Last February, we were shocked and amazed to find that Luigi was on his way back! With the first game launching as a GameCube launch title back in 2001 to tentative critical acclaim and the sequel coming to 3DS in 2013 to less critical acclaim, many of us assumed this franchise was dead. Not so! Like the ghosts Luigi so diligently traps, Luigi’s Mansion is back from the dead. The first game is an absolute classic and I suggest you play it. The second game is good but nothing to write home about. The headliner for LM3 is that it takes all the best elements of both games, enhances them, and adds enough new content to make it my game of the year for 2019.
It seems downright impossible that you’d be unfamiliar with the Luigi’s Mansion theme by now, but regardless I encourage you to pop it on and get spooky. Still an absolute bop.
Luigi has of course always played backseat to his brother Mario, and the infamous “Year of Luigi” (2013) brought about the worst financial year in Nintendo’s history. But now, it’s his time to shine! If you’re not familiar with the basic plot of the first Luigi’s Mansion, Luigi gets a letter that he’s won a mansion in a contest he didn’t enter. He arrives to find that the whole thing was orchestrated by King Boo and that Mario’s soul has been locked away in the ghost world! Luigi must clear the mansion of all its ghostly inhabitants, solve some fun puzzles, and take down King Boo to rescue his brother. It’s an absolute blast, even though it’s only ~5 hours long.
This game has a similar premise — Luigi, Mario, Peach, and the Toads are invited to an all expenses paid resort in another contest they did not enter (yes, it’s been 18 years and he still hasn’t learned). The hotel manager welcomes them in and all seems well… until tragedy strikes! King Boo appears at the very beginning of the game and tries to consume your soul. Kind of a crazy start, but I’m in it right away. You’ll need to make your way up 17 distinct floors of the hotel, each with their own theme (varying from greenhouse to medieval castle to actual pirate ship), collect ca$h money, gems, and power-ups here and there, and reach the roof where you’ll finally have the big face off. You know what? King Boo > Bowser. King Boo is literally dragging Mario to hell to get revenge on Luigi.
Your friends are sealed away inside paintings (similar to how Luigi seals away ghosts) and King Boo swears his revenge on you. It’s kind of flattering, honestly. Finally, Luigi has a real, bona fide nemesis! A Bowser of his own. You then enlist the help of longtime Mario Bros. collaborator Professor E. Gadd (the scientist who made the original Poltergust as well as FLUDD from Super Mario Sunshine) as well as your ghost dog, Polterpup. Yes, you can pet the dog.
The great thing about LM3 is that it is just fun. Pure, uncut Colombian fun. This is one of those games where it’s immediately evident that the team absolutely loved what they were creating. The fully destructible environments are all gorgeous and so distinct from floor to floor you’ll barely be able to tell you’re playing the same game. The developers are clearly proud of their product, and their pride comes through in just how silly they’re willing to get in the pursuit of fun.
Luigi has lost his elemental abilities from before, but he’s been given new abilities to make up for it. Somehow, the devs managed to make each of these powers equally useful and had sections on every floor that required many uses of every ability in strange combinations. The Darklight (which for some reason I kept calling the Psychoscope) allows you to see invisible things or peer through ghostly illusions. The strobulb is the classic flashlight burst. The plunger can be shot and tugged by the Poltergust and used in an insane variety of ways. There’s a new burst attack for AOE stun when you’re surrounded or need to dodge attacks, and of course the big new mechanic of slamming ghosts to do damage, destroy the environments, and damage/stun other ghosts. It all comes together so seamlessly. But I would be remiss to not talk about the newest and most important mechanic — Gooigi.
Many, including myself, thought that Gooigi would just be a gimmick when first revealed, a way to shoehorn in co-op play. Absolutely not the case. Gooigi is essential for solving most of the puzzles in this 20 hour adventure, and is necessary for a good chunk of the boss fights as well. When you switch to controlling Gooigi, Luigi sort deactivates and will continue doing whatever you left him doing, and vice versa. This makes it possible to play the entire game either solo or co-op, and have roughly the same experience. No spoilers, but the penultimate boss fight required me to control both Luigi and Gooigi at the same time, switching between them every 2 seconds or so, and holy shit was it a blast. I am in awe of how cleverly designed each and every boss fight was.
Brilliant game design. Hats off. Anything that can possibly support co-op should nowadays, but you should be able to play games solo too. For the record, I played the bulk of this on my own but played co-op with my brother for about an hour. The game is probably more fun co-op, but if you don’t have a partner it can still be a 10/10 experience.
There is multiplayer as well, and it’s surprisingly … good? You can play online with friends or randos in the Scarescraper, a procedurally generated mansion that keeps on spookin’. There isn’t a ton of replayability to it, but the 2 or 3 hours you get out of it are actually a blast. I played with my friend online and we really got into it, coming up with strategies and ideas and coordinating with the randos we were paired with through emotes. Highly recommended, it doesn’t feel tacked on at all. I have heard that no single player DLC is coming for the game, but multiplayer DLC is on the way. It’s kind of just a nice icing on top of the cake of the campaign though.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 absolutely reeks of that Nintendo polish. I’d venture to say that it’s their best looking game yet, perhaps right up alongside Mario Odyssey. If you like having fun, you absolutely owe it to yourself to experience this firsthand, either with a friend or flyin’ solo. Every boss fight totally distinct and is a healthy mix of puzzles and combat, so you’re using all of your brain all the time. The ghosts have a real personality to them, so you’re not just sucking up endless mobs of blue dudes. The fully destructible environments are beautifully crafted and you can see the love and care put into them. This is my game of the year for 2019. If you have a Switch, this game is an essential right alongside Super Mario Odyssey and Zelda Breath of the Wild. Plus, the feeling of sucking up everything in the room into a tiny vacuum will never not be amazing.
