Is Luigi's Mansion Actually Good?

the year is 2001 and Nintendo is about to launch their brand new console the GameCube excitement was high for the release of this system I mean just the graphical upgrade alone from the N64 to GameCube was enough to generate hype but with the launch of a new Nintendo console also meant the launch of a new Mainline Mario game to show off what the system could do right it was practically Tradition at this point the NES launched with Super Mario Brothers the SNES launched with Super Mario World and the N64 launched with Super Mario 64. well to the surprise of just about everybody instead of launching with a brand new Mario game the GameCube would instead launch with a Luigi game the very appropriately titled Luigi's Mansion this game has always fascinated me it's Eerie tone and unsettling atmosphere is just so different from what we're used to in the Mario franchise and today I want to take to take a deep dive into it and see if it really lives up to all the hype my name is Mario meister and welcome to a Luigi's Mansion retrospective in this video I'm going to try and answer one simple question is Luigi's Mansion actually good released on November 18 2001 here in North America Luigi's Mansion was Nintendo's big launch title for the GameCube and also was Luigi's first time taking Center Stage as the protagonist of a game as up until Luigi's Mansion he lived almost entirely in his brother's Shadow as a simple player too but funnily enough Luigi's Mansion initially wasn't even meant to feature Luigi at all you see sometime in the late 90s Nintendo wanted to make a game that entirely revolved around the player exploring the many rooms of a giant dollhouse at first Mario was cast of the protagonists as they knew the game would sell well if Mario was on the cover but as ideas changed and the setting of The Game changed from exploring a giant dollhouse to exploring a giant Haunted Mansion filled with ghosts the team became very wary about having the Brave and fearless Mario as the lead because they wanted a more cowardly character that would be easily frightened by the ghosts and so after some debate the team eventually set Luigi as the protagonist of the game as even as far back as an old 1983 commercial for Mario Bros on the Atari Luigi had always been betrayed to have a more cowardly personality making him the perfect fit for this game and also giving Nintendo a perfect excuse to expand upon his character Luigi's Mansion didn't only influence a lot of Luigi's character though it also heavily influenced many aspects of the GameCube itself since Luigi's Mansion was developed alongside the GameCube the team working on the game was able to make requests to Nintendo that would make developing the game a lot easier for example Luigi's Mansion relies heavily on lighting the sudden illumination of a room due to a lightning strike the subtle light of ghost emits and even the beam of light from Luigi's flashlight play a huge part in immersing the player in this game's world and because of this the team requested that the GameCube have a more advanced lighting engine that would make implementing these effects much easier this along with many other requests from the team were actually added to the GameCube it's honestly very unlikely that Luigi's Mansion would look as good as it does if not for being developed alongside the GameCube the game opens up with a cutscene of Luigi slowly approaching this rundown Mansion being Guided by this map that reads your mansion and although it's not mentioned in the game right away the manual reveals that Luigi won this mansion in a contest he didn't even enter and that Mario is supposed to be there waiting for him as Luigi gets closer and closer to the mansion tensions rise as the music gets more and more Sinister before Luigi finally makes his way inside to find the place completely empty this opening cutscene perfectly sets the tone for the game establishing its incredibly eerie and unsettling atmosphere I absolutely love how it doesn't rely on jump scares or loud noises to make the player feel uneasy instead it relies on this desolate and empty feeling the only other entities present in this cutscene here other than Luigi are these two crows I mean going into this game the player might expect some ghosts to jump out at Luigi or Mario to be waiting for him at the front entrance but this lack of just anything does an amazing job at building tension and easing the player into this creepy atmosphere as you actually start to explore this seemingly empty Mansion you eventually meet this strange old man in a white coat who saves Luigi from being attacked by a ghost after Escaping The Mansion the man identifies himself as Professor E Gad a well-renowned Ghost Hunter and scholar and informs Luigi that he saw someone wearing a red hat similar to Luigi's enter the Mansion earlier and never return with this newfound knowledge of his brother possibly being trapped inside the Mansion Luigi and egad team up with egad providing Luigi with his ghost catching device the Poltergust 3000 and teaching him the basics of how to use it to catch ghosts this tutorials great as it does a really good job at teaching the player how to use the Poltergust 3000 in an area where there isn't much pressure allowing them to experiment with the controls a bit and understand how it all works moving away from the tutorial though and back into the Mansion itself I absolutely love this place the atmosphere here is just perfect Nintendo did such a good job at making this seem like an actually lived-in place which is a stark contrast to their last attempt at something like this with Peach's castle almost every room here feels like it serves a purpose and would actually be a room you would find in a giant mansion which only adds to the immersion of the game the ghosts themselves actually contribute a lot to this lived-in aspect as well I mean of course the regular and average ghosts you find just roaming the halls or floating around and some of the rooms don't contribute much but the more humanoid goes to encounter like this fatherly ghost Neville you find in the study reading a book this dancing couple you find dancing in a ballroom and this buff ghost you find working out in the rec room do an amazing job at