Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon takes the basic concepts of its predecessor and brings them to life in a stunning 3D world. Really. I think this is the most impressed I’ve been with the utilization of 3D on my 3DS to date. The graphics are gorgeous and not a single detail was overlooked.

The Poltergust 3000 has been upgraded to a Poltergust 5000 in Dark Moon and other additions bring this sequel to a fresh new level, like the new strobe and lightning bolt features. If you loved sucking up ghosts in the original you’ll enjoy doing more of the same here with a few fun upgrades.

I was a bit worried about the use of the gyroscope in this game but it incorporates well. By tilting the screen you’re able to aim your tools into every nook and cranny of the room. The tilt feature compliments game play nicely without being obnoxious.

If you’re familiar with the GameCube version you’ll pick up on the game play here quickly. If not, you won’t be faced with a daunting learning curve. The controls are pretty straightforward and quickly begin to feel natural as you get comfortable with the game.

I found Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon to be a perfect marriage of innovation and recognition from the original, and it’s worth mentioning again just how truly amazing the 3D experience in this game is. Oh, and of course it’s loads of fun! Highly recommended, excellent title!

In the last game, a mysterious letter congratulates Luigi on winning himself a mansion in a contest despite never entering one. He rings up Mario to meet him there to celebrate and by the time Luigi arrives, he finds his brother missing. He gets help from the quirky Professer E. Gadd and searches the spooky mansion armed with the Poltergust 3000 (a powerful ghost sucking vacuum) and a flashlight to save his brother.

In Dark Moon, Luigi returns with an admittedly less interesting reason other than the ghosts are acting up, doing what ghosts do and all. But as you progress in the game, you piece together a whole other reason for the sudden increase in paranormal activity. He’s back with new gadgets (and an upgraded Poltergust 5000) to take down those pesky ghosts, new areas, and with a variety of new ghosts to wrangle.

The 3D’s bells and whistles surprisingly doesn’t hinder gameplay, but makes it rather fun. For the Gamecube, a lot of Luigi’s movements were controlled via the second analog stick like aiming the flashlight or wrangling ghosts into your vacuum of doom. The 3Ds cleverly uses its gyroscope and accelerometer capabilities in a way that really adds to the movement. If you’re not up for moving the 3Ds up and down to aim, the same can be achieved with a button press and I like how it allows you the freedom to choose which you prefer.

Luigi tip-toes through the dusty corridors in a state of nail biting terror, nervously humming along to the background music in a way that makes me wanna pet the screen to calm him down. The ambiance is just as great as the last game with great lighting and sound effects. Everything responds to your exploration as you go through the game and there are many puzzles to solve reminiscent to the Legend of Zelda series, something that I felt is an improvement. Ghosts now have different strategies you have to figure out when trying to clear a room. Some like to hide in furniture like a game of hide-and-seek while some use head gear or items to keep from getting dazed by your flashlight and it makes the game more challenging and never boring.

My only complaints are the lack of checkpoints and the grading system. When your health drops to zero, you restart from the beginning and you have to go through all the stuff you discovered before which can be a pain. The grading system, while fair, judges for your time and I felt that was a bit much considering that I’m one of those OCD kinda players where I have to look through everything in every room so getting a bronze made me grind my teeth in frustration. It was my first playthrough and I didn’t feel the need to rush, but I’ll gladly play it over again to reach the best score since you’re able to replay areas and missions you’ve unlocked in the past so it kinda makes up for it.

Despite those small annoyances, it’s one heck of a game I feel that any Nintendo 3Ds player would enjoy it even if they haven’t played the last one. Gamers who played Luigi’s Mansion the will love Dark Moon because it improved everything they loved without losing anything that made it awesome in the first place; a formula every sequel should follow.

The Bad: Repetitive objectives and enemies, gets too frustrating towards the end, game runs out of steam less than half-way

Luigi’s Mansion was a cult hit back on the GameCube, but didn’t see much commercial success. The 3DS seems like a perfect home for the sequel so Nintendo went for it. You play as Luigi who is tasked with dispersing a small town of ghosts with the help of Professor E. Gadd. You take your Poltergust 5000 and suck and blow anything in your path. Be it cloth on walls, rugs, pulleys, or using your other powers to reveal hidden objects or even your flashlight to help battle ghosts. There’s quite a few elements in play here and they are done fairly well. Ghosts don’t just stand around and let you suck them up. Some are protected by objects or are inside other objects and require coaxing out in various ways. This with the inclusion of puzzles makes Luigi’s Mansion a fun trip.

It isn’t without its problems and there are more than meets the eye like most recent Nintendo games. Sure the game looks great and plays well but it gets repetitive half-way through and gets frustrating. You’d expect tougher ghosts to come into play at some point, but instead you get the same ghosts with bigger life bars and more thrown at you. As you progress you find cash throughout the game to upgrade your equipment so this isn’t a problem. I was nearly maxed out towards the end of the game. The issue is redundancy and constantly revisiting the same areas just to fight different ghosts. Some puzzles are hard to figure out and some require insistent backtracking that gets very dull. The game had the Mario charm thrown in, but I expected more variety. After the third area you really start getting tired of the game, but that doesn’t mean its terrible.

There are some hidden items in each area and they aren’t too hard to find if you explore every little area. These range from gems to cash to a hidden Boo in each level. It feels less like a collectathon and more like exploring an area. The objectives are clear and your map is useful. With that said, many objectives are also repeated throughout like chasing down a ghost dog to find a key and getting back parts from various ghosts. It just got old and I just kept telling myself, “Not this again!”

Dark Moon is one of the best looking 3DS games out there. The game has high-resolution textures, great looking models, and some impressive lighting effects and physics. I almost felt like I was playing the Wii U. The 3D effects are nice, but don’t add anything to the gameplay. I loved the attention to detail from Luigi’s voice to his animations. The game has great production values but could have used a better variety of gameplay elements.