History YMMV / GrimFandango

* MST3KMantra: Unless you're making a joke, [[LampshadeHanging like the game itself often does]], never ''ever'' ask yourself any questions about Grim Fandango that can be summed up with "If they're skeletons, then how come X?". It ''will'' be a constant distraction and isn't really important to the overall plot

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Oh, many. The game has a huge cast of characters and none of them are stock characters. One of the more memorable ones is Chowchilla Charlie, who is part PeterLorre.

* BrokenBase: The remastered version. In one camp, you have the fans who dislike it due to any number of reasons (mainly the [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks changes]], or [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks lack thereof]]), argue that it did the game a disservice and, in some cases, [[AccentuateTheNegative won't even give the game a positive review on Steam or PlayStation Network despite actually liking the game]]. In the other, you have the fans who are just happy the game got re-released at all, finally freeing it from KeepCirculatingTheTapes and making it much more accessible to a new generation of gamers.

* ShockingSwerve: While it's relatively minor and has little impact on the actual plot, the revelation that [[spoiler:Hell actually exists]] comes almost completely out of nowhere, since up until that point, we were led to believe that [[spoiler: the worst punishment an immoral person can serve in this universe]] is working away your debt (presumably, the worse you were, the more work you have to do) and then walking four years to get to heaven. Then again, it's never directly identified as [[spoiler:Hell in the "opposite of heaven" sense, and could just be a special part of the Eighth Underworld that's miserable and bars you from heaven for whatever length of time if ThePowersThatBe decide you're beyond redemption.]]

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Bibi, one of the two children working for Domino in Year 3, is a girl. Good luck figuring this out on your own, though; her name doesn't lend itself either way, she has no hair or TertiarySexualCharacteristics to speak of, her voice could easily pass as that of a pre-pubescent boy, her personality and clothes aren't much different from her brother, Pugsy's, and there is no dialogue that refers to her as "she". Spanish speakers, on the other hand, would know that Bibi is short for "Bibiana" a popular girl's name.

* HarsherInHindsight: The very first image you see when you boot up the game is a LogoGag where the Golden Man in the Creator/LucasArts logo turns into a skeleton. Now that the company has gone belly-up, it's almost laughable how fitting it is, but still painful to any long-time fans.

* HarsherInHindsight: The very first image you see when you boot up the game is a LogoGag where the Golden Man in the LucasArts logo turns into a skeleton. Now that the company has gone belly-up, it's almost laughable how fitting it is, but still painful to any long-time fans.

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Bibi, one of the two children working for Domino in Year 3, is a girl. Good luck figuring this out on your own, though; her name doesn't lend itself either way, she has no hair or TertiarySexualCharacteristics to speak of, her voice could easily pass as that of a pre-pubescent boy, her personality and clothes aren't much different from her brother, Pugsy's, and there is no dialogue that refers to her as "she".

* BrokenBase: The remastered version. In one camp, you have the fans who dislike it due to any number of reasons (mainly the [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks changes]], or [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks lack thereof]]), argue that it did the game a disservice and, in some cases, [[AccentuateTheNegative won't even give the game a positive review on Steam or Playstation Network despite actually liking the game]]. In the other, you have the fans who are just happy the game got re-released at all, finally freeing it from KeepCirculatingTheTapes and making it much more accessible to a new generation of gamers.

* UncannyValley: The World of the Living.

* SignatureScene: The Year Two sequence. Manny dressed in the white Film/''{{Casablanca}}''-esque tuxedo tends to be the most recognizable image from the game.

* MST3KMantra: Unless you're making a joke, [[LampshadeHanging like the game itself often does]], never ''ever'' ask yourself any questions about Grim Fandango that can be summed up with "If they're skeletons, then how come X?". It ''will'' be a constant distraction and isn't really important to the overall plot.

* ShockingSwerve: While it's relatively minor and has little impact on the actual plot, the revelation that [[spoiler:Hell actually exists]] comes almost completely out of nowhere, since up until that point, we were lead to believe that [[spoiler: the worst punishment an immoral person can serve in this universe]] is working away your debt (presumably, the worse you were, the more work you have to do) and then walking four years to get to heaven. Then again, it's never directly identified as [[spoiler:Hell in the "opposite of heaven" sense, and could just be a special part of the Eighth Underworld that's miserable and bars you from heaven for whatever length of time if ThePowersThatBe decide you're beyond redemption.]]

