Time for some house cleaning! Join Luigi and Professor E. Gadd as they join forces again to rebuild the Dark Moon.

Nintendo and horror have a bizarre history, primarily being a Family friendly company it was interesting when Luigi’s Mansion hit the scene back in 2001 on Nintendo GameCube. This adventure put Luigi in the main character’s seat as he sought to save his brother from the clutches of King Boo using the trusty Poltergust 3000 vacuum cleaner. This quickly became a cult classic and is still a fantastic show of the GameCube’s graphical power.

A swarm of bats breaks to reveal the Dark Moon!

It would be 12 years before the game got a follow up, developer Next Level Games managed to make a successful pitch to revive the series on the, then current, Nintendo 3DS. A further 11 years later and this second entry has seen its first port over to home consoles but how does this 3DS game fare as a fully fledged Switch title? Find out in our Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Review!

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Review – Story

A happy Professor E. Gadd is busy at work in Evershade valley. This scene shows that the ghosts, who, while aggressive in the first game, are quite docile and help him work on his current project. Suddenly, King Boo, seemingly unfazed by the previous title’s escapades, smashes the ominous, purple Dark Moon spreading its shards across 5 mansions that reside in Evershade and sending all the ghosts into a fury. With the situation breaking down E. Gadd reaches out to our unwilling hero, Luigi, using his new Pixelizer (trying not to make a Ratchet and Clank joke here) to bring Luigi to his lab for some ghost hunting, moon fixing shenanigans.

E. Gadd with his friendly ghost team (pre-disaster).

First our hero is dispatched to the Gloomy Manor, where he finds the new and improved Poltergust 5000 and proceeds to use it to suck up a bunch of ghosts, money and who knows what else. The game then settles into its mission based structure that is clearly an accommodation to make the game more portable. Each mission sees Luigi sent out with a specific goal which is typically bookmarked by E. Gadd conversations that help to move the plot along as well as to throw some funny puns in whilst breaking up any ongoing tension.

As the game progresses the map gradually gets revealed.

As the game progresses Luigi finds himself at not just one mansion but 5 wholly different mansions all with their own themes. Each mansion offers a thematic set of enemies and boss characters/events that must be overcome to collect the pieces of the dark moon in order to bring the ghosts back under control. Without spoiling too much King Boo may have done something to get back at Luigi and over the course of the game the player and characters get to see this plot unfold through the eyes of E. Gadd’s toad assistants whom Luigi must save on some missions. Each story possessor fight reveals the next mansion on the map providing a real sense of progression that really keeps the game ticking along at a good pace.

Luigi unwillingly re-enters the fray.

Here we also see Luigi evolve from scaredy-cat to brave hero. The further he goes, with some encouragement from E. Gadd, he gradually changes his body language, gets scared a lot less and throws himself into every challenge. Cementing Luigi’s status as hardcore hero material. Overall the story is pretty solid and only really suffers from slight repetition from the game’s overall structure.

Luigi getting into the swing of things after sucking up a boss.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Review – Gameplay

The first and third entries in the Luigi’s mansion series are both in a single setting, the original mansion in LM 1 and the hotel in LM 3 but Luigi’s Mansion 2 is set across 5 different mansions that are unlocked sequentially. However, you can return to them at any point after they are unlocked. The game is structured using a mission system that was likely used due to the game being a 3DS exclusive. That typical portable game design like this makes sense on the go, which also makes it perfect for Switch’s portable mode but it can feel a little grating on the TV. Being constantly bombarded by entry and exit cutscenes is a bit irksome; however, the writing and progression model makes this tolerable. There is also a huge amount of variety to be found in the gameplay with floating, shooting, collecting, balancing and more offering up some fun segments!

So much variety in hunting ghosts.

Some levels are extremely short but others have significant length, especially if the player wants to collect all of the optional Gems, Money and hidden Boos. These extra collectibles are a great bit of side content and also provide a function. By collecting coins Luigi can unlock upgrades for the Poltergust making it easier to catch bigger ghosts and reveal boos using the Dark light power unlocked early in the game. The boos are split across almost every level of the game and players can catch them by listening out for the boo’s laughter in a room in each of those missions. It’s a fun side quest that can be a little tedious at times just with how their structure doesn’t really ever change. Most boos act the same once the battle begins.

