Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
"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
Protagonist(s): Luigi Genre(s): Puzzle Adventure Horror Platform(s): Nintendo 3DS Nintendo Switch Release: Nintendo 3DS JP: March 20, 2013 NA: March 24, 2013 PAL: March 28, 2013 Nintendo Switch WW: Mid 2024 Developer(s): Next Level Games Publisher(s): Nintendo Series: Super Mario Predecessor: New Super Mario Bros. U (Release Order) Luigi's Mansion (Chronological Order) Successor: New Super Luigi U (Release Order) Luigi's Mansion 3 (Chronological order)

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 will be released in the Nintendo Switch in Summer 2024.

Plot

This time 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

1. 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.
2. Mountains of humor in practically almost everywhere in the game, from the cutscenes, to the gameplay, and more.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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 Alongside that, each mansion brings historical references that come from real life.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.
7. This game is much more light-hearted then previously, while still keeping its darker tone such as the unsettling ambience in some levels.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. Captivating soundtrack reminiscent of some horror comedy movies.
11. The game presents King Boo as a very threatening villain, who is much more capable than Bowser ever can be.
12. There are even more bosses than there are in the previous game with unique and clever ideas such as the Grouchy or Overset Possessor.
13. 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.
14. 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).

Bad Qualities

1. 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?
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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 consideirng 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.

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