making the Mansion feel like a lively place while still keeping that creepy tone as they are obviously ghosts one of the things Luigi's Mansion excels the most at though in terms of its immersion and atmosphere is its music as you explore the many rooms and Halls of this place that iconic Luigi's Mansion theme plays and does an amazing job at capturing the feeling of exploring a haunted mansion but one thing you might not notice is that this music is actually adaptive meaning that it changes depending on the current circumstances for example when you're roaming a dark Hall you have that classic theme ever in knows and loves with Luigi humming along to it hmm [Music] but when you're in a room that you've completed and the lights are on the theme will change to a more calm whistling rendition of that theme [Music] and when you're outside the Mansion it changes to a heart rendition of the theme [Music] this is such an amazing use of the game's main theme and it's a great way to convey the tone of wherever you are in the mansion the adaptiveness of this game's music doesn't just stop there the music that plays when you're roaming one of the mansion's many dark Halls is actually dependent on Luigi's current health while you're at or around full HP Luigi's humming and the orchestral track accompanying him sound normal but after Luigi's lost some health the track slows down a bit with Luigi occasionally missing some notes in his voice cracking frequently mm-hmm [Music] and when you're on the brink of death the track slows down a lot more with Luigi consistently missing notes and his voice constantly cracking and shivering almost as if he's about to pass out [Music] this is an absolutely genius way to convey Luigi's fear when he's at full health he's humming to try and keep himself sane he's completely alone in here apart from the ghosts obviously and he's trying to distract himself from thinking about what could be lurking around as his health goes down though he's starting to lose that sanity his fear is getting the best of him and it's much harder for him to stay calm and collected hence the voice cracks overall the audio design of Luigi's Mansion is easily some of the best in any Nintendo game the adaptiveness of the music the subtle sound effects and the outstanding voice work Charles martinet does as Luigi here is something I will always love about this game speaking of Luigi himself though I absolutely love how expressive and observant he is in this game I mean of course you have the iconic screaming pose he does when he gets scared by a ghost but you also have things like the little dance he does when he beats a boss or gets a key lifelike animations like this make Luigi feel more human and make him someone the player can relate to and both something like this may not seem that Charming now you have to remember that animations like this simply weren't possible for Nintendo before the GameCube so it was really cool to see just how much more lively Nintendo characters could be now with the gamecube's upgraded graphical capabilities in terms of his observance though I absolutely love the commentary Luigi has on certain objects when you scan them with the Game Boy horror his little comments on the paintings and various antiques spread around the Mansion were an absolutely unnecessary addition but is something that just fleshes out Luigi's character a bit more and gives you some insight on his thoughts and I mean speaking of insight on Luigi's thoughts you can't forget the button that is almost entire highly dedicated to just calling out Mario's name moving on to easily the most important aspect of any video game we have the gameplay itself the gameplay of Luigi's Mansion centers around exploring the many rooms of the Mansion solving puzzles and catching ghosts while you try to track down the evil King Boo who's captured Mario in a painting now Luigi's Mansion features two main types of ghosts you got your regular run-of-the-mill ghosts who are relatively easy to defeat and mostly just slow Luigi down and then you got the portrait ghosts the portrait ghosts or goes to egad had once captured and displayed on portraits but due to the emergence of King Buu all these portugals were freed from their painting prisons and now inhabit the many rooms of the Mansion these portugals are much more difficult to capture than regular ghosts and some of them even have full-on boss fights associated with them that the player must tackle in order to defeat them these boss fights and just catching ghosts in general are a lot of fun due to how good the controls are in this game there definitely are times where the controls do feel a bit finicky but overall I didn't really have any major issues with them but catching ghosts and solving puzzles isn't the only thing you do in Luigi's Mansion while you're exploring the place you'll often come across coins bills gold bars pearls and sometimes even diamonds collecting these valuables isn't at all required to beat the game but it's something that just brings the whole experience together you see when this game came out it was heavily praised for its atmosphere sound design and just overall aesthetic however one thing a lot of people criticized the game for was its length Luigi's Mansion is an incredibly short experience clocking in around five to six hours overall but one thing many critics didn't understand about the game was that its short run time was actually intended I mean Luigi's Mansion on its own is no doubt a pretty fun time but it's its replayability that makes the experience feel a lot more complete you see after you beat the game all the treasure you collected overall is tallied up and you're given a final gold count this final gold count determines what rank you'll get and determines how nice your custom Mansion will be this rank you get at the end is very arcade-ish the game actively encourages you to go back and replay it if you get a bad score as not only do you get a sad little jingle signifying you could do much better your save file also just simply gets deleted after you beat the game the highest rank you can achieve here is an a rank and achieving this rank is not easy on your first playthrough of the game even if you think you're collecting pretty much all the gold you can you'll