The Nintendo GameCube -- alongside Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox -- wouldn't just represent the next generational shift in 3D gaming, but Nintendo finally stepping outside their comfort-zone. While their stubbornness towards online gaming would endure, their embracing of disk-based media allowed for seemingly countless new possibilities. A flagship game was necessary to prove its power, and with Super Mario Sunshine set to launch the year after, why not go with his overlooked brother?
Enter Luigi's Mansion: initially designed as a tech demo showing off the GameCube's capabilities, the decision to build upon that as a game would render it Luigi's first game -- well, the first one actually involving Nintendo, anyway -- wherein he'd search a haunted mansion for Mario and suck up ghosts with a modified vacuum cleaner. Unlike the 1993 mishap Mario is Missing!, however, Luigi's Mansion would not only deign it fit to put the poor plumber's name into the title, but have actual Nintendo designers, including Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto himself, make it a reality. It would finally vindicate Luigi -- the second fiddle to Mario's spotlight; the eternal understudy to the first player.
Or would it? Like Pikmin, Luigi's Mansion's origins as a tech demo crack through; it's hardly meaty, for one, as what's a) a five-to-six hour jaunt and b) a glorified point-and-click adventure game will hardly light the world on fire. Of course, we'd be doing no favors in dismissing Luigi's Mansion outright -- to say it wasn't a divided release would be a lie, but at its heart beats that loving experimental whimsy that captivated fans regardless. The results don't lie: even putting aside countless references and cameos, we've received a 3DS sequel (Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon) and a remake of this very game, an arcade jaunt, and an upcoming Switch iteration. With Luigi's Mansion vs. Dark Moon debates not only still littering message boards but certainly slated for further combustion with said Switch game, clearly something worked.
Being in the Dark Moon camp, I'd best describe Luigi's Mansion as a proof of concept; a rough draft, if you will, of Nintendo's vision. I mean this with no ill-will: it's hardly the first time in Nintendo history an iterating concept would arguably be realized by a future installment (1989's EarthBound Beginnings, or Mother, perhaps being the first), nor would it be the last to lay out grander plans for the future (as masterful as Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey are, I think they're more indicative of what Nintendo could truly accomplish with their sandbox concepts), but Luigi's Mansion (and Pikmin, while we're at it) are awkwardly wedged in an era where such proof of concepts flourished. I know there exist those who disagree -- Finale Fireworker, one of my friends from ResetERA, hails the game as an interactive storytelling masterpiece, arguing Luigi's Mansion brilliantly echoes its themes of bravery and fear through limited mechanics and high scores; in other words, rewarding player gratification by challenging Luigi's psyche.
Truth be told, there lies the game's biggest appeal for me: from the very beginning, we're tickled at how the big, green A Button's primary function is Luigi calling out for his lost brother -- a cute touch that begs repeated, intermittent use just to scour through Luigi's fruitless hollers for curiosity's sake or mere amusement. Only 2009's A Boy and His Blob Wii revival and its hug button compares in delicately enforcing input so anchored in narrative, one gelled ever further with our hapless protagonist humming along to Kazumi Totaka's mischievous main theme. Other examples of visual/interactive feedback persist and encourage your success, be it light illuminating ghost-cleared rooms (an obvious metaphor for an ebbing nightmare) or Luigi's furniture monologues pulling out our Game Boy Horrors to scan every knickknack lying about.
Framed as a score-attack game, Luigi Mansion's constructed as a compact campfire story we can enjoy again and again. And yet, much like Pikmin, many had their fill after one playthrough. Both games feature objectionable elements of rudimentary design, but for both of their brevity, Luigi's Mansion leans towards being too simple. I know that's not entirely fair given the game's score-attack design -- Luigi's Mansion subscribes to the very same "easy to learn, hard to master" mentality of Nintendo difficulty in both its Hidden Mansion hard mode and it's not exactly to earn the top ranks -- but the first area is the perfect example: it is unbelievably short, covering a tiny enclosed floor within a half-hour's time even if you don't know what you're doing. The relative length of the following levels will quickly rush fans into the defense of "it's the tutorial area!", and perhaps it is, but given that we already just attended a Poltergust 3000 seminar with Professor E. Gadd, an impending sense of "that's it?" settles in.
