Ah Luigi’s Mansion, when I was a kid this was one of my favorite games especially around Halloween and one of the first two games I got for the GameCube. Now that it’s rereleased on the 3DS and I can take it on the go the memories came right on back and after replaying and completing it it still holds up, though not without some flaws. Now for those who haven’t played this 16 year old game (Christ how time flies) the premise is a simple as a Mario game can be. Luigi wins a mansion in a contest he didn’t enter (cue Admiral Ackbar) and he finds the place is haunted. Now normally he’d have run for the hills by now but Mario got there first to scope it out and was captured by King Boo and his army of Ghosts, most of whom have escaped from the collection of Paranormal researcher Professor E. Gadd.
Gadd had captured a giant Boo called Boolossus and in retaliation, King Boo freed him along with all of the other Ghosts in his portrait collection. Now King Boo and all of the Professors Portrait Ghosts are hiding out in their newly constructed Mansion with Mario as their prisoner. So now with the Professor’s Poltergust 3000 Luigi has to venture into the Mansion, capture all of the portrait ghosts, defeat King Boo and save Mario, like I said simple. Since this is a remake of a GameCube game there’s more then a few updates that I both like and dislike. Let’s get the one bad thing I have about this remake out of the way, it has motion control.
When you’re sucking in or launching an element you have to aim it using the 3DS’ gyroscopic control which gets really old really fast and can make some Ghosts downright unbearable. Though you can easily resolve this issue in one of three ways, either have the 3DS XL with the C Stick and Z buttons or if you have just a New 3DS then the Circle Pad Pro will the job as well. Either way with those and the C Stick the issues that I have will pretty much go away. However if you use the circle pad pro you’ll have it activate it every time you turn the game back on or close the 3DS, annoying but nothing that’s going to break the deal. Also you can turn off the Motion controls by going into the options menu and setting the sensitivity to 0, though again you’ll need the c stick from either of the previously mentioned solutions otherwise this port will be very difficult.
Other then that one issue this is a fantastic rerelease. As a modern game Luigi’s Mansion 3DS has some achievements to complete such as capture all 50 Boos, get all of the Portrait Ghosts, you get the idea. This also has a new rank for the Ghosts that can only unlock once you get access to the hidden Mansion after you beat the game once, you can actually get them a Platinum Frame if you can suck all 150 of their HP in one shot. A tough order but one that can be done with practice. Though just a heads up, Chauncey, Nana and Sue Pea made my life miserable!
Sue Pea in particular caused my control stick to crack slightly from all the pressure I was placing on it to wrangle her in. Though this was ultimately worth it in the end when I was rewarded with the S rank Mansion for getting platinum frames for all of the Ghosts. Though I may have had an easier time if I had assistance from Gooigi, the co-op character introduced for this port from E Gadd in the future during the events of Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon which I haven’t played but will give it a shot if I have the time. As mentioned Gooigi is a protoplasm construct of Luigi that can help you during the game and having his help in the Hidden Mansion and getting platinum frames will be a godsend! After playing Luigi’s Mansion on the GameCube so many times the Hidden Mansion in the 3DS port is the most challenge I’ve ever had from this game since the first time I played it all those years ago.
There’s more ghosts in the rooms of the Mansion with more HP, Speedy Spirits are in completely different locations, some keys are in different rooms, Mario’s items for Madam Clarvoya are in different rooms, this mode can really throw veterans off their game. Also the Hidden Mansion changes one of the optional ghosts to mandatory and vice versa. Slim Bankshot is now mandatory while Henry and Orville are optional, other then that the rest are as you remember just with harder pulls, more HP and way more annoying as a result. But seeing that S Mansion was really rewarding after going through all of this BS. So if you have a 3DS make sure you pick up a copy of this remake of a ghoulishly good game, even though Halloween’s over at the time of this article, poop.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Luigi's Mansion 3Ds is owned by Nintendo, Nintendo EAD (GameCube) Grezzo (3DS)
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