Luigi’s Mansion (2001) Nintendo GameCube RETRO REVIEW

After placing this on my last top 10, I couldn’t resist going back to this game and felt I had more to say about it then my initial top 10 so let’s begin.

As many Nintendo fans know, every time the beloved company releases a new console its expected that it will be accompanied by a brand-new Mario game at launch. However, back in 2001 as we all anticipated the Nintendo GameCube: Nintendo decided to throw all tradition out the window and give green Mario a turn in the spotlight. What we got was “Luigi’s Mansion”, a hauntingly fun adventure that overflows with charm and boasts unique game mechanics that makes it stand out among Nintendo’s vast library of first party games. Although “Luigi’s Mansion” fails to escape some issues that hold it back. So, let’s grab our vacuum and Game boy horror and go more in depth with Luigi’s journey into the mysterious mansion.

One aspect that will be familiar for Nintendo fans is the story, Luigi has won a mansion in a contest he didn’t even enter (Sounds legit) and has set off the meet Mario to claim their prize. Unfortunately, Mario got there early and has been kidnapped by the ghostly residents. Luigi meets Professor E.Gadd who supplies you with the polturgust 3000 (love it) so that you could suck up all the ghosts that had escaped from his portrait collection and return them to the gallery so you can then save Mario. A basic Nintendo Mario plot placed into a more unique scenario, but very charming either way.

Nintendo always puts gameplay first and this clear in this game, it’s extremely satisfying to capture all the ghosts in the mansion. Working your way through rooms is very exciting as you don’t know what ghosts will appear and you just feel awesome when you manage to capture multiple ghosts at once. You capture ghosts by stunning them with your flashlight to expose their heart, once revealed the player can then begin to use the polturgust to capture them by pulling them with the analogue stick towards you till their health reaches zero. An incredibly fun mechanic, but not all ghosts can simply be caught in this method. Occasionally as you work your way though the mansion you will come across the portrait ghosts, these acts as mini bosses or area bosses and is where much of the charm that the game oozes comes from. Each portrait ghost has a puzzle for you to solve to expose their heart, this can be as simple as waiting for the ghost to make the appropriate animation such as yawning or manipulating parts of the environment with your poltergust: This thing can shoot fire, ice and water so use it wisely. I adore this part of the game; each portrait ghost has a unique character about them and offer a different experience in every battle. Your Game boy horror offers a brief description of them after they are captured, and their designs are all unique and charming, whenever I look back on this game I always remember the portrait ghosts before anything else. The element of discovery is great in this game, some of the portrait ghosts can be ignored completely if you choose not to venture further into the mansion as well as all the precious treasure that can be found by checking every nook in the rooms. Make sure you find everything you can as the game will inform you of how well you did in quite a fun way at the end.

Unfortunately, there is a fair few elements that hold this game back from being amazing. A big factor is the length of the game, Luigi’s Mansion is a very fun but extremely short game especially if you blast through mansion ignoring the optional portrait ghosts and secrets. It also suffers from frustrating mechanics in the form of capturing boo’s, once you release these annoying fools you must backtrack through the entire mansion to find 50 of them. This is my least favourite part of the game and the way you must capture them is not fun in my opinion, the boos can move from room to room as you try to capture them and occasionally the boo’s love to jump from room to room several times just to be annoying. It’s even worse when they go through a wall that leads to a room in a totally different area which leads to going through a large portion of the mansion to get to them, when it’s entirely possible they will just go back to the previous room the second you go in.

However, I fully believe this is when Luigi became a distinct character and evolved from being simply left as “Player 2” to becoming the cowardly brother who is still determined to face his fears and save the day. I love this game and it’s a childhood favourite of mine and as much as it as many frustrating drawbacks, I still love to go back occasionally and play through this again. I’m very excited for the 3DS remake coming out next week (UK release date) and hope the younger generation love it as much as I did when I first played it. As a budget gamer, if you wanted to play the original GameCube version you’ll probably be paying £40 for it used. I would avoid paying that much just to play the original and wait for the 3DS version which is a bit cheaper. It’s a great game but if you are on a budget I would wait a bit to see if it comes down in price unless you are a big Nintendo fan.

 

A Flexible Budget Gaming Review