I’ve been sucking Nintendo d*ck off lately haven’t I guys? A company which I grew up with, lost respect due to their corporate scummy actions, and am falling in love with again by going back to their most acclaimed titles in the last five years. These feelings of enjoyment shouldn’t have happened, but they did and I’m actually kind of happy. Nintendo is one of those companies where when they actually put their mind to something they can create greatness. Metroid Dread is proof that the franchise can still thrive today and that putting a high amount of funding into a metroidvania is still a good idea. Breath of The Wild is still a revolutionary open world sandbox which readjusts genre standards and lets the player go at their own pace in a free world. There was Super Mario Odyssey which was an exciting 3D platforming playground filled to the brim with secrets to discover. Then there is Super Smash Bros Ultimate which became one of the most successful fighting games ever made and still remains to be relevant in the ever so competitive Esports scene. Nintendo is good when they want to be, and it’s nice to be reminded of simpler times. When I’d simply play a game to have joyous fun at the end of the day instead of being worried about every single factor of life.
We’re getting off topic. Point is that when I’m proven wrong usually I try not to freak out and find the positives amidst the breaking point. Looks like there’s another positive sack of sand to add onto the head of the unicycler who is dangling over a pit of snakes and fire. It was a title I was really excited for when it was announced, but didn’t get the chance to play until recently. Give it away for Luigi’s Mansion 3, the third entry to one of my favorite Nintendo franchises besides Metroid and The Legend of Zelda. I never played the original Luigi’s Mansion, but I always loved the idea behind it. Take Ghostbusters, combine it with Super Mario characters, lean more towards comedy than thrills, and let the lead role be the underrated support role we know as Luigi. I always preferred him more between the Mario brothers, because over the course of the mega franchise’s history he was given more of a personality. Maybe because when you have a side character you need them to interest the player, so whenever Luigi is on screen we see tons of expression whereas player character Mario stares blankly like a cat wondering why you’re angry at it for sh*tting on the rug.
Luigi’s Mansion was a launch title for the Nintendo Gamecube back in 2001, and Nintendo marketed it as the main reason to buy their next generation console. They wanted to show what the new hardware could handle, but also show they could do more with the Super Mario property besides create more platformers and make spinoffs based on existing ideas like go-karting and board games. The original idea was to place Super Mario characters into a doll house, and at some point they wanted to make an RPG where the house would change depending on the player’s actions and how far they were into their journey. They then explored the idea of a complex manor with maze-like level design and this led them to design a creepy mansion full of unexpected horrors. They also realized Mario has been the center of attention for the longest time and it would make more sense if one of their side characters took the lead role in the spinoff. They looked at Luigi, realized he could use more attention, and decided to make a whole game centered around his personality of being a coward.
Luigi’s Mansion was then put into development, released alongside the Nintendo Gamecube, and was a smash hit upon release. Sure it was a launch title so of course it would go well with the console it came with, but Luigi’s Mansion was truly a unique experience. It expressed the most personality out of all existing Mario games, had intriguing exploration and puzzle solving, and as mentioned earlier helped characterize the underrated brother. Some parts of Luigi’s Mansion probably feel outdated today, but it remains to be a classic and one of the highest selling releases on the Nintendo Gamecube years later. Fast forward ten years later and Luigi’s Mansion felt like a distant idea. It was a once in a lifetime gem and Nintendo wasn’t going to touch it ever again. It would remain in a glass case for the whole world to appreciate, but then Nintendo decided to smash that glass casing with a hammer and announce a sequel was finally in the works. It would try to connect itself with the original, but try to find a way to innovate and evolve from predated ideas. Enter Luigi’s Mansion 2 which would then be renamed to Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon. An exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS and just like before show what the hardware could do. For the most part, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon was considered a superb sequel. The exploration and puzzle solving still remained, but the vacuum sucking action was improved and there was more variety thanks to themed mansions. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon was the one I actually played and have fond memories of at a younger age. It had a good gameplay loop, let players take their time, and remains to be my game on the Nintendo 3DS. The development team of Dark Moon, Next Level Games, would prove themselves with this sequel and go on to create the third and final entry to this moderately acclaimed spinoff series.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 is the third and possibly final entry in the Luigi’s Mansion series, and I gotta say this is probably the best entry to date. I remember seeing the reveal trailer at E3 2019, and being really excited as I waited a pretty longtime for it. I was planning to get it on day one, but didn’t. I think it was because I missed out on the other big releases of 2019, and wanted to spend time catching up. The game was also pretty expensive and at the time I began to develop this mindset that if a game doesn’t have a runtime or content that matched up with the price tag then most likely it won’t be worth my time. Nintendo has this problem where their most recent games don’t go on sale and if they do there’s not much of a difference. My website was starting to pick up and I began to cover games that felt more mature for the audience I was aiming for. I forgot about Luigi’s Mansion 3, and that excitement from before just crumbled into dust as Nintendo made some really absurd business practices afterwards. However, I started to reminisce about it recently and finally persuaded myself to make a risky purchase. Does Luigi’s Mansion 3 live up to expectations? I can confidently say that it does and I’m so glad I decided to finally play it. I had a blast playing this game and while it didn’t last all too long it left behind a good impression. Today we’ll be talking about Luigi’s Mansion 3 and why it deserves your attention. So pick up Proto-I mean Poltergust G-00 and let’s suck some ghosts…off. I needed to make that joke guys.