A Boo getting itself into mischief as usual.

Overall the mansions themselves are great, each has a unique theme and manages to avoid the generic Mario level deisgn of Grass, Desert, fire etc… instead opting for cool themes like winter cabin and old clock tower, which are not only cool ideas but staggeringly different mechanically. The ice cabin in particular has a lot of ice physics and balancing which differentiates it hugely against the earlier mansions. It makes for an interesting beast of game design where the levels are built in a way that makes it memorable to explore and learn their layouts but also how the player is restricted from exploring by the constraints of each mission. It creates a somewhat troubling scenario where the developers have had to put in blockages by way of having E. Gadd contact Luigi and tell him where to go. It’s ultimately only a small issue but a sad one to have when players just want to explore each location!

The first mansion to explore, and the closest to the first game’s atmosphere.

The minute to minute gameplay is great, Luigi feels smooth as butter to control and the remapped controls from the original 3DS now feel at their most user friendly. A lot of the animation work contributes to this fluidity with the game almost presenting like a clay hand animated Aardman flick. A lot of these animations in both traversal and battle are slow and deliberate, lending an air of Luigi being a real part of his world, though the slower animations like unlocking doors can get a little long in the tooth but can luckily be skipped. Luigi’s walk speed is also great meaning he can get quickly from A to B but he also remains maneuverable making quick turns and snap decision making feel pretty natural.

Saving the Toads is always endearing, who could hate these little fun-guys!

When it comes to ghost wrangling Luigi and E. Gadd have some new tricks up their sleeves. The torch has now got a strobe function that can stun individual or multiple ghosts at the right angle and to make this power more balanced some ghost variants will hide themselves in helmets, buckets or even just hold up a spade. In fact ghost AI is excellent and really make sure the player doesn’t have the same experience every time they battle a similar type of ghost. It also expands the ghost roster vs the original game with some really cool ghosts who’s behaviors can keep players on their toes.

Ghosts come in all shapes, sizes and even colours!

All said however this is still a game aimed at a younger demographic and so it has a gentle learning curve and, for the most part, presents only a casual challenge. It’s easy to drop Luigi’s health during exploration or a ghost fight where multiple ghosts are involved but refills are plentiful so long as the player makes a concerted effort to vacuum up all of the optional bits and pieces in the environment. Where the challenge gets a nice step up is during the main boss fights. These fights are against the possessor type ghosts who typically have a unique pattern for each phase of the fight and takes 3 poltergustings to defeat them. To be able to damage each boss, the player must work out how to disrupt their patterns and find weaknesses resulting in a great back and forth between player and ghost. There are also a smattering of other unique ghost encounters in some mansions including the ghost dog who must be chased from room to room by tracking its path using the dark-light.

Arf, arf!

100%ing this game can be quite the task. Alongside trying to get good ranks for speed, number of ghosts collected and money found, most levels contain a hidden Boo that needs to be hunted down using the dark-light. Each mansion also has 13 collectible Gems. It’s not always a fun time having to replay bits over and over just for one single missing Gem or Boo. However, for those who persevere there is a reward, collecting all the Boos in a mansion will unlock that mansion’s bonus level which offers just that little bit extra game time and it is satisfying to see all the 3 star rankings, caught Boos and Gems listed on the mission select screen. It’s really something that only real perfectionists are going to want to do though!

The mission select screen shows rankings and collectable progress.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Review – Visuals

First off let’s get the comparison to Luigi’s Mansion 3 out of the way, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a triumph of switch visual design and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD does a lot to bridge the gap from the original 3DS game to the Switch. Although it obviously lacks the same density and fidelity. The developers have done a great job polishing up the original game by tweaking details, updating the character models and changing up the lighting to make it more dynamic. It boasts superior shadowing and a much more stable frame rate than it’s 3DS roots but it does lose out a little with the lack of stereoscopic 3D.

Each room looks like a mini diorama but losing the 3D does reduce their impact a little.

Each part of the game has a lovely aesthetic that kind of continued into the sequel. All of the animation work is stretchy and springy giving a bit of life to all of the characters in a scene, ghosts push and pull themselves around the environment, Luigi stretches and wobbles when interacting with most things and the environments themselves have plenty of moving and interactive elements that let them come to life as well. Each scene is like a mini 3D diorama with items clearly posed to make use of the 3DS’s features but luckily this actually works fine on the Switch with it presenting a very clean camera view of the rooms but with a slightly reduced impact.

