Luigi's Mansion 3

Luigi's Mansion 3
Developer: Next Level Games
Publisher: Nintendo
Original System: Switch
System Played On: Switch
Rating: 4 stars 

On April 16, 2022, I beat all 16 boss ghosts and defeated King Boo, thus finishing Luigi's Mansion 3 on the Nintendo Switch! In my playthrough, I captured all 16 Boos, and I also collected 32,600G (in-game currency), which earned me a rank B (improvement from Luigi's Mansion 1, which gave me a rank E). And I did it all in a matter 17 1/4 gameplay hours over a span of 1 1/2 months.

I finished Luigi's Mansion 3 and did not complete it because Nintendo made Luigi's Mansion 3 a nightmare to complete (no pun intended). On top of collecting all the Boos and all the gems, which is par for Luigi's Mansion games, Nintendo gave this game achievements. Now some of the game's achievements overlap with the Boo collecting and gem collecting, but for the rest, it can get quite ridiculous. On top of collecting boos and gems, you have to collect a certain number of each ghost (there's 6 types of ghosts), collect a certain amount of each currency (currency comes in coins, bills, bars and pearls) and collect a special collectable on each floor. Furthermore, each floor has a random achievement, which the gamer won't know until he does it, either by accident or on purpose. With all these achievements required for completion, it's not worth completion. It's a shame because Luigi's Mansion 3 has created a world in which the player wants to explore every nook and cranny. If it weren't for those achievements, and it was just the collectables (for which the game provides help), I probably would have gone for completing the game.

Luigi's Mansion 3 should have been named Luigi's Hotel (or at least Luigi's Mansion 3: Luigi's Hotel). Instead of doing multiple mansions, like Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon, Luigi's Mansion 3 goes back to a single building, like Luigi's Mansion 1. Fortunately, it does bring over the themes of Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon, one of the highlights of that game. The hotel has 15 floors plus 2 basement floors, and each floor has its own theme. Some of the floors make sense for a hotel, like boilerworks, a basement, a lobby, a mezzanine, a shopping mall, a theatre, a garden, a dance hall and a fitness center. I would expect those all in a hotel, especially a fancy hotel. Other floors do not make sense for a hotel. Would a hotel have a castle arena (unless they are going for a Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament kind of thing), a movie making studio, a museum, an Egyptian pyramid and a pirate ship? Unless it was a themed hotel, I would not imagine any of these in a hotel, and even in the case of a themed hotel, it would have 1 of these themes, not all of them. I get Nintendo did this to have more floors and expand game time, but it really lacks that universal theme, even for a hotel. Furthermore, all these floors are somewhat lacking balance. On some floors, the gamer has to explore a multi-level maze to get to the boss ghost. On other floors, the player just has to go down the hall to a single room, and the boss ghost is there.  Sometimes a floor can take hours, while at other times, a floor just takes minutes.

Luigi's Mansion 3 does boss ghosts right this time by leaning away from what Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon did and learning towards what Luigi's Mansion 1 did. Each boss ghost as his or her own character and personality...well, kind of sort of. Each ghost boss fits the theme of its room. Garden room has a gardener, dance hall has a DJ, fitness center has a bodybuilder, Egyptian pyramid has a mummy, movie studio has a director, pirate ship has a pirate shark, etc. That's it. Furthermore, in Luigi's Mansion 1, upon capturing the boss ghost, the gamer could read a description of the boss ghost. Despite Luigi's Mansion 3 having a ghost gallery, the player has no description to read. This creates a 1-dimension character and personality for the ghost. Again, better than Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon, but it still feels like a long shot from Luigi's Mansion 1.

