When you're as old as we are, the place the horror game genre is at currently feels a little weird. Back then, the big horror franchises were your Silent Hills, Resident Evils, maybe an Eternal Darkness or two. In the advent of Five Nights at Freddy's taking over, horror games have gotten a bit tamer to reach a much wider audience, including children. This isn't to curmudgeon any kids that like FNAF, Bendy, or god forbid, Hello Neighbor. The phenomenon is just fascinating considering the genre's history.
Resi's still kicking well and good, but Silent Hill's been dead in the water until this very recent attempt to reinvigorate the franchise. Eternal Darkness got its sequel canceled, and even something with the high status it did back when it first came out as Amnesia: The Dark Descent had an attempted sequel that didn't go over fantastically. But one peculiar little horror game from these old days somehow managed to make a comeback.
Luigi's Mansion, of all things, came back swinging with a couple new sequels after being a bizarre little one-off for over a decade. Luigi's Mansion 3 in particular sold so well that it's odd to think Luigi's Mansion might just be an evergreen series for Nintendo now, getting a new installment each console generation. Possibly. Maybe. We'll have to see on that one.
This LM revival is a complete coincidence that it happened around the same time FNAF first took off, especially since it's mostly divorced from this "Youtuber reacts" particular subgenre of horror game. Horror games that the whole family can enjoy just seems to be a hit now.
Of course, SOME may say "isn't calling Luigi's Mansion a "horror game" a bit of a stretch?" And fair enough, especially from the lense of an adult eye, even the original Luigi's Mansion isn't that scary. But nonetheless, it's the one game that's ever scared me so much that I literally got up, turned the game off, and then went to bed with the lights on.
In the second area, something that begins occurring is that the butler Shivers will patrol the back hallway, with nothing but his candelabra visible. This has the possibly incidental effect of said candelabra poking around the corner, but in a manner that looks a bit like someone is watching you. What I saw on a crusty CRT television was a dreadful, wide-eyed face of something ready to pounce if I got too close.
It's easy enough to just brush it off as "9-year-old Vixi is just a scaredy-cat." But at the same time, things that normally wound up on "Things that traumatized me as a kid in Nintendo games" top 10s like the piano in Big Boo's Haunt or the moon in Majora's Mask left me unphased. Not gonna share this as a boast of how much thicker-skinned I totally definitely am, but I think there's more to it than simply "I was a child that took the game a little too seriously." So why not take a gander into what makes the original Luigi's Mansion tick?
The story is simple enough, as you'd expect with any Mario or Mario-adjacent title. Luigi wins a mansion in a contest that he didn't even enter, which raises some red flags. Mario goes on ahead of him to check it out, and Luigi arrives a little after, with his brother nowhere to be seen.
Surprise surprise, it's not what it seems, and the place is giving off some atrocious vibes. Any sensible plumber would turn tail and leave, but then we wouldn't have a video game to play, would we? Against his better judgement, Luigi goes inside the mansion in search of his big brother.
First impressions can be everything, and DAMN does this game make a first impression. By 2001, pretty much every Mario game had been yeehaws and wahoos and upbeat music non-stop, only really stopped by the odd ghost house here and there. And even then, it was still a very elevated kinda eerie. Like a Halloween attraction.
Then comes this, a dark, grounded-in-reality, mansion foyer with no music playing and no sound other than the rattling of the house from the storm outside. It's here that the game makes it blunt and clear this is most certainly not going to be your average Mario experience, both in terms of gameplay and atmosphere.
After a brief encounter with a ghost, Luigi meets Professor E. Gadd, a funny-named eccentric old scientist who's here to study the ghosts in the mansion that apparently only appeared overnight a few days ago. With E. Gadd deciding he's too old for this, he gives Luigi his ghost-catching vacuum cleaning invention, the Poltergust 3000.
Its controls and the game's combat are fairly simple. When you shine your flashlight on ghosts, it briefly reveals their heart, making them vulnerable to the Poltergust. Then you reel them in like a fish, pulling the control stick in the direction opposite to them trying to fly away, to drain their HP, which they'll get sucked in once it reaches 0. Fairly straightforward!
