Nintendo has released one additional game for the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack’s Nintendo GameCube – Nintendo Classics app. Let’s have a look!

Here’s what I thought of this game:

Nintendo GameCube – Nintendo Classics

Nintendo’s major first-party launch title for the GameCube (alongside Wave Race: Blue Storm), many players at the time saw this game as something of a disappointment – many saw this as the launch title we got instead of a successor to Super Mario 64 (we wouldn’t get that for nearly a full year, and it would turn out to be a different sort of disappointment). What’s more, not only did this game play absolutely nothing like a Mario game, but it was super-short too, able to be completed in 6-7 hours… and speed runners have gotten that time down to under one hour!

However, time has been very kind to Luigi’s Mansion, and it helps that being on a service like Nintendo Switch Online’s GameCube app means that we’re not paying full-price for it this time, so its short length is less of an issue. And now that we’re not comparing this game to a 3D Mario game it should have never been set up to compare against, we can appreciate it for it is – a truly unique blend of Action and Puzzle gameplay that’s not really like anything else, save for of course its two sequels.

Plus, its wonderful charm still shines through, with Luigi’s shaky nervousness and self-reassuring humming arguably making him more endearing here than Mario had ever been. Plus, this was an excellent early showcase of the GameCube’s graphical capabilities, with some nice lighting and shadow effects, reflection effects, and truly excellent 3D animation that… well, isn’t quite as impressive now, 24 years later, but it still at least looks decent by today’s standards.

Luigi’s Mansion might not be one of the absolute best games on the GameCube, or one of its most influential, but it remains an excellent game well-worth playing, whether you enjoyed the later games in the series and see where it all started, or if you’ve never played a Luigi’s Mansion game and what to get an idea what they’re like. Either way, definitely give this a try.

tl;dr – The Nintendo GameCube app on Nintendo Switch 2 gets one of its two first-party launch titles, Luigi’s Mansion. While it may not be quite up to the standard of its sequels, this is nevertheless a wonderful game with tons of charm that has aged very well, and is absolutely worth playing.

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