Review of Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD – light horror

Another month, another Nintendo game. Even the eighth year of the Switch’s life cycle does not end with regular releases from the Japanese company, although in the first half of this year we still get mostly remakes or remasters. And while we had a great remake of the excellent RPG Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door in May, by June Nintendo had prepared a remaster of the slightly newer Luigi’s Mansion 2 (released in the US as Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon) from 2013, which was originally intended for Nintendo 3DS. But is the updated version worth it?

• Platform: Nintendo Switch
• Publication date: 06/27/2024
• Developer: Next level games
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Genre: Action adventure game
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: Yes
• Download data: 3 GB
• Game time: ~15 hours
• Price: 1349 CZK (Alsa)

Dark setting but full of humor

For those unfamiliar with the series, the first thing to say is that Luigi’s Mansion is certainly not a horror film. Although the story takes place in a dark setting with quite a strong atmosphere, for the most part any potentially creepy situations are treated with humor. Like many other Nintendo games, it’s no problem for kids. Of course, that doesn’t mean adults won’t enjoy it.

The story is very simple: the titular “dark moon” is stolen and divided into several parts, causing the good spirits inhabiting various mansions in the Evershade Valley to become unusually aggressive. The professor again calls for help from Luigi, who sets off to save the fragments of the dark moon.

Nice gameplay…

There are five settlements in total, and their diversity is one of the main strengths of the entire game. Whether it’s a clock factory, haunted towers, or a frozen complex, each location has something interesting to offer and brings not only a unique atmosphere, but also several unique mechanics. Of course, the most interesting are always the first levels, where you discover different corners of mansions, the environment or even a mysterious dungeon. Unfortunately, the latter mostly consists of throwbacks and rather obvious reworkings of both environments and content to increase the game’s length.

Each place is divided into several levels, where you have to complete tasks set by the professor and then return back. Mostly they are not very long, the shortest can last up to 10 minutes, the longest about 40, but there are not many of them. Much also depends on how much you take the risk of exploring side, additional rooms that can bring you various hidden rewards and, above all, money, for which you can get upgrades to your equipment.

In his travels, Luigi encounters a number of ghosts, the variability of which is not too great, but it seemed just right to me. From basic green types to larger and more aggressive red types to ancient Egyptian mummies. The Poltergust 5000 vacuum cleaner gets a lot of work, as does Luigi’s flashlight, which can not only illuminate and thus stun enemies, but also use a special light to “materialize” hidden objects.

Most of the gameplay consists of not only “battles” with ghosts, but also puzzles. This also represents, at least from my point of view, the more interesting part, because in addition to the already mentioned hidden object detection, you will generally be using the environment to progress further. For example, “suck out” a blocking item, or let the ice melt with a lit torch. Often your task then is to find the key to open the locked door. It is at these moments that the game resembles Survival Horror, although, of course, in a much lighter presentation. You’ll probably encounter some moments where you’re not quite sure how to proceed, but there aren’t many.

…which can ruin not only the management

Either way, the puzzles are the best part for another reason – the controls. And now we come to the fundamental negative. Although the camera is not static in the game, it moves, but this is not far from the old Resident Evils, for example. And this makes it really difficult to control yourself in tense moments during fights. I couldn’t get used to aiming until late in the game, so I had serious trouble hitting exactly what I wanted, leading to some unnecessarily frustrating moments.

To make matters worse, if you die you’ll have to redo the entire level, there are no permanent saves. I think this is definitely something that should have been added in the remaster because you can lose tens of minutes of progress. This also applies to the multi-stage boss battles, but on the other hand, I have to say that most of them have a very original design in terms of mechanics, and I liked these fights the most.

Good remaster, but don’t expect more

In any case, the visual improvement that the remaster brought is not small at all. Sure, in some ways you can still tell this is a 3DS game and the graphics aren’t quite up to the level of Luigi’s Mansion 3, but 2 still looks very good in HD. Environments, models, animations, user interface, in short, everything has been improved. So the game definitely won’t disappoint with its graphics, and you’ll enjoy it even more if you play it on an OLED switch, which is ideal for dark games like these.

The atmosphere is also complemented by very good sound, be it sound effects or music. Although one motif is often repeated, the variations are very well executed and suit the setting.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed playing Luigi’s Mansion 2, despite some disappointing moments. The remaster managed to greatly improve the visuals, and in terms of game design, the game is still, for the most part, at a high level, even after 11 years. If you haven’t played the second part of this series yet, now is your perfect opportunity to do so. But if you’ve already played the game on the 3DS version, the remaster won’t bring you anything other than improved graphics. In addition, there is also a price to consider, the same as the already mentioned complete remake of Paper Maria, which still seems a little exaggerated to me.