It's here that E. Gadd also explains that he invented a machine that compresses the ethereal form of ghosts into a physical painting, and thus spent a lot of time traveling to capture these ghosts. By the events of the game though, King Boo and his minions managed to put the machine in reverse and free all these portrait ghosts, releasing them into the mansion where they now reside.
The plot takes a back seat until you arrive at the second area, where Luigi ignores all the red flags in the universe and accidentally releases the Boos into the mansion. Except, weren't they the ones that instigated this plot? What were they doing sealed away until someone came around to free them? Like clearly this is just an excuse to hold off the Boo-hunting until this point in the game, but it feels like we missed something when the Boos are being kept prisoner in their own mansion!
From then on, the plot goes fairly minimal until about the halfway point, where you find out King Boo has also managed to capture your brother and trap him in a painting. How the tables turn! So now Mario is the one in need of rescue as Luigi must brave the mansion and its various horrors.
And then the plot goes minimal again. Hey, it's a Mario game, so that's just to be expected, really.
Well, there IS Madame Clairvoya, one of the Portrait Ghosts, that looks at lost items of Mario's you've found and is seemingly here to give you more insight on the plot, except she just regurgitates information you already know about. Upon collecting the item next to Mario down the well, she tells you that Mario is trapped within a painting. Okay? Old news, lady!
Except for the last bit, where she mentions that, somehow, King Bowser has returned. What do you mean "somehow"? She makes it sound like Mario has successfully killed Bowser once and for all or something. But the last major game was 64, and since then we've been hanging out with him for go-karting and board games. Feels like an odd way to frame this. Is Luigi's Mansion truly so far flung into the future in the Mario timeline that King Bowser himself is well and soundly defeated?
You have three increasingly powerful "walk up and attack you" ghosts, but there's also ghosts that drop bananas for you to slip on, Shy Guy ghosts that are only vulnerable after you suck up their masks, and ghosts that'll sneak up and grab you.
To make up for the samey enemy variety, individual rooms will have their own gimmicks to them. One will have grabby ghosts that are only visible in the room-size mirror or their shadows will only appear on a projector. One room is simply so cramped it gets claustrophobic with even just two ghosts in it. Others will force you to actively seek out ghosts hiding in the furniture. It's a really clever way to add variety to a combat system that is otherwise so basic it's hard to make enemies with wildly differing behaviors with it.
For the most part, one room will leave a key to collect upon clearing it, crumb-trailing you from point of interest to point of interest in the main "quest line." Each key even being kind enough to show you on the map which door it unlocks, basically all but ensuring it's impossible to get lost. Even 9-year-old Vixi could navigate this place!
That said, it would be a poor man's haunted mansion if it didn't have any hidden rooms! Besides the mandatory path, there are loads of optional rooms to find for extra goodies, most notably cash rewards. The money doesn't actually do anything, it's not for upgrading your equipment like in the sequels or anything like that, it's literally solely for a better screen to say "The End" on.
But nonetheless, it's a good feeling to discover goodies, and getting a good ol' dopamine rush from seeing a bunch of cash explode out of a piece of furniture or chest is a good way to keep you curious, always poking around and using your GameBoy Horror's camera scanning feature to look out for secrets.
One could point out, these secrets are not very hidden from Luigi's point of view. So apparently, he's just oblivious to the secret cheese and mouseholes lying around. There's various ghosts hidden throughout the mansion that also drop a ton of money when caught, such as the blue Speedy Spirits that you have to shake out of furniture and catch before they go zipping around the room. Or the golden mice, which are simple enough to catch so long as you look out for the cheese that spawns them.
However, both of these are only able to be encountered so long as a room is still dark, so you'll have to be watchful before you miss your chance. Not that the best ending is all that is required for a good time, but the highest rank very much requires you to be very familiar with the locations of these money-ghosts. This serves well in how the game's so short, it's very easy to beat in a single sitting.
