I have a complicated history with Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon. Luigi is one of my favorite Mario characters and I had always heard of an elusive game known as Luigi's Mansion online, and it always sounded like a game I would love. Then this game comes out around the time that I am deeply in love with Nintendo. I never get it, play it, or even see much of it online but knowing of its existence always made me want the game. Fast forward about 7 years and I finally decide that for October 2020, I wanted to play all 3 games for Halloween. I beat the first one and wasn't incredibly in love with it but it was still a good time and then get to the one that I know its gonna be rough. This game which I got stuck on for about 3 months and boy do I hate this game now.
However, I want to start with the things I can praise this game for, such as graphical prowess. Holy crap this game is beautiful! Even if the art style is jarring between the standard Luigi and cartoony ghosts and environments, this game is the most graphically impressive 3DS game I have ever seen and really set the standard for 3DS games in the future. The music is very well composed and even fits in with the sound design at certain points. Little touches like Toad's feet sounding like a squeaky toy as he trudges through the mansions are good attention to detail. The Scarescraper mode is kind of fun although lacks any depth for it to be something I want to come back to again and again. Some puzzles are actually pretty interesting and well-paced with a unique physics engine that makes the game fun to mess around with from time to time. However, I do wish some puzzles were a bit more streamlined, which brings me to my problems with this game.
My biggest issue here is the mission structure, which many say is not inherently bad but just is not as fun as the open-ended version of the original. I disagree entirely as I think the mission structure is an integral flaw in this game that actively ruins the experience with its inclusion. Much of this game is spent in cutscenes between levels as the game tells you where to go and what to do. That gives the game a Super Mario Sunshine experience, where the game feels the need to boot you out after every level instead of letting you discover things as you go. However, unlike Sunshine, this game feels the need to drag you where you are meant to go, point to the room you need to be in, and then give you no further instruction. "Need to figure out how to rescue a Toad? Here's the room he's in, here's the item you need to get him out but watch out, a big venus fly trap is guarding the painting." But the game stops there, making it unclear how to get rid of the flytrap with only vague hints. "Been going through a long gauntlet of ghosts and you keep getting stuck at this point that's really late into the mission. That sucks, how does start all the way at the beginning of a 30-minute mission sound?" I swear this game wants to give you no sense of progression whatsoever.
Speaking of progression, let's talk about how the game makes you feel good for completing a mission; it doesn't. The only feeling I ever got after a mission was "thank goodness, that's over." Reusing locations is abundant in this game and it leaves you feeling like you didn't actually clean any rooms out, you just temporarily cleared it so the game could set up some kind of puzzle for the next mission. Collectibles are abundant in the game but none of them give you any feeling of progression. Boos no longer feel like a special collectible because most of the time you just stumble upon them and then get no reward apart from a medal on the home screen. Gems feel less than worthless as I feel I was cheated out of some money by completing a tricky puzzle and all I got was one more rock to go into E Gadd's trophy case.
The plot feels like a continuation of the progression problem, as it too never feels like it's advancing. As opposed to the GameCube game, it's really only revealed that the ghosts have trapped Mario in the last quarter of the game. The only reason you really help E. Gadd before is because he wants some research done on the Dark Moon, the main McGuffin of the game that serves no purpose to the player outside of 'get it because I told you to.' The game tries to set itself up like it's some kind of grand heist but it is literally just the plot from the first game. Ghost designs are entirely too boring to be interested in actually capturing these things (about 3/5ths of the way in they give up on making actual new ghost designs and just add cracks to the models of the original designs), boss battles have no relevance to the plot and are usually just 'wait until this thing happens, go through tedious gameplay portion that could just be a cutscene and it would have the same effect, repeat 2 more times.' This game just outright refuses to do anything unique. It tries to have this emotional ending but it falls flat because the game never takes itself seriously, constantly cracking some slightly funny jokes and then moving on.
All around, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon feels like a funhouse distortion of the original, lacking in everything that made that game unique and interesting and putting it on a form factor that just does not fit the Luigi's Mansion series. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon is disappointing, flawed, and almost killed my love for a franchise that has intrigued me since before I even knew what it looked like.
However, I want to start with the things I can praise this game for, such as graphical prowess. Holy crap this game is beautiful! Even if the art style is jarring between the standard Luigi and cartoony ghosts and environments, this game is the most graphically impressive 3DS game I have ever seen and really set the standard for 3DS games in the future. The music is very well composed and even fits in with the sound design at certain points. Little touches like Toad's feet sounding like a squeaky toy as he trudges through the mansions are good attention to detail. The Scarescraper mode is kind of fun although lacks any depth for it to be something I want to come back to again and again. Some puzzles are actually pretty interesting and well-paced with a unique physics engine that makes the game fun to mess around with from time to time. However, I do wish some puzzles were a bit more streamlined, which brings me to my problems with this game.
My biggest issue here is the mission structure, which many say is not inherently bad but just is not as fun as the open-ended version of the original. I disagree entirely as I think the mission structure is an integral flaw in this game that actively ruins the experience with its inclusion. Much of this game is spent in cutscenes between levels as the game tells you where to go and what to do. That gives the game a Super Mario Sunshine experience, where the game feels the need to boot you out after every level instead of letting you discover things as you go. However, unlike Sunshine, this game feels the need to drag you where you are meant to go, point to the room you need to be in, and then give you no further instruction. "Need to figure out how to rescue a Toad? Here's the room he's in, here's the item you need to get him out but watch out, a big venus fly trap is guarding the painting." But the game stops there, making it unclear how to get rid of the flytrap with only vague hints. "Been going through a long gauntlet of ghosts and you keep getting stuck at this point that's really late into the mission. That sucks, how does start all the way at the beginning of a 30-minute mission sound?" I swear this game wants to give you no sense of progression whatsoever.
Speaking of progression, let's talk about how the game makes you feel good for completing a mission; it doesn't. The only feeling I ever got after a mission was "thank goodness, that's over." Reusing locations is abundant in this game and it leaves you feeling like you didn't actually clean any rooms out, you just temporarily cleared it so the game could set up some kind of puzzle for the next mission. Collectibles are abundant in the game but none of them give you any feeling of progression. Boos no longer feel like a special collectible because most of the time you just stumble upon them and then get no reward apart from a medal on the home screen. Gems feel less than worthless as I feel I was cheated out of some money by completing a tricky puzzle and all I got was one more rock to go into E Gadd's trophy case.
The plot feels like a continuation of the progression problem, as it too never feels like it's advancing. As opposed to the GameCube game, it's really only revealed that the ghosts have trapped Mario in the last quarter of the game. The only reason you really help E. Gadd before is because he wants some research done on the Dark Moon, the main McGuffin of the game that serves no purpose to the player outside of 'get it because I told you to.' The game tries to set itself up like it's some kind of grand heist but it is literally just the plot from the first game. Ghost designs are entirely too boring to be interested in actually capturing these things (about 3/5ths of the way in they give up on making actual new ghost designs and just add cracks to the models of the original designs), boss battles have no relevance to the plot and are usually just 'wait until this thing happens, go through tedious gameplay portion that could just be a cutscene and it would have the same effect, repeat 2 more times.' This game just outright refuses to do anything unique. It tries to have this emotional ending but it falls flat because the game never takes itself seriously, constantly cracking some slightly funny jokes and then moving on.
All around, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon feels like a funhouse distortion of the original, lacking in everything that made that game unique and interesting and putting it on a form factor that just does not fit the Luigi's Mansion series. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon is disappointing, flawed, and almost killed my love for a franchise that has intrigued me since before I even knew what it looked like.