1203: Back to the Mansion Again

I played a bit more Luigi’s Mansion 2 earlier. Haven’t played it a lot yet, but I’m really liking it for a number of different reasons.

Firstly, the single-player mode has a very strong “adventure game” feel about it. Specifically, it features frequent occurrences of getting “stuck” — something which is not altogether common in modern games that hold your hand quite a lot. Luigi’s Mansion, though, despite appearing quite tutorial-heavy in the first couple of levels, very quickly turns into a game where you’re expected to work things out for yourself, to remember things from earlier and to explore thoroughly rather than just following the handy glowing trail of breadcrumbs on the map.

Secondly, the multiplayer mode is awesome. It hadn’t occurred to me that multiplayer in Luigi’s Mansion 2 might actually be good, but by golly, it really, really is. I’ve only tried the “Hunters” mode in Download Play so far — this apparently means it’s a “limited” form of the full multiplayer experience — but it was a blast by itself.

Essentially, the multiplayer mode is a cooperative ghost hunt for up to four players at once. Before starting the game, the players choose how many floors of a mansion they want to tackle and must then clear each of them against a strict time limit. Each level is randomly generated, requiring methodical exploration to locate where all the ghosts are and then to take them down. Communication between players is also helpful, but for those who don’t want to actually talk to each other — or those who are unable to due to playing online, for example — there’s a handy little “quick chat” thingy on the D-pad, allowing you to make Luigi say various things, but more importantly, display a callout on the map indicating that the other players’ attention is required in a specific location.

It’s a really interesting mode because it’s simple but extremely flexible. If you want a short game, you can play just 5 floors. If you want a longer game, you can play up to 25 floors, and successfully clearing this opens up an “Endless” mode, which sounds like a lot of fun. Within the individual play session, players earn points towards upgrades that are valid just for their single play session, making a single multiplayer game feel like a microcosm of the main game’s upgrade and reward structure. It’s really, really neat and I can actually see myself playing it quite a bit.

The Download Play functionality also reminds me of one of the great unsung features of Nintendo’s handhelds. It is absolutely awesome to be able to wirelessly beam a limited version of a game over to your friends and play them without them having to own the game. Wireless multiplayer on its own is great — remember the awkwardness of hooking up link cables? — but when your friends don’t have to have their own copy of the game? Brilliant. The only thing about this that I hate is the fact that the 3DS’ stupid region locking prevents handhelds from different regions downloading these multiplayer-specific packages. Sometimes. (If it was consistent, I might not be quite so mad about it, but still.)

Anyway. Luigi’s Mansion continues to be an entertaining experience, and I’m looking forward to investigating it further. For now, however, I bid you good night!