Luigi's Mansion 3 brings back many features from Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon, such as the strobe light and the dark light. Luigi's Mansion 3 also includes Gooigi, a goo clone of Luigi. Technically, Gooigi originated in the 3DS remake of Luigi's Mansion 1 to give that game co-op multiplayer, although I remember Nintendo advertising Gooigi as brand new for Luigi's Mansion 3. That could be due to the criticism that Gooigi did not work for Luigi's Mansion 1 because the game was never intended to have co-op multiplayer. Well, Luigi's Mansion 3 did intend for co-op multiplayer, and I would even say it encourages it. Luigi's Mansion 3 has some puzzles which require both Luigi and Gooigi to solve it. A single player can hop back and forth between Luigi and Gooigi to solve these puzzles by himself or herself. At best, this slows down game play, and at worse it makes game play harder. While I appreciate Nintendo thought of how co-op multiplayer could change up the game, I wish they would have made single player and co-op multiplayer into 2 different game modes. Luigi's Mansion 3 adds some new poltergust features. The poltergust G-00 comes with a plunger rope, which can be used grab ahold of things and throw them or tear them down, which can reveal new paths. It's another layer of gameplay, which contributes to new and innovative puzzles. In some rooms, Luigi can plug in poltergust G-00 into a socket to activate super suction, which tears down walls and other fixtures to reveal a new path. Unfortunately, this is its only use, and it's only used in some rooms on some floors. By pressing both ZL and ZR, Luigi has an air boost, which kind of acts as a jump. It does not go high, but it has good use for dodging floor attacks, and again, opening up new paths. In Luigi's Mansion 3, when Luigi has sucked in a ghost for long enough, Luigi can now slam the ghost onto the floor for extra damage. I like this over the "extra suction" in Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon. This attack has further application when facing a wave of ghosts, for Luigi can slam ghosts into other ghosts, which does damage to both the slammer and the slammee. Again, a big improvement from the last game. The only thing that does not return are the elemental medals from the first game. Such a shame because those elemental medals added another level of gameplay for puzzles.

Just like in the previous Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon, in-game currency in Luigi's Mansion 3 has more use than just ranking the gamer at the end of the game. In Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon, the in-game currency just upgraded the poltergust, but in Luigi's Mansion 3, the poltergust comes updated. In Luigi's Mansion 3, in-game currency goes towards 3 things: gold bones, boo finders and gem finders. Gold bones serves as extra continues. When Luigi loses all 99 hearts, a gold bone gives Luigi an extra continue, so Luigi can pick up right where he left off, as opposed to a game over (which Luigi's Mansion games calls "good night"), which requires Luigi to start at the last saved checkpoint.  At first, the game only allows 5 golden bones at once, but later on in the game, it allows you to hold 10 golden. As if this game wasn't generous enough with its auto-saves (auto-saves happen every time Luigi enters or exits a room), the golden bones make it even more generous. Seriously, I went into the final boss with 9 gold bones, and I defeated with 3. I prefer the method in Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon, with only 1 golden bone per mission (I know that doesn't exactly work for Luigi's Mansion 3, but they could have done something similar, like find 1 golden bone per floor). Boo finders and gem finders are cartridges installed into poltergust G-00, which causes poltergust (and the controller) to vibrate when close to a boo or gem. The closet Luigi, the strong the vibration. This aids greatly in collecting both boos and gems. Like I said before, if it wasn't for the achievements, the boo finders and the gem finders would make collecting easy. The catch with the boo and gem finders, as well as the golden bones, is that money spent does not go towards your grand total for your ranking, so you lose money (and possibly rank) by spending it on finders and bones. It causes the player to stop and weigh out his or her options before purchasing finders and bones.

Overall, a good game. Luigi's Mansion 3 has created a world in which the gamer wants to explore. The mansion/hotel has character, its ghosts (especially boss ghosts) have personality, and even Luigi feels relatable. Luigi's Mansion 3 has added new gameplay features, which puts new players and seasoned veterans on the same level. Money has more of a purpose than just ranking the player and losing that money to purchase it in the shop has the player weighing the pros and cons to determine whether rank or completion is more important to the player. Ultimately, though, I still miss Luigi's Mansion 1. Luigi's Mansion 1 feels like "baby's first horror." Although not too scary, Luigi's Mansion 1 still felt like a horror game with other horror game tropes, like slowly unlocking a haunted building. Luigi's Mansion 3 feels less like a horror game and more like an action/adventure game that just so happens to have ghosts in it. While the gamer needs to beat a boss ghost on one floor in order to unlock the next floor, it does not feel like the same level of exploration as Luigi's Mansion 1. With so many opportunities for continues and saves, Luigi's Mansion 3 does not even have the horror trope of worrying about your life. While the ghosts have more character and personality than the second, it still falls short in comparison to the first game. One step forward and one step back.