One professional reviewer noted years ago that there are two schools of remakes. One is something like what Square did for Final Fantasy IV, fitting new content in beautifully and redoing everything about it. The other school is what Square did for Chrono Trigger, which is basically nothing but a straight port. Grim Fandango Remastered, as the title suggests, much more like the latter. Yes, it is wonderful to have redone textures for the character models that run off the game engine. However, it is not wonderful that the FMVs have not been remastered, being full of artifacts. Yes, it is great that the soundtrack was re-recorded. However, the voices have some amount of distortion, likely because the original tapes had been lost or discarded. Yes, the lighting effects add a nice amount of ambiance. However, the backgrounds were untouched and so the only good way to play the game is with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Minor benefits outweigh minor quibbles for sure, but when it comes to the improvements, don't expect anything to write home about. Throw in a few bugs other reviews have noted and you have something better than the hassle of installing Grim Fandango on an older system you found at a garage sale. Grim Fandango is a fantastic game, and it is good that it finally has its re-release, but the remaster is less of a remaster and more of a port.
You'll get your money's worth, that's for sure. Sure, the story sometimes drags and sometimes goes into some weird places sometimes, but there's hours and hours of stuff to do, sidequests and all, and it goes by at such a fast clip and so many gameplay choices early on have strong effects later on. Yeah, like all games the later levels suffer from "fourth disc" syndrome, where it seems to drag and just won't end, but that could also be because you don't want to stop playing. It's the mark of a great game that even when you aren't having fun anymore playing it (because you've played multiple 8-hour sessions on a work night) you still feel like you should be playing it. Playing at least the first act of Deus Ex should be considered mandatory for any self-respecting gamer.
Good Ship Prudence takes nine days to circuit Aalborg, Bergen and Oslo, delivering beer to the natives. They consume 170 barrels of beer each week. Convoy Charity, your crayer-hulk convoy for long-distance hauling, travels from Hamburg to Aalborg to Lubeck back to Hamburg by way, again, of Aalborg. Charity's circuit takes 13 days and despite stopping twice in Aalborg before returning home for repairs it has only one chance to drop off beer for the Aalborg region. Two questions: How many barrels must Convoy Charity drop off in each trip to completely sate the needs of the people there? How many barrels must Good Ship Prudence pick up at the beginning of each circuit? Answer: 315 barrels; 218 barrels. This, however, is subject to change once we include increased consumption during the winter, considerations about Bergen's port freezing in the winter and therefore shortening Prudence's trade route. We assumes falsely also that pirate activity, other merchants, traders, businesses and miscellaneous random acts of God or barbarians will have no affect on supply or demand of said beer. If you multiply this problem to compensate for the two dozen cities and 20 resources and the cities' varying consumption --- whether it's by businesses opening or shuttering or merely the increasing or decreasing city population you begin to appreciate the enormity of this simulation. While sea battles and sieges are clunky --- think the army battles in Ceasar III clone Pharaoh, but worse --- they do break up this massive Excel spreadsheet waiting to happen. This game has me hooked. Not even for Myst did I take out a spiral-bound notebook to make notes for later. For this game, however, I break this fast. I believe it's best approached as a crossword puzzle. I take just enough raw data at night to keep me writing in my notebook through the day at work. Highly recommended.
