Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Review: More Than Just a Shade

Luigi's Mansion 2 HD

Recommended

Platform reviewed on: Nintendo Switch

Pros

• Charming, characterful animation
• Excellent puzzle design
• Plenty of hidden collectibles

Cons

• Not much challenge in the early areas
• Lack of thematic ghost enemies
• A handful of frustrating encounters

ESRB Age Rating: Everyone
ESRB Content Descriptors: Mild Fantasy Violence
ESRB Interactive Elements: In-Game Purchases

Luigi’s house must be immaculate. Not because he’s used to handling a vacuum – the guy is probably loath to touch one again after all his ghost-chasing experiences – but because the Luigi’s Mansion series makes clear that, to him, it’s the little details that matter. While Mario is off gallivanting between cities and triple jumping across entire galaxies, Luigi is content with a finer focus.

It’s in the rattle of pans as your vacuum sweeps across a kitchen shelf. How a Boo’s tongue stretches out like an elastic band when caught by your vacuum. The way Luigi tentatively prods at a fountain that, after a comical spray of water, flips around to reveal a secret door. Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is packed with lovely little details. Touches and animations that make each of its environments a delight to explore, even if they aren’t quite so memorable as those offered by Luigi’s other outings.

Originating as it does from a 3DS game, this remaster was never going to compete visually with Luigi’s Mansion 3’s sumptuous Switch release. Those arriving directly from the third adventure will likely find the juxtaposition jarring at first. Even under the veil of notable improvements to resolution, lighting, and textures, it’s hard not to see the game’s outdated origins poking through. Especially in close-up cutscenes, where the enhanced clarity only serves to make the plainer character models all the more apparent. Fortunately, the lovable animation work on display goes a long way to helping you forget those visual qualms.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD’s intro wastes little time getting you engaged. The dastardly King Boo has broken the ghost-pacifying Dark Moon, driving local spirits into a frenzy that only our timid hero in dungarees can fix. It’s time to grab the vacuum. And barring a few too many early interruptions by the eccentric Professor E. Gadd, the core systems of the series shine through as quickly as ever.

At the heart of Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is a game that wants you to interact with everything. Poking, prodding, and suctioning every element in a scene isn’t just fun, it’s the best way to collect cash for vital upgrades. Puzzles are plentiful, and there’s an enjoyable gaminess to them all. Notice that you can tug on the curtains in this dining room? Pull them all and you’ll be showered in a flurry of bank notes. A shooting gallery might be set up to catch a gem held by a mouse, but if you smash all the other pots and vases, golden spiders dangle from the ceiling, transforming into money when shot.

The surroundings are teeming with these hidden rewards. You’ll constantly be uncovering cash, collectible gems, or even a Boo to battle (one of which is hidden in every non-boss level). None of it makes real-world sense, but everything feels perfectly in keeping with the Mario franchise’s playful creativity.

With rooms this entertaining to totter around, it’s almost a shame that so many are inhabited by spiteful spirits. But Luigi is more than ready to face his phantoms. For all his fearful quivering, our lime-colored star is a ghost-gobbling machine. A neatly timed flashlight burst is all it takes to set him guzzling down spirits with the voracity of a college student at an open bar.

Provided your analog-stick waggling is up to the task, the stun and suck formula is ruthlessly effective. Hold the opposite direction to a ghost’s movements and you’ll charge up a powerful burst of suction to drain its health. Only the toughest ghosts have the stamina and heft to haul Luigi around the scenery before they’re funnelled into his backpack.

Those with series experience are therefore likely to find the opening half of Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD a fairly breezy ride. The challenge does pick up in the latter stages and boss fights, but difficulty overall has been paced for a younger or less experienced audience. For a sterner challenge, consider diving into the co-operative multiplayer ScareScraper mode. This allows up to four players to simultaneously ghost hunt through up to 25 floors of increasing difficulty and features some unique variants of ghosts from the main story.

Given how much time you spend tangling with them, the ghosts themselves are sadly one of the game’s biggest let downs. The first Luigi’s Mansion featured ungainly humanoid figures – spirits of the mansion’s original family that proved genuinely creepy. Luigi’s Mansion 3 took that concept even further, with thematic ghosts dressed as hotel porters, maids, and more.

The cohort of ghouls in Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, by comparison, feels a touch tame. The game is largely content to throw generic shades your way. There’s your standard green ghost, the burly red boys, some sneaky slender blue ones, and so on. Plenty of colors, but few that feel genuinely connected to the environments they haunt.

Even in the later levels, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD safely opts for beefed up takes on the same designs over anything new. The biggest and best variations come through the main bosses – a repeated ghost type called a Possessor. These are capable of harnessing nearby objects to entertaining results. One fight has you squaring off against the gnashing teeth of an animated wooden staircase, while another demands you literally pull the rug out from under aggressive suits of armor.

The series’ middle child features a marked difference in structure, too. While Luigi’s Mansion 3 and the original focus on single locations that unlock and expand, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is portioned out in a more gamified, mission-based approach. Five haunted locations lie within the Evershade Valley, each one sporting five or six levels to beat, with a boss stage at the end. Luigis is warped in each time with a single task to achieve during a smaller gameplay chunk – switching on the power, finding and freeing a Toad, etc.

It’s not a bad formula, with changes between levels granting a different flavor to the same environment each time you return. The core locales are all distinct, but their smaller scales, along with the reduced time spent within them, leads to each feeling more like a miniature diorama than a real environment you come to learn and know. The best by far is saved until last: a teleport-equipped manor. In allowing you to shift items between sectors, it enables you to solve grander puzzles across the entire space instead of within a single room.

There are other minor frustrations. The front-on perspective regularly makes it tough to tell which side of Luigi both enemies and items are on. This results in sequences of confused rotations as you attempt to find the right direction in which to point your vacuum. It’s an odd quirk to Luigi’s outings that feels reminiscent of the tank controls and fixed cameras of classic survival horror games – only minus the rotting zombies, blood, and spine-curdling terror. There’s also a sense of missing out on the 3DS original’s dual-screen functions. Systems like the game’s map are now supplied by more traditional, game-pausing menus. Small losses, but ones that threaten to reduce the unique charm of the entry.

Still, minor quibbles aside, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is a thoroughly enjoyable revival of a brilliant box of puzzles. Some of the best enigmas are entirely optional, but you’re unlikely to miss them because scouring every inch of the levels feels so gratifyingly moreish. Much like its sibling games, it’s also a stellar family-friendly option for those eager to enjoy a spooky aesthetic without the scare factor. For those who missed its original 3DS release, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD offers an endearing extra Switch outing for Mario’s often overlooked sibling.

Luigi's Mansion 2 HD

Release Date: June 27, 2024

• Nintendo SwitchBuy