reckon it has a chance of being a collector's item in years to come, but its a damned fine game too. UK peeps should be able to pick it up for £20 from Gamestation but not too sure about the guys over the pond. Anyways enough about that, I have to deal with a rather sparse comments section first.





Comments

OK this is a little better than the non-existent comments section of last week, but still a tad disappointing. I just want a little love! Or not, either way I don't mind. Anyways we will kick of with 411's own Armando Rodriguez who had this to say;

I own all three Strike games for the Genesis and they are quite awesome indeed. I liked Jungle better and Urban worse, but all three are great and different from what was available at the time. Can we see Jungle Strike next?

Agreed on the awesomeness of the series my good man, though personally I still rate Desert Strike just above Jungle. Only just though and Jungle was certainly a superior game in most senses, I just preferred Desert for whatever reason. That being said, Jungle will get an entry eventually, but not just yet. I want to keep you guessing!

And lastly we have Craig L who states simply;

I fookin love this game!

Indeed my good sir, as should everybody. Well except Saddam. We seem to be missing McWaylon this week so there must be a superior Strike game in his eyes, which I'm pretty sure makes me a communist now. So go Stalin. Or something, I dunno. Anyway never mind all that its time to get this column rolling. So strap on those rose-tinted specs because this week the Retronomicon takes a look at Grim Fandango.



The Background

Tim Schafer had been a busy boy with LucasArts, working on some of the greatest adventure titles to ever come out of the illustrious company, as well as helping to create the SCUMM system made famous in the early Monkey Island games. He also had a hand in writing Monkey Island 1 & 2 as well as both Day of the Tentacle games. He had even taken a slight departure from graphic adventure games with Full Throttle.

LucasArts themselves had been reaping the benefits of Schafer's work, as he seemed to have a little bit of a Midas Touch with every game he worked on. Specifically the Monkey Island series brought in tons of money for the company, becoming arguably the most popular adventure series to date and its still a cash cow that LucasArts are able to milk, as proven by the recent release of both the Tales of Monkey Island series and the HD remix of the original Monkey Island on Xbox Live.

These game's success was put mostly down to Schafer's mix of humor and quality game design, which led to him becoming one of the most revered adventure game designers around. However it can be argued that he hit his creative peak for LucasArts with the last game he ever made for them. Schafer set about making a game that not only would contain his wit and design, but would also set a number of precedents, such as being LucasArts first 3D adventure game and also being one of the first to feature Latin actors in starring roles. That game was Grim Fandango.



The Game

Grim Fandango had a plot like no other game that has been released before or since. What it essentially boils down to is that the player takes control of Manny Cavalera, a travel agent at the Department of Death. He essentially acts as a Grim Reaper for newly departed souls upon their arrival into the Land of the Dead, with the Department being a kind of purgatory-esque halfway point between life on Earth and life in the afterlife.

These souls appear as Calaca figures, a skeleton like figure that has its roots in Aztec imagery and is very prominent in Mexican celebrations of the Day of the Dead. Cavalera's job is to essentially determine the virtuosity of the newly-deceased person's soul and send them on their way. The virtuous receive assistance across the Land of the Dead, such as a ride on the Number 9 train which cuts the four year journey down to four minutes. Sinners however gain no such assistance and have to make their own way across the harsh netherworld between the Department of Death and the Land of the Dead. Many don't survive and others get "sprouted" which is essentially becoming a skeletal plant holder. Of course some just get jobs along the way too.

Manny himself is stuck in the Department of Death because he is working off a debt, however it seems he never receives any decent clients to bolster his numbers, only getting the most sinful deadites around. This isn't the case for Domino Hurley, who gets all the best clients at the behest of the department's boss, Don Copal. However things all kick off when Manny decides to steal one of Domino's clients, igniting a film noir like story as Manny uncovers a conspiracy to keep many a virtuous soul off the Number 9, all in the name of profit for Copal and Hurley.

Of course Manny can't let this stand and so with the help of an underground alliance he begins the chase of Don and Domino to bring them to justice. The plot mixes elements of film noir with Mexican and Latino cultural references to great effect, however the real star of the show is Manny Cavalera.

In many ways Manny Cavalera is a similar character to the mighty Guybrush Threepwood. Both are underdogs with an acerbic sense of wit who are generally good guys on the inside, even if they need a push every so often. The difference between the two though is that Manny has style. There is just something irresistibly cool about a Grim Reaper character dressed in a suit and it is testament to Schafer's writing ability that he is able to pull the whole thing off with the panache that he does. Every new area of the Land of the Dead feels fresh and exciting, and the dialogue is quick and snappier than a pissed off crocodile.

Not only that but Schafer's decision to utilize a mainly Latin cast plays into the Mexican Day of the Dead theme superbly. Everything just feels like it fits exactly as it is supposed to and Manny's use of Spanglish helps emphasize the atmosphere of the game even more. In fact the sound in the game from top to bottom is absolutely immense. The voice work, as mentioned, is stellar and rivals anything that had been used in an adventure game up to that point. Cavalera's voice actor, Tony Plana, is of special note due to the slight trodden down feel he lends to Cavalera's voice which suggests that he has been put through the blender once or twice and his sarcasm and defiant attitude have been slightly shaken as a result, but not so much that it holds him down.

