Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon

Genre: Puzzle / Action

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local Wireless, Online)

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Review:

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, known in other regions simply as Luigi’s Mansion 2, is a family-friendly game released on Nintendo 3DS in 2013 that combines both Puzzle and Action elements in a way that’s unique to the Luigi’s Mansion series. Players take the role of Mario’s cowardly green-clad brother as they explore a series of haunted rooms, searching for various items they need to progress, while also fending off hostile ghosts with the vacuum-like Poltergust device.

Much as with other games in the franchise, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is a showcase game for its platform – this is one of the games that helped developer Next Level Games to get a reputation for some of the best 3D animation in the industry, with Luigi himself being delightfully lively and well-animated, quivering in fear at each new encounter, jittering as he pushes himself to move forward, and comically jumping at every new surprise. Of course, the ghosts are well-animated too, but Luigi is absolutely the star of his own game here.

Of course, it’s not just the animation that’s top-notch here. The lighting and shadows in this game are phenomenal, the amount of environmental detail is superb, as well as the wonderful amount of interaction the environment has in response to your Poltergust’s blowing and sucking. And everything from the characters to the environments is absolutely bursting with personality. In short, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is without a doubt one of the most graphically-impressive games released on the Nintendo 3DS platform.

While not quite as impressive as the visuals, the sound here is deserving of mention too – the game’s cartoonishly “spooky” themes suit the game’s silly faux-scary theme very well, and the sound is used to add further detail to the game and its characters, such as Luigi’s constant vocalizations, such as him humming along to the game’s music to try to calm himself.

For the gameplay, players alternate between searching the environment for clues and fighting ghosts when you encounter them. These battles are viscerally fun as you’re tugged around by the ghost trying to flee your suction, and new ghost types are introduced often enough to keep things interesting and provide a bit of challenge as you try to determine the best way to vacuum them up without getting hurt. Searching the rooms is viscerally fun in a different sort of way, as much of this involves vacuuming up the room, with Luigi often able to suck up just about anything that’s not too heavy that isn’t nailed down, and it’s a delightful surprise when you find a new element in the room you can interact with.

While this is mostly a delightful experience, there are a few things that I feel interfere with this otherwise wonderful game. Firstly, you will find yourself constantly harassed with messages from series regular E. Gadd, especially toward the beginning of the game. These interruptions really slow down the game’s pacing.

The other complaint I have is that this game does not support the Circle Pad Pro or the New Nintendo 3DS’s second analog input, meaning that moving and aiming are both tied to the standard circle pad, making it awkward when you’d like to be doing both at once, and can make the game feel a bit stiff when you need to change your aiming while you’re moving and fending off ghosts at the same time. Players can adjust their vertical aim using the Nintendo 3DS’s gyroscopic motion sensor, but horizontal aim is muddled with movement.

There is one other issue I’ll note here, and that is that the game’s structure is segmented into separate missions, each intended for players to be exploring a specific area. This may just be a matter of preference, but I feel like this cuts down on the feeling of freely exploring the game’s interesting locales.

There is one other feature I should discuss here, and that is the new multiplayer feature, ScareScraper added to the game. Players can tackle a series of floors with up to three other players via online play or local wireless, and this game even offers download support, so local friends need not own a copy of the game to join in on co-op ghost hunting. However, be aware that you will need to bring a friend to enjoy the multiplayer mode – the online lobbies for this game are deserted at this point, so you won’t be likely to stumble across random strangers to play with online.

While I can nitpick the areas that could do with improvement, this does little to change the fact that Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is a must-have game on the Nintendo 3DS. Not only is it an absolutely gorgeous game, with some of the best visuals on the platform, but it offers fun, unique, engaging gameplay, with an interesting world to explore and tons of personality. If you have a Nintendo 3DS, you should get this game.

tl;dr – Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is the second game in this Action Puzzle franchise starring Mario’s brother cowering and vacuuming his way through a stunningly gorgeous game with tons of personality and a fascinating world to explore. There are definitely areas where this game could do with improvement, but overall this is a must-have experience on the Nintendo 3DS.

Grade: A

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