Luigi's Mansion
/Looking for an older Nintendo game with Luigi as a main character? Then Luigi’s Mansion might be the one you’re looking for.
Luigi’s Mansion is the first out of a current trilogy though some may have only heard of the two newest games or have only played the newest ones due to how recently they came out.
front cover of the games case. image courtesy of wikipedia.
gameplay from the first boss battle, image courtesy of the game hoard.
Luigi’s Mansion was released in 2001 on GameCube but more recently has been added to the 3DS. Each of the ghosts in the game has their own personality, design, and story behind each of them, even the minor ghosts have their own unique design and personality. The first game starts with Luigi receiving a letter that he won a mansion in a lottery, and a note from Mario letting Luigi know he’s heading to the mansion first to meet him there, but Luigi soon finds out that letter to be false with the mansion full of ghosts, a professor named E. Gadd attempting to capture the ghosts, and his brother missing.
Now Luigi must go through the mansion to find his brother Mario while capturing ghosts along the way with the help of Professor E. Gadd’s invention, the Poltergust 3000, which looks similar to a vacuum.
gameplay from THE beginning of the game, courtesy of moby games.
Fun fact when Nintendo created the GameCube system, they designed the controllers around the game Luigi’s Mansion as they wanted to have each button on the remote do something specific in the game. During this process, they forgot about the A button, which is the biggest button on the controller, and before releasing both they created a feature so when you pressed the A button it would make Luigi call out for Mario which was a great idea and helped with the eerie atmosphere of the game. This Mario call-out button was later added to both of the newer Luigi’s Mansion games as a call back to the original.
The eerie lighting in the game with the graphics paired with Luigi walking down dark hallways nervously humming the game’s theme song brings a spookier darker setting than the recent Luigi’s Mansion sequels as the more recent games have a brighter setting whereas this one has a darker look to it.
gameplay cut scene after defeating a boss battle, courtesy of moby games.
gameplay of luigi running from ghosts in the hallway, image courtesy of strategy wiki.
Another cool feature of this game is when Luigi goes to unlock a new door the screen zooms into a close-up of his hand shakily putting the key in the door and unlocking it adding a sense of suspense to the scene. The atmosphere of the game is dark, but it keeps with that theme all the way through, especially with the final boss battle, which is definitely one of the most surprising and best battles of the game.
When Luigi is in a dark room, he hasn’t cleared yet he’ll nervously hum the game’s theme song, though after he’s in a lit-up cleared room or hallway he’ll whistle in a lighter mood.
When needing to save the game you would need to get Luigi back to the Toad at the entrance of the Mansion inside the foyer. After defeating a boss, the game will bring you back to this room so you can save the game.
gameplay of saving the game, image courtesy of moby games.
Luigi’s Mansion is a great game to try if you like the newer games but are looking for a spookier vibe than the sequels, with the darker scenery and concept of finding items, Mario has dropped along the way, it definitely holds up through the years and is definitely worth playing if you like stories about playing as Luigi looking for Mario.
gameplay of the pause screen, image courtesy of moby games.
Hello, my name is Isabella. I’ve been playing video games since I was a kid, I first got into video games when I watched my mom play TMNT and Super Mario Sunshine on GameCube when I was younger.
I still play games when I have time though I tend to play only on consoles, the types of games I enjoy are survival horror, arcade-style, fighting games, social simulators, platformers, racing, detective narrative driven, and party games. I try to learn about different kinds of styles and genres of games, though mostly I tend to lean more towards Nintendo-made games, for example, many from the Mario franchise.
