Luigi's Mansion 3

This game takes us back to the Luigi's Mansion we remember and uses all of it's potential as Nintendo is known to do. There probably won't be a another major entry for another few years but this was worth the wait.

Luigi's Mansion 3 is yet another game for the Nintendo Switch which showcases video game excellence from Nintendo. Arguably the best yet in the Luigi's Mansion series, the game showcases beautiful animation including movie quality cutscenes, fantastic music, tons of charm, great characterizations for the Mario gang, and, of course, really fun gameplay.

Rather than Mario saving the day, in these games, Luigi has to step up and be the hero, which makes for a wonderfully different Mario experience. This entry in the series sees Luigi exploring a resort hotel rather than a traditional mansion, which makes for some great themed hotel floors. The overall level design is fantastic. I won't give away any of the themes, but I will say don't sorry about any of the floors being repetive hotel levels-they aren't at all. Each one has a unique theme.

The main game mechanics are stunning ghosts with a bright light and then sucking them up with a vacuum. Luigi can also turn the vacuum into a blower, use a darklight to reveal hidden objects, shoot out a plunger and vacuum the end to break large objects or open things, and use a gooey clone named Gooigi to go through grates and explore hidden places. All of these game mechanics make for great gameplay with lots of fun puzzle solving. The ghost hunting in this game also introduces slamming, so you can slam ghosts around on the ground while Luigi is sucking them up with his vacuum, which is mighty satisfying.

I got between 15 and 20 hours of gameplay just from one playthrough of the main story. However, if you zoom through you can probably finish the story in around 10 hours. There's also some fun multiplayer modes to get more gameplay hours out of. There are modes for both online/local play and for co-op on one system.

If you enjoyed the previous Luigi's Mansion games, you'll love this one. And if you haven't played one, you can expect a Nintendo style 'spooky' game with great humor and tons of charm featuring the number 1 sidekick in the world taking the place of the hero!

Despite playing my share of Nintendo games & consoles from the NES through the GameCube era, I'm now what you might call a "lapsed gamer". Things like dual joysticks and complicated button schemes are often overwhelming to an old geezer like me (!). I like to poke around with "the new stuff", especially when it's nostalgia-based, but that's about all. In that sense, "Luigi's Mansion 3" was the perfect Switch game for me-featuring an ultra-simple premise and very forgiving learning curve.

For a very basic overview, this game sees Luigi, Mario, Princess Peach, and some Toadstools trying to vacation at what looks to be a luxurious hotel. But as so often happens to the residents of the Mushroom Kingdom, it turns out to be a trap set by King Boo-imprisoning all but the nervous, green-clad plumber. So, once again paired with Professor E. Gadd and his trusty Poltergust vacuum, Luigi must work his way to the top floor of the hotel (by collecting elevator buttons) via defeating any number/type of ghostly figures along the way.

I remember the original "Luigi's Mansion" being the first game I loaded up on the GameCube back in 2001 and enjoying it more than the consensus back then. I didn't play the sequel at all, but this third incarnation (much like, say, Mario 3 back in the NES days) eclipses them all. I think the key component here is just how much darned fun it is! Hardcore gamers need not apply (not that they ever would, this being Nintendo and all), of course, but for those looking for a supremely fun and unthreatening experience, LM3 is perfectly suited.

Gameplay-wise, the gist here is similar to all the other LM games: go around sucking up ghosts to unlock new areas. The big twist here is that now the player can spawn Gooigi, an ectoplasmic, amorphous copy of Luigi, who can help out when "two vacuums are better than one". This mode is fine for single player action, but also really helps to make the game viable for two players at once.

The big draw (or drawback, depending on who you are as a gamer) with LM3 is its overall ease. From beginning to end-even the final "boss battle" is paltry by most standards-this is a game that doesn't take almost any technical expertise to complete. Truly, the only skill required is deciphering the ways in which the final villain of each stage can be defeated. Other than that, this whole experience is far more about immersion/fun than anything skill/thinking-related.

All in all, I found "Luigi's Mansion 3" to be a wonderfully fun and frivolous romp that helped connect my nostalgia to the current Nintendo era. The only reason I can't give it the full 10 stars is an endgame that somewhat let me down. But as someone who is oft-overwhelmed by the time/skill necessary to learn/beat modern games, LM3's focus on fun was a breath of fresh air.

The first part of the game is great, exploring the hotel, gaining new power ups and getting treasure and gems is so fun and rewarding. Then the game turns into a tedious annoying mess, they introduce power ups for getting collectibles that don't work, the enemies and puzzles become too powerful considering that you don't really "level up" at all in the game, the floors start getting more and more simplistic but somehow more annoying, and all of this was enough to just make me quit the game. The first part was so great I don't know what happened to make the game so tedious. I would almost recommend it for the first half alone but it's just not worth it considering how annoyed you'll be.

We just bought the game today and I started playing it. I love the whole animation of the entire game. I like the music and the ambience is creepy. I like the story as well. I had chills up my spine. What can I say? This is a fun game to play. So far, so great. Luigi needs to put on a brave face. Go get them, Luigi!