The Game

Luigi can’t save Mario on his own, though. He meets Professor E. Gadd, who gives him his invention, the Poltergust 3000, which can suck up ghosts! (Don’t be fooled by the fancy name. The Poltergust 3000 is actually just a vacuum cleaner.)

The Good

• Luigi has his own game! Finally! It’s about darn time! As a devoted Luigi fan, I shall rejoice.
• Wandering around in a dusty old mansion doesn’t sound like the makings of a fun game, but it is. The mansion is big, and fun to explore. There’s interesting stuff in every room, and no shortage of ghosts and treasure.
• There is a wide variety of ghosts, bosses, and mini-bosses. This keeps the game interesting.
• It’s fun to try to figure out the weakness on each of the main ghosts.
• The music and the voice work is good (mostly). Most of the background music consists of Luigi nervously humming or whistling the main song to himself. You’d think that would get annoying fast, but it’s actually pretty good for atmosphere.
• After you beat the game it opens up a Hidden Mansion. It’s just like the original, but your Poltergust 3000 sucks even more. (Since we’re talking about a vacuum cleaner, this is good.) The ghosts run away faster though. This offers some replayability.
• Good graphics. Everything is darn cute.
• There are 50 Boos in the game, and each has a different name, such as “Boomerang” and “Boolivia” and “Little Boo Peep.” I love that.

The Bad

• Have you heard Professor E. Gadd’s voice? It’s totally weird and messed up. I can’t listen to it. You shouldn’t either.
• The Poltergust 3000 is a little hard to control sometimes. Since it’s your main weapon, that’s not really a good thing.
• While many of the ghosts in this mansion are obviously evil and bad, some of them aren’t obviously evil. They don’t seem to be doing anything other than minding their own business when Luigi barges in and takes them out. Sure, they’re ghosts, but is that enough? After sucking up that one mother ghost who wasn’t doing anything more evil than brushing her hair, or the father ghost who was catching up on his reading, or the old lady ghost and her knitting… I felt kind of like a murderer. There was one ghost who told me to suck her up, but she sure did struggle when I actually did.
• The Boos tend to run to different rooms while you’re fighting them. You will do a lot of backtracking while hunting them down.
• Luigi is probably the slowest running person on Earth. As he shuffles along on his little tiny legs, you’ll want to kick him a time or two to speed him up. But he won’t speed up. Because he’s slow. This isn’t so bad if you’re headed to the room next door (unless you’re chasing a Boo back and forth… *sigh*). But prepared to wait around a while if your destination is on the other side of the mansion. Luigi wants to save his brother, but he isn’t in too big of a hurry.
• Poor Luigi. He finally gets a game to himself, and he *still* has to spend it in his brother’s shadow. Most conversations are about The Great and Powerful Mario. Mario is the one Luigi is looking for. Even Luigi falls to the Mario Cult. When you press A when there’s nothing for him to open or check, he’ll shout Mario’s name in his cartooney Italian accent, “Mattio!” Get a spine, Luigi! You can hold up your own game!

And The Rest…

• After you finish the game, it grades you on how much treasure you found. I got a D. I was pretty darn ashamed of myself, until I found out that the grades go down to H. Supposedly, H is as hard to obtain as A, since it’s hard to not pick up treasure during the game. So there’s another challenge for you.
• Each of the special ghosts you suck up during the game is turned into a portrait. The frame and the portrait change according to how well you did.
• The game doesn’t save automatically. You save via Toads located around the mansion, or when you suck up a Boo. Not a big deal, but be aware of it so that if you get killed you won’t have to redo things.
• They’ve brought back the concept that if you get hurt, you get small! I was thrilled, until I realized that Luigi only shrinks if he touches a poison mushroom. But I’m glad that they’re still thinking of the old games.
• For a Mario brother, Luigi sure doesn’t jump.
• Luigi tries the door, but it’s locked. Luigi unlocks the door. Luigi opens the door. Wash, rinse, repeat. Fortunately, you can skip the cutscene that goes with these actions every. Single. Time.
• This game isn’t too hard, which could be a plus or a minus, depending on what you’re after in a game.

Bottom Line - This is a fun game with lots of variety. The mansion is cool. And this game stars Luigi. You gotta love that. B+