The music is also a revelation. Not only does it fit the mood of the game perfectly, with little film noir flourishes when needed, but the game was also one of the first and only games to use music from live musicians, such as a resident mariachi band which composer Peter McConnell found on the streets of San Francisco. Few games since have used live music to this effect, going for the obvious studio recordings instead, and its a move that suits the game's theme superbly.



Gameplay wise Schafer decided to do away with the SCUMM system that he had helped to make famous, instead developing the GrimE system using the Sith engine developed for Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II as a base. It essentially got rid of the large amount of commands that previous Schafer games had, such as "Look" and "Use", and instead took a step further towards the graphical, simply using the mouse to make Manny interact as he saw fit.

Manny played his part in helping the player spot important objects or things too, as the development team designed his head to move separately to his body so that he could look at important objects or people as he passed them. This provided both a visual clue to the player and in the process helped to finalize the obsolete text based system that still remained from years past.

This system felt much more intuitive than the SCUMM system, requiring much less work from the player to get Manny to do what they wanted, as he would automatically pick up items that weren't bolted down if they were clicked on rather than having to be told to specifically pick them up rather than, say look at them. Similarly moving around screen become much simpler as the player no longer needed to use the "Open" command to open a door, they could simply click on it and hey presto they were through. Its a system that LucasArts utilized in later games to some extent too, and is in fact quite similar to that used by the recent Sam & Max and Tales of Monkey Island games.

The puzzles in the game aren't quite up to snuff with previous LucasArts offerings however, but that doesn't mean they are bad. Hell by any other company's standards they would be very good, however LucasArts isn't just any old company for adventure games. Having said that the puzzles do serve their purpose quite well, but it is obvious that Schafer's main concerns were the unbelievably good dialogue and the creation and utilization of the GrimE engine.

Despite this player's will still need to use their noggins to get through the game as some of the puzzles are quite fiendish and often require the player to pay close attention to the dialogue and Manny's conversations with other characters as much as clever item utilization. As is the trend with many LucasArts games, the puzzles definitely follow a logic and it is up to the player to work this logic out and utilize it to make their way through.

All in all though its is not a far stretch at all to suggest that Grim Fandango is Tim Schafer's magnum opus. Certainly none of the titles he has subsequently developed have reached this game's level, though Psychonauts wasn't far behind, and when it comes to the LucasArts adventure games they are of all such high quality that it really only comes down to personal taste as to which you believe to be superior. As a stand alone game though Grim Fandango is a stellar adventure game, with some of the best dialogue seen in gaming to date as well as being revolutionary for its time.



The Aftermath

There are no two ways about it, Grim Fandango was a complete commercial flop, with some estimates saying it only sold about 95,000 copies in the US, with only between 100,000 and 500,000 worldwide. It was also the first of Tim Schafer's games that didn't turn a profit for LucasArts and perhaps indirectly led to the cancellation of sequels to both Sam & Max and Full Throttle.

So how has it become revered as one of the greatest adventure games of all time? Well for one thing it received pretty much complete and universal praise, and even today many magazines rank it as one of the greatest games of all time. However this of course didn't help sales and not long after Tim Schafer was out of LucasArts.

Schafer didn't rest on his laurels though as he took that quite frankly seriously messed up brain of his and created the amazing Psychonauts on the Xbox, a game that is undoubtably the most original thing going on that particular console, and should be hunted down or bought on XBLA. Schafer is of course now developing the much anticipated Brutal, which is due for release very soon.

LucasArts went into a bit of a down swing when it came to adventure games after Grim Fandango's release, with only the fourth Monkey Island game really managing to break through the stream of Star Wars games that the company laid its stock on. However the recent revival in fortunes of the adventure genre has lead to a little spurt of activity from the company with its new Monkey Island games.

As for Manny Cavalera and crew, Grim Fandango would pretty much be the end of the road for them. The game's poor sales meant that it is likely never to see a sequel and to be honest I think I'm OK with that. Tim Schafer is no longer at LucasArts so he would likely have little to do with a sequel, and that means that any sequel would likely be ruined anyway so I'm happy for Grim Fandango to remain the cult hit that it is.

The Final Word

Grim Fandango is simply a must have for any fan of the graphical adventure genre, there's no two ways about it. The originality and script quality on show are second to none and the game simply has to be experienced because my plot analysis really did it no justice. Any fans of Schafer's previous works will love Grim Fandango.

The Price is Right

A nice and short price guide today seeing as Grim Fandango wasn't released on any other systems. As usual top prices for top quality.

UK

PC - £15 – 25

US

PC - $20 – 35

Spreading the Word

Another day another Retronomicon, but don't stop reading here. There's still plenty at 411 Games to take up your time.

Firstly be sure to bookmark the site or make it your homepage.

Also be sure to check out 411 Games on Twitter right here.

And here's some more good reading to take up your time;

Rod Oracheski checks in with a new edition of Achievement Unlocked
Jordan Williams wonders what would have happened if the Dreamcast had been a success in Working Title
Derek Robbins tells us what he'd like to see in Kingdom Hearts III in The 10th Hour
And Trace Aber checks in with issue 41 of Living LIVE

And finally the multi-staff efforts;

The staff list their top video game vixens in this weeks 411 Games Top 5
Alexandra Pusateri battles it out with Ramon Aranda in this week's Fact or Fiction
And Rod Oracheski hosts a new edition of Three Player Co-Op

The Guy Who Can do it Better Than You

Just a trailer this week, Grim Fandango isn't exactly a game that lends itself to any sort of skill runs.



Enjoy and catch you next week!