Luigi's Mansion 2 started off as a 3DS game. It was actually a pretty surprising and unexpected announcement at the time. A new Luigi's Mansion! The original became a bit of a cult classic but never really garnered a lot of respect among gamers and Nintendo fans because it was extraordinarily short and a bit of tech demo, plus what everyone really wanted was a Mario game, and that wasn't it. Still Luigi's Mansion had it's charms and new one was fairly exciting. In 2024 the story was quite different. Luigi's Mansion 2 had made a bit of a splash and was well regarded but Luigi's Mansion 3 was the real deal and cemented the series as one of Nintendo's A-tier games. It's not surprising that Next Level Games would try to revive the second game to recapture a bit more of the audience that 2 didn't quite get.
In general the game is similar. You have a couple basic abilities like sucking things in, occasionally blowing them out, a flash light which you use to stun enemies, and black light which allows you to see hidden things. And that's really it. With just a few mechanics the game provides a lot of scenario by which to string these together. Puzzles can be clever though a lot of it can feel like trial and error with the options available until something works. This is okay too as it allows you to progress even if you don't quite get what the game is trying to guide you to. Versus 2 and 3 the game is setup among a couple different locations in a mission-based structure. This is likely because as a 3DS game it would make sense to design it that way. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work. The missions are still too long often lasting 15min+ if you don't know what you are doing. It's not actually bite-size play so it would have been better to just have a traditional system. I suppose the up side is that each location has it's own feeling. To be fair so did the different floors of Luigi's Mansion 3 so it's not like they had to do it that way and it's likely they learned a few lessons. But ever length aside the pacing is just bad. It's just odd to have rooms reset because you selected a different mission and some missions lock out certain areas or have certain features that prevent obtaining gems. Each area has a number of gems which serve as optional collectables and are the secondary goal of the game, to collect them all. You are never really given hints at where they are but they appear in order so if you get a new gem and have a blank space you know there was one that was missed between where you are and the last one. But because of the mission structure you need to be in the right mission otherwise that gem may not appear. It just feels very restrictive. You are rated on your achievement by amount of money, damage and speed but I had no desire to really put that to the test. The game now has bosses as well which start off amazingly good with a well designed puzzle based boss but unfortunately the following ones are unremarkable, and by the fourth one are just bad minigames.
And that's really what I took away. The game is fun enough, but after a mission I just felt tired and the creativity doesn't quite last. I wanted to make progress, not reset back at the beginning with a new goal and I wanted to see new things but wound up a little disappointed when the content didn't really improve. Overall it just doesn't feel good. But everything else I liked. The graphics look wonderful, especially for the new HD remaster. Though I do feel like you lose a little bit without the 3D and there are clearly some places where things come at the screen to remind you of that. The little vignettes just really worked on the 3DS but the games is still just as playable, maybe even a little better due to enhanced controls. Luigi's Mansion also just has it's charm. It feels like a cartoon with slapstick moments, cute animation little voice lines from Charles Martinet that you can't help but smile at. I never finished the original because I got sidetracked and it's easy to see why. It just doesn't quite hit the mark, as good as some parts are. Luigi's Manion 3 was the first to really put it all together cohesively and it's no wonder it reached the popularity it did. 2 just feels like that inbetween step of fleshing out a tech demo but not knowing exactly what to do with it.
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