Dr. K's Waiting Room

Released: 31 October 2019
Developer: Next Level Games

The Background:
In 1996, following their success in the “Console Wars” of the nineties, Nintendo entered the third dimension with Nintendo 64, a console that stood out against its competitors by continuing to use cartridges, coming readymade for multi-player player, and featuring a unique controller design. Having lost out to Sony’s new-fangled PlayStation, Nintendo sought to recoup their once-vaulted position as the premier entertainment option with the Nintendo GameCube, which finally saw the company switch to discs (albeit with a suitably “Nintendo” flair) and was also notable for Mario’s younger brother, Luigi, finally receiving his time in the spotlight with Luigi’s Mansion (Nintendo EAD, 2001), a game that focused more on exploration and puzzle solving as Luigi channelled his inner Ghostbuster to suck up ghosts infesting a hotel and rescue his brother. Although the game sold extremely well and was a critical success, it took twelve years for the game to get a sequel. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon (Next Level Hames, 2013) released for the Nintendo 3DS and was also a best-selling title for the system and met with largely unanimous praise. After development of a third game for the Wii U was delayed, Next Level Games finally returned to the franchise six years after the release of the second game; developed for the Nintendo Switch, Luigi’s Mansion 3 saw the setting expand from a mansion to a high-rise hotel and also increased the game’s accessibility by including on- and offline multiplayer modes. Considering the success of its predecessors, it’s perhaps no surprise that Luigi’s Mansion 3 became one of the Switch’s best-selling titles and was regarded as Luigi’s best adventure yet.

The Plot:
Luigi, his pet ghost dog Polterpup, Mario, Princess Peach, and three Toads are invited to the luxurious Last Resort hotel for a vacation. Soon after arriving, Luigi awakens to find the hotel transformed into a haunted building and the others imprisoned in pictures by the hotel’s ghostly owner, Hellen Gravely, as part of a trap set by the nefarious King Boo. Arming himself with Professor E. Gadd’s newest Poltergust vacuum, Luigi hesitantly sets out to rescue his friends and suck up the hotel’s ghost infestation.

Gameplay:
Like its predecessors, Luigi’s Mansion 3 as an action/adventure game with a strong emphasis on exploration and puzzle solving. Players are played into the shoes of Mario’s younger, often unfairly overlooked brother, Luigi, who is robbed of his usual athletic abilities and must rely on a vacuum-cleaner like device, the Poltergust G-00, rather than his jumping prowess to dispose of the many ghosts that have infested the hotel. As you explore the many dark hallways and various themed floors of the hotel, you’ll need to use Luigi’s torch (or “flashlight” for any Americans out there) to stun nearby ghosts; you can do this by tapping or holding A, which will freeze most ghosts on the spot for a few seconds so you can suck them up by holding down ZR and filling up an onscreen circle by holding back on the left analogue stick. Once this is full, you can press A to perform a slam move that will deal greater damage to the ghost and speed up the process, but just sucking them up is enough to whittle down their health.

You can also use ZL to send out a gust of air to push enemies back or fire certain items at ghosts as projectiles, or press ZR and ZL together to perform a quick burst akin to a jump that won’t let you reach higher platforms but will knock back enemies. All of these Poltergust functions are also useful for interacting with your environment; you can suck up curtains and sheets, blast furniture and chandeliers, and affect almost everything in every room either with the vacuum or by pressing X. This will reward you with loot, such as Golden Coins, gold bars, bills of money, and pieces of heart to refill your health, but can also uncover hidden ghosts. Some of these, such as shiny gold and blue-coloured variants, will reward you with additional loot and collectibles, so it’s well worth exploring every room you enter to see what you can uncover. You can use the left-hand circle pad (or directional pad, depending on which Switch you have) to call for Mario with left, right, and down, or enlarge the onscreen map by pressing up. The map can also eventually be accessed from the + menu, which allows you to view the floor you’re on, review your current objectives, and chat with E. Gadd for hints, though it’s generally pretty clear where you need to go and not only will Polterpup occasionally pop up to show you where you need to go but E. Gadd will communicate hints to you through the “Virtual Boo” if you struggle to solve puzzles.