Many who uphold this original's superiority over Dark Moon often point to the Portrait Ghosts -- humanoid apparitions vulnerable only to elaborate puzzle-solving. I can't deny the appeal in how they drift away from typical Mario character design, let alone how they contextually flux between irony and tragedy (be it little Sue Pea dying in her sleep or baby Chauncy born as a phantom). But fun as they are, I've never been entirely sold on the puzzle-solving. Luigi's Mansion's ranking system subscribe to the very same "easy to learn, hard to master" mentality upheld from Nintendo's earliest game philosophies, but the feedback balance between casual and core play feels uneven: most Portrait Ghost solutions are brain-dead easy, whereas perfect pearl-earning suctions feel too obtuse to parse -- let alone maintain. Meanwhile, it's also too linear for my tastes -- you're often railroaded into sequential rooms upon gathering keys, any pretense of open-choice falls apart. I can still find new ways to play and complete Pikmin; I can hardly do the same for Luigi's Mansion.
It's a game that still prods us into exploration, namely in Luigi's vacuum -- with the Poltergust 3000's mighty vortex stirring every piece of furniture, we're compelled to poke about and suck up every last dollar bill and gold bar hiding within. This plays into the Boo hunt -- the cynic may brand it padding, and I admit their persistent room-escaping antics grate on the nerves (especially whenever they disappear into a locked room; seriously, how's that fair?), but I can't entirely hate them when a) the concept practically begs the presence of Mario's not-so-shy ghosts and b) Treehouse's localization team goes to town on their names ("Wanna play Game Boo Advance?"), so we want to keep finding them for the sake of bemused chuckles.
Things fare a bit better graphically, although a 2001 GameCube game is hardly exempt from the ravages of time: look no further than Professor E. Gadd's first chat with Luigi in his lab, and observe our hero's body animation clumsily shifting stances without any natural transition. While generally adequate in itself, abrupt moments like these leave us wondering how we were ever left impressed by graphics such as these, not the least in the basic Photoshop filters for the ghost portraits. (Browse through the Mario Wiki and cringe at your own leisure.) Still, it bears repeating I adore what its attempting to be -- as a 10-year-old that was still spooked by Mario 64's infamous eel and the Sonic drowning music, the gaming media's discussion of whether or not it was "scary" was of great import to me, and although I can recall only one instance (Sue Pea, the earthquake-inducing girl who sleeps upside down), the overall moodiness was enough to keep my attention rapt. Look no further than my favorite sequence -- the piano-accompanied segue from the 1st floor courtyard to our descending down the well; Luigi slowly gripping the cold lion statue, cold breath escaping as he watches Mario helplessly pounding for help behind his painting prison. It's not scary, but certainly an unsettling step into Nintendo-lite horror.
If we must unanimously praise Luigi's Mansion for any one achievement, it's where the voice of Luigi truly came to life. While Charles Martinet briefly flirted with this higher-pitched wailing in Super Mario Advance and Mario Party 3, it's in his humming and screams of terror that fully introduce Mario's Player Two as a bumbling clown. At the time, critics railed on Luigi's Mansion for insisting upon Banjo-Kazooie-esque squawking for text dialogue, but Nintendo and Mr. Martinet knew better; indeed, the official iterations of the Mario Bros. are not elaborate characters, but comical figures who are our vehicles for contextual emotion. Every one of Luigi's verbal tics tells us what sort of individual he is, not the least in his humming: a futile distraction to keep those frightening ghosts off his mind. As opposed to instantly dating the game with Nintendo's half-hearted voice-acting attempts so commonly found in the GameCube era, his nasal squeaks illustrate wholesome sympathy.
We discover Luigi's Mansion itself is but a ghostly apparition as opposed to an actual construction, with Luigi spending his spoils on a new mansion in its place. Whichever form it takes, can we take this to signify his independence? There's not a speck of malice or rivalry in this conviction -- lest we forget Luigi's Mansion is host one of the most heartwarming endings in Nintendo history -- but whether or not Luigi's Mansion successfully laid out a blueprint, Dark Moon tore down or successfully iterated on said building plans, or whatever the upcoming Switch game will do, that it continues to endure even through a humble 3DS remake (quietly released as it may've been) is evidence enough of Luigi's infectious bravery.
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