Grim Fandango is set in the 8th Underworld, a vision of the afterlife inspired by Mexican folklore with a film noir twist. The protagonist, Manny Calavera, is a lost soul working to pay off his spiritual debt so that he might achieve eternal rest. His job as a grim reaper, or “travel agent”, brings him into contact with a beautiful (skeletal) woman and a sinister conspiracy. Grim Fandango Remastered attempts to restore and improve upon the critically lauded 1998 video game.

The game’s aesthetic, blending imagery from the Mexican Day of the Dead and countless classic films and detective fiction, is rejuvenated in the remastered edition. While the background artwork is simply re-rendered at higher resolutions, the character models have been completely redesigned at a new level of fidelity. Although this leads to a jarring contrast at times between the 3D models and their environments, overall it emphasises the game’s sharp, cartoony style. The score has also been entirely re-recorded in crisp clarity by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Gameplay-wise, the adjustments are also minor, amounting to a replacement of the original’s unwieldy control scheme with a far more functional point-and-click mechanic.

In spite of its minimal changes, Grim Fandango Remastered is still a great achievement. The original game fared poorly commercially, even though it is now considered a quintessential part of the adventure game canon; original copies are hard to come by, and running those copies on modern PCs necessitates the use of fan-made emulators. The remastered edition makes a game which could have faded into obscurity accessible once again, which is a commendable feat in and of itself.