As the story progresses, E. Gadd will furnish you with these additional upgrades, and others; eventually, you’ll gain the ability to fire plungers with Y, which you can suck up to destroy chests and other parts of the environment, activate switches and such, and remove protective items from certain ghosts. You’ll also acquire the “Dark-Light Device”, another torch-like appendage that lets you uncover hidden chests, doors, and other secrets, track Polterpup and the mischievous Polterkitty, and even defeat certain enemies by holding X to shine the dark-light around the environment. Your most useful ability, and the game’s big new gameplay mechanic, is “Gooigi”, a protoplasmic double of Luigi that E. Gadd eventually supplies you with and which you can send out of the Poltergust but pressing in the right stick. Doing so switches your control to the gooey double, who can slip through bars, vents, and grates and allow you to clear rooms and puzzles by activating switches or opening doors as one character and progressing as the other. Gooigi is quite fragile, having only twenty-five hearts to his name, and immediately dissolves upon touching water, and many of the game’s puzzles and bosses that involve him are geared specifically towards having a second player on hand. If you don’t have one, you’re forced to switch between the two on the fly using the right analogue stick, which can be tricky and frustrating at times and leaves Luigi vulnerable to attack while playing as Gooigi. Still, it’s an interesting mechanic and make you think a little harder about approaching each room, as your exploration may uncover a hidden vent that leads to a key or other loot.

Your primary objective in Luigi’s Mansion 3 is to rescue the three Toads, Mario, and Princess Peach from the magical paintings they’ve been trapped in. To do this, you’ll need to defeat a number of bosses to acquire the missing buttons for the hotel’s elevator; each boss you defeat awards a button, giving you access to another floor of the hotel, and many of the floors contain a specific theme that help them to stand out. Most of the time, you need to navigate through rooms clearing out all of the ghosts you encounter and exploring any hidden areas; other times, you’ll need to find a key to open doors, or find another way around if doors are blocked or barred, or use the two Luigis to activate switches and fans with their weight or Poltergusts. The game’s puzzles eventually become a bit more complex, and it’s not always immediately clear what you need to do: in one area, you need to roll and unroll carpets according to how they appear in a mirror; in another, you need to use the jump burst to uncover dangerous and painful laser traps; and other times, you need to blast Toad at breakable walls or use your plunger to pull down weights to activate lifts. Quite a few puzzles require you to shut off water streams so that Gooigi can reach a switch, or have you creating shortcuts using ladders, or blowing on windmills to rotate rooms and access hidden switches or keys. Probably the most complex puzzle is found on the eighth floor, which is a television studio; here, you need to warp between four different film sets using television sets and activate a film camera as one character while the other fends off ghosts to acquire an item, which must be then taken to another set and so on until you’re able to get the key item you require.

Graphics and Sound:
Luigi’s Mansion 3 retains both the charming, cartoony aesthetic of its iconic characters and also the gloomy, ominous surroundings of its predecessors. Luigi’s character model is fantastically expressive; his body shivers and his teeth chatter as he cautiously wanders the hotel’s hallways, and he jumps with fright at any sudden movements or sounds. I find it endlessly amusing that the developers continue to implement a specific button to have him call out for Mario in a terrified voice, and it’s a continual source of amusement to see how he comically reacts to scares, rooms, and even damage. Of all the other Mario characters seen in the game, the one you’ll interact with the most on a gameplay level is Toad; you have to rescue three of these little blighters, and they’ll follow you around, squealing with fear at every opportunity, and you can give them a little high-five or even shoot them as a projectile to progress further. You’ll also spend a great deal of time interacting with Professor E. Gadd, who sets up a laboratory in the hotel basement that you can quick travel to for upgrades, hints, and to view bonus materials, and all of these familiar characters are brought to life wonderfully using the power of the Nintendo Switch.

The Last Resort is quite a large and versatile environment; although it’s a hotel, it contains many areas and rooms that you might not expect. At first, you’ll explore such traditional areas as the basement, laundry room, and various bedrooms and dining rooms you would expect to find in a hotel. Each of these are infested with ghosts, of course, and filled with interactable objects, but things start to get incredibly bizarre as you explore the upper floors of the hotel. Here, you’ll enter the aforementioned television studio, a floor littered with magician’s tricks and apparel (including mirrors and upside-down rooms), a gymnasium, and an Egyptian-themed floor full of hieroglyphics, sand, and even a pyramid. You’ll also find a pirate-themed cavern, a beach, and explore rat-infested sewers and a boiler room, and scale a crumbling, wrecked staircase in the overgrown gardens. There are fifteen floors to visit and two basement levels to explore, with secrets and enemies increasing the further you progress; areas start to become more and more overrun with ghosts and different combinations of enemies, which constantly keeps you on your toes, and it’s continuously amusing to see what new surprises await you on the next floor as the hotel is crammed full of both surreal areas like the Unnatural History Museum and the comparatively normal master suite at the top floor.

