Luigi’s Mansion 2 Review: Features
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Price: $69 / £49
Release date: June 27, 2024
Gender: Puzzle/action-adventure
At this point, Luigi has become Nintendo’s drunken uncle at Christmas. He’s been around forever, a bit of a nuisance, and ultimately, we’d rather spend time with his much more popular brother than share bread with festive fowl.
Long overshadowed by his iconic plumber brother, the Luigi’s Mansion series has given the ultimate supporting character an unlikely place in the spotlight over the past 20 years. The trilogy of gently creepy puzzlers dates back to the 2002 GameCube original, and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is a fairly comprehensive remaster for Nintendo Switch of its 2013 3DS sequel.
Few games have proven as improbably as the new Luigi remaster the Nintendo Switch’s ability to technically surprise despite its aging hardware. From a purely technical perspective, this beautifully revamped sequel deserves a chance at Switch glory.
Developed by Next Level Games, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD isn’t exactly a last-minute remaster. Instead, it’s a committed (if overpriced) remaster that delivers spooky fun and frustration with its sometimes fiendish puzzles.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD: The Basics
- What is this? A Nintendo Switch remaster of Luigi’s Mansion 2: Dark Moon, first released on Nintendo 3DS in 2013. Every element and texture has been remade in HD for this complete remaster.
- Who is it for? Puzzle fans and anyone who has ever been the “angry Luigi meme” by taking out a rival with a shell in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
- What is the price? There is only one version of Luigi’s Mansion 2 and it costs $59. It is available digitally on the Nintendo eShop or you can purchase the physical version.
- What games does this look like? It’s obviously quite similar to Luigi’s Mansion 3, but the quest from estate to estate isn’t as inventive as the hotel-focused third part.
Fear is ruining my life
First off, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is about as creepy as a kitten with a blanket over its head. Its happy ghosts don’t seem to mind being unmasked by carb-free Mario, and every cutscene is full of Nintendo warmth and wit.
It’s also one of the best-looking games on the Nintendo Switch, despite its humble beginnings on the 3DS. Thanks to some of the best anti-aliasing you’ll see on a Switch title, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD looks great in 1080p docked or 720p handheld.
This ultra-attractive remake is a great advertisement for the Nintendo Switch OLED in particular. The dark hallways that Luigi finds himself slinking through—with all the enthusiasm of a turkey being asked to vote for Thanksgiving to be a weekly event, no less—have a lot more depth thanks to the infinite black levels that the upgraded model’s OLED display offers compared to the standard LCD version.
Because Luigi’s Mansion 2 still looks so clean, I’d even say it looks better than Luigi’s Mansion 3 at times. Admittedly, the Switch sequel has better character models. The fact is, this gorgeous ghostbuster looks great no matter what Switch model you’re playing on.
Gadd Rags
Since this is a Luigi’s Mansion game, there obviously has to be a paranormal MacGuffin involved. Enter the Black Moon. Well, when I say “enter,” I actually mean “shatter into pieces upon impact.” When the Black Moon erupts over a cluster of spooky mansions scattered across Evershade Valley, it’s up to the ever-reluctant Luigi and the ever-condescending but bubbly Professor E. Gadd to retrieve its fragments from a variety of haunted houses filled with ghosts.
While the game’s story is largely limited to a few cheerful, wordless cutscenes, the style in which they’re presented is truly impressive. It’s a testament to the clever and enduring camerawork of the original 3DS game, while Professor Gadd’s close-ups look much more pleasing to the eye thanks to the quality of these new HD assets.
Every curtain, every dusty rug (which you can normally roll up for cash), every haunted chainmail guard, and every cobweb-covered hallway are all new, even if the core gameplay from 2013 remains intact. Whether this is your first time playing Luigi’s Mansion 2 or you’re eager to relive this gorgeous remake after finishing the 3DS version back in the day, there’s no doubt that sucking up ghosts with the Poltergust 5000 has never looked better.
A gust of wind hits the door
As expected, Busting continues to do well. The original 3DS sequel did a lot to make the controls of its GameCube predecessor less awkward and more intuitive, and that’s a testament to how well it approaches combat 14 years after its initial release.
