A cute game about ghosts? Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon – Reviewed
Fans of the Mushroom Kingdom may remember the day when Luigi’s Mansion was launched with Nintendo’s highly-anticipated new console, the Gamecube, in 2001. Nintendo fans had been waiting for years for a quality game that was centralized around Luigi, Mario’s kookier and clumsier younger brother (depending on the canon, he may also be his twin), and Luigi’s Mansion offered just that.
The original Luigi’s Mansion game was refreshing because it offered a separate gameplay style that fans were not accustomed to from previous Mario-related games. There were no goombas to jump on, no princesses to save, no resurrected Bowser clones to defeat; simply Luigi shaking in his boots trying to capture ghosts as he adventures through the spooky mansion to find his captured brother, Mario, with the help of the nutty Professor E. Gadd (a poltergeist specialist).
When I initially heard that Nintendo was releasing a sequel for the 3DS, I nearly peed my pants in excitement. The first Luigi’s Mansion was released when I was 13-years-old and was the perfect launch point for my teenage obsession with horror and other scary video games. To be fair, my entire childhood was spent obsessively reading YA novels about ghosts, haunted dollhouses and other spooky spirit-related campfire-like stories. Luigi’s Mansion may not have kick started my ghost obsession, but it catapulted me into the wonderful world of horror video games that I now reside in. The second game that influenced my horror obsession was Resident Evil 4, which actually launched on the Gamecube before being released for Sony’s PS2.
I can’t lie, while I was excited for Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, I was also a little skeptical that it would be able to capture the spooky, goofy essence of the original game. I had high hopes, and expected it to be fun, but I was blown away by what I walked into.
Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon not only manages to capture the original kooky, spooky essence of its predecessor, but it successfully brings the game up to date with adorable, smooth and picture-perfect graphics on the 3DS while still maintaining the same design aesthetics that Luigi’s Mansion busted onto the scene with in 2001. The game starts off with Luigi casually lounging in front of the television in his small, fit-for-a-plumber shack when all of the sudden, on the screen, Professor E. Gadd appears! Luigi, knowing exactly what this means, starts whining like a scared puppy because ultimately, Elvin Gadd means endless spooks and endless spooks means Luigi is forced to clean house for the ghost-obsessed old Professor. Like the first game, E. Gadd explains to Luigi that he’ll need to use the Poltergust, a vacuum-like machine that sucks up ghosts and treasure, but unlike the previous version, the Poltergust 3000, the Poltergust 5000 has some fun new features and extra-ghost-sucking power! The ghosts of Gloomy Manor have gone out of control! The once-peaceful poltergeist residents began running amuck and, because E. Gadd is a tiny, scared little man, he opts to send Luigi to do all the dirty work (despite Luigi’s objections).
Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon has all the humour of the original game and the ease of play. It is by no means a difficult game, but it is rich with puzzles so you’ll never get bored exploring various parts of each spooky level. Unlike the previous game, Luigi is now equipped with a “Dark Light Device” which, with its dazzling rainbow beam, will uncover all sorts of hidden secrets. From hidden ghosts to concealed treasure chests, you’re able to explore the haunted stages on a level you weren’t able to do before.
I really enjoyed Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon. The single-player mode wasn’t quick and it didn’t end abruptly. There was a lot to do in each stage and the level exploration wasn’t totally linear, allowing you to be creative with the way you wanted to play the game. The mechanics of the controls were easy to pick up, although I’m used to playing with inverted controls on other games so I got a little confused in the beginning with up and down. But really, that has more to do with my own muscle memory than anything.
Multiplayer online mode was probably my favourite part of the game, allowing you team up online (or with friends) to play through multiple levels of the “Scarescraper” and defeat mini-goals per floor. There were different objectives per floor, such as trying to chase down Polterpup (the game’s ghost dog mascot) or hunt all the ghosts down, and each one kept me entertained no matter how much I played online. Four players were allowed in one scarescraper, max, but you could easily play by yourself (in some cases, only if you cranked the difficulty down). Each player was a different Luigi variation (green, blue, orange, pink) and depending how many red coins were picked up at the end-of-level red coin shuffle, you could be awarded a bonus item or upgrade to make the next floor easier for you.
Someone on Twitter told me Luigi’s Mansion was a terrible game and I nearly bust out laughing. I normally don’t take into account what random people say about games, but I feel the need to stress how wrong this person was. Even if you’re not a huge handheld game fan, Luigi’s Mansion is a super fun and entertaining game. You’ll get hours of gameplay enjoyment out of it. It doesn’t pretend to be a super-serious console game, it just is what it is: fun, spooky and kooky with plenty of replay value. Pick up a copy of it on the 3DS eShop for $38.87 or grab it from your local electronics store.