While the graphics and environments are impressive and full of a decent amount of variety, the music isn’t really all that interesting. The iconic Luigi’s Mansion theme plays sporadically throughout the game, and areas are mostly accompanied by bursts of lightning, skittering rats, chattering ghosts, and the sounds of Luigi’s terrified footsteps and whimpers. Ambient sounds and subdued musical cues help add to the game’s comical terror, and Polterpup’s inexhaustible enthusiasm is a welcome addition and, as is the standard for Mario games, characters speak using text boxes, gibberish, and a few choice voice clips, so you won’t have to worry about sitting through any overblown cutscenes here and can simply enjoy the characters employing amusing pantomime-like motions and spouting nonsense when they interact.

Enemies and Bosses:
As you might expect, given the franchise, your primary enemies in Luigi’s Mansion 3 are a series of ghosts who have taken residence in the hotel. These range from the standard blue-coloured Goobs (who are easily mopped up but sometimes shield themselves with shades and wield melee weapons like baseball bats), the yellow-coloured Oozers (who pop up from hiding spots to throw projectiles at you), and miniature versions of these enemies. You’ll also have to fend off rats, bats, and spiders (though these little critters can be easily dispatched with a burst of your flashlight), and possessed chests and bins that need to be blasted with projectiles or subjected to your dark-light. Soon enough, you’ll come across more formidable ghosts, however: the Hammers will try to crush you with their cube-like bodies and must be sucked up from behind, Slinkers will scare you and leave you vulnerable and also try to kidnap Toads, and Trappers require both Luigi and Gooigi to suck on their tongues to dispatch them. When in the Tomb Suites, you’ll have to knock over mummified ghosts with your jump burst and unravel their bandages to expose their ectoplasmic bodies, and larger and more diverse groups of enemies will eventually populate the hotel’s higher floors, causing you to mix and match your attack strategies.

Seventeen bosses must be fought in the game’s story, with fifteen of them being required to beat in order to access every floor in the mansion; while their attacks differ from each other and you’ll generally have to employ different strategies in each battle, they all mostly boil down to finding a way to stun the boss and then suck them up with the Poltergust. The first boss you’ll encounter is a ghostly steward, who shields himself from your flashlight with suitcases and then tosses them at you in the hotel’s basement. On the fifth floor, you’ll counter a particularly malevolent maid who disappears through the bedrooms of the RIP Suites and will cause Luigi to sneeze with her feather duster, and can only be sucked up after using your plunger to slam the briefcase stuck in her stomach. In the hotel’s mall, you’ll need to find a number of different keys to confront Kruller, a bulbous security guard who dissolves Gooigi with a water pistol and must have his shades sucked off so that he can be stunned, but also strikes with a rolling attack. While in the second floor kitchen, you’ll battle the first formidable boss of the game, Chef Soulfflé, who shields himself with a frying pan and unleashes a spinning attack with his knives. To defeat him, you’ll need to avoid the fishes he throws at you and stun him by firing melons at him to leave him vulnerable to your torch and Poltergust.

Things start getting a little more complicated when you battle Amadeus Wolfgeist, a pianist who remains safely out of reach on the stage and causes chairs to fly at you, distracts you with ballerina ghosts, and then possesses his piano. In this form, he is invulnerable and hops around the theatre, but can be stunned when Amadeus pops out of the piano; you then need to try and shoot bombs into the piano lid to collapse it and drag Amadeus out with your plunger, which gives you the chance to properly damage him but you’ll also have to watch out for his flaming attacks and the piano keys he tosses at you. Another troublesome boss is King MacFrights, who’s fought in a medieval coliseum and can only be stunned when he charges at you for a lance attack while archers shoot arrows at you. After slamming him a few times, his armour will break and you’ll have to dodge his spinning attack and strike while he’s left dizzy and vulnerable. Just reaching Doctor Potter can be a chore as you have to weave through the wild gardens to get to him and, when you do, he sends his Venus flytrap at chomp away at you; avoid this, however, and it’ll get stuck on the environment, allowing you to cut it using a convenient buzzsaw, which leaves him vulnerable to your Poltergust. After helping Morty the ghostly director find his megaphone, he’ll force you to star in his latest production and battle a Goob inside a Godzilla-like costume; you must use the Poltergust, in conjunction with Gooigi, to force the monster’s fireballs back into its face in order to damage it. Once you destroy the suit, the Goob is easily sucked up, and you can also choose to suck up Morty as well by going into his office in you fancy it.

