“Memorable in the best possible way”

I was born in the late 1990’s as such my favorite console of the time was the GameCube. I was to young to remember the launch, yet old enough to remember playing the games of the time. One of my personal favorites, was Luigi’s Mansion. As such, when it was announced to be coming to NSO, I was ecstatic. I was a little scared as well, however. I hadn’t played the game in through in about 15 years, was it as good as I remembered. Let’s find out.

One more thing before we start. While there will be comparisons to the other versions and later games, these will not affect my final opinion of the game and thus the score will reflect this version of the game on its on merits.

Luigi’s Mansion: NSO

The Story And Impressions

Luigi’s Mansion is an interesting launch game. Instead of a tradition Mario game, we got a quirky side story, starring the main mans’ younger brother Luigi. The premise sets up a simple yet intriguing story: Luigi has won a mansion in a lottery he doesn’t remember entering. Luigi goes to the address of the mansion and quickly gets sucked into a Ghostbusters style adventure. He meets a scientist named Professor E. Gadd who tells him that the mansion just popped up out of nowhere and promptly equips Luigi with a ghost-sucking vacuum to rescue his brother, Mario.

This is all set up within the first moments of the game yet it is still done very naturally and little story bits throughout (Like the reveal of the villain and other such things) make the story simple, yet memorable in the best way possible way.

I was surprised to find myself slipping back into Luigi’s Mansion as easily as if I’d played the gamed yesterday. The controls are just as complicated as they need to be, which is to say, not very complicated. Compared to the later games Luigi doesn’t have as many tools, you can turn your flashlight on and off and of course you can suck up ghosts with your vacuum cleaner.

The last ability you get is the ability to suck up elemental ghost’s (Once you have the prerequisite coin) and blow that element (fire, water, etc.) out of your vacuum. All in all the game is very easy and fun to pick up, even after around 15 years.

The Cons

This is the part of the review where I talk about some less fun stuff, the stuff that still drags the game down. The major thing that I feel needs to be addressed is the health issue. I consider myself decent at video games. I generally play on normal but I do like a challenge.

While this game is pretty easy normally, it can get decently tough, I don’t have a problem with that, the problem is that (unless I’m missing something) healing is a pain! I spent most of my time at between 15 and 40 out of 100 health. This was the single thing that made me not want to pick the game up, because I felt like I wouldn’t make progress.

The other flaw (which is null and void if you have a GameCube controller for switch 2) is the lack of pressure sensitive triggers. However this a) doesn’t affect the game that much and b) is more of a problem with the console itself. I won’t count off for that.

My Verdit

Luigi’s Mansion has its flaws, but overall I would say it is a good time. I would argue the 3DS version is superior, but you might not have access to that, and it’s expensive. For what it is, if you have NSO I would totally give it a shot. You already have NSO right. Should you buy NSO just for Luigi’s mansion on switch 2. Child me wants to say yes, but end of the day I couldn’t recommend it if you’ve held off already. It’s not THAT good IMO. I give Luigi’s Mansion for NSO a 7 out of 10

But what do you think? Is this actually the best way to play Luigi’s Mansion, given you can do it on the toilet? And please, tell me if I’m missing something when it comes to healing!

7. Good

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