To call this a step up from Dark Moon would be a gross understatement, and while I don’t think this quite captures what made the first game stick out in people’s memories it more than makes up for it by being a fantastic game in its own right.
Unlike the current dev team behind Paper Mario since Sticker Star, Next Level Games seemingly took a lot of the gripes people had with Dark Moon to heart, between the return of bosses more akin to the first games portrait ghosts and the complete axing of the mission structure, which overall makes for a better gameplay cycle. The game autosaves quite frequently anyways so the devs still found a work around to accommodate for the Switch’s portability which is a welcome addition.
The few new additions to exploration and combat also help to spice up the gameplay enough that it avoids some of the repetition that Dark Moon and even the first game suffered from at points. I did initially think Gooigi would end up as really gimmicky and little else, but it’s implementation did actually make for some humorous moments during cutscenes, on top of a lot of cool new ways for puzzle solving that the first 2 wouldn’t have been able to achieve.
Speaking of cutscenes, good God is this game a technical marvel. Between the many great lighting and particle effects to the phenomenal character animation it almost puts other big Switch titles like Mario Odyssey to shame in some regards.
While a Luigi’s Mansion sequel more in line with the original in tone and atmosphere would certainly be really nice, I’m more than happy if this’ll set the precedent for any future sequels, which given Nintendo’s recent acquisition of Next Level Games is almost inevitable at this rate. Regardless I excitedly anticipate the next paranormal romp with my favourite Mario brother with great enthusiasm, here’s hoping it’ll be able to top this.
9/10
Unlike the current dev team behind Paper Mario since Sticker Star, Next Level Games seemingly took a lot of the gripes people had with Dark Moon to heart, between the return of bosses more akin to the first games portrait ghosts and the complete axing of the mission structure, which overall makes for a better gameplay cycle. The game autosaves quite frequently anyways so the devs still found a work around to accommodate for the Switch’s portability which is a welcome addition.
The few new additions to exploration and combat also help to spice up the gameplay enough that it avoids some of the repetition that Dark Moon and even the first game suffered from at points. I did initially think Gooigi would end up as really gimmicky and little else, but it’s implementation did actually make for some humorous moments during cutscenes, on top of a lot of cool new ways for puzzle solving that the first 2 wouldn’t have been able to achieve.
Speaking of cutscenes, good God is this game a technical marvel. Between the many great lighting and particle effects to the phenomenal character animation it almost puts other big Switch titles like Mario Odyssey to shame in some regards.
While a Luigi’s Mansion sequel more in line with the original in tone and atmosphere would certainly be really nice, I’m more than happy if this’ll set the precedent for any future sequels, which given Nintendo’s recent acquisition of Next Level Games is almost inevitable at this rate. Regardless I excitedly anticipate the next paranormal romp with my favourite Mario brother with great enthusiasm, here’s hoping it’ll be able to top this.
9/10