Luigi's Mansion
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Luigi's won a mansion! But the bad news is that it's crawling inside with ghosts!
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Luigi's Mansion is an action-adventure/horror comedy/puzzle game published by Nintendo as a launch title for the Nintendo GameCube. It is a spin-off of the Super Mario Bros. franchise and is the first game in the Luigi's Mansion series. A port for the Nintendo 3DS, developed by Grezzo, was released in 2018.
Plot
Famed plumber hero Luigi has won a mansion in a contest that he never entered, so he has invited his older brother Mario to join him there and celebrate. He soon finds out that the mansion is really full of ghosts and learns from Professor Elvin "E." Gadd, an avid paranormal researcher and ghost hunter, that Mario is trapped inside. To prepare for Luigi's mission to rescue Mario, E. Gadd arms Luigi with the Poltergust 3000: a vacuum cleaner custom-made for sucking up ghosts, and the Game Boy Horror: a multipurpose parody of the Game Boy Color.
Why It Doesn't Suck (Unlike Luigi's Poltergust)
- Unlike other Mario games, this game isn't a platformer, but an adventure, puzzle game that has Luigi capturing ghosts, which is an interesting premise for a Mario game.
- This is also one of the few games with Luigi as the main protagonist instead of Mario, which is a really nice change.
- The game features an innovative combat system. In order to fight ghosts, Luigi must shine his flashlight onto the ghost, which will reveal their heart. Once that's done the player to try sucking up the ghost by draining their health to zero all while trying to hang on since the ghost will start pull Luigi. Because of this, the gameplay is very reminiscent of fishing.
- Great graphics for 2001 standards.
- Nice original story where instead of the usual Mario rescuing Peach, Luigi has to save Mario from King Boo.
- The atmosphere is super-unnerving, thanks to the muted colors and almost realistic design of the mansion.
- Great soundtrack that can be pretty eerie.
- Balance difficulty, not too easy, not too hard.
- There are 22 ghosts, 51 Boos, and 23 portrait ghosts each with their own creative appearances (Barring the Boo's as they all look the same).
- Capturing portrait ghosts is the main procedure for progressing the game and unlike other ghosts they have their own different method to revealing their heart and have personalities, even revealing how they became ghosts.
- 40 Boos are required to beat the game. If Luigi catches all 50 Boos, he will be rewarded with the extremely valuable Gold Diamond.
- As Luigi recaptures gallery ghosts, they will be framed in three colors: bronze, silver, or gold. The frame color of non-boss ghosts depends on how much HP Luigi sucks in one go, which produce pearls:
- Bronze: Only small pearls, which Luigi earns one of for every 10 HP sucked in one go. The portraits show the ghosts in poor quality.
- Silver: At least one medium pearl, which the ghost gives up for every 50 HP sucked and every 10 after. So for 60, 70 and 80 HP in one go, Luigi earns another medium pearl. The portraits show the ghosts in better quality.
- Gold: The only big pearl possible is given up if Luigi can suck 90 HP in one go. The portraits of the ghosts are often just what they looked like when Luigi captured them.
- Boss gallery ghosts' (Chauncey, Bogmire, Boolossus, and King Boo) frames and quality are determined by how high Luigi's health is after capturing the ghost.
- Bronze: If Luigi fails to keep his health above 60 HP, he will get this painting.
- Silver: Luigi's health must be kept above 60 HP at the end of the battle.
- Gold: Luigi's health must not have declined below 90 HP at the end of the battle.
- Boss gallery ghosts' (Chauncey, Bogmire, Boolossus, and King Boo) frames and quality are determined by how high Luigi's health is after capturing the ghost.
- To combat the ghost, Luigi uses two devices: the Poltergust 3000 to suck up ghosts and the Game Boy Horror (which is designed to resemble a Game Boy Color) to investigate objects, navigate the mansion and communicate with E. Gadd.
- On top of its primary function, the Poltergust has various other uses as well, such as sucking up money and being used as a flashlight to help Luigi see and even stun ghosts. Once Luigi collects the corresponding Elemental Medal, he can also use the Poltergust to suck up Elemental Ghosts and expel their fire, water or ice powers to fight other ghosts and deplete their HPs so that Luigi can capture them.
- Unlike other Mario games which have friendly and cheerful moments, this game being a child survival horror has a dark and scary tone that makes going down the aisles tense, plus the game atmosphere of an abandoned mansion with ghosts is innovative for a Mario game, but at the same time having humorous moments, unlike sernt later games from other media.
- Luigi can collect treasures and money which are used to build Luigi's NEW Mansion replacing the old one at the end of the game. The size, ranking, and quality of the mansion depend on how much money and treasure he collects (for example, collecting only 5000 coins will result in building a tent, while 130 millions of coins are spent to build an even better mansion).
- It introduced King Boo, who actually manages to be a more threatening villain than Bowser as he succeeded in capturing the usually capable Mario.
- The game had a major influence on the Mario franchise as a whole. Ever since Luigi's Mansion, Luigi, who was originally not a very fleshed-out character, has been characterized as a lovable coward and is often associated with ghosts, mansions and other paranormal beings.
- Once the player beats the game for the first time, the quest can be restarted in the normal mansion or the "Hidden Mansion". In the Japanese, North American and the Nintendo 3DS Remake versions of Luigi's Mansion, the Hidden Mansion differs from the normal mansion in only two ways:
- Luigi takes twice as much damage when hurt.
