We never do find out why Manny was stuck in the Land of the Dead or why he had a debt to pay (from his previous life), only that he feels he deserves his station in life/death. Years 3 and 4 drop the ball a little in this respect as they’re focused more on the puzzle than the rest of the story. The reason this chapter works so well is how the over-arching puzzle (get on a boat to chase after Mercedes) takes so many twists and turns as the many inhabitants of Rubacava play a part in unfolding the story and the puzzle. The second chapter (or Year as the game puts it) is easily Grim Fandango’s high-point as we find Manny running a Casino in port-town Rubacava, surrounded by a cast of lowlifes, villains, cool-cats, dead-beatniks (get it?) and demon-mechanic friend Glottis. She disappears and Manny sets off to find her on his own four-year journey where he slowly unravels the layers of greed and corruption embroiling the Land of the Dead. After a run of bad clients Manny decides to steal his rival’s client, a woman named Mercedes Colomar, who turns out to be a perfect candidate for the Number Nine but is inadvertently assigned the four-year walk instead.
The best way to travel is the Number Nine express train that reduces the trip to four minutes. Our hero Manuel “Manny” Calavera is a travel agent for the Department of the Dead in the Land of the Dead who sends freshly departed souls on their required four-year journey through said Land to the Ninth Underworld, the comfort and speed of the trip determined by how virtuous they were in life. The story is based heavily on the Aztec belief of the afterlife and a healthy influence of film-noir, especially films such as Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. Grim Fandango is loaded with the wit, charm and humour that we’ve come to expect from a Tim Schafer game, not to mention the colourful characters who pop up along the way. While gameplay and graphics may fade, a well written story is timeless. So here we are, 17 years later (wow, I’m old) with just one question: does it hold up? Ah yes, they just don’t make them like they used to – and as our rose-tinted-glasses minds may choose to overlook: there’s usually a good reason for that. Indie developers such as Harvester Games (makers of the disturbing yet excellent The Cat Lady) have also taken up the mantle, and I suspect I know the reason behind the resurgence: nostalgia. In recent times Telltale Games have embraced the genre and produced the amazing Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us series, while resurrecting our favourite “pirate” and leather jacket salesman Guybrush Threepwood in the Tales of Monkey Island. The whole genre is steeped in nostalgia, especially as truly great titles have been few and far between in the past 10 or so years. It was also a commercial flop in 1998 despite its critical acclaim and was perhaps the last nail in the coffin for the adventure game genre. Until now it was a relic from another era, also out of reach from digital distribution due to licencing issues with Lucasarts and unplayable (without mods) on modern PCs. Grim Fandango: the game I never played but always wished I had.
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