Tuesday 4 December 2018

Luigi's Mansion 3DS Review - A GameCube classic in the palm of your hand.



By Sam Coles:

In 2001 Nintendo released the GameCube; a console while good struggled to find a market with gamers. 
For one it probably didn’t help that it used tiny discs which could barely hold 1gb of space, compare to the PS2 and Xbox’s DVD format that could hold over 7gb. However the console housed a lot of great and unique games, Luigi’s Mansion was one of those games. Luigi’s Mansion was met with hostility initially due to it not being a traditional Mario game; however it was a fun and silly spooky horror game although it was not scary and was more like a child version of Resident Evil. 17 years later Nintendo have remastered it for a portable console, and it is mind boggling how I can play a console game in the palm of my hands. How does it hold up? Fine although it does have some control issues, let’s get into it.

You step into the shoes of the green clothed titular plumber, but this time Luigi is not saving the princess with his brother Mario, instead he has won a mansion in the lottery. However this turns out to be a ruse, where Luigi goes to meet Mario but it turns out that he has been kidnapped by King Boo who is well…. King of the Boos. The mansion is flooded with all manners of super natural entities, and Luigi must deal with them with the Poltergust 3000, which is a vacuum cleaner. The game’s story is great it does not take itself seriously, plus Luigi’s cowardly personality really stands out in this game as he hums nervously down the dimly lit corridors.  

Gameplay consists of exploring, light puzzle solving and combat, you explore the mansion looking for keys, money and objects of interest that will lead you to find Mario. The puzzles are not anything too taxing on the brain; it merely comes down to using the correct elemental medallion on certain enemies or doing certain things in a specific order. You have to bear in mind that this game is aimed at children first and foremost, so the puzzles are not going to be enigma code levels of complexity.

Combat is where things start to feel a bit clunky and this is due to me playing this game on an original 3DS from 2011. Luigi’s Mansion on the GameCube relied on a dual analogue stick control scheme, the original 3DS lacks a second stick but it does try different schemes to help improve the situation such as gyroscopic movement. This however was a real pain in the backside because I would find Luigi staring at the ceiling, because I would readjust to get comfortable and my 3DS would register that as movement. I found myself getting very frustrated in some combat scenarios, especially when I was ambushed by ghosts from either side as I could not swing around with ease due to the lack of a second analogue stick. I would recommend playing it on a New 3DS as that has a second stick.

The game has been given a new coat of paint when it comes to graphical fidelity, with Luigi’s character model looking cleaner and smoother instead of the blurry look of the GameCube original. However there are some graphical features missing in this version of the game, there are certain smoke and fog effects not present I expect this is to keep it at a stable framerate. This doesn’t overshadow the experience, as you will only notice it if you own the original game like myself.

Overall it was fun to revisit this classic in a portable environment, if you told me 17 years ago if you could play a game like Luigi’s Mansion on the go I would have laughed. It is astonishing what type of games we can play in the palm of our hands these days. Luigi’s Mansion is still a charming and fun adventure; despite some of the control issues which I got use to eventually it is a very enjoyable game.

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