The tug-of-war battles you engage in with the Boos, Greenies, Slammers, and my personal favorite, the blindingly yellow Jabba the Hutt-shaped Gobbers, make for an engaging gameplay loop. You stun them by holding down one of the face buttons to trigger a flash of ghost vision from your paranormal vacuum’s Strobulb attachment. Then, you hold down the right trigger, then wiggle and struggle with the analog sticks to fend off and outwit the ghoul’s struggles as he desperately tries not to get sucked in. Drain the ghost’s stamina meter, and he’ll soon be descending through the nozzle straight into the Poltergust 5000’s seemingly bottomless vacuum bag.
The gameplay never evolves much beyond these basics, though that’s certainly not a problem. The fact that such simple yet captivating tug-of-war mechanics work so well throughout Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD’s 10-15 hour campaign speaks volumes.
A puzzling case
Despite the charming visuals that please your eyes, there is a rather difficult puzzle lurking beneath the corridors of Everglade Valley’s motley collection of mansions. As someone who gets lost easily in games, I often found myself consulting YouTube guides more than I would have liked to help me navigate these labyrinthine haunted houses.
Once you’ve gotten your bearings in these constantly creaking hallways, solving puzzles usually involves collecting mission-specific trinkets or completing a certain task, like cleaning out all the cobwebs in an entire mansion. How do you solve these puzzles? Usually by pulling a rope, blowing on a hanging fan, or shining the Dark-Light accessory’s beam at an unseen object of interest, then sucking up the resulting blobs of spectral energy.
If you often get thrown off by puzzles or get frustrated when you get lost, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD will be more of an annoyance than a pleasure. It took me a few hours to fully absorb the game’s puzzle-solving schemes and sometimes bewildering trinket hunts.
Save the day
You know what’s way scarier than any ghost in Luigi’s Mansion HD 2? The complete lack of mid-mission saves. Considering that the average mission can last anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes (and much longer if you get lost), being on the losing side of a battle with a Boo that costs you 25 minutes of progress is a painful process that I experienced more than once during my time with this remaster.
It’s baffling that Nintendo didn’t introduce the kind of autosave you see in Luigi’s Mansion 3 for this HD update. Sure, the second game is inherently shorter due to its greater focus on individual missions, but those objectives are still more than long enough to warrant either manual or autosave.
Time is precious. I regret having to replay important sections of the game because I made a costly mistake against a ghost and there was no autosave to save my bacon beaten by Boo.
Scare a storm
Luigi’s Mansion isn’t a series known for its online exploits, and the Switch remaster hasn’t exactly convinced me of the merits of the cowardly plumber’s attempts at co-op play. It doesn’t help that even though Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD has been out for less than a month at the time of writing, I’m already struggling to find ScareScraper co-op sessions to join, given the unreliable matchmaking system.
The few games I did manage to get in were a little too hectic for my liking. The four-player tower mode lets you team up with a trio of ghost hunters online, while local co-op via Wi-Fi is also supported. You continue to climb by vacuuming up floors of stubborn ghosts, but with four Poltergust 5000 streams swirling violently around the screen, the frenetic action can quickly become too exhausting to stick with ScareScraper for more than a few games at a time.
If I did a quick poll, I wouldn’t be surprised if most Switch owners would probably rather see Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD sold at a lower price if it meant ditching its online co-op mode. Perhaps if four plumbers competing to suck the most lead didn’t quickly become boring to watch, there’d be more reason to bring back this minimalist multiplayer effort. And I wonder if my matchmaking struggles are a testament to the fact that many players may have been turned off by the game’s $59 price tag.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Verdict
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is a remaster that’s clearly had a lot of love put into it. Replacing every single element in the game with an improved high-definition surface or texture, it’s one of the best-looking Switch games out there right now. It also takes better advantage of the Nintendo Switch OLED’s stunning display than the vast majority of titles I can think of.
The $59 price tag for a new game seems like a steep price for a remaster, despite the love and work that went into its development. The lack of mid-mission saves is also frustrating, and it’s an omission that time-poor Switch fans will quickly regret.
I hope the Kyoto-based company eventually bundles this remaster with Luigi’s Mansion 3 and charges $50 or less for the collection. At that price, I’d be more generous about repeating long segments of the game because a Slammer cleaned my clock.