On Christmas of 2015, I got a present that changed my life. I got my first ever videogame console; a 3DS XL, and Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon. I played the game and loved it, it just clicked for me. It helped me make friends, develop as a person, it was something I could always fall back on when feeling bad.

When booting up my switch in September of 2018, I saw a notification in the news section on the left "Luigis Mansion 3 (working title)" had been revealed. I screamed so loudly in excitement that I lost my voice for 3 days. The reveal trailer was pretty short, but it showed enough to get me extremely excited. Luigi was back, and he looked better than ever! In the following year I obsessively stalked nintendo's youtube channel eager for more news about this game, and when they dropped an overview trailer during E3, my hype grew even more! This was my most anticipated game of all tame. I was lucky enough to go to Gamescom in Germany in August of 2019. It was an experience I'll never forget, Huge areas and tons of people that loved games, and were just as excited as I was. When me and the friend that invited me finally got to the Nintendo section, there it was, Luigi's Mansion 3!!! I was so excited, I was prepared to spend the entire rest of the day in line to try it out. But my friend and his dad didn't want to, and I was still too young to be out on my own, especially in a country whose language I don't even speak. So they didn't let me play. I was fuming. When halloween finally rolled around, I was stoked. Me and my best friend who I always used to play Dark Moon with held a small halloween party. I was dressed as Luigi with the Poltergust 5000, and he was Mario in a painting. We went trick or treating, and got a load of candy. Then we went back to my house, and started playing. We played all night long, and had already finished the game the next morning, but we'll never forget this magical experience. I truly think there will be no game that can ever get me as hyped as this one did, and the memories I have with it make this one of my all-time favorites.

Safe to say, I might be a tiny bit biased.

Sure, this game has less ghost than the two games before it.
Sure, the atmosphere isn't as good as the first game.
Sure, the plot is kinda stupid.
But the personality OOZES from this game.
The mechanics and gameplay is the best yet.
The abolishment of the mission structure was a really good choice.
The animations are buttery smooth.
The Hotel is filled with interesting puzzles and varied locales.
The scarescraper is better than ever.
The party mode is really fun.
The visuals literally look like a PIXAR MOVIE.

You should give this game a shot, it's really good.

While not as good as BIS, it does do some things better. I really like this world, and the story is okay too, the combat is amazing (as usual), and the gian battles are improved hugely from BIS, the gimmick of going into luigi's dreams is also really good, although they stay pretty surface-level throughout. The music in this game is amazing, the higher quality speakers of the 3DS really help elevate them compared to the DS.

But despite all that, it just doesn't live up to BIS. Going into bowsers body is GENIUS, and the story was way more interesting than Dream team. Also dream team LOVES giving tutorials, even for the most surface-level easy to understand bullshit, it's exhausting.

So immensely tragic. I really like this series, and i really like this game. But the game STINKS of missed potential!! Mario and luigi crossing over with Paper mario could've been SUPER INTERESTING. but they took the most boring parts of paper mario, slapped the brothers in really lackluster areas, and removed ALL the cool characters that were a staple of the Mario and Luigi series. The game is still fun, the writing is good, combat is really good, and the pacing is way better than in dream team, but it could've been so much more.

Massive step forward. The world feels so alive, and there's tons of things to explore. Visuals are amazing and music even more so. I'm also one of the few people that really love the battle system (except for not leveling up, that sucks). But it's sad to hear the devs talking about the limitations that have been layed on them for no reason whatsoever. And they don't like it too, you can feel them, fighting against those limitations and trying to push the boundary of what they're allowed to do. I wonder how this game would've turned out had the dev's gotten free reign to do what they pleased.


(Also, sidenote: Why the FUCKK are modern mario games so obsessed with gatekeeping 100% completion?? It's driving me CRAZY. If you use any combat items (like the fire flower), you're immediately not eligible for a true 100% save file. AND THEY DON'T TELL YOU THIS!! I found out after ALMOST 100%ing the game, gave up on it when i heard this. Utter BS.)

With mechanics that contradict eachother, (mostly) lackluster areas, boring enemies, even more boring characters, and an unnecessary world map, I still really like this game. The writing is really good, the areas that aren't lackluster are REALLY interesting, and the characters (despite being REALLY BASIC) are fun to talk to. Also the music is really good. Personally, there's a lot of bias involved as this was the very first game i ever bought day one, but i find it to still be a decently fun time