Platform: Nintendo Switch
Poor Luigi – Mario's less renowned brother finds himself in another supernatural pickle when an all-expenses-paid trip to one of the Mushroom Kingdom's finest hotels turns out to be a spectral trap. With his friends bound in paintings and the hotel revealed to be a 25-storey deathtrap, it's up to Luigi to strap on his Poltergust backpack and battle his way through a horde of wiley ghosts to save the day. Luckily, Luigi isn't alone. Along with some pseudo-scientific help from ghost buster (not that kind) Professor E. Gadd, Luigi can call on his own gelatinous doppelganger, Gooigi. A green-goo homunculous, you can switch between Luigi and Gooigi at will, making use of the latter's ability to pass through grates to help solve some of the game's more fiendish puzzles.
One of the charms of the Luigi's Mansion series has always been its ability to balance those puzzles with the frantic action of vacuuming up its ectoplasmic enemies, and this third instalment does that marvellously. Regular ghosts, frozen with Luigi's torchlight and zipped up with the Poltergust, still offer just enough pushback that they're never boring, while special ghosts and boss battles are often satisfying puzzles in their own right, tasking you with figuring out which combination of Luigi's or Gooigi's abilities – or sometimes both in concert – will overcome the particular challenge.
As Luigi progresses through the hotel's many floors you'll find each one has its own theme – a clever touch for a game set in a hotel.
What really impresses about Luigi's Mansion 3, though, is its versatility of design. We've seen spooky houses twice now – three times if you count the 3DS re-release of the original Luigi's Mansion – but thankfully developer Next Level Games mixes things up a little here. While the opening levels of the hotel fit the style of the previous games, as Luigi progresses through the hotel's many floors you'll find each one has its own theme. It's a clever touch for a game set in a hotel – after all, plenty of real world hotels are themed – but also allows for a lot diversity in settings beyond just a creepy, decrepit building. Medieval castles or Egyptian pyramids offer a nice departure from the series' usual aesthetics, without ever abandoning the campy, low-key horror vibes of the game. Indeed, the game even manages to cultivate the odd scare, thanks to clever use of lighting and music that ratchets up tension at key moments, and while the pay-off is usually a simple jump scare, that a family-friendly Nintendo game can walk that particular tightrope is impressive.
Sadly, there's no real sense that exploration is needed. The structure of the hotel would lend itself well to some Metroid-style back and forth as new abilities are unlocked, but nearly all of Luigi and Gooigi's skills are front-loaded, and from around the three-hour point everything progresses in fairly linear fashion. Short of hidden rooms or collectible gems found on each floor, there's not much drive to look around. Worse, even if you do want to explore for those few extras, E. Gadd constantly hassles you to pursue the next objective (a setting to turn off hints from the Professor doesn't seem to actually stop these prompts, confoundingly).
Away from the story, two multiplayer modes bulk out the game. 'ScareScraper' is a co-op effort challenging players to bust the ghosts out of a randomly generated hotel building, while 'ScreamPark' serves up a versus mode – Team Luigi against Team Gooigi – with three different match types. They're a nice addition to the package, but feel a little perfunctory; an almost-standard multiplayer addition as found in many Nintendo games.
Still, with its brilliantly varied levels, challenging bosses, and fun balance of ghost-vaccing and puzzle solving, this is the best Luigi's Mansion yet, and a great debut for the series on Switch.