Possessor ghosts are the main bosses and are revealed in cool little action screens.

A major benefit as well is the quality of the image. This is a beautiful game both on the TV and in handheld mode with lovely clean edges and a real lack of the shimmering that happened on the 3DS. In fact in portable mode on the OLED switch there is reality something to be said for just how good the game presents itself. The highlights of the package are the updated particle and lighting which do most of the heavy lifting in regards to making each screen shine as much as possible.

Time to catch some ghosts!

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Review – Audio

Whistling was a huge part of the original Luigi’s mansion, Luigi would whistle and hum along to the theme tune as players explored. It gave the game a really quite unique soundscape and character that luckily carries through to this sequel fairly well. Luigi frequently hums and haws his way through the level sometimes in time with the music and otherwise to grimace in horror, this gives him so much extra lovability it’s crazy.

Playful ghosts hiding out in a car.

Speaking of music there is a new theme tune which is particularly good though it lacks the staying ability of the original theme (which is also in this game a lot). The new theme tune is a little meandering but does a fantastic job of creating a tonally appropriate slightly spooky and fun atmosphere. During levels there is also a consistent theme that links into the main theme tune, this exploratory music is used in every mansion but each mansion has its own variance with a fresh twist lending each mansion having its own feeling. It’s great stuff and probably somewhat underrated!

To break up these tracks there are a handful of other musical bites in the game, E. Gadd frequently heralds the original game’s music in his laboratory, enemies bring out a big bad battle theme that helps make the action more impactful but most importantly of all, sometimes the game is just quiet. Only atmospheric noises play which is a really nice touch and often it’s used in the best and most interesting scenes.

It’s not just ghosts out to get you…

The last point on audio is that it’s fantastic that they kept all of Luigi’s whining, sighing and general noisiness; it adds a lot to his character. Similarly E. Gadd has his iconic babble dialogue, meaning his character is super consistent with his previous appearance! Other sound effects are decent as well but unfortunately the game doesn’t make use of surround sound, presumably because of its 3DS origin. The sound is still fantastic and uncompressed but it lacks the depth it could have had otherwise if fully redone.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Review – Multiplayer

Ever wanted to suck ghosts in a team? Well now both online and locally it is possible to team up with 3 other Luigis and get ghost busting! Climb the Scarescraper in what was originally a 3DS local play feature. This time players have to capture all of the ghosts on each floor within 5 minutes before they can progress. This mode can be quite challenging especially if the game decides to spawn more powerful ghosts early on!

Who ya gunna call?

That’s just one mode! There are 3 modes total with the other two being; escape from the tower and catch the polterpup. These change up the gameplay but not the location meaning players actually get a decent amount to play through and a much higher challenge than the main story mode. It’s a good time but is obviously a little less full featured than the Luigi’s Mansion 3 version. Having access to it via Nintendo Online is a nice touch but remember that that costs a little extra for a subscription.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Review – Conclusion

What does go bump in the night? Lots of things really, but in Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD it’s a variety of fun to fight ghosts, a moderately challenging adventure and a fun comical story. It’s a delight to return to the world of Luigi’s Mansion in his second outing! Though longer play sessions might get a little repetitive with the entrance and exit cutscenes for each mission, the game more than makes up for this with unique dialogue and fantastical level designs. It succeeds in expanding the scope of Luigi’s Mansion without losing the charm. An excellent entry to any Switch library regardless of age, just don’t bother going for the 100% unless you adore it.

Not sure who the town planner was but its an abysmal design…

Why should you buy Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD?

• It’s Luigi’s time in the spotlight and he deserves the attention.
• This entry in the series is fantastic.
• You have a Switch but never had a 3DS to play it back in 2013!
• Polterpup licks E. Gadd’s face.

Why shouldn’t you buy Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD?

• Things can get a little repetitive.
• Restrictively short missions can sometimes put a block on exploration.
• 100% is a slog.

Climb the infinite staircase.

A review code was kindly provided by Nintendo for the purpose of our Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD review.  You can check out our other reviews here and if you haven’t already, be sure to join the Qualbert Discord to find out about the latest game and review updates!