This game tends to get the short end of the stick more than any of the 3 Luigi’s Mansion titles, and even despite having grown up playing this a fair bit I didn’t have great expectations going in. I played Dream Team a lot growing up and I think that games a load of arse. Fortunately that’s not the case here, as I still consider this to be a solid game despite being a bit lacking as a sequel.
To shoot the elephant in the room right now, yes this takes a decisively more comedic approach compared to the first game in terms of tone, and while I do very much favour the first game in that respect I don’t think this games approach is inherently awful. Despite being released very early in the 3DS’ life, the character animation is really impressive and conveys a lot of emotion, be it from Luigi to the ghosts and Boos. It does seem a bit simple in this regard when compared to the third game, but even still it mostly holds up really well.
As for the other glaring aspect of this game a lot of people take issue with, yes I don’t like the mission based structure compared to the more open ended original. Admittedly it doesn’t hamper the core gameplay as much as people make it out to be, but it is still annoying only having a roughly 20-30 minute gameplay cycle before E Gadd drags you back to his lab.
As for the main gameplay, I’d say in some ways it makes a couple improvements compared to the original. There’s a much greater emphasis on puzzle solving to proceed to the next room, which compared to the first game which used puzzles way more sparsely is a welcome change. Also the Boo hunting has been drastically changed for the better. Not only is it not required to have the majority of them to beat the game, but most of them are only confined to one room and are mostly there for completionists more than anything. I do wish there wasn’t one Boo in almost EVERY level, seeing as how you’ll have to replay earlier levels since you don’t get the equipment required so you can spot them, but since they’re not mandatory to finish the campaign I can look past that.
While I still overall think the first game is superior, I definitely don’t think this game is quite the blasphemous mark on the former that it’s made out to be, and I’d still say this game holds up alright in spite of a few flaws.
7/10
To shoot the elephant in the room right now, yes this takes a decisively more comedic approach compared to the first game in terms of tone, and while I do very much favour the first game in that respect I don’t think this games approach is inherently awful. Despite being released very early in the 3DS’ life, the character animation is really impressive and conveys a lot of emotion, be it from Luigi to the ghosts and Boos. It does seem a bit simple in this regard when compared to the third game, but even still it mostly holds up really well.
As for the other glaring aspect of this game a lot of people take issue with, yes I don’t like the mission based structure compared to the more open ended original. Admittedly it doesn’t hamper the core gameplay as much as people make it out to be, but it is still annoying only having a roughly 20-30 minute gameplay cycle before E Gadd drags you back to his lab.
As for the main gameplay, I’d say in some ways it makes a couple improvements compared to the original. There’s a much greater emphasis on puzzle solving to proceed to the next room, which compared to the first game which used puzzles way more sparsely is a welcome change. Also the Boo hunting has been drastically changed for the better. Not only is it not required to have the majority of them to beat the game, but most of them are only confined to one room and are mostly there for completionists more than anything. I do wish there wasn’t one Boo in almost EVERY level, seeing as how you’ll have to replay earlier levels since you don’t get the equipment required so you can spot them, but since they’re not mandatory to finish the campaign I can look past that.
While I still overall think the first game is superior, I definitely don’t think this game is quite the blasphemous mark on the former that it’s made out to be, and I’d still say this game holds up alright in spite of a few flaws.
7/10