Mario’s brother is back bustin’ ghosts, and it’s arguably his best outing yet.
Family-friendly horror is tough to get right. Some warmth and comedy is usually needed to make it work, and Luigi’s Mansion 3 definitely follows that thinking. The terror is mild, but the commitment to its goofy spookies is what keeps it entertaining. It’s very much a Nintendo ghost story, where the only one truly terrified is poor Luigi, and given all he’s had to deal with, who could blame him.
Luigi, Mario, Peach and the Toads have been whisked away to a fancy hotel for a vacation, but not long after Luigi dozes off in his hotel room, he’s awoken by a scream, and upon investigation, discovers his old nemesis King Boo has transformed the hotel into a house of horrors and imprisoned his pals in paintings.
If Luigi is to rescue his friends and escape the hotel, he’ll need to once again pick up his trusty ghost-hoovering equipment and take down the spectral threat, one floor at a time.
This marks the first time the series has been on a console since the original Gamecube title (the second is a 3DS title), and that’s long enough to make the setup feel relatively fresh if it was largely untouched, but there’s a few tweaks and additions to this latest entry that make it a fairly pleasant modernization without losing the heart of it.
Luigi’s base directive is simple enough. Get the elevator buttons to ascend the hotel and rescue his friends. To do that though, he’ll need to solve increasing complex puzzles and battle all manner of eccentric specters. In each and every room and corridor of Luigi’s Mansion 3, there’s something to find. Each area is like a detail and secret-filled living diorama, which Luigi can pick apart with his trusty ghost vacuum.
This tool quickly fills out with all of its abilities, but the sheer variety of ways those abilities can be used over the course of 15 hours is impressive. The basic suck function pulls objects, cash, and ghosts towards Luigi, while the blow well…blows stuff away. Combined they allow Luigi to do a little powered jump, good for dodging certain attacks and surprising enemies.
Then you get the add ons. The torch is mostly for investigating dark corners for secrets and helping out with targeting, but it can be charged to let out a blinding flash that stuns ghosts before you drag them in with the vac’s suction. The plunger attachment acts as a kind of hookshot, allowing Luigi to pull down obstacles and open tough cupboard doors.
Star of the show though is the sentient gelatinous blob known as Gooigi. Gooigi is Luigi, but made of green goo, and he (it?) can be used as a co-op partner of sorts. Gooigi has the same abilities as Luigi, but can’t open doors and dissolves if touched by water. What he has to his advantage is the ability to walk through gates and grated pipes to access places Luigi cannot. This opens up the potential for what kind of puzzles can be created and it’s fair to say the challenge has been met in a strong fashion.
Sometimes the pair will team up to give the pulling of a tough switch an extra bit of oomph or somesuch. The best stuff comes when the pair are separated. A later level sees Gooigi stranded from Luigi by a body of water, and you must make the most of both character’s advantages to progress. The closer you get to the end of this section, the more you end up quickly swapping between the two to avoid hazards. It’s nothing massively challenging, but as with a lot of the puzzles in Luigi’s Mansion 3, it’s very satisfying to pull off.
The biggest knock on the puzzling joy is the default controls. The use of the analog sticks feels at odds with the layout of the hotel. as the right stick controls the direction Luigi points his flashlight, but it is applied in a clunky fashion. Thankfully it’s easy to muddle through this imperfection, but there’s a water-based boss fight where the flighty nature of this control setup drove me nuts, especially as it often left me vulnerable to attack, and Luigi can only take a few hits. Add in the fact you have to rewatch the intro cutscene every time (unless you get your ‘second chance’ via Gold bones) and it sours an otherwise delightful experience.
The constant warning beat when your health gets low is pretty grating too. Fine if it was when you were down to the last drop of health, but it pretty much kicks in and stays around once you reach half health.
Still, these issues melt away when Luigi’s Mansion 3 shows its endless charm off. Each gorgeously detailed floor becomes an increasingly impossible thing for the structure of the hotel, and there’s a fun theme on each that makes that return trip to the elevator a little present in itself, and apart from a small amount of backtracking, you’re constantly pressing on to something new and interesting. Personal favorites include a short trip to a haunted museum, a foliage heavy floor, and a trip to the kitchen.
Despite some small grievances with it, I still believe Luigi’s Mansion 3 is one of the best Nintendo Switch exclusives to date. It’s full of fun, humor, joyous discoveries, and clever design. It’s atmospherically spooky in patches, and doesn’t quite feel as creepy as the original did, but there’s a commitment to throwing up all sorts of crazy takes on ghosts that is so very Nintendo.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 review code provided by the publisher.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 is out now for Nintendo Switch.
