Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
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"Hey, remember the time when you trapped me in a painting for all eternity? Good times. But guess what? I GOT OUT! And now I'm painting the town red!" - King Boo
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Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (also known as Luigi's Mansion 2 in PAL regions) is an adventure game for the Nintendo 3DS released in 2013 during the "Year of Luigi". Developed by Next Level Games, it is a sequel to Luigi's Mansion for GameCube and is overall the second installment in the Luigi's Mansion series. A remake called Luigi's Mansion 2 HD was released for the Nintendo Switch on June 27, 2024 and was developed by Tantalus Media.
Plot
Luigi is taken to the laboratory of Professor E. Gadd where through the Pixelator must explore mansions and reclaim parts of the Dark Moon that the devilish King Boo stole, which caused the disorder of the ghosts in the mansions.
Why It's A Dark Moon
- Maintains the general mechanics as the previous game, but improves upon it by adding more abilities to the Poltergust alongside making it easier to use. Such as the lack of need to use two separate buttons to both control where your looking at, and the need to suck the ghost, it helps with your hands.
- Mountains of humor in practically almost everywhere in the game, from the cutscenes, to the gameplay, and more.
- If you missed content in a mission or failed to get a 3 star rank, you can simply redo a mission and try again. Unlike the last game, nothing is permanently missable.
- While there's less ghost variety then the previous game, the ghost's make up for it by having much more personality then the previous ones.
- Impressive graphics, even for Nintendo 3DS hardware. As a whole, the game looks and feels like its a cartoon (particularly the ones from the mid-2000s) with the expressive and funny faces characters make.
- Unlike the first game, which took place in one single mansion, this game has FIVE mansions, each with their own unique theme. Alongside that, each mansion brings historical references that come from real life. Such as Gloomy Manor and the various Dark Era symbolism such as the knights. Or the Secret Mine with hockey rings, fishing holes, and cozy cabins.
- This game is much more light-hearted then previously, while still keeping its darker tone such as the unsettling ambience in some levels.
- The environments of the mansions are very intractable, with Luigi can pull on carpets, chairs, books, curtains, etc. They game rewards you for interacting with these objects with treasure, or potentially a Gem.
- Ghosts can be trickier to catch then the generic ghosts in the previous games. Most of the tricks come from the greenies who equip themselves with various ways to attack and block Luigi's flash.
- Captivating soundtrack reminiscent of some horror comedy movies.
- The game presents King Boo as a very threatening villain, who is much more capable than Bowser ever can be.
- There are even more bosses than there are in the previous game with unique and clever ideas such as the Grouchy or Overset Possessor.
- You can collect Gems all over the various mansions, which serve as a side goal for completionists to collect. Collecting them all rewards you with a nice statue. However, some of these Gems can be a pain to find the first time around or forgot how to get them.
- The game is much longer than the previous one, which is ironic considering that Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon is a handheld game, while Luigi's Mansion was a console game (even though the latter was meant to show off the GameCube's capabilities).
- While Luigi's Mansion HD has some flaws, it made a comeback for 11 years.
- Players can reset the camera in the Switch version by pressing the X button, which is not seen in the original.
- Players can look around using the R-stick in the HD version unlike the 3DS version where it does not have the ability to look around.
Qualities That Scare Luigi
- Professor E. Gadd's calling in missions, while helpful or entertaining to read the first time, can be time wasters. Luckily you can skip them, which can create dry humor by the fact that Luigi just calls up on E. Gadd while he tries to talk to him.
- Speaking of E. Gadd and Luigi, why did it took them so long to realize that King Boo was behind the events of the game? Who else could've done so and control the Boo's at the same time?
- Due to the gigantic size of some mansions, sometimes the game can presents fall of frames by a short time. However, this only applies to the original weaker 3Ds's. The others can handle the frames just fine.
- Most of the boss fight missions are very strict with it's 3 star rank requirement, if you get once or twice, then you have to start over.
- Speaking of the bosses, their difficulty is inconsistent, as there are some of them are too easy or hard to defeat, examples of this are the Harsh Possessor, which is extremely short compared to other fights and retains the same pattern until the very end and, and the Shrewd Possessor, which requires a high level of precision and accuracy.
- Not helping the fact that the Possessors have the same appearances, except for the hairstyles or horns.
- At the beginning the game generally isn't as spooky or scary as the first game due to how bright the game generally is, and is a lot more light-hearted when in comparison to the previous game, although considering how the game was released just 12 years later, this might be justified.
- And even if there are some scary moments, some of them clash with the game's lighter tone, especially the soundtrack of the Garage, Haunted Graveyard and The Antechamber, three of which, sound like something pulled straight out of Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
- However, the dark and scary tone appears when King Boo shattered all the pieces of the Dark Moon, causing the Greenies and other ghosts to become hostile, thus resolving the beginning of the game.
- The amount of missions that are essentially fetch quests can be a turn off to some people, as this game has many objectives that have you go find and get something to continue on. What is important however, is how fun the fetch quests can be.
- There's not that many unique ghosts in this game. Besides the Three Sisters, the other major ghosts are reskins of previous ones but with minor changes.
- To fully 100% the game, you also need to collect the unique ghosts from the Scarescraper, which is only exclusive to multiplayer (the fact that the Switch version only allows you to use an NSO subscription to play the ScareScraper doesn't help). The problem is that these ghosts only appear every 5th floor, and there's a chance to get the same one again. Combine that with the decently long time to reach every 5th floor, it can take up to 30 hours to get all the Scarescraper ghosts!
- There is one glitch that can make it take even more time for unlucky players.
- For unknown reasons, the Secret Mine has only three chapters (or four if the player plays the bonus chapter), this is understandable since this area is shorter than other locations, just like Sammer Kingdom in Chapter 6 as it only has three parts in Super Paper Mario and Rock Candy Mines (the sixth world) has two fortresses in New Super Mario Bros. U.
- To make things worse, the HD version does not give any buffs to Secret Mine, thus remaining the same and boring as the other mansions are.
- The Switch remake, Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, has a few issues that are not present in the 3DS version:
- It feels more like a remaster or an emulation of Dark Moon, similar to Super Mario 3D All-Stars, rather than reimagining the game by making changes. Even Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, while faithful, did add some content that were not added in the original.
- Even the other remasters, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Super Mario RPG, and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for the Nintendo Switch respectively added content to make these games look more fun, thus making it an insult to the original.
- Its title is rather generic, only adding HD instead of Dark Moon with a Gloomy Manor silhouette in it like the original.
- Like Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door HD and Sonic Colors: Ultimate, the HD version runs at 30 FPS, which is questionable considering that the Nintendo Switch is powerful than the 3DS and most games run at 30-60 FPS, like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, New Super Mario Bros. games, Splatoon games, The Legend of Zelda games, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and even Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe.
- Not to mention, ironically, the 3DS version runs at an uncapped 30-60 FPS.
- The ScareScraper allows players to use Nintendo Switch Online subscription, as opposed to the free online subscription in the Nintendo Network for the 3DS.
- Lastly, it costs $60 at launch, despite it feeling emulated.
- It feels more like a remaster or an emulation of Dark Moon, similar to Super Mario 3D All-Stars, rather than reimagining the game by making changes. Even Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, while faithful, did add some content that were not added in the original.
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