most likely end up with an ear F rank due to how well hidden a lot of the gold is the mansion has tons of secret rooms secret objectives and even some secret portrait ghosts that contribute a lot to your overall gold count and if replaying the game for a higher score doesn't appeal to you Luigi's Mansion also has a Hidden Mansion mode you unlock after beating the game for the first time this Hidden Mansion mode differs a lot in new additions based on what version of the game you're playing the Japanese and North American releases of the game just make the ghost steal more damage but have the Poltergeist suck them up faster while the European and Australian releases of the game completely mirror the entire Mansion make the bosses more difficult offer less ways to gain Health the list goes on this Hidden Mansion mode is in incredibly cool it practically remixes the entire game it sucks that this version of the mode was only exclusive to Europe and Australia though the amount of changes here is amazing moving away from the gameplay of Luigi's Mansion though this game has fostered tons of dark theories and Creepypastas surrounding it due to not only the generally creepy nature of the game but also certain elements about it that players have found interesting the two things that influence these theories and stories the most is the beta game over screen and the lighting glitch that occurs in the telephone room the beta game over screen funnily enough was never actually confirmed to be the beta game over screen you see Luigi's Mansion was first revealed to the public as a tech demo for the GameCube at space World 2000 this Tech demo showcased various footage of what would go on in the mansion and ended on the shot of Luigi looking incredibly depressed to try a drama pipe for the game regardless of if this ever was actually a planned game over screen or not it's still incredibly creepy the infamous telephone room lighting glitch is a glitch that occurs when Luigi is standing in a specific spot in the telephone room while standing in the spot when there's a lightning strike outside Luigi's Shadow will look as if he's suspended from the ceiling this is an incredibly unsettling lighting glitch that many people around the time of this game's release actually thought was intended I think it's so cool that people have taken it upon themselves to theorize and write stories surrounding these two creepy elements because it just keeps talk surrounding the game alive and has made it Everlasting in a sense dark theories aside though the last major thing I want to talk about here is the final boss fight after exploring just about every room of the Mansion defeating every boss and capturing 40 of the 50 boosts scattered around the place you'll be able to make your way into the secret alter room inside this room lies Mario trapped in a painting and the main antagonist of the game King Boo upon noticing Luigi has entered the room King Boo will suck him into a Bowser painting and transport him into the final boss area this boss fight takes place in what seems to be the roof of the mansion and as you face off against King Boo in a giant Bowser suit I honestly don't really like this final fight for starters I think it's honestly really lame that you're just essentially fighting Bowser here with King Boo only coming out so you can drain as hell Bowser is supposed to be Mario's arch nemesis and throughout the entire game they're setting up King Buda be Luigi's arch nemesis so I feel like it would have been way cooler if you just bought King Boo himself rather than King Boo in a Bowser suit in terms of the actual fight itself the idea is fine you're supposed to avoid bastard's attacks and shoot these explosive spike balls at him to cause the Bowser shoots head to come off and King Boo to come flying out of it but in execution this fight has a lot of issues with the biggest being that actually hitting Bowser with the spike balls is stupidly difficult you can only hit him in the head and half the time I thought I had hit him the ball would either pass right through him or just disappear after some time you do get used to the fight's drankiness but that doesn't relieve it of its issues regardless of this fight's problems though after knocking the Bowser suit's head off enough times you're finally able to defeat King Boo and save Mario bringing a Bittersweet end to the game [Music] wow [Music] so Mario [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] Luigi's Mansion is a weird game I mean at the time it came out it was like nothing we'd ever seen from the Mario franchise before it was a game solely focused around Luigi and instead of trying to save Peach you're trying to save Mario but looking back at this game today there's still a lot to love about it its atmosphere is masterfully done everything from the clever lighting the Adaptive music and even the ghosts themselves do an amazing job at immersing the player in this game's world the countless amount of Secrets and collectibles hidden around the mansion and the various ranks you get make this game one you can play over and over again in the short run time only adds to this making it something you can get through in only an afternoon or two the theories and stories surrounding this game have keptalk alive surrounding it and have made things like the beta Luigi screen in the telephone room lighting glitch Infamous among Nintendo fans the only real issue with this game is its final boss fight there are a few things that they should have done differently but this one small issue doesn't completely invalidate all of the amazing things this game does at the end of the day Luigi's Mansion is an almost infinitely replayable experience that only gets better with every new playthrough so to finally answer the question posed at the very beginning of this video is Luigi's Mansion actually good no Luigi's Mansion is more than good it's amazing [Music]

Channel: Mariomikester

Views: 62,678

Keywords: luigi's mansion, luigi, luigi's mansion 3, mario mikester, mariomikester, luigi's mansion review, is luigi's mansion good, nintendo, retrospective, luigi's mansion 2, gamecube, luigi's mansion retrospective

Id: kyhq8tloyN4

Length: 20min 20sec (1220 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2023