Luigi’s Mansion 3 for Nintendo Switch review: Grim grinning ghosts

With Luigi’s Mansion 3, the first series entry on Nintendo Switch plays it safe but it’s still a supernaturally good time.

Developer: Next Level Games
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release date: October 31, 2019

Luigi is always going to be in the shadow of his more famous brother Mario, but he has had the opportunity to really develop into his own full realized character over the last decade or so; particularly in his own series, Luigi’s Mansion, which is a wholly unique series compared to anything else he appears in either as a co-star or as part of an ensemble cast.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 is the chance for Luigi to really establish himself on Nintendo’s super popular console, and while it’s still a great ghost-sucking time, this entry plays it just a little too safe in some aspects.

It’s quite possible you’ve never played a Luigi’s Mansion game before with the releases so far and few between. Luigi is, for all intents and purposes, a Ghostbuster. You have a vacuum that can suck up spirits, money and various other objects along with a couple of little other tricks.

Most ghosts cannot simply be sucked up and therein lies the challenge of the series. You must figure out what makes each ghost vulnerable, especially for the various boos ghosts you encounter.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 takes place in a hotel, but the previous mansions had multiple floors with different themes as well, so the setup isn’t very different.

This basic formula still works really well. It’s very satisfying to suck up not just ghosts but virtually everything that isn’t nailed down, including loads of cash and jewelry. The bosses are mostly fun and creative, and the whole game just screams with charm and good-natured supernatural fun. If anybody actually made a good game inspired by the famous Haunted Mansion ride at various Disney theme parks, this would probably be it.

But not everything is perfect with Luigi’s Mansion 3. All the treasure you find and all the cash you suck up isn’t really put to good use at all. You get a meaningless score at the end of the game, but otherwise, it can be used to buy extra lives and find some optional collectibles. You would think in a game where you are highly encouraged to grab all the cash and treasure you can find  — you actually spend more time doing that than sucking up actual ghosts — that the in-game shop would offer a wider variety of things to buy. Upgrades and new moves would be nice, or even just cosmetic items. Anything would be better than just the practically meaningless score.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 can also be frustratingly obtuse in regards to its solutions for puzzles or defeating some ghosts. Most of the time, the difficulty balance is good. It doesn’t hold your hand, but instead, gives you natural hints that you can observe which tell you what you are supposed to do. In most cases, these are sufficient for guiding you.

However, there are several instances where this is not the case. You are just either supposed to know, for example, that there’s a hidden grate you are supposed to use your UV light to uncover or use your slimy doppelganger Gooigi as a sacrificial lamb — even though the game has never given any indication it can be used in that way at that point and is never used that way again. It’s  an obtuse puzzle design straight out of old school Sierra adventure games.

Once you are done with the single-player, there are several multiplayer options in Luigi’s Mansion 3. You can actually play the entire story co-op with one player controlling Luigi and the other Gooigi, which seems geared towards younger players. The game isn’t super challenging solo so it becomes pretty much a cakewalk with two players. This is local co-op only which is unfortunate because online co-op with a drop-in/drop-out option would have added a lot of replay value.

The other options are very much a mixed bag. ScareScraper is the sole online mode where you and three other players try to suck up as many ghosts as you can. This mode is a fun idea but it’s kind of arbitrary who gets credit for clearing a room when multiple people are involved and feels like a should be a more cooperative effort.

ScreamPark has several different minigames but is local multiplayer only which really limits its potential. Again, these are just kind of passable efforts as well.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 is essentially like a low-stress theme park ride you have been on plenty of times before, but still really enjoy. The gameplay formula remains fun and it’s still loaded with charm to fill those 12-15 hours it should take you to complete. It’s just a bit of a shame it doesn’t really try to do much of anything new, even in the most obvious spots where it could have greatly benefited.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 is only the third entry for the series in eighteen years, and that actually kind of helps it here. Something that only comes along basically once a generation can rely on familiar features and mechanics and still be pretty entertaining because we don’t see it every year. As long as it is at least a few years until the next one, I’ll welcome this comfortably familiar ghostly adventure every time.

A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.