Miyamoto Shrine > Nintendo Gamecube > Luigi's Mansion Review

So here I am reviewing my first Gamecube title, in tradition I have made the first title I chuck into the ring of judgement Luigi's Mansion. The concept of the game isn't too attractive: Search for Mario around a haunted mansion while sucking up ghosts with a vacuum cleaner along the way. I assure you this game is as fun as it gets.

The first thing I noticed in the opening cut scenes was the beautiful hi-res graphics and rounded models. Luigi creeps through a dark forest with his flash light causing realistic shadows to be cast from the trees as his cold breath can be seen coming from his mouth. Nice.

When I first got into the game I could see how it could get repetitive, the first three rooms are simple 'catch all the ghosts, collect the key' affairs, but as soon as you've cleared those rooms the simple 'catch all the ghosts, collect the key' affair ends for good.

You catch the ghosts by first shinning your flash light on them and they will be stunned for about two seconds and you have to start quickly to suck them in with your vacuum cleaner. Each ghost has an amount of hit points which you have to deplenish to zero to suck them in. Normal ghosts have around 10-40, family ghosts have around 100-200 and bosses have around 150-300. Once you have captured all the ghosts in a room the lights come on, and the ghosts cannot re-appear unless the lights for some reason go off...

The ghosts come in all shapes and sizes, there's a mouse ghost that runs on the floor and walls, there are bat ghosts that fly and hang from the ceiling, fat green ghosts that drop bananas as you suck them in, red ghosts with long arms that grab you etc. Hats off for the character design team here.

The whole idea of the game is to collect the family of ghosts who live in the mansion, there's a mother, a father, kids, a baby, a butler, a cook, a dog etc. You can only catch them by solving a puzzle of how to make them be seen by you, because otherwise when you look at them they will become invisible. One good example is big Arnie type guy in the gym, you have to punch the punching bags so that they hit him until he falls on the floor and you can catch him with your vacuum cleaner.

Once you've gotten about 4/5 'family ghosts' you're not far off a boss. They don't just appear after you've captured a certain amount of 'family ghosts', they need to be found in a room. Once you've found one you will be whooshed off to a big arena where you battle them. They need to be captured in very clever ways, for example the baby ghost boss can be captured by sucking up a ball it throws at you and then firing it back at the baby to stun him. Once you've beaten a boss the professor will turn the boss and family ghosts into paintings which you can view by selecting the gallery option in the game's menu. You will also get a key which will open a special door and give you access to new areas of the mansion.

Your Vacuum isn't only made for sucking up dust though, you can gain new features to shoot ice, fire and water in the game. The theme of the game will be based alot around these three functions, you will have to light candles, put out fires and freeze water to continue through the game. The way you actually get these functions is pretty cool, once you've unlocked the function to use one of the elements you have to go and find some fire/water/ice. You can get fire by sucking up flames from candles and torches, you can get water but sucking it up from taps and baths and you can get ice from fridges and a bucket of wine in the dinning room. You can only carry one of the three functions at any one time.

The controls are well made for Luigi's Mansion, but could be quite tricky to pick up. You can pick from two different movement styles in the options menu, one where you look/aim with the c-stick and strafe around with the analog stick, and another where you move around Mario 64 style with the analog stick and can also use the c-stick to look and aim your flashlight/vacuum, the later I find alot easier. The Analog buttons have been put to good use in this game, L is used for shooting stuff out of the vacuum and R is used to suck stuff up. Both shoulder buttons are VERY precise and you can go from sucking up almost nothing at all to a fall blown dust tornado. When shooting out one of the three other functions (ice, fire, water) you can shoot them out normaly by using the analog L button, but when you use the digital click a fire/ice/water ball will shoot out of the vacuum cleaner hitting anything that happened to be in it's path.

Luigi's Mansion is definitely a Miyamoto title. The little Nintendo touches are everywhere, from the realistic dust and material movement to a ghost occasionally slamming a door in Luigi's face. Press the A button and Luigi even calls out for Mario! The Dust in the game is especially beautiful, it can be sucked up from everything from the floor to the top of cupboards and draws, you only see it when Luigi un-settles in with his vacuum cleaner and the particles swirl around until finally going inside Luigi's vacuum.

The sound and music isn't exactly DVD orchestra quality but there are some seriously kicking tunes in this game. The E3 2001 speed garage style theme tune is not present, but the tune is in the game and in alot of different variations, the game seems to take a high pitched ghost buster style. Another great Nintendo touch: Luigi whistles to the background music, and depending on if the lights are on or off he'll whistle along as if he's scared. Look out for some familiar tunes from Super Mario Bros. 3!

Unfortunately Luigi is not without its downfall, the game is very fun but it is also very short. When I first got the game it took me about 12 hours to complete it and then on the second time around it took me about 6 hours to finish. Nintendo try to cover this up with a money system, you get money in the form of coins, notes and pearls which the family ghosts drop. The diamonds and emeralds are a little harder to find, rare ghosts such as the gold mice drop them if you manage to catch them and I noticed that alot of plants hold diamonds if you water them with your vacuum. At the end of the game you will get told how much money you collected during the game and you will be graded by how much you got. This adds a bit of replay value to the game as everyone tries to get an A rank.

Overall
Andy Robinson: Luigi is a very fun game and is definitely worthy of a launch title, but a week after I got it I didn't play it anymore and that's just not how it should be.

Review written by Andy Robinson

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