The game goes against everything a traditional 3D Mario game would be, aside from a first person view, you can't jump, you have one life, 100 coins does not give you a 1-up, etc. The game takes place in a haunted mansion and you have to save Mario. Yes, you are saving Mario, not the princess. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, so let me explain what's going on with the haunted mansion and Mario.
When you arrive at the mansion, Mario isn't there to greet you, or anywhere for that manner. After getting a key that was dropped, you go upstairs and enter the room to find a old man fighting a ghost, with a vacuum? You escape the mansion with the person and he tells you that his name is Professor Elvin Gadd. He then says that the mansion is haunted and some Boos more than likely captured Mario. He then explains how you're the only one to save Mario with his gear, a heavily modified vacuum, the Poltergust 3000 and the Game Boy Horror, a modified Game Boy Color for communication. Professor E. Gadd got his first appearance here and has since had cameos in other Mario games.
The developers at Nintendo knew what they were doing when they made this game, it's hard to describe what they did and how they did it well. The controls are brilliant, the atmosphere is perfect, it's paced very well, and there are small puzzles to figure out (I love puzzles!). When you acquire your gear from Professor E. Gadd, you can use the GameBoy Horror to use first person mode and see Luigi's thoughts on things around the mansion when you press A. It's a small detail that the developers put in and I love it. If you decide to collect money that is scattered throughout the mansion, it will increase your ranking at the end of the game, from H (a tent) to A (a grand mansion). The money is essentially your points.
There are some small downsides, such as a few places where you can get stuck, or break the game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEmLSmoGL4s), however these are pretty hard to pull off. With the specific glitch shown, known as Floor 1.5, it is possible to beat the game super early, but super hard to pull off. For a long time, no one figured out what the main theme for the game was, so that's a small downside. People figured it out though. A minor annoyance later on in the game is a room full of dust, every time you go through the room you have to vacuum the dust. So it's some small things like this that could ruin the experience. The game is fairly straight forward and linear, not a big issue though. It is kinda short, it can be beaten in roughly three hours, two if you know what you're doing, four or more if you don't know what to do.
Even though this is my favorite game of all time, it is short and sometimes difficult to deal with. With that, I give Luigi's Mansion a Green Star, or a 4/5.
A bit of trivia: Despite the title and being an educational game, Luigi actually had his first game back in 1993 in Mario is Missing! for DOS, NES, and the SNES. He had to save Mario back then too!
Another bit of trivia: The Nintendo Gamecube was suppose to support stereoscopic 3D, but at the time only one game used it, Luigi's Mansion. I wonder how that turned out...
After 12 years of cameos and inactivity, Luigi gets back into ghost-busting action in Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was developed by Next Level Games who developed titles like Super Mario Strikers, Punch Out!!, and other various titles spanning the XBox 360, PS3, and WiiWare. The game picks up after the first one and even mentions that it's been a while since then. E. Gadd moved his lab to Evershade Valley, where the ghosts are calm thanks to the Dark Moon that hangs overhead. He continues his research on ghosts when the Dark Moon is shattered and the ghosts go haywire! E. Gadd contacts Luigi and with his new invention, the Pixelator, and teleports him to his bunker for a debrief of what has happened.
The game is very similar to how it worked in the original game, just with less buttons. E. Gadd gives you a modified Nintendo DS that is used for communication as well as a map of the mansion, he later names it the Dual Scream. At the same time, he shows you one of the pieces of the Dark Moon that he picked up on his way to the bunker from the mansion. This reveals the goal of the game, collect the five remaining Dark Moon pieces.
E. Gadd mentions that he left the new and improved Poltergust 5000 in the mansions garage, it's dangerous to go alone, go and grab it! It has some new features that are imperative to moving forward, the Strobulb and the Dark Light Device. You can no longer just shine your light on the ghosts, you have to charge the light with the Strobulb and flash 'em! The Dark Light Device is used to uncover invisible objects and sometimes those pesky Boos! The Poltergust is used not only for ghost capturing, but for more puzzles as well (have I mentioned I love puzzles?). Most importantly, when you finish a mission Luigi makes confetti fly out of the vacuum, followed by a short dance! If you want to upgrade the Poltergusts features, aside from the confetti, you got to collect that money!
Next Level Games did a great job with this game, even the 3D looks great and that has been difficult to pull off. The music is great and memorable, they did a good job porting the controls as best they could, and the pacing is pretty good as well. You can unlock an additional, optional mission in each mansion if you capture all the Boos in their respective mansions. It's definitely worth a try if you like a challenge! Speaking of challenges...
There is an online mode, called Scarescraper, after you acquire the Dark Light Device in A-4, it's really fun but a bit buggy. There are four modes to try, Hunter, Polterpup, Rush, and Surprise, which is a combination of the other three chosen at complete random. You can choose how long you want to play a mode, if you create one, indicated by 'floors', they range from 5 to 25 floors. You can also set the difficulty from normal to expert. The more floors and the higher the difficulty make it more and more difficult, obviously. There is an unlockable variable called Endless and it's just as it sounds, endless. They are all very fun and challenging, but words are just words if you don't try it yourself!
There are a few bad things about this game, sadly. The frame rate is mainly steady but it does get pretty low sometimes, even at some points it seems like it's too high! There are no checkpoints through out the missions, minor but big enough to be an annoyance. There is a known bug pretty late in the game where you're forced to reset the mission. While the frame rate never goes down, the online portion of the game is very unsteady with the connections, meaning you or someone else can disconnect at any time. Ending with a disappointment, I thought the final boss was a bit underwhelming considering I have played the original and throughout this game it felt hyped up.
Even with all of it's flaws, I give Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon a Grand Green Star, or a 5/5.
A bit of trivia: Satoru Iwata said in a Nintendo Direct in January that 2013 is the Year of Luigi. This is because this is the 30th year since Luigi's debut. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon was the first game to come from Nintendo this year. Later releases this year are New Super Luigi U and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, both feature Luigi as a main character or a dominant role in the game.
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