In the Unnatural History Museum, you’ll be attacked by another monstrous enemy as the caveman-like Ug possesses a giant Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, which can only be damaged by firing eggs first into its mouth and then into the glowing red orb in its rib cage. Once the T. rex is destroyed, Ug himself will come out to fight; while he’s a bit of a bruiser, as long as you stay away from his club and burst-jump over his shockwaves, you can stun and suck him when his club gets stuck in the floor. Clem awaits you in the boiler for a battle in a reservoir of water lined with spikes; he’ll attack you with a fan and send out landmines, which you must direct towards him to blast him out of the water and leave him vulnerable, meaning it’s best to leave Luigi floating in the water and have Gooigi on the outside ready to attack. After conquering the Tomb Suits’ puzzles and traps, you’ll battle Serpci, a pharaoh-like entity that protects herself with a mound of sand and strikes at you with cobras. Sucking at her sand and snakes will cause her to become exposed, then you must dodge the projectiles she fires to stun her, though her speed and unpredictability make her a particularly aggravating boss. A trio of magician ghosts, Nikki, Lindsey, and Ginny, await you in the Twisted Suites; this is actually good preparation for the final boss as the three fire playing cards at you from their magician’s hats and must be stunned with a jump-burst when they try and grind you up at close range and you must attack each ghost in turn, with decoy ghosts taking the place of each of the triplets as they’re captures.

One of the most recurring enemies you’ll face is Poltergkitty, a mini boss who steals a couple of the elevator keys and forces you to chase after it across the floors of the hotel. When you finally confront it, you need to face away from it and wait for it to creep up behind you; right as it’s rearing to strike, at the very last minute, you must turn around and stun it so you can suck it up and remove one of its tails until it’s defeated. Captain Fishook awaits you in the Spectral Catch; at first, you need to avoid his charge and the swing of his hook, stunning and sucking him up when he gets stuck in the deck of the ship, but things get much more harrowing when the shark possesses the ship itself, turning the wooden decking into a gnashing mouth that you must fire bombs into and avoid being tipped into it by the ship’s wild dipping. Johnny Deepend absolutely requires the use of both Luigi and Gooigi and is best fought with another player; Luigi must take cover and distract the boss so that Gooigi can slip around behind it and drain the water from the pool. After that, simply avoid his fists, remove his shades, and stun him with a water polo ball to suck him up, and you’ll then have to contend with DJ Phantasmagloria. First, you have to deal with the dancing Goobs, stunning the one who has the elevator button you need with a jump-burst, before the boss officially joins the battle. DJ Phantasmagloria teleports around the dance floor tossing vinyl records at you and you need to use the burst-jump to knock off her afro and leave her vulnerable to your flashlight so you can suck her up.

When you finally reach the fifteenth floor of the hotel, you’ll have to face off against the hotel owner, Hellen Gravely, in another boss battle that is absolutely built to be conquered by two players. While Luigi must avoid the spinning lasers and coloured laser walls, Gooigi must head down into the lower levels to deactivate the aforementioned laser walls by pulling four switches. Removing all four walls makes trying to suck her up much easier but realistically you can probably do just as good a job of avoiding her attacks and going after her with one or two of the walls deactivated. As the battle progresses, you’ll have to avoid more lasers by either frantically running around the arena or jump-bursting over them, and water will flood the lower level, restricting which switches you can pull, though you can flash the green lights on the walls and the insects to replenish your health if necessary. Afterwards, you must head to the roof to do battle with King Boo, who tries to squash and rattle you by dropping down from above and causing shockwaves, spits a bunch of fireballs at you, tries to slam and swipe at you with his tongue, electrifies the roof tiles, and tosses bombs into the arena. You must quickly suck one of these up and fire them into his mouth, which is easier said than done given how tricky the aiming mechanics can be, and this only makes the battle harder as King Boo spawns first one and then two duplicates and vastly increases the aggression and number of its attacks. You’ll only gain victory by firing bombs into the right King Boo, but it’s actually easier to just blast as many bombs as possible at all the targets and hope for the best as things get very chaotic very quickly thanks to the time limit in the final phase.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
At the start of the game, your options are limited to your flashlight but it doesn’t take long before you acquire the Poltergust G-00. However, once you have this, you’ve basically got everything you’ll need for the remainder of the game; sure, you get the dark-light, the plungers, and the Virtual Boo but there’s only really one prominent upgrade to the Poltergust, the Super Suction, and it’s only used once in the game, which is a little disappointing. You can earn additional upgrades for the device by meeting certain requirements, such as collecting all of the game’s gems or defeating all of the optional Boos, but none of the money you earn is used to upgrade your repertoire or even your health. When Professor E. Gadd sets up his shop, however, you can buy some helpful items, such as Gold Bones to have Polterpuppy resurrect you when your health is drained and sensors to alert you to nearby Gems and Boos, but that’s about it in terms of items and power-ups beyond the temporary use of a buzzsaw in the gardens.

