Filled to the brim with charm and strong demonstration of the GameCube’s power. Pretty good. There’s a lot to love about the atmosphere of the game (particularly in boss fights), the animations/lighting, Luigi humming the theme tune whenever you walk about, distinctness of each portrait ghost with their respective rooms and puzzle, etc.
It’s held back, for me, by the inconsistency of its core vacuuming controls. The game’s very loose with what the best way for catching them is between tilting or holding the control stick, which leads to some frustration where it feels like you’re barely having any effect and you’re starting at the screen and not your two controller sticks. It’s hard to say the control really works with you, which makes a lot of the portraits feel like a slog or hard to get a start on. That, plus some camera issues in a few places and inconsistency in starting the suction for portrait ghosts in the split second holds the game back.
It’s no REmake 1 for me, but it’s still quite good, a great launch title and I admire 2001 Nintendo plenty for taking on such a novel concept that eventually led to two sequels years later.
It’s held back, for me, by the inconsistency of its core vacuuming controls. The game’s very loose with what the best way for catching them is between tilting or holding the control stick, which leads to some frustration where it feels like you’re barely having any effect and you’re starting at the screen and not your two controller sticks. It’s hard to say the control really works with you, which makes a lot of the portraits feel like a slog or hard to get a start on. That, plus some camera issues in a few places and inconsistency in starting the suction for portrait ghosts in the split second holds the game back.
It’s no REmake 1 for me, but it’s still quite good, a great launch title and I admire 2001 Nintendo plenty for taking on such a novel concept that eventually led to two sequels years later.