The ghosts you will be finding as part of the mandatory path are the aforementioned Portrait Ghosts, supposedly the various residents of this very home when it was a little less haunted. Surprised this brand of stylized human never really caught on as much in the rest of Mario canon. Luigi's Mansion 3 brought them back, more or less, but I guess that can be owed to how the Mario series relies on Toads and other recognizable Mario species to be NPCs more than actual humans. Like, we know Mario running among the realistically proportioned New Donkians is funny, and are also aware of the concept art that depicted New Donkians as Mario-like people, but they could've also looked like Neville here! But we're getting side-tracked.
These Portrait Ghosts all got their own thing going on, hiding in a single room that matches their personality and the way of exposing their heart is a little more involved than with the regular ghosts. Neville here yawns every few seconds, and that's your cue to get him. Another involves requiring you to spray the icy upgrade into the bathtub she's in, since she dislikes cold showers. Some of them can be cool events or even big miniboss-like events.
There's also clues that they spell out if you scan their heart, to give you an idea on what to do about them. Some of them like Shivers here are fairly direct, while others are painfully vague. Like, the dancing couple just says "But you'll never find MY weakness!" and that's it. Really? That's not much of a hint, fellas! I mean, props for not spelling it out, that's probably ideal for your survival, but still.
Either way, they're a welcome collection of personalities that add to the game's "Cartoon-Halloween" vibe. At least if we're ignoring the two frankly fatphobic caricatures, which pull the rather tasteless humor of "Fat man love food" and "Dohoho, we made you think this lady was skinny, hot, and attractive, but she's actually fat and ugly!! Teehee!" A tiresome sense of humor that painfully plagues an otherwise fun setting.
Otherwise, this game's writing is fairly amusing, with fun dialogue here and there uttered from the portrait ghosts and Luigi occasionally quipping about various objects of interest laid about the house.
This also extends to the Boos, who mostly have funny dialogue and delicious pun names. They're another ghost you'll be regularly encountering, and are required to catch most of them in order to make it to the finale. They're different in that they can only be found in lit rooms, and you don't catch them in a fishing-style sort of manner like other ghosts. Rather, you kinda just have to point the Poltergust at them and hope they'll behave and be stun-locked long enough for you to catch them.
This becomes increasingly impossible the later in the game you get though, as they'll start having upwards of 200 health, all but assuring they're going to escape, bop around in the hallway, poof into another room, run into again, escape, and then poof into a room you don't have access to yet, too bad so sad. In terms of gameplay they're consistently the most annoying part of the game.
Of course, aside from Portrait Ghosts and Boos, there's also outright boss fights encountered at the end of each major area. They're obviously even more involved than the normal Portrait Ghosts are, but in a more action-oriented way, where the demand is moreso in a straight-up fight complete with dodging attacks and everything.
The difficulty curve is kinda out of control though. Chauncey and Bogmire are both not that difficult, and Area 3 is a step up in terms of difficulty, but boy is Boolossus in particular a difficult fight compared to the previous two bosses.
Nearing the end though, it does feel a bit like they've run out of ideas for Portrait Ghosts. For the most part, they're fairly believable as residents for a home that contains a whole extended family, with a mom, dad, baby, nephew, grandma, gymbro uncle, and their butler. Bogmire's the one stand-out, but to be fair, it's more of a monster than a person.
By Area 4, you start running into Portrait Ghosts that feel more like they should've been fellow regular ghost enemies than Portrait Ghosts, like the toy soldier men, and Jarvis the jar-residing ghost. There's just a dude that hangs out in cold storage in the basement? Okay then?
Some of the portrait ghosts are optional though, but as usual, if you're looking for the best score, you'll want to grab as many of them as possible, since catching them rewards pearls for extra money. If you get them in one cycle, you even get awarded the coveted big pearl! And a nice golden frame around their picture in E. Gadd's gallery.
All that said, this game's crowning achievement is its atmosphere. The way this game feeds into its own atmosphere is brilliant. Like we said, it gives the first impression that this isn't your typical Mario game, and that isn't just reserved for the intro sequence. The rooms throughout are very dark, with nothing but your flashlight and maybe a few ambient candles here and there to light the place up. Not helped by the fact that the mansion looks fairly realistic, at least by 2001 standards. It's really impressive that this is a launch title for the Gamecube, because it still is one of the best-looking games on the entire system.