Additional Features:
As alluded to, there are some rewards you can earn for meeting specific requirements, referred to as “Achievements”; these are directly tied to repetitive actions, such as riding the elevator, defeating specific numbers of ghosts, and interacting with certain objects in each environment. They’re also tied the game’s few collectibles; every floor has six hidden gems to find, with many requiring quite a bit of exploration and ingenuity to track down, and you’ll also be given the optional task of hunting down sixteen hidden Boos, who require a little more strategy than just stunning and sucking up as they like to play hide-and-seek, must be stunned with the dark-light, and can be difficult to pin down. When you complete the story, you’ll receive a letter grade and get to see a rebuilt version of the hotel that reflects how much money you have but, unlike in the first game, you don’t get to play through a mirrored version of the game on a new save file.

You can view the ghosts you’ve defeated and the gems you’ve collected at Professor E. Gadd’s lab, but the majority of your additional playtime will probably be taken up with the game’s extra modes, which can be played either solo or alongside fellow players. The ScreamPark challenges you to collect Coins, defeat ghosts, or shoot at targets to score points for your team; the ScareScraper sees you defeating ghosts, rescuing Toads, and fulfilling other objects either alone or in teams while avoiding traps. At the end of those mode, you’ll battle the Boolossus, an even more formidable version of King Boo that adds a phasing attack to its arsenal and splits into a number of regular Boos after eating a bomb. If you fancy putting your hand in your pocket, you can also purchase some additional content (such as costumes, games, and ghosts) for these modes, though I have to say that I remain unimpressed with the lack of post-game content.

The Summary:
I remember enjoying the original Luigi’s Mansion back when I borrowed it for the GameCube when it came out, but being disappointed by the post-game content; there wasn’t too much on offer beyond the main game, despite there being a lot to see and do as you explore, and I can’t say that I was too interested in revisiting the franchise after that experience but I was won over by the game’s visual style and charm. Luigi’s Mansion 3 is basically more of the same; the gameplay and mechanics haven’t really changed all that much as far as I can tell, and the developers haven’t really complicated the premise with too many different mechanics. The addition of Gooigi is an interesting one that is tailor-made for two players (specifically an older and younger player) but perfectly acceptable to play solo as long as you can properly manage your characters thanks to the puzzles and areas being quite restricted to closed off areas. As visually impressive as the game is, and as expansive and diverse as the hotel is, however, there’s really not too much to occupy your time in the main game outside of bustin’ ghosts and ransacking the hotel for loot. There’s still no option to play as any other character, which I find endlessly disappointing, and while you suck up a lot of currency, there’s very few opportunities to really spend your money on anything beyond a few minor additions to your arsenal, and beyond the hidden gems and Boos there’s not really much incentive to explore or search around the hotel’s rooms. I imagine that the additional modes offer a lot of replay value, and that the game is more enjoyable in co-op mode, but I put all of my time into the single player story and, while I had a good time, I was hoping for a little more from it. A mirrored mode, purchasable upgrades and skins, and maybe the option to utilise Polterpup and/or Toad would have been nice but there’s definitely enough content and gameplay on offer to keep players (especially younger players) invested and challenged, I just think there could have been a little more spice added to the mix.

My Rating:

Pretty Good

Have you played Luigi’s Mansion3? What did you think of it compared to the previous two games, and which was your introduction to the franchise? Are you a fan of the series and how different it is from the traditional Mario formula? Do you agree that there could have been a little more in-game content or were you satisfied with what was on offer? Which of the floors and bosses was your most, or least, favourite and did you ever play the game in co-op? What games are you playing this Halloween season? Whatever you think about Luigi’s Mansion, sign up to leave your thoughts or let me know on my social media.