Manny smells the flowers

Grim Fandango Remastered has us pushing daisies

FORMAT PS4 / PUB LUCASARTS / DEV LUCASARTS / RELEASED 2015 / SCORE 9/10

Travel agent Manny’s job is to set souls on their path through the Land Of The Dead, with easier modes of travel for kinder recently deceased. But all hell (ahem) breaks loose once he uncovers a film-noir-worthy level of corruption.

What threat can there be to those already dead? ‘Sprouting’ is the answer, a sort of death within death in which the skeletal remains turns into vegetation, the deceased losing themselves before they can move on. It’s something Manny comes up against as he progresses, rifling through a morgue and seeing other characters shot with sprout guns. It all means that by the climax the floral meaning has been well and truly flipped on its head, a culmination of the themes eked out all the way through the game. As you follow the Big Bad to a final confrontation at a greenhouse sitting on a hill of rolling flowers, the innocuous and maybe even beautiful environment takes on a much darker meaning.

The point-and-click adventure pares things down for a final sequence that has you using up your last items neatly. Up to this point, Manny’s inventory has never been hidden by obtuse menus – instead he rifles through his suit jacket within the game world’s context.

As he himself falls to the nefarious sprouting, seen in close-up among myriad flowers, he struggles to access his inventory or even move to get himself out of the dire situation. It turns the greenhouse from the bud of a puzzle into a final flowering, and makes for one of the most satisfying adventure game conclusions of all time (sorry, Guybrush).