Of course, graphics shouldn't be judged by how realistic they look! That's a bad take for people on Twitter to have. We much prefer when realism is used as a conscious aesthetic choice. And sure, to some extent or another, this style was probably chosen because it shows off what the Gamecube can do in terms of graphics better than had this been cartoonier, but there's still a feeling that the devs definitely decided that the way to tell this tale of Luigi was best done through this lens.
Up until this point in the series, the Mario art style has fairly consistently been bright and upbeat, and only really let up in a few select areas in Mario 64 like Big Boo's Haunt or the more laid-back vibes of Dire Dire Docks. But even then, these slightly "darker" areas of Mario canon are still within the DNA of a portly cartoon Italian man, so at no point has the series been outright scary. At best, decent creepypasta material.
Luigi's Mansion is practically the opposite. Consistently dark, dank, and run-down-looking. Seems like an odd setting to throw Green Mario into, at least until you realize that's the whole point.
Luigi until now hasn't been super-solidified as a character. The best you got to infer from things like the Mario Bros. cartoon is that he isn't as confident as Mario, or in Mario Party where he's a little whinier than Mario is (which is saying something considering the gusto of Mario's "OHHHHHH NOOOOOO"). Paper Mario had the seeds of what would eventually become Luigi's modern character in it, with him repeatedly stating how much he'd like to be out and about adventuring like Mario gets to (as well as establishing his phobia for ghosts.)
...But Luigi's Mansion is when Luigi's character really started to take root to a point where it snowballed into the very core of modern Luigi's being. Luigi is the silver-medal brother who isn't as confident in himself or as sure he can make it through the horrors of the mansion. He's easily frightened and is constantly calling out for his brother's help.
It makes SO much sense then that Luigi's self-doubt manifests in this new, slightly edgier art style and tone for a Mario game. Luigi's been thrown into a situation so fundamentally out of his element that LOOKS so scarily real to him. The mansion reflects this by being the visual antithesis of the Mushroom Kingdom we're familiar with. The dude's been displaced not only in setting, but even in an entire genre!
It's an art style and direction that's so unique for the Mario series, to the point where it's even unique within the Luigi's Mansion series! Of course, even Luigi's Mansion 3 feels a bit darker than your usual Mario game, but it also falls back on a lot of "cartoon horror" aesthetics in its environmental design. OG Luigi's Mansion had this too so that the edge isn't absolutely oppressive for kids, but modern Luigi's Mansion feels a lot more like a Halloween fair attraction a lot of the time, rather than someplace that would actually be a haunted house.
The music is also brilliant, with most of the game including a single track that persists throughout the game, but changes depending on the context. You have the main track, which mainly plays in the dark hallways of an area, even accompanied by Luigi mumble-humming as if to distract himself from how terrified he is.
Then there's the darkened room music, which is little more than the main Luigi's Mansion theme, but "sung" with the serenade of creepy ghost mumbles.
This isn't to say Luigi's Mansion's atmosphere is relentless, as it does know when to lighten up. Literally! The game has very clearly defined safe zones, being rooms that you've cleared all the ghosts out of, turning the lights on. Here, the only real danger are the Boos, which only come out in lit rooms when you shake the object they're hiding in, with a hot-cold radar to help you out. Aside from that, you're in relatively no danger within the lit rooms of the mansion, allowing you (and Luigi) to be more at ease. He even does a lighter whistle for the music!
It's still pretty ghostly in appearance, but going through and lighting up more of the mansion makes the place feel more homely, with the warm lighting and a less-frightened Luigi. It begins to feel a lot more inviting, in an old vintage home kind of way. Like that one house that belongs to an old extended relative that you've only ever been to a couple times in your life.
Which of course begs the problem: Once you've unlocked most of the mansion, it's easy breezy! The final area doesn't feel as hard when you have so much safe zone to retreat to!
Well turns out, they thought of exactly that! Area 4 starts off with lightning striking the house, causing the power to go out across the entire mansion. The ghosts then come out in full force, appearing in rooms that were previously safe and in even more dangerous waves than before, and defeating them doesn't even turn the lights back on. Instead, you have to make your way to the basement's breaker room to turn the power back on.
