Luigi’s Mansion 3 Review

Luigi:

I think that the common denominator of many Nintendo games is first of all playfulness, secondly the joy and amazement of discovering: worlds, mechanics, objects, possibilities and new experiences. And I am convinced that Luigi’s Mansion 3 meets both denominators at the same time, and manages to wrap them in an unprecedented setting of a haunted hotel, which, like the game itself, is rich in detail.

Story:

Like most Nintendo games, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a story. And like most Nintendo games, it almost doesn’t matter. A group of friends consisting of Mario, Peach, Luigi, Toad and the spirit of a dog will embark on a trip to the hotel. Something goes wrong right from the start and everyone except Luigi gets lost. You grab the greenster here, he grabs the deadly combos vacuum cleaner & flashlight, and you go save the world. Hotel. Friends. Ourselves.

Gameplay:

Luigi’s Mansion 3 is basically a puzzle puzzle adventure game. An adventure in which you compose not only a beaver of courage, but also a beaver of silence. Talking with others has replaced the developers with puzzles, using objects, manipulating the environment, and you have to think more or less about everything. Together, the components together create a playability concert with a perfectly tuned difficulty curve and a hard-to-describe comfort factor that will not be lost throughout the campaign.

Just like the difficulty, the hotel itself, or its floors, is greatly balanced. Every floor, one level and you would hardly find two environments similar to eggs. Once it really looks like a hotel, sometimes it looks like a sewer. Then you enter a large garden, sometimes in the Middle Ages, visit a museum, look outside, etc. All of this is cleverly designed, packed with details and each level cleverly takes advantage of its theme.

Each floor is also horribly and frightening, but of course the way you would be haunted at Disneyland. And it works. Well, not that you might be afraid, but you believe that sweetly animated and sounded Luigi is made in the gates.

The basic building blocks are, I would say, trivial: go straight behind the nose (ie a marked spot on the map), do something simple there, beat the boss and go to the next floor. Luigi’s Mansion 3 is not demanding and requires nothing complex, but this is not the end of this first layer. Simple structure is not at all harmful, because the joke is in everything else. The game is a bit similar to Super Mario Odyssey – just like there you will find details, details and surprises at every step. With various creative jingles, the LM3 is packed to burst and discovering one layer after another is pure pleasure. You interact with almost everything through the flashlight and Luigi’s iconic Poltergust vacuum cleaner, the G-00.

With one button air and everything that comes into your way you suck in, with the other back. Then you can shoot a toilet bell with a rope – it can be sucked and moved, for example, with an object too large for the suction draft of the Poltergust G-00. You get to various functions of Potergust gradually, when Professor E. Gadd plays the role of mentor, coach and mentor. He will always call you from time to time (by the way through the device parodying Virtual Boy), advise, direct, or provide some improvement in your skills. One enhancement of the Poltergust G-00 is also Gooigi, one of the biggest innovations from the previous series and a fun “gelatine” Luigi, which through its body construction can stretch through bars or canals, but again avoids water like the devil of the cross. You don’t use Gooigi all the time, you only activate it to deal with very specific puzzles, or in really tough battles.

Although Luigi’s Mansion 3 is primarily an adventure game, not afraid of action. The whole hotel is literally infested with ghosts of various shapes, colors, features and abilities, and it is up to your vacuum cleaner (and wits) to catch them all.

The mechanics of the dueling itself is simple enough: you will enlighten the spirit with a flashlight, which will stun it for a few seconds. At that moment you have time to suck it up and pull it in the opposite direction than he is running to. Once you have pulled it sufficiently into the vacuum cleaner, you can start hitting it on the ground. It is a delight to enlighten and absorb more ghosts at once, or to beat other ghosts with them.

It is also worth mentioning special fights with bosses, whose mechanics practically do not repeat and each of them offers its own unique challenge. Bosses are entertaining both in terms of mechanics and visuals and in general their surrounding environment, which they use to your detriment.

The magic of co-operative mode in Luigi’s Mansion 3 is much like that of any other Nintendo game: if you don’t have the Switch Lite handheld, you have a console with two always-charged and ready-to-use controls. You only need one Joy-Con per player for co-operation, so you don’t have to solve anything and simply start playing. Anytime, anywhere and with anyone who isn’t afraid. And it’s almost as fun as going through a solo campaign.

Multiplayer – ScareScraper:

Relatively large multiplayer mode is ScareScraper, where you are no longer limited to local gaming and you can embark on online games. In ScareScraper, you and your friends walk up the floors of a hotel (other than a campaign) and within the time limit you have to suck in as many ghosts as possible, find the lost Toads, and discover everything you can find.

ScareScraper is a bit different, but still highly entertaining – the classic gameplay of the story campaign is set by strict creators. So you do not have much time to browse the rooms, search for ghosts, coins and solve puzzles together. That is why you are not going anywhere, running behind your nose and trying to get the most out of your current passage. With ScareScraper, it’s so fun to see a gradual overcoming of both players and teams. You can play by up to two people on one console and by up to eight people if you have enough consoles. Both locally and online. While I will probably only come back to ScreamPark mini games here and there, I have a great appetite for ScareScraper even after the game is over.

 

Conclusion:

Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a very nice surprise for me and a typical better game from Nintendo. It is exactly the kind of game you would buy a Nintendo Switch for. Graphical very solid and fun gameplay makes this a must-buy!