- The Poltergust 3000 is 1.5× stronger. In addition to improving its reliability in regard to capturing ghosts, this helps improve Luigi's chance of earning larger pearls, and thus acquire nicer frames for the Portrait Ghosts.
- Additional changes were made to the Hidden Mansion featured in the European and Australian versions of Luigi's Mansion, listed as follows:
- The PAL Hidden Mansion is mirrored from left to right when compared to the Normal Mansion. The NTSC version keeps the layout the same.
- There are more normal ghosts around the mansion; for example, in The Artist's Studio, Luigi must fight five of each ghost instead of three. More powerful ghosts are also encountered earlier than in the Normal Mansion.
- Bosses are more difficult, such as having different attacks. Chauncey's rocking horses, for example, are much bigger and swerve left to right, instead of going straight. Another example is the Boolossus battle, in which the player rides around on the Poltergust 3000 while trying to pop Boolossus, which makes movement more slippery.
- Rooms and hallways are darker when compared to the Normal Mansion, almost pitch black when the lights are off (which was already the case for non-PAL regions).
- Boos are usually more agile and difficult to catch. Most of them have more HP, although some have the same, and some have less. The ones with less HP are often much faster and can leave a room in seconds.
- Fewer hearts are available. Locations that have hearts in the Normal Mansion do not have them. Hearts that heal 50 HP exist in the Courtyard by vacuuming the Slim Bankshot-like statue, and rarely in the Foyer when checking the drawer.
- Speedy Spirits and Gold Mice always drop a Blue Diamond when caught, raising the maximum possible amount of money from 142,390,000G to 186,440,000G.[1] Because the amount of money required for an A rank was increased to 150,000,000G (instead of 100,000,000G in the NTSC version), this means the Hidden Mansion is necessary to play through in order to get an A rank.
- Instead of 40 Boos, 45 are required to fight the final boss.
- Additional changes were made to the Hidden Mansion featured in the European and Australian versions of Luigi's Mansion, listed as follows:
Qualities That Scare Luigi
- It's a pretty short game clocking in at about 6 and a half hours.
- Unless counting the Portrait Ghost, there are only four boss fights in the entire game and they are not a challenge to beat if you know what to do. The only danger is taking damage to lose the chance of getting the Gold Frame.
- You only get one shot at catching Speedy Spirits, if you miss the chance, then they are gone for good unless you reload a save. Unless you are using a guide or know exactly which location the Spirits are hiding, you will never know where they are and more than likely fail to catch it and have to reload a save. This forces players to constantly save the game so they don't lose the chance to gain the treasure the Spirits hold.
- This can also be said to the Portrait Ghosts, you only have one shot at getting their health to 10% in one go in order to get the four small pearls, four medium pearls, and the large pearl that each Portrait Ghost drop. Mess up during the fight, and you'll have to retry. This can be annoying depending on the location of the Portrait Ghost in question is, such as Miss Petunia's extremely cramped bathroom, or Sir Weston's Cold storage room where not only do you have to worry about the small size of the room and not bumping into him, you also have to avoid icicles that fall from the ceiling.
- The Black Out during Area 4 is terribly designed. So many ghosts can spawn in one room that you can constantly get stunned by them, scaring Luigi and him taking cheap shots from ghosts swarming. Alongside that, there are three Speedy Spirit's that appear, two of whom carry stones that can be collected. If you miss them, then you will not be able to get those gemstones and will ruin a 100% run. There's also a portrait ghost that can only be caught in the black out as well. Why do the previous statements matter you ask? Well, the worst part of the blackout is that you can't save at all. So if you fumble your chances at getting both stones and the gold portrait even once, then you have to start all over again.
- The Boo's can be very annoying to collect, as some of them has an absurd amount of health that it is guaranteed that they will escape to another room. Floors with terrible room layout for capturing, like the basement, can make the capturing of Boo's very tedious and padding.
- Beside the up-dated Hidden Mansion and Achievement System, the 3DS "Remake" version of Luigi's Mansion adds little-to-no additional features.
- The NTSC version of the Hidden Mansion in the GameCube version is bland as the only two differences it has from the normal mansion are the stronger Poltergust 3000 and the enemies dealing double damage to Luigi. Thankfully, a lot of changes were made to the PAL Hidden Mansion, most of which were retained in the 3DS version.
- While the scary tone is fun to many players, this caused many players who are used to the fun and light-hearted tone of the Mario franchise and the normal platforming gameplay to turn away from this game.
- The basic ghosts have no personality to speak of, all they do is attack you and laugh if they manage to get a hit on you.
- Besides figuring out how to beat each portrait ghost, the game doesn't offer much in terms of puzzle solving.
- There are some extremely scary moments for a Mario game.
- The first boss of the game is a self-explanatory baby ghost, which isn't scary but the music sounds largely dementive.
- The final boss against King Boo features a fake Bowser with a floating head, while taking place in a hellish version of the Mansion's roof complete with fire as the background and crazy synthesized music.
- There is even a shadow of Luigi who is seen hanging himself. Thankfully, it was revealed to simply be a glitch.
Trivia
- If you pay attention, Luigi actively hums (and whistles) the main theme as he explores the mansion (the intensity of this depends on Luigi's health: the lower it gets, more scared Luigi hums to the soundtrack); the ghost also do too.
- During the GameCube's early days, including this game during certain early physical copies, you could access the first Pikmin trailer just go to "Start Game", you will have the "Files", and then, go to "OPTIONS", then scroll down until you see "View a Pikmin™ Movie".
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