"Luigi's Mansion" - Gamecube

Bet you didn't see this coming-- unless I told you.

To mix it up a little I'm adding the Gamecube library into the rotation! Expect one of these a week-- they'll probably end up taking too long to do daily (no duh), so other articles will run in between.

So if it's 2001, and you're Nintendo, and you have to think of a way to live up to everyone's hype about your new console, and what the new Mario game is going to be-- the incredible follow up to Super Mario 64 everyone has been waiting for, what do you even do?

That's right: you give them a survival horror game about Luigi as a launch title for your console.

"... yeah that seems like what people want."

This game was produced by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka, both of whom we've seen a little bit of on the Famicom reviews. In particular, Tezuka helped Miyamoto design Devil World, but he would go onto help him design games such as Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda, and it's cool to see him almost 20 years later here, producing Luigi's Mansion with Miyamoto. Makes Nintendo of Japan almost seem like a family, doesn't it?

Luigi's Mansion originally showed up as a tech-demo to show off the Gamecube's raw power back in 2000, but by 2001 they had already decided to make it into a full-game, and they must have worked quick because they got it out by the end of 2001 to be a launch title. It's not hard to see why the game was used as a tech demo though, and many of the effects they were showing off remain in the game, such as the awesome dust particle effects and cloth physics.

Wheeeeeeee!

In general, the game looks awesome for the time. The other thing people like to talk about when it comes to Luigi's Mansion is the BAFTA award winning sound design, but I think we'll get into that during the review "Design" section, so hold onto your pants.

Let's maybe play the game.

I mean if you're gonna, like, make me just so I can blog about it...

----- Playthrough -----

Luigi's Mansion opens up pretty quickly and gives you some information to get you started: Luigi won a mansion in a contest he didn't even enter, and he was planning on meeting Mario that evening to check it out. Unfortunately, when he shows up, Mario's not there, and he steps inside to check it out himself. Before long, he gets attacked by some malicious ghosts and saved by Professor E. Gadd and his fancy ghost sucker upper machine.

Skip two beats and E. Gadd is teaching you how to use the thing to do the sucking, and therein starts your gameplay. After a quick tutorial, you're set loose on the mansion with nothing to your name but a vacuum cleaner and a nervous singing voice.

Oh yeah. I'm ready to do some damage.

The game is structured somewhat like a Metroidvania, but it's actually sort of an "illusion of freedom," because most doors remain locked at all times except the ones you're explicitly supposed to go to next. So even though the mansion seems big and open, it's actually fairly linear, but that's not a bad thing. While it would be fun to explore the mansion dynamically from the beginning, because the game carefully shoehorns you into a path, it gives certain parts of the mansion an ominous feeling.

What the heck is in this basement and why are you trying to keep me out of here, game? Is Mario's corpse down here?

For the first few sections, we're not given a very specific goal, only to head into the mansion and look for Mario. In fact, throughout the game, if you press the A button out of context, Luigi will call Mario's name as if he were looking for him, which starts to be kind of weird when you do it accidentally after you already know where Mario is... but anyway.

The main form of combat in the game is shining a flashlight on the ghosts and then sucking them up in the vacuum cleaner. The closer you are to them when you turn the flashlight on, the longer they'll stay surprised-- giving you more time to switch over. To facilitate this, you can hold the B button to turn your light off and let go when you get close, then immediately hold R to pull out your vacuum.

Once you've made first contact with the ghost's heart, you simply have to pull back on the analog stick as they try to flee your deadly grasp to reel them in. It's like a fishing game.

Another one for the collection, nyeh hyeh hyeh!

The game is structured into what amounts to basically a sequence of boss battles with some fairly safe levels to traverse in between. The mini-bosses (ghosts that aren't just cartoon ghosts but actually look like people) are usually puzzles of some kind. Most of these are immediately obvious, but there were at least a couple that had me scratching my head for several minutes. There's always something or some chain of events you have to set in place to surprise them and give you a chance at their heart.

To suck them in, not to make them fall in love with you.

It surprises me too when someone bursts in and shines a light in my face while I was reading.

You'll be at this for awhile, and the majority of the game consists of this, and it's a lot of the fun of the game, so I won't show or tell too much about the ghosts in case you haven't played it (17 year spoiler warning). So let's just say you'll be wandering around the mansion sucking up these special ghosts, getting keys, until eventually the elements are introduced.

Essentially, you'll beat bosses that will unlock the ability to suck up spirits which contain different elements, and then these elements can become a part of your puzzle solving repertoire.

Or you can just burn the house down and forget about it.

The Boos are the last piece of the formula, though to be honest they don't really add that much. Unlike other ghosts which have dedicated rooms and dedicated puzzles, the Boos simply hide in objects in a room. Head towards those objects and shake them by vacuuming them or shaking them manually with the A button, and a Boo might come flying out.

