E3 2011 Hands-On: Luigi's Mansion 2 - Preview
by Daniel Share-Strom , posted on 07 June 2011 / 5,513 Views
Now here’s a sequel I never thought I’d see. One of the oft-overlooked gems of the Gamecube, Luigi’s Mansion was a fun haunted house romp in which Mario’s brother crept around a spooky mansion sucking up ghosts with a vacuum cleaner called the Poltergust 3000. After all this time, I figured Nintendo had abandoned the property, but today they announced Luigi’s Mansion 2 for the 3DS.
Egad, it's E. Gadd!
From my playtime, I gleaned that the concept is pretty much the same, except this time you’re running around multiple smaller mansions instead of a single big one. My demo had me exploring one of them in an effort to take out the boss. To progress through each room, I had to either find a key, defeat some ghosts, or a combination of the two. To beat the ghosts, you’ve got to light them up with your flashlight and press ‘A’ to stun them, then hold ‘R’ to start sucking. The ghosts will try to break free of your stream, and you need to pull back in the opposite direction to resist and damage them. Sometimes they’ll fly over a table or other object to attempt to get away from you, at which point you have to quickly tap ‘A’ again to stand your ground. Once their health is empty, they get sucked into the vacuum.
Some ghosts are trickier than others. For instance, I ran into a couple in the dining room that were holding pans, and used them to block my suction. For these guys, I had to play it cool and catch them by surprise. The boss was a yellow dude with a large cranium—fitting, because he was pretty smart. His room had four piles of books, and he stays invisible as much as possible. To attack you, he flings books from the nearest pile at you. Unfortunately for him, this also gave his position away to me. I went up, spooked him with ‘A’, then proceeded to suck him up. I had to do it three times, as this bugger was a pretty good escape artist. At this point, my demo came to an end.
The visuals look a lot like the Gamecube game, but that isn’t a bad thing. This franchise is really Nintendo’s take on a horror game, and the creepy and dark environments show it. Luigi animates perfectly, smoothly transitioning from walking to running or sucking a ghost up. The spectres themselves are pretty simple, as they’re mostly a few spheres with eyes, but the aesthetic works and it is a really pretty game.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 will be haunting up your 3DS sometime next year.
