Grim Fandango Remastered - Let's Review What's New

I just finished it yesterday (for the first time), and its a great game. But the puzzles are very difficult, I had to google some of them.

Great video Cristopher. Keep it going.

Nice to see a balanced review of GF Remastered. The Steam forums for the game, unsurprisingly, featured many pages of whinging from people who expected a whole new engine, 2015 graphics, redone voices, etc., etc., etc. Some few people pointed out that it would be wonderful to revisit a terrific game , probably the best of its genre (notwithstanding the Monkey Island titles) that has been mostly unplayable on "modern" Windows systems for a mere $15 .

Some people are never, ever satisfied.

Especially on Steam forums :><:.

Nice to see a balanced review of GF Remastered. The Steam forums for the game, unsurprisingly, featured many pages of whinging from people who expected a whole new engine, 2015 graphics, redone voices, etc., etc., etc. Some few people pointed out that it would be wonderful to revisit a terrific game , probably the best of its genre (notwithstanding the Monkey Island titles) that has been mostly unplayable on "modern" Windows systems for a mere $15 .

Some people are never, ever satisfied.

Especially on Steam forums :&gt;&lt;:.

I think it is too easy too call everybody critizing the GF Remaster whinners. Many of them, including myself, are of the opinion that much more could have been done with the Remaster if DoubleFine invested a bit more time and money in it. However, it seems like Tim Schafer pushed it out prematurely and half-baked to get some quick cash for his company, which may be on a financial brink right now. However it may be, critzing doesn't alway equal being a cry-baby.
For being unplayable - it has for a long time been playable with ResidualVM.

The other big change was the composer also re-recorded the entire soundtrack with a live orchestra in Australia

Nice to see a balanced review of GF Remastered. The Steam forums for the game, unsurprisingly, featured many pages of whinging from people who expected a whole new engine, 2015 graphics, redone voices, etc., etc., etc. Some few people pointed out that it would be wonderful to revisit a terrific game , probably the best of its genre (notwithstanding the Monkey Island titles) that has been mostly unplayable on "modern" Windows systems for a mere $15 .

Some people are never, ever satisfied.

Especially on Steam forums :&amp;gt;&amp;lt;:.

I think it is too easy too call everybody critizing the GF Remaster whinners. Many of them, including myself, are of the opinion that much more could have been done with the Remaster if DoubleFine invested a bit more time and money in it. However, it seems like Tim Schafer pushed it out prematurely and half-baked to get some quick cash for his company, which may be on a financial brink right now. However it may be, critzing doesn't alway equal being a cry-baby.
For being unplayable - it has for a long time been playable with ResidualVM.

And if they'd touched it more then people would have hated them for touching a classic. A lose-lose where there's always someone hating on them.

In my opinion it's a fantastic thing that more people are exposed to and have the opportunity to buy and play perhaps a fantastic, perhaps quintessential game, rather than people having to pirate and emulate it (thanks residual). We're lucky that residual was even an option, most games of the past won't get such treatment.

However, it seems like Tim Schafer pushed it out prematurely and half-baked to get some quick cash for his company, which may be on a financial brink right now.

Or maybe they just saw no need to remake a game that's perfectly fine as it is. I'd bet they merely wanted to get it running on modern operating systems (and selling once again), and these little touch-ups are just a bonus.

Most of the "whiners" seem to have trouble with the concept of remastering vs remaking. Remastering refers to improving the quality or production value of an earlier work, and GF Remastered does that and more. I don't think Double Fine's marketing has broken any promises here.

For being unplayable - it has for a long time been playable with ResidualVM.

ResidualVM has come far, but it's still not perfect. GF Remastered is without a doubt a better experience for the player. And Grim Fandango definitely deserves to be experienced, even if you're not patient enough or savvy enough to fiddle with alternative game engine implementations. (I am, but we're the minority.)

I'm playing it now for the first time (never played the original). This game is great!

Unfortunately Double Fine still can't sort out ownership issues with the soundtrack so they can't release it yet. However you can extract the audio from the game using scummrev:
http://jsg.id.au/scumm/scummrev/download.html

It worked through Wine perfectly.

You forget to mention two big huge things with the remaster.

1. Director's commentary (which is wonderful to hear)
2. They gave you the option to play it with a much more intuitive interface.

mirv: I didn't get any audio stutter, that is truly a shame.