For the longest time, I thought the closest I'd get to playing Luigi's Mansion would be its arcade release, a decade or so after the release of the twin-stick Ghost-capturing GameCube adventure that found its way onto the 1001 list. Thanks to grabbing a disc from somewhere, though, I'm able to play it in the comfort of my own home, as Nintendo originally intended.
For once, the bigger, lankier Mario sibling, Luigi, gets the starring role as he turns cowardly hero to save Mario from the clutches of spooky ghosts. Armed with a vacuum cleaner, because that's funny.
Do we have the courage to venture into Luigi's Mansion?
Fun Times
This game looked pretty good on the TV, but sitting on the floor like a child thanks to a short third-party controller lead did dampen the vibes a little. Firing it up with emulation makes Luigi's Mansion positively shine. It looks great and sets the mood early on - it's a spooky mansion, but it's not a filthy, Resident Evil kinda mansion. It's a fun, cartoony kind of mansion, for all the Nintendo kids to enjoy.
Exploring our new surroundings, our shivering wreck of a main character is put on the floor by a ghost, but luckily for us, Professor E. Gadd is trying to hoover it up with a vacuum cleaner. I'm sure it'll make sense soon enough. What have we gotten ourselves into?
Luigi believes to have won this mansion in a competition that he didn't enter, only the Professor here says it has only just sprung up recently and has been full of ghosts ever since. Not only that, but a red-hatted chap much like ourselves ventured into the mansion before us, but hasn't been seen to have come out.
Could it be...?
Yes, yes, it could. The one and only Mario needs rescuing, and we're the ones to do it, armed with a Poltergust 3000 and two minutes of training. Thanks, Prof.
The game - and the mansion - is chunked up into rooms and corridors, each with their own little quirk relating to the nasties that inhabit the place. It is up to you to find the keys to the door, venture inside, suck up a bunch of ghosts, hoover up a load of loot, and proceed through the mansion until Mario is found.
You've got control of Luigi on the left stick, either in a standard or sidestep mode, and control of his torch and vacuum on the C-stick, with the R button starting the suction. You can interact with objects in the room using the A button, and your vacuum can interact with things as well, so long as it's pointed in the right way.
In this room, if we use it to blow out all the candles, we're introduced to some ghosts.
To catch a ghost is 'simple', though the tutorial didn't seem to mention an essential aspect of the process. First of all, you need to stun a ghost with your torch by shining it into their face. If you are too far away, the ghost will just disappear, and you'll have to wait for them to come out to play again. If you're close enough, they'll freeze for a split second, allowing you to turn on your vacuum and start sucking.
Once grabbed, the ghost usually goes mental and tries to escape the pull of the Poltergust 3000, so you have to reign it in by pushing and pulling the C-stick in the opposite direction. Do so for long enough, and the ghost will be defeated, finding a new home in your vacuum.
Frustrations
It doesn't require much thought once you've got the hang of it, granted, but getting to that stage caused me a fair bit of trouble.
On the GameCube, in the tutorial stage, I captured zero ghosts because I didn't get the timing of the flashlight right, meaning they'd just disappear instead of getting stunned. In emulation, I fared better with the timing but had difficulty with the control. The C-stick is inverted in its aim and is moved according to wherever Luigi is facing, so it's sort of like a tank control set up.
Depending on what setting you have chosen for Luigi's movement, your torch and vacuum might end up going anywhere but where you want it, giving the ghosts an easier time to nab you from behind. Switching to the sidestep movement was easier for me to get the hang of, but still resulted in Luigi looking every which way every other ghost.
Further Fun Times
With time, I think those irks can be overcome, and when they weren't annoying me, I was able to enjoy the lighting and fancy effects that Luigi's Mansion likes to show off. Rooms often start with a particular light that's punctuated by your torch, before glowing in the presence of a ghost, before finally returning to normal when you've defeated them all.
Some rooms even have working mirrors, which is always worth shouting about. They work here because the camera is locked in place, allowing you to see the room from the fourth wall only, which gives the game a sort of 2D sidescroller feel, only it's a fully modelled 3D mansion, as your Game Boy Horror map shows.
Rooms so far are generally opened one at a time, so getting lost hasn't been a problem to me, but I'm sure as the game goes on I'll be tasked with backtracking my way through these many rooms. Until then, I'm just interested to see what else we can get up to.
Being able to see a ghost's heart is the only way you can suck it into your vacuum, but first, we've got to find the ghost itself. This reading room has some strange shadows that need to be investigated using our Game Boy Horror.
Ghosts that aren't generic Ghostbuster imitators require some extra thought. This guy is just reading in his chair and isn't concerned with us in the slightest. After all, we can't even see him, normally at least.
The Professor notes that we should surprise them somehow so that we can catch them off guard. Looking around the room, I don't see a whole lot that would surprise a ghost, but I see some objects that might be manipulated with a vacuum. It's worth a shot...
Yup, that worked. Let's reel him in...
Taking one room at a time, this shouldn't be too difficult, though I don't know where I'm losing my health in most, if not all cases.
To confirm the cartoon nature of the horror on display here, a fake door temporarily scuppers my forward progress. Not to be deterred, I proceed to unlock the right door and find a ghost doing her hair in the mirror.
What's going to surprise you, eh? Maybe hoovering up all your money?
Nope, opening the curtains to let the wind in. Nice. More waggling of the C-stick and you're in the vacuum too. Who's next? The crying of a baby alerts Luigi to a new door.
I think we've found our solution to rouse this ghost baby. A little vacuuming of the rocking horse and away we go.
Looking around the room for things to play with, I spot a ball, and sure enough, you can suck it up with your vacuum and then launch it at the ghost for a game of catch.
I probably should have said 'catch' before firing it out the end of the Poltergust 3000 though...
This looks like a boss fight. Sure enough, it is. Dodge some rocking horses, fire some balls, vacuum some ghost babies. Luigi's got this.
That's a lot of health loss. I still don't know where I'm losing it. Well, no, in some cases, rocking horses to the face, but in general, I've no idea how I'm dying so quickly. Still, the ghost has been dealt with.
 |
| It's behind you, Luigi. |
So that's what we're doing, is it? Making paintings? Or making a killing, geez, Luigi. Just hoover up the valuables and get out of here. Mario can fend for himself, and you can live like a King!
Final Word
I know a fitting place to end a run when I see one, and thus, my time with Luigi's Mansion comes to a close. I quite like it, you know. I didn't think I'd be amazed by it, but no, it looks impressive and doesn't play too badly either.
It's a bit fiddly when it comes to its controls, but I hope that lessens over time. I should probably read up on how to avoid damage when ghost hunting, though, otherwise the mansion will claim another victim I fear. You do have some control over where you run while capturing a ghost, which is especially useful to stay away from any other spirits in the area, but I often found my concentration focused on getting the C-stick in the right place, rather than putting Luigi out of harm's way.
As well as the graphics being top notch, the sound and music are so good that Luigi himself with hum along to them, even in times of stress, where you can hear the fear in his voice. It's terrific, and P2 was humming along on the other side of the room, despite not knowing what I was even playing.
I'd say they were infectious, but I literally could not repeat them to you now, a few hours removed from playing. The tunes haven't burrowed into my brain far enough for that.
Given time, though, they just might, and Luigi's Mansion is definitely going to get the chance to put its music into my head at least once more. It's Ghostbusters in the Mario universe, and it's as fun as it sounds.
Fun Facts
The game started life as a tech demo to show off the GameCube's capabilities.
Luigi's Mansion, developed by Nintendo EAD, first released in 2001.
Version played: GameCube, 2001, also via emulation.