* BaseBreaker: The remastered version. In one camp, you have the fans who dislike it due to any number of reasons (mainly the [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks changes]], or [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks lack thereof]]), argue that it did the game a disservice and, in some cases, [[AccentuateTheNegative won't even give the game a positive review on Steam or Playstation Network despite actually liking the game]]. In the other, you have the fans who are just happy the game got re-released at all, finally freeing it from KeepCirculatingTheTapes and making it much more accessible to a new generation of gamers.

** Also, it was pointed that many files from the original games were lost and making them from scratch was hard, especially the pre-rendered backgrounds that they probably lost the original 3D models and couldn't pre-render them again, and changing the game from a 4:3 aspect ratio to 16:9 would need several changes, since the game used fixed cameras, and it was argued that Grim Fandango was a commercial failure in its original release and they couldn't change much since the re-relase could suffer the same fate.

* MagnumOpus: Although he is responsible for many acclaimed titles such as ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'' and ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' and ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'' was his pet project of 15 years, ''Grim Fandango'' is regarded by many as Tim Schafer's finest creation as well as one of the greatest adventure games ever made.

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Hector LeMans]] is the man behind the corruption in the Department of Death. Hector has infiltrated the [=DoD=] and stolen the Number Nine tickets, the fastest way to get to [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence the Land of Eternal Rest]], from to the souls of the righteous and counterfeits them knowing that anyone who uses one is [[DraggedOffToHell plunged into hell's fiery depths]]. Meanwhile, the righteous souls Hector stole them from are left to wander the Land of the Dead until they're eventually kidnapped while traversing the ocean and sent to the coral mining factory owned by Hector at the Edge of the World to be eternally enslaved so as to prevent Hector's misdeeds from coming to life. The most evil thing Hector has done is the commission of sprouting, a way to [[CessationOfExistence permanently kill those already dead]]; the sprouting involves pecial plant bullets that are fired into the skeletal body, growing and spreading until the victim is completely overrun and is nothing more than an empty husk filled with flowers. Hector as capitalized on this, murdering hundreds, keeping their bodies as a field of flowers [[AtopAMountainOfCorpses upon which he builds his hideout upon]], and even has a greenhouse where preserves the corpses of his victims and tends to them as trophies of all who dare cross him. By the game's end he has Salvador's body sprouted and his head removed for questioning and shoots Manny with a slow-acting Sproutella which will keep him alive in agony for hours before eventually killing him. Despite all the pain and misery he's caused in the Land of the Dead, Hector doesn't care, as he merely wants to live like a king before using the stolen tickets to bribe his way into heaven.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The tree pumping station. Apparently the marrow inside the petrified trees can be extracted... for... some... reason. Looking back on it, even Tim Schafer can't remember how he came up with that one.

* MST3KMantra: Unless you're making a joke, [[LampShading like the game itself often does]], never ''ever'' ask yourself any questions about Grim Fandango that can be summed up with "If they're skeletons, then how come X?". It ''will'' be a constant distraction and isn't really important to the overall plot.

* BaseBreaker: The remaster. In one camp, you have the fans who dislike it due to any number of reasons (mainly the [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks changes]], or [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks lack thereof]]), argue that it did the game a disservice and, in some cases, [[AccentuateTheNegative won't even give the game a positive review on Steam or Playstation Network despite actually liking the game]]. In the other, you have the fans who are just happy the game got re-released at all, finally freeing it from KeepCirculatingTheTapes and making it much more accessible to a new generation of gamers.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: The game has a top-notch soundtrack, especially in the remastered version. Every song is so smooth and atmospheric that picking out favourites is almost impossible, so [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-K8R1hDG9E go ahead and knock yourself out]].

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Bibi, one of the two children working for Domino in Year 3, is a girl. Good luck figuring this out on your own, though; her name doesn't lend itself either way, she has no hair or TertiarySexualCharacteristics to speak of, her voice could easily pass as that of a pre-pubescent boy, her personality and clothes aren't much different from her brother, Pugsey's, and there is no dialogue that refers to her as "she".

* HilariousInHindsight: The song "Turn Around" by They Might Be Giants seems reminiscent to some of the events in this game.