Story
We follow Luigi, the younger brother of the good old Italian plumber we all know as Mario. Being the younger brother he’s always looked up to Mario. Being dragged on adventures with him and letting him stir the wheel forward as he knew his way around the ropes. Luigi has been there to support Mario and he doesn’t mind letting him get all the attention and glory. As long as he doesn’t get tied up in danger or put in a scenario where he is all by himself then that’s all that matters. However, that doesn’t exactly happen and one day Luigi’s name is drawn from a raffle for a free manor. He doesn’t remember signing up to win a manor, but he goes to it nonetheless to see what lies inside. As he steps onto the property he realizes that the manor doesn’t look like how the picture described, and once he makes his way inside ghosts begin to surround him. Luigi, much like us in this scenario, decides to flip the frick out and cower in fear before a scientist shows up with a vacuum capable of fending off ghosts. The scientist who saved Luigi is named Professor E. Gadd and he requires his help. An unusual amount of paranormal activity swarms the manor and he needs Luigi to find out what is causing it.
Luigi is thrusted into doing the task and soon learns his brother was kidnapped by the evil King Boo while cleaning out the manor of ghosts. Luigi defeats King Boo, saves his brother, and with the manor finally cleared out from ghosts he gets to live there in peace. Dark Moon then happens where E. Gadd discovers a valley full of ghost infested mansions, but they are friendly and willing to help him with his studies. One night a dark gem covers the moon which overlooks the valley, and the friendly ghosts become feral. E. Gadd goes into hiding, and using a teleporting device he created called Luigi and brings him to the valley. There he forces Luigi into the task of sucking up ghosts again and figuring out what is causing the ghosts to act aggressive. Turns out it’s King Boo, he kidnapped Mario while Luigi wasn’t looking again, and Luigi beats him to save his older brother. King Boo was locked up within a compartment designed by E. Gadd to contain Boos, and the two brothers never had to deal with the gnasty fiend again.
This brings us to Luigi’s Mansion 3 where Mario and friends have been invited to spend a weekend in a lovely multi-floored hotel known as The Last Resort. They pack their bags, load up onto a bus, and begin their trip to a luxurious vacation. On the bus is Mario of course, three Toads, Princess Peach, and Luigi who doesn’t mind kicking back. Also along for the vacation is Polterpup, a ghostly feline who Luigi decided to take in after his last adventure. Once they arrive at the hotel they are greeted by the staff and manager, Hellen Gravely, who quickly leads them to their rooms to rest the night away. Luigi settles into his hotel room, falls asleep instantly, and a few hours later he hears the screaming of his friends coming from their rooms. He steps outside to find the bright and colorful walls of the hotel slowly being drained into a spooky hallway, and that Hellen Gravely has come to their floor. She reveals that she is a ghost, a close follower of King Boo, and broke him out of E. Gadd’s containment chamber. Working together, they plan to trap Luigi in a painting much like his friends, but Luigi manages to escape using a laundry chute Polterpup guided him. They are dumped into the garage area and find a vehicle with a device in the storage compartment that will help them with their horrorly troubles. The Poltergust G-00, an updated version of the ghost sucking vacuum Luigi used before. They then find E. Gadd trapped within a painting as well, free him, and catch up. E. Gadd reveals that he was invited to spend a night in a manor full of ghosts, and in exchange of being presented new studies by the owner would bring the most valuable ghosts he has. He is tricked and King Boo who is brought over along his trip is freed. He asks Luigi once again to track the ghosts he lost and assist him in rescuing his friends. With no other choices and the entrance of the hotel being locked up, Luigi decides to help. It’s time for another spooky night.