It seems downright impossible that you’d be unfamiliar with the Luigi’s Mansion theme by now, but regardless I encourage you to pop it on and get spooky. Still an absolute bop.
Luigi has of course always played backseat to his brother Mario, and the infamous “Year of Luigi” (2013) brought about the worst financial year in Nintendo’s history. But now, it’s his time to shine! If you’re not familiar with the basic plot of the first Luigi’s Mansion, Luigi gets a letter that he’s won a mansion in a contest he didn’t enter. He arrives to find that the whole thing was orchestrated by King Boo and that Mario’s soul has been locked away in the ghost world! Luigi must clear the mansion of all its ghostly inhabitants, solve some fun puzzles, and take down King Boo to rescue his brother. It’s an absolute blast, even though it’s only ~5 hours long.
This game has a similar premise — Luigi, Mario, Peach, and the Toads are invited to an all expenses paid resort in another contest they did not enter (yes, it’s been 18 years and he still hasn’t learned). The hotel manager welcomes them in and all seems well… until tragedy strikes! King Boo appears at the very beginning of the game and tries to consume your soul. Kind of a crazy start, but I’m in it right away. You’ll need to make your way up 17 distinct floors of the hotel, each with their own theme (varying from greenhouse to medieval castle to actual pirate ship), collect ca$h money, gems, and power-ups here and there, and reach the roof where you’ll finally have the big face off. You know what? King Boo > Bowser. King Boo is literally dragging Mario to hell to get revenge on Luigi.
Your friends are sealed away inside paintings (similar to how Luigi seals away ghosts) and King Boo swears his revenge on you. It’s kind of flattering, honestly. Finally, Luigi has a real, bona fide nemesis! A Bowser of his own. You then enlist the help of longtime Mario Bros. collaborator Professor E. Gadd (the scientist who made the original Poltergust as well as FLUDD from Super Mario Sunshine) as well as your ghost dog, Polterpup. Yes, you can pet the dog.
The great thing about LM3 is that it is just fun. Pure, uncut Colombian fun. This is one of those games where it’s immediately evident that the team absolutely loved what they were creating. The fully destructible environments are all gorgeous and so distinct from floor to floor you’ll barely be able to tell you’re playing the same game. The developers are clearly proud of their product, and their pride comes through in just how silly they’re willing to get in the pursuit of fun.
Luigi has lost his elemental abilities from before, but he’s been given new abilities to make up for it. Somehow, the devs managed to make each of these powers equally useful and had sections on every floor that required many uses of every ability in strange combinations. The Darklight (which for some reason I kept calling the Psychoscope) allows you to see invisible things or peer through ghostly illusions. The strobulb is the classic flashlight burst. The plunger can be shot and tugged by the Poltergust and used in an insane variety of ways. There’s a new burst attack for AOE stun when you’re surrounded or need to dodge attacks, and of course the big new mechanic of slamming ghosts to do damage, destroy the environments, and damage/stun other ghosts. It all comes together so seamlessly. But I would be remiss to not talk about the newest and most important mechanic — Gooigi.
Many, including myself, thought that Gooigi would just be a gimmick when first revealed, a way to shoehorn in co-op play. Absolutely not the case. Gooigi is essential for solving most of the puzzles in this 20 hour adventure, and is necessary for a good chunk of the boss fights as well. When you switch to controlling Gooigi, Luigi sort deactivates and will continue doing whatever you left him doing, and vice versa. This makes it possible to play the entire game either solo or co-op, and have roughly the same experience. No spoilers, but the penultimate boss fight required me to control both Luigi and Gooigi at the same time, switching between them every 2 seconds or so, and holy shit was it a blast. I am in awe of how cleverly designed each and every boss fight was.
Brilliant game design. Hats off. Anything that can possibly support co-op should nowadays, but you should be able to play games solo too. For the record, I played the bulk of this on my own but played co-op with my brother for about an hour. The game is probably more fun co-op, but if you don’t have a partner it can still be a 10/10 experience.
There is multiplayer as well, and it’s surprisingly … good? You can play online with friends or randos in the Scarescraper, a procedurally generated mansion that keeps on spookin’. There isn’t a ton of replayability to it, but the 2 or 3 hours you get out of it are actually a blast. I played with my friend online and we really got into it, coming up with strategies and ideas and coordinating with the randos we were paired with through emotes. Highly recommended, it doesn’t feel tacked on at all. I have heard that no single player DLC is coming for the game, but multiplayer DLC is on the way. It’s kind of just a nice icing on top of the cake of the campaign though.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 absolutely reeks of that Nintendo polish. I’d venture to say that it’s their best looking game yet, perhaps right up alongside Mario Odyssey. If you like having fun, you absolutely owe it to yourself to experience this firsthand, either with a friend or flyin’ solo. Every boss fight totally distinct and is a healthy mix of puzzles and combat, so you’re using all of your brain all the time. The ghosts have a real personality to them, so you’re not just sucking up endless mobs of blue dudes. The fully destructible environments are beautifully crafted and you can see the love and care put into them. This is my game of the year for 2019. If you have a Switch, this game is an essential right alongside Super Mario Odyssey and Zelda Breath of the Wild. Plus, the feeling of sucking up everything in the room into a tiny vacuum will never not be amazing.
sairam71
1 year ago