OH GOD!

However, Boos won't just stay in one room and wait to get sucked up, they get the heck out of Dodge. And they aren't limited by walls or doors-- which means they'll fly out into whatever room is nearby. Which means catching any Boo, especially the ones with a lot of health, usually involves chasing it from room to room 4 or 5 times. At first this is really unique and interesting, but towards the end it can get a little frustrating trying to catch up to them.

I suggest referring to this activity by its proper name: Boodling.

You actually don't have to catch all the Boos to complete the game, however you will have to do it if you want a good score at the end. More on that in a minute.

Eventually, once you work your way through the mansion and suck up all the ghosts or some reasonable amount thereof, and also do some other stuff like track down some of Mario's possessions to figure out where he is, you'll finally get to that last boss encounter.

Even though the story in this game isn't exactly groundbreaking, I think it's probably good if I get in the habit of not spoiling stories for games that I review even if they are as old as me (I've still got 7 years on this one, though).

Just calm down Luigi, I'm not gonna spoil your only actual game, alright?

So let's just say you'll get your ending boss fight, and your ending congratulatory cutscene, and then the game will rate you on how well you did/make fun of you for doing poorly like it did to me. And then you can do the New Game+ mode if that tickles your particular pickle.

----- Review -----

How long did I play?

About 4 hours.

Did I beat the game?

Yes.

Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

The Gamecube is pretty well into the territory of games that tutorialize to you until you wish they would just stop, so I don't think you'll have problems understanding the game. Without stopping to read a manual, you'll have most mechanics in the game explained to you to the point that you couldn't possibly not understand.

There are a few hidden things you can do in the game that seem like good knowledge, but I think the idea is that you will find them by experimenting, and I did, so I imagine you can too.

Gameplay / Difficulty: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel?

Sucking up the ghosts is fun, and when you're doing it well it shows. It seems like there's no way to keep the ghost "on the hook" if it's made to get off (most 'boss' type ghosts will get off the hook 3-4 times no matter how well you do reeling them in). Exploring the mansion is fine-- towards the end you'll be moving from one side to the other frequently and you'll wish there was a shortcut, but it's not a huge deal given the game length.

The game really isn't difficult at all, so I wouldn't worry about that. I died twice on the final boss trying to figure out how to fight it, but other than that I was never in any danger throughout the game.

Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

4 hours isn't really much of a game for the Gamecube, but it's pretty fun. I've said it in regards to Famicom games I've reviewed, but a game doesn't necessarily have to be deep to be fun, so while it is a mark against the game, I don't think it's all that matters.

If you want to go for the best score at the end, there's certainly an element of replayability, and there's a decent amount of secrets to be found to increase that score/entertain you more than just playing the story itself.

Sound / Graphics: 

How's the sound? How are the graphics?

Luigi's Mansion looks really good even now, I think, in some cases. Nintendo tends to put a lot of their rendering power into rendering their main character, and in this case Luigi looks just fine even to my modern eyes, 17 years later. The mansion textures and stuff aren't the best, but they're fine, and the game pulls off a styled look and certainly has its moments, visually.

There's certainly some interesting/cool uses of effects.
What? Not every image caption has to be a joke!

Now I have to talk about the thing this game is most famous for: the sound design.

I won't drone into your eyeballs for too long, but suffice it to say the composers for this game (Kazumi Totaka and Shinobu Tanaka) did something interesting in that the main theme of the game plays pretty much continuously throughout the game, but also changes depending on what's going on. For instance, in areas of the game that are already cleared and safe, Luigi will happily whistle the theme, but open the door to a dark area and he'll pull his flashlight out and begin nervously humming the theme instead.

It really adds a ton of atmosphere to the game and makes it a pleasure to play, as well as makes the player both feel more attached to Luigi and makes him feel like a more interesting character. There's a reason it's so well known for this aspect, I guess. Boss fight music and other atmospheric music do a good job of making the game feel spooky even when it's not visually spooky, as well.

Also in general, I just like some of the other random music in the game. A lot of it is weird, goofy stuff with difficult to follow beats that provides a sense of chaos. It's a pretty decent OST.

Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

I think so. I'm really bad at horror games, so this kind of kiddy take on a horror game is something I can play and enjoy without regretting my life decisions. Honestly, I've never been that into Mario, so this is a much more fun look, for me, at that IP that I can enjoy more than one of the 3D platformers. I also just like playing as Luigi better than Mario.

I'm a two-player at heart.

Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

If it wasn't obvious from the above, I think I have to say yes on this one. Luigi's Mansion is short and to the point, and pretty much everything in it is fresh and implemented well. The game looks good, sounds good, and in general is a pleasure to play for the short time that you'll spend with it. I think it has earned a place in Nintendo history, as well as on my list.

-----