Dare I say it... best game ever?
After you die, you go to the Land of the Dead where all souls appear as skeletal calaca figures. The story is divided up in four acts which is four years, all taking place on November 2, Day of the Dead. You play as Manuel "Manny" Calavera, who is a travel agent at the Department of Death in the town of El Marrow. For sins of his mortal life he is forced to pay off his debt as a travel agent, he acts as a Grim Reaper, welcoming newly past souls from the Land of the Living and guiding them to get to the next place. Manny is frustrated at the fact that his boss mistreats him and gives all the good clients to his co-worker Domino. So Manny figures it's time to take one by himself, so he successfully steals one from Domino. Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, completely sinless. More virtuous souls qualify for the Number Nine ticket that cuts the journey from 4 years to 4 minutes, but Manny can't find it... Your boss finds out about this and calls you to your office to yell at you. In the meantime Meche begins her 4 year journey when she should've only waited 4 minutes. Manny's job depends on finding her, but more crooked things are taking place in the Land of the Dead, and it's up to you to find out.
Grim Fandango continues the LucasArts tradition in that you can't die or fail whatever you do. Which is fine because when playing for the first time the puzzles can be pretty hard. But I've played this game at least 10 times, easily. First time through it took me around 15 hours to complete the game, which is plenty. I know all the puzzles by heart and I can complete it in just a few hours if I want to, but that would be spoiling everything else that's so great about the game such as the story, writing, humor and characters. But even though as many times as I've played it through I still manage to find something that I missed. There's a whole lot of stuff to interact with since Manny turns his head towards interactable objects that you can use/pick up/inspect. So there's alot of lines of well written dialog.
Grim Fandango's art direction is amazing. Its beautifully 3D rendered backgrounds and interiors seriously oozes with style and blends perfectly with the characters on screen. The soundtrack is very jazzy and it just flows with the game with perfect pacing. Voice acting is even better, Manny has a fitting spanish accent and he will occasionally speak in spanish, though only short lines. All I can say is: Perfection.
Trivia: Grim Fandango is only mentioned once in the entire game.
This game is a masterpiece. No other adventure game has exceeded it and I seriously doubt anything will. It's probably my most played game I've ever had, and I still play it from time to time. Dare I say it... the best game ever? Yes, I do.