* NightmareFuel: In Year 4, [[spoiler:a Number Nine train carrying passengers who bought tickets (instead of earning them) turns into a demon and dives off the tracks into Hell.]]
** Granted he really [[KarmicDeath deserved it]], but [[spoiler: Domino's]] "death" is pretty [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath unpleasant]].
** The concept of being "sprouted", which involves shooting a dead soul with a special bullet that causes flowers to bloom out of their bones and consume them. The event itself is disturbing enough, with the victim usually writhing in pain and terror until weakening and falling silent, but the [[FateWorseThanDeath ambiguity]] of it is far, far worse. Death within death guarantees pretty much no chance of ever being allowed to move on to the Ninth Underworld (unless said deathception just brings you to another level of the Afterlife), implied to be stuck forever with [[AndIMustScream no mouth with which to scream]]...
*** According to some commentaries in the remastered edition, a definitive answer on what happens to victims of sprouting was never thought of, but Tim Schafer says it may result in reincarnation. While not horrible as a CessationOfExistence, it's still a punishemnt because, instead of being able to move on, you are pulled back and forced to live another existence.
** "What you haven't seen... you haven't seen ''[[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace the Meadow]]''." With the implications of the above example in mind, just imagine how many bodies it must have taken to fill that entire field...
** Right at the beginning of Year 3, you receieve an emergency message warning you that [[spoiler:assassins have just boarded your ship]]. Immediately after this, you travel downstairs, only to find the hallways [[spoiler:''littered with piles of flowers''.]] What's worse is that you actually spoke to one of your crew members only a matter of seconds beforehand, who [[WouldHurtAChild couldn't have been more than fifteen]].
** Near the end of the game, [[spoiler:Manny is shot by [[BigBad Hector]]]] It'd be unnerving enough, watching the normally suave and collected Manny [[spoiler:stagger about in agony until he collapses in a heap down a hillside]], but the [[FauxAffablyEvil causal]] way Hector informs him that [[spoiler:he's out of fast-acting bullets, so his misery will take at several hours to be over,]] and then walks away chuckling is just downright chilling. The fact that Manny [[spoiler:struggles through groans of pain to describe the objects in his inventory like he always does once you [[ControllableHelplessness regain control of him]]]] is just the icing on the cake.

* MoralEventHorizon: Nick sprouting Lola. Domino trying to murder Glottis. [[spoiler: Olivia]] torturing Sal. Hector... OK, Hector was just always evil.

** Right at the beginning of Year 3, you receieve an emergency message warning you that [[spoiler:assassins have just boarded your ship]]. Immediately after this, you travel downstairs, only to find the hallways [[spoiler:''littered with piles of flowers''.]] What's worse is that you actually spoke to one of your crew members only a matter of seconds beforehand, and [[WouldHurtAChild he couldn't have been more than fifteen]].
** Near the end of the game, [[spoiler:Manny is shot by [[BigBad Hector]]]] It'd be unnerving enough, watching the normally suave and collected Manny [[spoiler:stagger about in agony until he collapses in a heap down a hillside]], but the [[FauxAffablyEvil causal]] way Hector informs him that [[spoiler:he's out of fast-acting bullets, so his misery will take at least an hour to be over,]] and then walks away chuckling is just downright chilling. The fact that Manny [[spoiler:struggles through groans of pain to describe the objects in his inventory like he always does once you [[ControllableHelplessness regain control of him]]]] is just the icing on the cake.

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Bibi, one of the two children working for Domino in Year 3, is a girl. Good luck figuring this out on your own, though; she has no hair or any other TertiarySexualCharacteristics to speak of (if anything, her clothes would actually look more fitting on a boy), her voice could easily pass as that of a pre-pubescent boy, her personality isn't that much different from her brother, Pugsey's, and there is no dialogue that refers to her as "she".

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Bibi, one of the two children working for Domino in Year 3, is a girl. Good luck figuring this out on your own, though; she has no TertiarySexualCharacteristics to speak of (if anything, her clothes would actually look more fitting on a boy), her voice could easily pass as that of a pre-pubescent boy, her personality isn't that much different from her brother, Pugsey's, and there is no dialogue that refers to her as "she".

* UncannyValley: The World of the Living.

* MagnumOpus: Although he is responsible for many acclaimed titles such as ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'' and ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' and ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'' was his pet project of 15 years, ''Grim Fandango'' is regarded by many as Tim Schafer's finest creation as well as one of the greatest adventure games ever made.