Collection essentials #554: Luigi’s Mansion (GC)

One thing Nintendo fans grew to count on with the launch of a brand new system was an exciting new Mario game. Technically Super Mario Bros. on the NES may not have been a launch title, as its exact launch date is disputed, but it was certainly on store shelves very early in the NES’s North American campaign. The Game Boy started out with Super Mario Land. The Super Nintendo came packaged with the terrific Super Mario World as a pack-in. The Nintendo 64 had Super Mario 64 from day one. Technically, the Virtual Boy only had Mario’s Tennis as its pack-in game, which you could argue doesn’t count. The Game Boy Color didn’t have one (only Wario Land II in which Mario does not appear), but GBC was sort of in an ambiguous space between a new system and an upgraded rendition of an old one.

GameCube would be the first major Nintendo home console to not have a major Mario platformer to start off with. But I guess you could argue Luigi’s Mansion is somewhat in the spirit of the tradition. It could technically be considered a Mario game, but you don’t play as Mario and it’s not a platformer. It was an interesting move by Nintendo, who didn’t release the system’s big Mario game until the middle of the next year.

So what is Luigi’s Mansion, exactly? A horror game? I guess…but that’s a bit of a stretch given the game’s cartooniness. The premise is that Luigi has been notified that he’s won ownership of a mansion even though he never put his name in for such a thing, and he and Mario plan a time to go meet up at the place. When he gets there, he finds that the mansion is haunted, Mario is missing, and a mysterious scientist named Professor E. Gadd offers to help him get to the bottom of things. E. Gadd gives Luigi a vacuum cleaner with special powers that can stun and suck up ghosts. Luigi can freely explore the mansion, sucking up ghosts, solving puzzles and defeating bosses to try and progress. There’s a lot of treasure to find along the way, and upon completing the game the player is given a rank. And so, there is incentive to play the game multiple times for higher ranks.

Luigi’s main tools are, of course, the vacuum, and his flashlight. He can aim by using the “C-Stick” on the right side of the controller. Typically, Luigi has to shine his flashlight with proper timing to stun a ghost, and then he can start using his vacuum to try and suck their health as the ghost panics. I heard one YouTuber compare it to reeling in a fish, which is a really good description. Sucking up regular ghosts is usually fairly simple and straightforward, but certain unique special ghosts may require some clever thinking to nab.

This game nails its atmosphere really well. It’s probably not a game that will make you truly feel scared, but the music still goes for a “haunted house” atmosphere with a very memorable main theme that anyone who has played the game will remember. The graphics are beautiful, and exploring the environment and using your gizmos in various ways feels fun and rewarding. The most common knock on Luigi’s Mansion is that it’s pretty short for an action game of this generation. Most experienced gamers will probably get through it in between six and seven hours, roughly. Replaying the game is encouraged for higher scores, and a harder difficulty mode is unlocked upon completion. However, since puzzle solving is part of the game, that aspect will be a lot less enticing on future playthroughs once the player has already figured everything out.

Luigi’s Mansion enjoyed respectable success and was one of the best-selling GameCube titles. It was the number one reason to buy the system on day one. However, its critical acclaim was not as universal as the big Mario titles that had launched with their previous consoles, and its Metacritic score only sits at a 78 out of 100. It wasn’t the type of game that quite had the universal appeal of Mario platformers, either. But many fans greatly enjoyed it anyway as it gained a significant following. After over a decade of being a unique standalone title, in the 2010s it received both sequels and a remake on future Nintendo systems, and even an arcade game. It’s unclear if the series will return in the future.

Luigi’s Mansion was the first GameCube game I ever played, as I did so briefly at a store kiosk sometime in 2001. However, when I got my GameCube, it wasn’t a high priority for me as I was more interested in certain other games. My sister Julia particularly liked Luigi, so she got the game as a gift at some point. But neither her nor I got very far in it. Back then I wasn’t very good at figuring out games without a guide, so I think I got stuck and moved on to something else.

It would be years before I would properly play through the game. During the last week of the year in 2014, I found myself sick and not able to do much other than play video games. And so, I decided to give Luigi’s Mansion its time in the sun. And I enjoyed it more than I was expecting! I felt silly for waiting so long to play it, while also feeling proud that I finally did actually do so like I had said I would for years. 

Nowadays, Luigi’s Mansion is one of the GameCube games available on the Nintendo Switch 2 online service for subscribers. The original GameCube release, despite being quite common, goes for a slightly higher price than the game originally did when it first came out. If you’re a Nintendo fan and haven’t tried the original Luigi’s Mansion yet, you really have to! There’s nothing else among Nintendo’s works that’s quite like it. An iconic game from early GameCube days which clearly deserves to be a collection essential.