Story:
The story of Luigi’s Mansion 2 is that the Dark Moon that keeps the peace across Evershade valley has all of a sudden shattered. It’s now up to Luigi to find the pieces of the Dark Moon so that it can be made whole once more and will restore the peace among the ghosts of Evershade valley.
Gameplay:
Luigi’s Mansion 2 is played from the third person perspective and has you playing as Luigi as he searches various mansions for Dark Moon shards. To aid you in your search, you’re given a flashlight, a DS (Dual Scream), and a vacuum cleaner. The flashlight is used to shine light in dark places and as a weapon to freeze ghosts and the vacuum cleaner is then used to suck them up. The DS is used for communication with Professor E. Gadd whom helps you in your quest. In addition to E. Gadd giving you advice and objectives, he can also help you to upgrade your equipment which you will need to do as the game progresses.
Freezing ghosts and searching objects in your environment will give you coins that you can use to purchase the upgrades that Professor E. Gadd has made available to you. Speaking of environments, the game has you going through a few different mansions along the way. Each providing a new environment to explore and enemies to encounter. The environments themselves are somewhat open which allows for exploration to locate coins, but at the same time linear to help keep you focused on the objective or as the game calls it, quest that you’re currently tasked with completing.
Quests range from locating a specific object or set of objects to defeating a set number of ghosts. The latter can be either one on one in a room or in an arena style setting with multiple being faced at a time.
In addition to the single player story mode, the game offers a multiplayer mode called the Scare Scraper. The Scare Scraper features three mini games that can be played either online or local wireless multiplayer with up to four people. The games are Hunter, Polterpup, and Rush.
Hunter has you hunting down all of the ghosts on each floor. Polterpup involves chasing polterpups around with the flashlight until you catch them all. Rush as the game implies has you trying to find the exit from the mansion as quickly as you can. Though it’s timed, you can defeat enemies and search for objects to extend the allotted time.
Graphics and Performance:
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is a remaster of Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon on the 3DS. With the game being a remaster, one would expect the graphics to get an overhaul from the original. Graphically speaking, character models are sharp, the environments have a real nice and clean look to the textures. Ghosts have nice illumination as does the rest of the lighting in the game. Nintendo and Next Level Games did a really good job of giving the visuals of the game a much needed overhaul and polish.
Performance of the game exceeded my expectations a bit. I was expecting to find the game to run at 30 FPS and chug a bit with muddied cut scenes, and longer than average load times. This would be due to the updated visuals. To my surprise, the game runs at a solid 60 FPS and load times are pretty much not existent due to being hidden behind cut scenes. As a result, if the game is loading during the cut scene, it will be un-skippable until the loading is finished. The cut scenes aren’t muddied at all, rather the opposite. They are clear, crisp, and run at the same solid frame rate as the rest of the game. As for the chug, there again isn’t any to speak of.
Sound:
Listening to the audio of this release next to it’s original outing on the 3DS, it’s easy to hear just how much of an overhaul this game got in the audio department. The environmental sounds of doors creaking, background music, the cries and sounds Luigi makes when he’s scared, along with all of the other auditory nuances sound crystal clear and crisp which was something that couldn’t have been done on the 3DS. The audio in this game is impressive, though not as impressive as the graphics, still worth of being HD quality.
Conclusion:
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is a remaster. It’s not a remake and I kinda wish it was. Yes, the graphics are gorgeous, the audio is fantastic sounding, but there should have been more done. There wasn’t anything added to the game. I would have liked to see the addition of a couple mini games not in the original release and a couch cooperative experience like they did with Luigi’s Mansion 3 would have been a great addition.
Just because this game isn’t a remake and is a remaster, doesn’t mean that it’s not a great game, because it is from a technical stand point. If you want the definitive way to play Luigi’s Mansion 2, look no further then this HD remaster on Switch. But even as great of a game as this is, that doesn’t take away the feeling of it being a cash grab.
There is nothing added to the game, it’s the same game with a gorgeous coat of graphical and audio paint with some various enhancements to the controls and other aspects. With previous remasters that Nintendo has done, we have seen these beautiful enhancements but they have also always added something new to the game. It could be unlockable artwork or other behind the scenes stuff, it could have a bonus character added, or some new mode, but there is always something new added to justify purchasing it for the second time. You don’t get that with this release. Which is honestly, kinda disheartening. My hope is that should Nintendo move forward with bringing us more remasters, that they add something new to the second outing. This would help to give incentive to gamers to purchase the game and ultimately increase sales.
With all of this said, would I recommend purchasing Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD? Well simply, yes I would. The game has enough over it’s original release to justify the price tag and rounds out the Luigi’s Mansion trilogy of releases on the Switch quite well.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.