Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD review: best title in spooktacular series now available for the Switch

It’s 2013. Miley Cyrus is twerking on stage, Flappy Bird is all the rage and internet culture’s cranking out memes like the Harlem Shake. It’s also a historic year for Nintendo – the 30th anniversary and self-proclaimed Year of Luigi. Nintendo marks the occasion with a number of game releases: New Super Luigi U, Dr Luigi and Luigi’s Mansion 2.

Eleven years on, we’re not quite experiencing a Luigi renaissance, but fans of Mario’s brother won’t be disappointed. The release of Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD means you can play the former Nintendo 3DS exclusive on the Nintendo Switch for the first time.

Trouble in Evershade Valley

At the beginning of the game, Luigi takes a leaf out of his big brother’s book. In other words, you get thrown straight into the action. Professor E. Gadd, a ghost researcher, tells you, Luigi, that the Dark Moon has disappeared from the sky over Evershade Valley.

Without the Dark Moon, the Valley’s otherwise peaceful spirits turn nasty. The game reveals this by making the ghosts’ pupils disappear (how else?!) Naturally, you can’t deny the professor’s request to bring the neighbourhood phantoms back to their senses. So you, Luigi, set off to collect the individual pieces of the Dark Moon.

If you’re familiar with Mario games, you can guess what kind of story awaits you. Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD doesn’t reinvent the franchise – but it doesn’t have to. The story gives me the motivation I need to play along, and gives me the feel-good factor with one or two cute moments.

Hunting for ghosts and money in creepy mansions

Once you hear about the Evershade Valley’s plight, your adventure begins. Unlike in other Luigi’s Mansion games, you don’t explore one large building. Instead, you’re met with numerous smaller mansions with different motifs. The first one’s full of cobwebs, the second is overgrown with creepy plants and… I’ll spare you any spoilers about the rest. At the beginning, you’re greeted with a mission selector, where you choose the first level.

You can trudge straight through the house and focus entirely on your mission. This includes tasks such as finding certain key objects, opening locked doors or calming particularly dangerous ghosts. If you don’t feel like collecting stuff, you can play Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD in a pretty linear way. However, the fun of the game only truly unfolds when you explore other open rooms and take on the puzzles inside. There are jewels, minigames and Boos hidden all over the levels, which I find with varying degrees of effort. The minigames offer some playful variety, and some of them really are tough to crack. If you collect all the Boos in a mansion, you can even play an extra level. It’s a nice bonus, which makes collecting items feel like more than just pottering around.

The levels I’ve described so far are full of jewels, minigames and Boos – but that’s not all. As early as the first instalment in the series, Nintendo had the ingenious idea of hiding rewards in every nook and cranny. Every little exploration session is rewarded with coins, banknotes and gold bars.

The mansions and cutscenes are bursting with charm. Polterpup is a ghost dog that helps you, plays tricks and hides objects from you. Have I mentioned how cute he is? When Luigi shouts, «Bad doggie!» at one point, my heart bursts into a thousand pieces.

Overall, Luigi’s gestures capture his timid, shy nature perfectly. It’s the same story for the ghosts you sometimes see through holes in the wall or through windows. Or the Toads who high-five Luigi as soon as you save them. The scenes that play out before your eyes are full of character. And I could gush for hours about the noises Professor E. Gadd makes. They’re gloriously eccentric. The attention to detail in Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD shows me once again why I love Nintendo games.

The Poltergust 5000 is my trusty companion

While you’re exploring your surroundings, you can’t forget the most important thing: the money ahem the ghosts. You get to those with your handy vacuum cleaner, the Poltergust 5000. Professor E. Gadd has revamped the bog-standard model from the first Luigi’s Mansion. As well as money, spider webs and bed spreads, it can also suck up ghosts, making it a must-have for any ghost hunter.

The Poltergust in Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD has a number of advantages over its counterpart in instalment one. There’s the Strobulb, which temporarily puts ghosts out of action and opens various mechanisms. Then there’s the Dark-Light, which reveals invisible objects and Boos.

Not only that, but money in the game finally has a purpose. Once you’ve collected a certain amount, your Poltergust is enhanced. This allows you to inflict more damage on the ghosts when sucking them up or to keep your Dark-Light burning for longer.

Incidentally, sucking up ghosts in Luigi’s Mansion 2 is more dynamic than in the previous instalment. If you press in the opposite direction long enough during suction, a bar charges up. Once it’s full, you can dish out some extra damage to the ghosts. This mechanic doesn’t quite match the action in instalment three, but it still makes a core element of the game more entertaining.

Mission selection instead of coherent adventure

Once you’ve sucked up a certain number of ghosts and other items, Professor E. Gadd teleports you out of the level. A screen appears, summarising your previous achievements and giving them a final rating of 1-3 stars. The rating’s determined by your speed, Poltergust skills and talent for avoiding damage.

Then, E. Gadd throws you back into the same mansion – this time with a new goal building on what you’ve explored so far. E. Gadd, by the way, is quite the chatterbox. His frequent phone calls remind me of a certain Balkan cousin from another game who always wants to go bowling with me. At least I can usually skip the phone calls with E. Gadd.

Luigi’s Mansion 2’s mission-based level design already garnered criticism when the Nintendo 3DS version was released. The individual missions supposedly dampen the sense of coherence you get in other instalments of the game when exploring buildings. Critics said it was incomprehensible and complicated that some collectible items stay locked behind certain missions.

I can only disagree. Firstly, some collectibles in the other versions of Luigi’s Mansion are hidden behind game progress instead of missions. It’s actually the same principle, only more subtle. Secondly, the mission principle is predictable.

It takes me an average of 15-30 minutes to complete a mission in Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD. That way, I always know how much progress I can expect to make. The last mission of each mansion involves a boss battle. There’s a predictability to it that I find relaxing. It means you’ve got time for a quick mission after work or when you’re on the train.

The concept was probably used on the 3DS at the time because it lent itself well to handhelds. What’s more, it gives you a much better idea of which collectibles are awaiting you in which places. For example, there’s only one hidden Boo per mission, so you don’t need to run through the same rooms again and again like a headless chicken.

Good for quick and lengthy gaming sessions alike

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD also tempts you into longer gaming sessions. I enjoy plonking myself down on the couch for hours on end, sucking up a few ghosts with my Poltergust. The short missions don’t detract from my experience – they enrich it.

In total, it took me about 15 hours to complete the game. If I were to collect all the Boos and jewels, I could easily add another ten hours. Should I decide to spend even more time on Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, I’ll pay a visit to the Thrill Tower. In this multiplayer mode, you team up with up to three other ghost hunters. Together, you try to climb the tower by looking for a hidden door on each floor, evil spirits standing in your way.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD’s origins as a 3DS game aren’t obvious. The graphics are top-notch for the Switch. On a TV or Switch OLED display, the colours look even stronger than in the original 3DS game.

I don’t miss the 3DS’s second screen either. It’d display key information such as money, health and the current mission. As was typical of DS games, the map was also shown on the bottom screen. The Switch easily integrates these functions onto one screen.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD will be released on the Switch on 27 June. The game was provided to me by Nintendo for testing purposes.