Gameplay
Luigi’s Mansion 3 and past entries have a core gameplay loop I’m quite fond of despite being simple, but that’s pretty good as the mechanics are built upon and explored overtime. The loop consists of exploring rooms, using your vacuum to suck up objects, and capture any ghosts which pop up on screen. To start sucking up a ghost you must flash it first with your flashlight, and may sound easy on the surface but sometimes you’ll have to do a little bit more than that. Enemies come in a variety of flavors and it’s your job to work your way around them. You have these big red bullies like enemies who knock you about but have slow, easy to read attacks. There are these skinny yellow dudes who like to chuck junk towards you. These purple ghosts which turn invisible and you have to be able to tell where they were last. Then there’s the basic blue ghosts which are easy to suck up, but sometimes come equipped with gear to either attack the player in different ways or protect them from your flashlight. You have to find their weak spots to be able to flash them, and luckily you have an arsenal of tools available.
Luigi is equipped with the Poltergust G-00, which can suck and blow at ease. It can be used to suck up enemies, but it can also be used to interact with the environment. Interact as much as you can, because there is a lot of money hidden throughout each level and bonus rewards if you poke around in the right spots. Luigi has also come with new equipment, and one of them is a plunger launcher. He can shoot the plunger at surfaces it is capable of latching onto, and then pull on the plunger using the vacuum to launch an item into the air and slam it onto the ground destroying it. Oh yeah, slamming is a new sucking action which Luigi has and when sucking on ghosts hard enough he can slam them around to drain their health faster. I like this mechanic. In Dark Moon you were able to suck ghosts faster by mashing on the A button at the right time, but here they decided to give you an ability that felt more satisfying. Slamming objects and ghosts around can also help you destroy other surrounding objects, or deal damage to ghosts surrounding you making enemy groups easier to maintain.
Carrying over from Dark Moon is the dark light which can be shined onto objects that may appear to be invisible. Objects that have transformed into an invisible form will emit Boo Balls, no I’m not joking that is what they are called, and you have suck them up quickly for the object to return back to a physical state. Next new addition is this ability to burst out wind from the Poltergust and hop into the air for at least a second. It’s incorporated into the combat really well as it’s used to avoid shockwaves, stun enemies if they are surrounding you, or maybe knock an object out of their hands. Final new addition is the biggest one of them all, Gooigi. Luigi can summon a green copy of himself, and switch between the two while solving puzzles. This allows the developers to explore upon further ideas, and design puzzles where both of them have to rely on each other to move forward. Have one pull a string which opens a door, and let the other one walk through as the Luigi keeping the door open will continue sucking. Gooigi has low health and melts when touching water, but the tradeoff is that he can walk through metal graders Luigi can’t fit through and be summoned numerous times.
The last thing I want to touch upon are the levels, and by our lord and savior they are the best aspect about Luigi’s Mansion 3. The game takes place in a multi-floored hotel which allows the developers and art directors to get creative with what each floor is themed around. One floor may take place in a movie studio, a mall, a magic house, a greenhouse, and at some point you are dumped into a pyramid with snakes and sand. Each themed floor experiments with new ideas and mechanics, and it allows the repetitive gameplay of running and sucking everything you see to feel refreshing each time. At the end of each level there’s a boss themed around the floor, and this is the aspect they carried over from the original. I love Dark Moon, but I do have to admit the mission based structure did leave a lot to be desired with how stages end as a boss would only appear at the end of each world/manor. In Luigi’s Mansion 3 they carefully designed each boss and made them unique, and sometimes they utilized the mechanics and lessons you learned throughout the level. This is great. You are pacing the player into learning rules and then testing them by applying them in different ways. Other than that the gameplay is solid, the core loop never gets annoying, and each of the puzzles are fair and never too confusing. Hopefully you can suck up every ghost…..off. Yeah, the joke starts to lose its effect around the second time.
Thoughts
Luigi’s Mansion 3 is exactly what I was hoping for and is a fantastic wrap-up (possibly) to this amazing trilogy of games. Is it perfect? No, but what it does well is done excellently and most of the problems I have don’t affect the core experience. There’s just a lot to love with this game, and this yet more proof of what Nintendo can do when they put their hearts into it again. Make a fun little adventure that any gamer can enjoy.
