Luigi’s Mansion review: Home is where the haunt is

Bradley Segarra, Reporter

Luigi’s Mansion is a Nintendo Gamecube game. Originally a much scarier game, it was a 2001 bestseller for the GameCube. 

It had to tone down the horror elements due to it being a Mario game. This spinoff to the Mario franchise stars Luigi as the main role for the second time. The plot has a twist to it. 

Luigi finds a mansion that he had won in a contest. The catch is, he didn’t enter any contest. Upon entering Boo Woods, he discovers that the mansion itself is haunted by many ghosts. 

After a close call with one of them, he meets an elderly man named Professor Elvin Gadd. He had lost his famous ghost portraits when the mansion came. 

To make matters worse, a group of Boos hinders in the area with their king. Mario isn’t seen anywhere. Luigi has to go Ghostbuster-style to put an end to this spookiness. For the gameplay, it isn’t an ordinary Mario game. 

You will find yourself walking door through door finding the keys to open each room. Some of the doors will be fake and clarified as a hazard. 

Secret rooms also exist that are not accessed by normal means. Entrances can be creative for portrait ghosts. 

For example, there is a strong one that is in the gym room and can only be stunned if Luigi punches a punching bag to him. There are portrait ghosts that will need to be caught in a variety of ways. 

Luigi’s Mansion game.

Boos will be hiding everywhere so they must be caught as fast as possible. This quest won’t go without waste. There is a ton of treasure scattered around the mansion such as coins, dollars, gems, diamonds, pearls, you name it. 

Even the portrait ghosts that will get caught has some monetary value. Not to mention that there is an art gallery where you can witness the various ghosts that have been caught. There is more content available in the 3ds remake several years later. 

A 3D element that was planned in the original ended up being cut due to limitations of the GameCube. The 3ds version fixed this. 

More extra stuff added to the remake included a boss rush mode, local multiplayer, amiibo support, and a map via the touch screen. While the 3ds remake does sound like the best version to play the game, there’s some nitpicks I got with it.

For one, loading screens are included despite the fact the original never had them. Secondly, when playing multiplayer, the smooth frames per second drop lower than expected. 

Even some of the areas that were dark in the original game were made a bit brighter, ruining the tone of the game. 

Nevertheless, the game is still considered a fun time to catch ghosts. 

If you are up for some ghost-catching, then this is the game for you. Want to make the experience to be even better when playing this game? 

Wait for nighttime, turn off the lights, and close the curtains. 

It could give easy frights, but that is the point as the game was meant to be a scary kind of Mario game.

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