Poor Luigi. While Mario routinely sets off to fight Bowser, rescue Princess Peach and save the Mushroom Kingdom, his taller, thinner brother is whisked off to help a crazy old man research haunted mansions. Hardly fair, is it?
Such is the life of an often-forgotten brother, perhaps. Yet that’s exactly what happened to Luigi over a decade ago, as he helped debut Nintendo’s GameCube by strapping on a vacuum and busting some ghosts. But his first solo adventure was flawed, and despite the game being a relatively impressive technical demonstration of the ‘Cube’s capabilities, the first Luigi’s Mansion was a shallow experience that managed to simultaneously be too short while still exceeding the depth of its gameplay.
Ten years later, Luigi has returned to Evershade Valley, and it’s clear Nintendo has learned from its mistakes for this sequel. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon retains its ghost hunting focus - which was always a cool premise - while rapidly expanding its complexity in terms of mission design, location diversity, enemy types and collectibles.
We’ve known for a while that Dark Moon would feature multiple mansions, but each location Luigi visits is broken down into a series of missions provided by Professor E. Gadd. Luigi will then receive a checklist of objectives, with waypoints coming courtesy of a DS-esque device that features a full map.
While your tasks are relatively straight-forward, they’re not always as simple as they seem. Obtaining a new attachment for your Poltergust 5000 vacuum, even though you know precisely where it is located, will force you through multiple rooms, searching for hidden pathways, keys and treasure, all while battling ghosts which continuously block your path or steal what you seek. Speaking of cash and gems, these are more important than ever, as they not only contribute to a mission-by-mission score (based on your clearance time, ghosts defeated, cash acquired and more), but can eventually factor into vacuum upgrades as well, though according to Nintendo there isn’t a store you specifically use.
A Toad... with a fish. Epic!
What makes Dark Moon so compelling, however, isn’t what you seek, or why you seek it, but the journey along the way. Battling ghosts is far better than it was in the past, partly thanks to a tweaked flash-then-capture system that is highly reminiscent of the first Luigi’s Mansion, yet has a better tactical feel. From using a strobe light to stun a ghost, to the resulting tug-of-war to weaken it, to the final ‘zap’ that allows it to be contained, the ‘combat’ (for lack of a better word) in Dark Moon feels great. Nintendo has, of course, designed a number of ghosts to test Luigi’s various capabilities. Ghosts can vanish quickly, forcing you to be quick switching from strobe to vacuum. Others ghouls have ranged attacks, punishing you if you attempt to drain their life for too long. Some spirits, odd as it may be, will wear sunglasses, thwarting your attempt to stun them with your flash, forcing you to remove their shades first.
The mechanics of hunting supernatural spirits, combined with the added depth of the mansions themselves and the puzzles within, make Dark Moon a far more appealing proposition in just one hour than its predecessor did in its entire lifespan. And it’s clear there is plenty more to this game. Within Luigi’s first few missions, he receives a new attachment to his vacuum, the Dark-Light Device, which allows him to uncover hidden objects and enemies, adding yet another layer to a game that quite honestly already had a fair amount going for it.
Everything we have just described was encountered within the span of a couple missions within the first mansion. And we only heard hints of bosses, and only caught a glimpse of a creaky, twisted location called the Old Clockwork Mansion. If Dark Moon keeps this pace up, it’s going to have a lot of depth.
Luigi, you’ve got a task on par with anything your brother has dealt with.
Rich is an Executive Editor of IGN.com and the leader of IGN's Nintendo team. He also watches over all things WWE, Resident Evil, Assassin's Creed and much more. Follow him on Twitter, if you dare!
Source : ign[dot]com
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