Of the many, many games featuring Mario and friends, the Luigi’s Mansion games have always stood out compared to the other games. Starting with the GameCube title in 2001, the game took players through a mysterious and haunted mansion where Mario’s famous brother Luigi would have to use his fancy Poltergust to suck up the ghosts he encountered to save Mario from the evil King Boo. It wasn’t until Nintendo decided to give the green-dressed brother his own themed year that Nintendo finally made a sequel. While Luigi’s Mansion 2 seemed like a strange game to bring to the Switch, it was a fun announcement, and as a fan who never played the original 3DS game, I was excited to try it out. In this review, I’ll be going over my thoughts on the general game while also going over its new graphics and features. So, without further ado, let’s-a-go!
So, in Luigi’s second ghost-busting adventure, he must venture through the five mysterious mansions in Evershade Valley to find the pieces of the Dark Moon to restore the valley and the ghosts back to normal and stop King Boo. Using the new Poltergust 5000, Luigi will have to hunt ghosts and solve puzzles to make his way through each mansion. All 5 mansions are unique, with each having multiple missions to complete before finding the Dark Moon piece. There are many different kinds of puzzles the game has you solve in order for you to progress. Most of the puzzles aren’t too challenging, requiring you to use the unique aspects of the Poltergust. Aside from sucking up ghosts, the Poltergust 5000 has quite a few drastic changes compared to the 3000 model in the previous game. The Strobulb flashes a bright light from the flashlights that can stun ghosts and activate different machines but lighting up specific switches. The Dark-Light Device can shine as specific area to cause hidden objects to appear, as well as pull objects and even trapped characters out of paintings. Finally, of course, you can suck up or blow out with the Poltergust as always.
To fight ghosts, Luigi first has to blind them using the strobulb, before he can suck them up. Once the sucking power reaches a certain point, you can press the A button to fully increase the suction power. This can come in handy when dealing with ghosts with lots of health. Sometimes, the ghosts will equip themselves with different objects to block the strobulb. Sometimes, like if they’re wearing sunglasses, you can just suck them off. But other times, you need to wait for when they’ll move whatever their holding away from their eyes. Most of the ghosts in the game are the same types of spirits, while some different spirits will just have more HP, typically between 10 and 30.
One small but impactful part of the game is the mission-based structure of the game. Basically, each mansion you’ll explore will have a set list of missions you’ll have to complete, with each getting you closer to reaching the Dark Moon piece at the end. Personally, I strongly dislike this system. I understand that it’s important for a handheld title, letting you have well-placed stopping points per area when playing on the go. However, I generally don’t like it. To me, it takes away from the exploration element I enjoy about the game, as the game pretty much just takes me away from exploring every ten or so minutes, forcing me to go back to the start and explore again to progress. It almost feels like a way to pad out game time, with an extra five-minute segment of dialogue every ten minutes. And with how much Professor E-Gadd calls you to tell you stuff makes it feels like there are more segments of dialogue than actual ghost-busting.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 is a fairly bland game as a whole. While there are some unique challenges, the overall experience is overshadowed by lots of explanations, frustrating puzzles at times, and a very simple battle system. But, how has the game been updated for the Switch? Well, I’m using the term ‘updated’ loosely as there’s barely anything new here. The only true updates the HD version has is, well, the HD graphics. To be fair, the game looks significantly better in HD than on the 3DS, as expected. However, I was a bit disappointed with the graphics as a whole. The game looks nice, but not nearly as nice as, say, Luigi’s Mansion 3. Luigi’s Mansion 3 is gorgeous, with beautiful visuals and many new editions to make the game shine, literally sometimes. Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD just looks like a slight upgrade to the original 3DS version, with Luigi and other characters and objects still looking visibly polygonal compared to Luigi’s Mansion 3. I never care that much about graphics, but I was a bit unhappy about the slight graphical update since I was still paying $60 for it.
Overall, I mostly enjoyed Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD. The game isn’t perfect, but it, for the most part, is an exciting adventure with the same fun gameplay mechanics the first game introduced. Sucking up ghosts and solving puzzles is still very fun, but the mission-based structure, wonky controls, and other small details make the game a bit bland at times. However, the fun gameplay makes up for those flaws (most of the time). If you’ve never played the game before, then this version is definitely superior. If you have played it, there’s no reason to buy the HD version as it pretty much has nothing new. If you’ve never played a game in the series, I suggest getting Luigi’s Mansion 3 instead. The exploration is more fun, the controls are much better, and it just overall is a much better game in my opinion. Luigi’s Mansion 2 gets a 4.2/6 on the Ryan Meter from me.
What are your thoughts on Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD? Let me know in the reply section below.
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