Let’s get what I like about Luigi’s Mansion 3 out of the way first. The core gameplay loop of this series is more than twenty years old now and going through it again recently I’d say it aged pretty well. I like combat that challenges the player and pushes them to efficiency, but at the same time I also like combat that gets them to think rather than mindlessly mash away at the attack buttons for an easy victory. It's why I praise the combat of soulslikes pretty often. The Luigi’s Mansion series, while not having the best designed combat loop in a video game, has one I enjoy for how unique it is and the ways it separates itself from other games of this type. The simple puzzle adventurer type of games. You stun, suck, and try to move the other direction which the ghost is running from so you can keep them in place. It’s like fishing, but the fish are screaming in pain and agony. I like exploring a mansion with interconnected rooms, and I especially love wondering how I even managed to get from one place to another within a short period of time. I enjoying checking each nook and cranny for treasure, and the game always rewards me for looking where most games would lock you off with invisible walls or literal f*ck off text telling you to go the other way. The puzzles are simple, but they aren’t too simple where you don’t even have to put thought into them. They will test your thinking skills, and ability to comprehend the mechanics and tools available. Some of the puzzles and solutions I found are quite unique, and I haven’t uncovered puzzles this clever since Uncharted 4 and Outer Wilds. I have really low standards okay!? The gameplay overall is great, so what else?
As stated earlier, I love how each floor has its own unique theme and that the bosses are based around the mechanics used in each level. It helps keep consistency while also providing variety. Some players may complain that staging the game in a hotel doesn’t make it a Luigi’s Mansion game as the spooky residence has been replaced with moving your way up floor to floor. Well I think it was a good step forward, because Dark Moon made us realize why having a bunch of themed mansions separated from each other didn’t keep a consistent flow. While there are loading screens secretly placed in Luigi’s Mansion 3 to separate each floor at least the transition between floors feel natural and you are still within the hotel. You still feel like you are within a confined space rather than hoping in and out of a mission based structure. Graphically the game looks amazing and while it’s not as detailed as let’s say Breath of The Wild, it has a lot of polish and shine to it. I would also like to say the animation and gestures all the characters make is what gives this game and the entire series personality. Skill Up stated this during his end of the year top ten list, but I’ll just restate his opinion in my own way. Plus this was the same description which I gave Psychonauts 2 last year. Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a really good animated film and that’s actually a compliment. There’s so much fluidity and transition with each pose, and you can just get the feeling without the character having to describe it. Almost all the characters can’t talk anyways and it would probably ruin the experience if one of them tried to say something. I’m not really excited for the Super Mario Movie, but I do hope they keep a style like this or if they ever decide to make a modern Super Mario cartoon they do something like this.
The game took me close to around ten hours to beat, and while the sixty dollar price tag makes the purchase difficult to make I’d say it’s worth it. I’d rather have a ten hour experience with top notch quality content rather than a fifty hour dragged out experience where the quality tends to dip up and down rapidly. Luigi’s Mansion 3 is really good, but I do have some gripes. The controls for the most part are great, and I like how the flashlight and plunger are mapped into two buttons. So that if you’re aiming and you need to ready one of the two you don’t have to let go of the right joystick and move your fingers to the buttons above. The only part about the controls I dislike is how aiming itself works. It’s better than Dark Moon, as you now have a right joystick to work with and aim the Poltergust to where you actually want. It just feels really awkward to turn around, and aim the Poltergust up and down. Combine this with how motion controls are on by default and you get a really weird aiming system. I don’t understand why they didn’t make it so that the direction you point the right joystick in is the direction Luigi points the Poltergust. Instead we get “a roundtable turn.”
One of the biggest problems I had with Dark Moon is that you accumulate a lot of money throughout the game and it could have been put towards something better. In Dark Moon they had a progression system where you slowly unlock upgrades for the Poltergust. Now they just ditched it for an in-game shop, and you don’t even purchase upgrades through it, instead you purchase one use item with very little meaning. I mean the revive bone is kind of useful, but a majority of players shouldn’t die a lot as this is a pretty balanced game and if you do die the last autosave isn’t far from where you were. Final complaint is the Super Suction which is this ultimate ability you unlock late into the game. It’s really cool to tear the environment apart, but it’s heavily underutilized. I only used it twice across my playthrough and only one of those times was needed to progress. It’s not even used during the final boss, which would have been the best time to use it. Other than that the game is great.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 is another fantastic exclusive to the Nintendo Switch and another reason as to why the console is rocking hard. I don’t think I’ll be able to persuade all of you to play, but just give it a chance and you’ll see why I believe it’s one of the best games on the console. It’s a lovely little game to just cruise through and it never wastes your time as it presents interesting moments from beginning to end. I strongly recommend this and I hope Nintendo can continue producing quality products. In the end I give Luigi’s Mansion 3 a 9/10 for excellence at best.
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