Luigi’s Third Spookfest: A Luigi’s Mansion 3 Review

By Teepu

Players: 1-8
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

It's October, which means it is spooky season! Naturally, I had to try and make sure a review of some kind of spooky game was available. What better choice than Luigi’s Mansion 3? I played the original back at GameCube launch, then played the sequel and the remake last year. It was about time I got through the most recent entry, so let us take a dive into it together.

The game starts off with an odd story. For a game called Luigi’s Mansion, the fact that the game takes place in a hotel was odd. In short, the hotel is run by ghosts who have allied themselves with King Boo. (Who somehow escaped E. Gadd again.) They invite Mario and company to the hotel for a vacation, and proceed to capture everybody but Luigi in paintings. Luigi must then partner with E. Gadd to capture all the ghosts, defeat King Boo, and get rich. Luigi must be loaded by now, but I digress. The story is simple and straightforward, nothing fancy is needed and its exactly enough motivation to get the player moving.

Once you start moving, you will notice immediately that the controls may seem a bit odd. The goal of the game is to use your flashlight to stun ghosts then use your vacuum cleaner, the Poltergust, to suck up and capture the ghosts. You need to move Luigi as well as aim the vacuum, then proceed to move in the opposite direction of the ghosts to build up a meter before slamming the ghost on the ground to deplete its HP and ultimately capture it. The core concept of what needs to be done is remarkably simple, but due to the multiple steps needed, as well as multiple tools, the controls can be a bit overwhelming for a new player. Admittedly this is the most responsive and best controls the franchise has seen, but it still requires getting some used to. After the first floor or two it becomes second nature, and you will be capturing ghosts like an expert.

The progression of the game is tied to a floor in the hotel. Each floor features a boss ghost who guards an elevator button who must be defeated access more floors. This progression continues until you get to the final floor and defeat King Boo himself. While not complex, it helps establish early on what the gameplay loop is and helps give the player a constant goal to work towards. Every floor has its own unique theme (An Egyptian theme, a Medieval theme, etc.), and that allows for an immense level of variety.

I do wish that variety carried over to the ghosts themselves. The bosses are varied and interesting, but the general riffraff only has 3-4 different types of ghosts that you see regularly, leading to a very repetitive set of encounters by the time you get halfway into the game. It is unfortunate because the first two games felt like they had far more variety for their scope. They try to make up for this by creating some unique environmental hazards in some encounters, but it does not do the trick. The bosses are each a unique experience though, and I looked forward to each fight. Thankfully, with 15+ floors, you will have plenty of boss fights to look forward to.

Despite having so many floors to explore, they are all relatively short. You can also find hidden gems and Boos on every floor to give you more to do, but even with getting all those I spent 20 hours in the game. I imagine if you do not go for the collectibles, you are looking at a 12-15 hour experience depending on your skill level. Oddly enough, the game seems to assume you have played at least part 2. There are a couple concepts from the second game that appear here with hardly any explanation, which can cause confusion. For example, later in the game you receive a special light that reveals invisible objects. You then need to suck up small balls of darkness to have the object rematerialize. While briefly explained, the way these will be integrated into gameplay are thrust upon the player with no real sense of progression or explanation. If you played the second game, these will already be familiar, but if not, you may be confused by some puzzles or encounters. With Luigi’s Mansion 3 being on a new console, players cannot be expected to have played the 3DS games, and the game should have been designed with that in mind.

There is an entirely new mechanic that made the puzzles quite exciting: Gooigi. You can summon a goo double of yourself who can pass through fences and grates, help you in battle or help you in exploring. His one weakness? Water. This allowed for some truly creative situations that took all the concepts from the first two games to a whole new level. What is even better is that a second player can control Gooigi to allow for a cooperative experience. You have to play an hour or so of the game to unlock this feature, but for pretty much the rest of the game you can play with somebody else, which can help make some of the more challenging sequences more manageable, especially one of the late bosses who requires constant switching between the two characters. Another thing I liked about the game was that there are a bunch of in-game achievements to collect that range from general collecting to discovering unique things. It has me longing for a proper universal achievement system in Nintendo’s consoles, but at least completionists have some fun goals to work towards all the same.

In addition to the campaign there are two multiplayer modes. The first is a set of competitive mini games. Think of Mario Party, but with a Luigi’s Mansion twist. There are not a lot of them, and they are fun for a quick laugh, but feel tacked on despite the creativity. That effort could have been put towards expanding the other mode (Scarescraper) or the story. In this mode, you get together with three other players (Who can have a local player tag along as their own Gooigi, allowing for eight people total.), and try to work towards various goals in multiple randomized floors, as in 5, 10 or 20. In this mode, there are also new and unique ghosts to capture, which helps it feel like an expansion to the main game rather than a mindless wave attack mode. The unique ghosts in this mode can be added to your final gallery in the story mode too, so there’s incentive to play if you want to complete your gallery. 

There’s also DLC for the game, which is strictly for multiplayer, and can be skipped if you do not care for that. It adds costumes, some unique floor themes for Scarescraper, and a couple mini games. Nothing crazy, but it is a cheap buy, so if you plan to play multiplayer it is worth the money. It being four years after release though, I found that finding people to play with online could be a bit challenging. Most of the time I did not finish a run with more than three players, which was a bummer. The Scarescraper mode requires a console per player, and one extra per console for Gooigi, online or off. Odder still, the mini games are single console only, though it still allows for up to eight players. It would have been nice if a second player could join on the same console as an independent player (Gooigi cannot leave the area the main player is in.), as you would be able to complete the mode without another console.

There is a lot going for the game, and if you are new to the franchise, I think you will find plenty to enjoy here. For me, I enjoyed the second game more than this, and Luigi’s Mansion 3 is starting to show that the franchise may have run its course of unique ideas. That is not to say it is a bad game, it's still a must-buy for Nintendo Switch owners, I simply prefer the second game. (Which is now available on the console as a remaster.) Overall though, if you enjoy fun, quirky, and unique gameplay with mediocre puzzle complexity and slightly challenging gameplay, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a good place to go. For a four-year-old game it is gorgeous and runs well. I do wish a little more effort were put into the story and Scarescraper instead of the mini-games, and I wish a little more effort were put into welcoming brand-new players, but it is a solid game through and through.

Check Out Luigi's Mansion 3 on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/luigis-mansion-3-switch/

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Story: B+
Gameplay: A-
Graphics: A+
Music/Sound: A
Value: B

OVERALL: B+

Pros:
+ Immense variety of themes for the various levels.
+ Scarescraper is far more fun than the previous entry.
+ Gooigi adds some interesting dynamics to the otherwise repetitive gameplay.

Cons:
- Each floor being a unique theme means there are a lot of short-lived concepts I would like to have seen more of.
- Mini-games felt like a waste of space and time.
- Mechanics brought back from other entries feel soulless in this game.

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I think we all could use a nap too!