This is such a brilliant way to up the ante, because this is quite easily the most dangerous part of the game, especially if you're taking the opportunity to hunt down any of the blackout-only speedy spirits, or any rich ghosts you might've missed in general.
Area 4 can be a bit of a chore, since it's split between the attic and basement, meaning you'll be traveling all the way to the top of the mansion and then all the way to the bottom. But thankfully, the mansion itself is fairly compact so going to opposite ends is never too much of a chore. The only glaring omission is that there's no door between Areas 1 and 3, despite there being very easy spots for one.
Like???? Seriously, fellas?????? Why can't there be unlockable doors like, right THERE? It would make traversal in some parts so much easier. But at the very least, they do have some quick travel in that you can use the Gameboy Horror to scan a mirror, which will teleport you back to the foyer. Comes in handy quite a few times.
The compact design is also fairly nice for how the mansion feels homely after unlocking so much of it. Feels like a very lived-in space because of it. This is basically the opposite to how the sequels felt, which feel very sectioned-off in ways where, in LM3 especially, the different floors barely ever intersect other than an elevator at the start of each area.
But in the very pit of the basement, in front of a creepy altar, is King Boo himself, flaunting his entrapped Italian but craving for more Italians to entrap. It's a weirdly specific addiction, he could probably use a bit of rehab.
Then suddenly, warping through a spectral portal, King Bowser appears!
Except not really. King Boo's trump card is pulling out an animated haunted Bowser suit that you throw bombs at to blow the head off to vacuum away at King Boo. Or is it an animated suit? If we go off the theory that this is the distant future of Mario canon, is this just Bowser's decapitated corpse possessed by King Boo?????? After all, it's included in King Boo's painting, implying it's spectral by some nature!!!! Makes you think.
After a satisfyingly difficult battle with King Boo's Koopamunculus, Luigi has successfully saved the day and sends Mario through the painting machine in reverse, restoring his brother to his ol' self.
And Luigi's reaction is... a good crying fit?
Like, look, we're not gonna pretend this is a master class of subtle writing or anything, but it's probably one of the most heartfelt moments we've ever felt in a video game. Who knows if it actually goes this deep by intention, but Luigi can be brought to tears of laughter for a number of reasons. For one, how often does he get to see his big brother in a humiliating position? Two, he's relieved that he's somehow managed to save the day where Mario couldn't. And three, he's genuinely elated to see his beloved brother safe and in the flesh again. It's just a surprisingly layered emotion for a Mario game.
And with King Boo gone, the mansion disappears again overnight. But apparently, the money Luigi collected wasn't fake, as he then gets to build the mansion he was promised by scrounging up what he's collected, and the more money you've collected, the fancier the mansion you get. Enjoy property taxes, Luigi!
...By the way, we've hardly touched on the 3DS remake because to this day we still haven't played it, whoops.
Don't get us wrong, we DO love especially Luigi's Mansion 3, not even being particularly bothered by the series' notable change in vibe to be a bit more comedy-horror than outright being a kid-friendly horror game. But it's still hard to deny the original Luigi's Mansion holds such a unique spot in the atmosphere within a Mario game. Maybe Luigi's Mansion 3 feels a little more feature-complete compared to Luigi's Mansion of old, with a far longer run time and more fleshed-out combat and exploration mechanics, but OG-LM holds such an undeniably special place in our heart for reasons that are possibly difficult to describe.
Maybe it's simply because we've played through it about two-dozen times to a point where we're EXTREMELY familiar with it, as opposed to us playing Luigi's Mansion 3 exactly once. Maybe it's because while LM3 has so much charming personality in the animation, LM1 has developed a charm with its age making it feel archaic in an endearing way.
Either way, it's a game near and dear to us as our first entry into the world of the Nintendo Gamecube, one of our favorite console generations ever. And even as adults, we'd say the game has held up very well over time, neverminding the advancements the series has made since.
Maybe the Luigi's Mansion series will never quite be exactly like Luigi's Mansion ever again, especially in light of light-hearted horror being the big thing for the genre. But maybe that's okay.
Also there's a crusty trailer for Pikmin just right there in the options menu. What more could you possibly ask for?
Personal Score: 9.5/10
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