Souls who led good lives may be offered a better choice of travel options, with the fastest mode of transport being the "Double-N" Number Nine Express: a luxury passenger train available only to the most virtuous souls that ferries them safely across the entirety of the Eighth Underworld in a mere four minutes. Souls who led poor lives must attempt a four-year journey on foot with little or no assistance, and they are often waylaid by terrible danger or lack of resources along a seemingly endless path. The souls of the dead are brought to the Eighth Underworld by "travel agents" working for the DOD who act as grim reapers, fetching recently departed souls from the Land of the Living and setting them on their journey through the Land of the Dead. A mural depicting the four-year journey of the soul through the Eighth UnderworldĪll souls begin their journey in El Marrow, the largest city in the Eighth Underworld, for processing at the Department of Death. Several characters also smoke heavily in keeping with the genre, which Grim's manual humorously references by addressing anti-smoking concerns with the fact that the game's characters are already dead. Art deco and Aztec motifs are interwoven in many building facades and interiors, and the game's cast often dresses and behaves in typical noir fashion. In areas of urban development, the bleak and lifeless landscape of the Eighth Underworld gives way to a 1930s-era film noir ambiance. Several varieties of demons also inhabit this world, some of which co-exist with human souls and may be summoned for specific tasks such as maintenance or security. Souls in the Land of the Dead take the form of skeletal Mexican calaca figures used during the Day of the Dead festival naturally, this same festival is also celebrated within the Land of the Dead, during which time many souls visit loved ones in the Land of the Living. The game primarily takes place in the Eighth Underworld of the Land of the Dead, a limbo that must be traversed by the souls of the deceased in order to reach their final reward in the Ninth Underworld and truly rest. Grim Fandango's setting combines elements of Aztec mythology and Mexican folklore with a film noir influence drawn from movies such as Casablanca and The Big Sleep. Grim Fandango is infamous for its difficulty even among other adventure games of the era, and some of the game's most challenging puzzles require players to not only observe, but also to listen carefully to character dialogue or even ambient noise in the environment in order to progress. Players must explore their environment thoroughly to find key objects and may converse with NPC characters or examine their surroundings for hints about the solution these puzzles also demand varying levels of abstract reasoning. Glottis and Manny on the Bone WagonĪlthough the control scheme and game engine were new to the genre, Grim's core gameplay remains much the same as previous LucasArts adventure games and primarily alternates between navigating humorous dialogue trees and completing inventory-based puzzles in order to advance the plot. Grim Fandango's minimal presentation was praised for its cinematic qualities, but it was also criticized for being unwieldy compared to a more traditional point-and-click adventure game interface. As Manny walks through the environment, his head will turn to look towards certain important objects or characters players may examine, pick up or use the object Manny is looking at with the appropriate keyboard commands. Grim Fandango moves away from the point-and-click interface of the SCUMM engine used in preceding LucasArts adventure games it instead makes use of the GrimE engine, which allows players to directly manipulate the movements of 3D characters using keyboard tank controls. Grim Fandango was the first LucasArts adventure game to feature 3D polygonal characters moving and interacting in a pre-rendered 2D world. Many of Grim's characters including Manny are voiced by Hispanic actors, and the game's script is peppered with Spanish words and phrases. The game's story and setting primarily draw from aspects of Hispanic culture, Aztec mythology, and film noir cinema. Players take the role of protagonist Manny Calavera, a travel agent for the Department of Death and grim reaper, as he travels through the Land of the Dead on a quest to reach the Ninth Underworld and his eternal rest. Grim Fandango is an adventure game directed by Tim Schafer and released by LucasArts in 1998.
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