Always something new

[MeddlingMonk]

I recently replayed Grim Fandango for like the gazillionth time. I know the game backwards and forwards. I could write a book on the thing. Oh, wait...

 

Anyway, I thought I'd seen and heard everything. I was wrong. On this latest playthrough, I suddenly got an idea to do a couple of things I'd never thought of doing before: showing the sprouted agent's photo and the other sprouted agent's arm (You can't tell the players without a program!) to Meche and Eva. With the photo, both said how sad it was. With the arm, Meche was frightened and Eva was blasé.

 

None of this is any big deal and I'd bet there are plenty of people who did those things on their very first time. The point is, no matter how much you think you know, you never know it all.

 

So anybody else ever do something in the game just to do it, expecting nothing and being surprised by finding something new to you?

[Thrik]

Oh yeah, I've done it quite a few times. Every time I replay (which admittedly isn't too often) I not only forget a lot of the awesome dialogue beforehand, but I also end up accidentally discovering new things. I remember realising for the first time that the two different ways of examining things can result in different responses — came across loads of new lines.

[MeddlingMonk]

And that was always one of the cool things about LucasArts adventures: you could play 'outside the lines', unlike Sierra adventures which punished you for trying something weird or pointless just to try it. How many other games would follow through on the implicit absurdity of trying to 'pick up' characters who are sailors? And I still find it funny that 'use/talk' and 'pick up' accomplish the same thing with Carla. A very original, and medium-specific way to define the relationship. I got pages and pages of stuff out of the little, throw-away line Manny says if you try to 'use' the Blue Casket neon sign. There's so much packed into the game that isn't really essential to playing the game, but which makes replaying (even after 12 years) worthwhile.

[DeadYorick]

I love finding new things in older games I never thought about before.

[VampireNaomi]

I haven't played the game to the end in something like five years, and I've forgotten loads. I'm going to wait one more year and then it's fandango time again.

 

When I first played the game, I had no idea that you could examine items in two ways. Because of that, I've never used the other way in the last two years. There are plenty of new things to be discovered.

 

The attention to detail in this game never stops to amaze me, especially since you often discover some little piece of description or dialogue that seems completely random, but then later on in the game, you find something else that connects to it, and everything clicks into place. It's perfect.