The creativity, colorful characters, and solid art direction overcomes the dated gameplay mechanics.
This is an old school adventure game, that shows little influence from the groundbreaking Myst franchise. The background is a static 2d image, with 3d characters doing whatever they do, including your own avatar and PC, Manny Calavera. The backgrounds are still impressive despite the date. Some of the animation and cutscenes can run a little rough, but still get the job done. All in all, for a 7 year old game, its graphics hold up very well. Getting it to run in XP is tricky, and might require you to use the compatibility modes. I ran it in for Windows 95 and 256 colors compatibility mode and had very few performance issues. Make certain to patch, however.
That out of the way, lets get to the meat of this game. To not like Grim Fandango is to not like creativity itself. The game is based on Mexican folklore and occurs in the Land of the Dead, with a twist. The eighth level of the underworld is has cities, parades, industries, criminals, race tracks, and most importantly- travel agencies. You play Manny Calavera, who works as a travel agent for the aptly named Deparment of Death. Its his job to sell travel packages to the ninth underworld, the ultimate goal for all the dead. How good of a travel package the qualify for is based on how good of a life they lived. The worst are stuffed into boxes and put into the mail for four years to get to the gate. The best, get to ride the Number Nine train to the gate that gets them there in four minutes flat. However, something is not right. Mr. Calavera notices that one of the most worthy souls does not qualify for a ticket on the number nine. That sets him on a path to uncover the corruption plaguing the department of death and all of the land of the dead.
Sound interesting? It is. Making it even more interesting is the very clever and witty writting and the superp voice actors who bring it to life. In an age where voice actors were just as likely to be developers, Grim Fandango has stood the test of time in this department and the characters are all the more interesting because of it. This is an authentically funny game, which made me literally laugh out loud on a frequent basis.
Yes, it offers all that and more. However, its not with out its flaws. At its heart its a style of gameplay that has gone out of style, for a reason. To advance the plot requires you to overcome puzzles and obstacles. These are a direct throw back to the old text adventure days of trying to figure out the right command to input. This time around, its finding items you can pick up and use, and then using them where ever you can to figure out how they are suppose to work. OK, it isn't quite that bad and usually the game provides some context for you to work with, but some of the puzzles are still very frustrating and arbitrary. For example, one puzzle requires you to smoke a cigar so the ashtray isn't available for somebody else when they need it and burn themselves. Why? So you can get their stockings. Why? So you can trade them for something else you need. For every puzzle where its clear what you need to do, there are another 2 that are overly vague.
However, with the rise of the internet, should any puzzle prove to be too frustrating, the solution is just a search engine for "Walkthrough" away. With this in mind, the game strengths easily outweigh its poorer moments, and its a shame that so few games are made like it. The dated mechanics could be easily updated to be more in line with something like Syberia or Myst IV, or even Psychonauts.