Luigi's Mansion is finally here to live up to Nintendo's new tradition of making the same damn game over and over agian.

User Rating: 8 | Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon 3DS
Boros here, and this is probably my most up to date review yet, but this'll be hard to beat. Especially considering that this game came out just yesterday. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon is the sequel to the Gamecube title simply named Luigi's Mansion. Luigi's Mansion was a decent game, but plagued by glitches. This games initial reaction seemed to be luke warm when it came out, but is now being deemed a classic. So, will the sequel live up to the standard of classic? There's only one way to find out.

Let's go ahead and get the elephant out of the room. Nintendo's recent policies with game franchises has either been A: Make the same damned game over and over in a never ending cycle. Ex. New Super Mario Bros. 2 or B: Butcher the franchise to the point of absolutely no return. Ex. Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Fortunately for Luigi, this game falls into the 1st category, and suprisingly does just enough to feel like an actual sequel than the same game agian... Actually, on the borderline of sequel and same. That might have been for the best though, because the game pulls a little bit of the 2nd category, being that almost everything that wasn't the same was butchered. So, Nintendo's still in bad habits after all.

Gameplay wise, the game is really good. However, they ruin it by one simple thing. Luigi's Mansion 1 was a really big mansion to explore, and free roaming was recommended just so you can feel how big the mansion was. However, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon is split between 5 mansions, meaning that all of the mansions feel smaller. HOWEVER, that's not really the main issue as these mansions feel more realistic than the 1st game's mansion. No, the real reason that this game feels smaller even though it take longer to beat for a fact is that instead of one big mansion to explore, this game uses a mission based hub. As in, you get stuck in the area with E. Gadd and you select a mission to do from a menu, then the game dumps you off in that mansion with the mission just simply to do that one mission and almost nothing else, then you get dragged back to E. Gadd so he can state the obvious and that repeats itself until you stop playing. I hate mission based hub on so many levels and for so many reasons. My natural instinct is to explore, and that's not to say that you can't explore in this game. You have to hunt for Boos in each mission, so there is that, but you can only get one Boo per mission. Even if it's the same mansion, so why can't I just find all of the Boos in one shot? Plus, Luigi's Mansion had the open world feel, and wasn't interupted every 10 f@%king minutes to be dragged back to the damned hub just so E. Gadd could say something stupid just to continue the game. It'd be like if a baby had a bungie cord instead of an imbelical cord. "Push honey! I can see the... Never mind... "

One thing that this game does one HELL of a lot better than the first one is the actual gameplay. Luigi's Mansion 1 was plagued by Vacuum detection issues, and had some fights that would've been difficult without those issues. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon seemed to have resolved all of that, and that contributes partly to why this game actually feels like a sequel, rather than Nintendo eating it's own s#!t, just to s#!t it back on to our plates. So, yes. Once you get passed the f@%king mission system which flows like beads into a virgin butthole, the gameplay is great. A bunch of puzzles and fighting ghosts which are all fun in their own way. The fighting can get frustrating at times, especially when they wheel out the regular ghosts with the damned things over their heads which means that you can only kill them when they take the things on their heads off. However, for the most part, it's really fun gameplay wise.

Ok, let me talk about the boss fights. The boss ghosts look like the same damn ghost except for an additional horn on it's head per mansion. Like the rings in a tree stump, they grow one horn as you go through the game. However, this is just visual, and usually the boss fights are unique and fun, except one. The boss fight in the old mine is a section where you have to shoot out of a vehicle at a giant ice face. Why stupid gimmicky bulls#!t like that? And for a boss fight no less! A stupid gimmicky bulls#!t boss if you will. This boss fight isn't fun at all, and honestly feels out of place. Luigi is a bit of a coward going through haunted mansions, but then, all of the sudden, he's hopping in bomb launching sleighs at high speeds down a giant ice hole chasing some ghost that possessed a piece of ice? By the way, after this he does slightly go back to being a coward, so it wasn't character developement.

Speaking of which, let's get to the story. It starts off with Luigi falling asleep in his chair, and Professor E. Gadd intercepts his TV signal and sucks Luigi through the TV to E. Gadd's ghost catching central. E. Gadd then says that Luigi is the only hope of saving the valley. Luigi obviously doesn't want to do this, but then is told he had no choice. This equates to kidnapping. Luigi was kidnapped by E. Gadd almost like Peach and Bowser. Think about it. Bowser: "Now that I have you, you will perform for me." E. Gadd: "Now that I have you, you need to save the world." Yeah, not much different, are they?

Ok, so that's the intro into this game, but let's jump to something that really PISSED me off.

SPOILER WARNING: At about the halfway point, you get a security camera photo that you get to inspect. Now, previous to this, you have to rescue a Toad that's been trapped in a picture frame... Agian, that was rehashed, but that's not what really pissed me off. In the photo, you see that the Boos are carrying a picture in a bag around the whole time, and you can see what looks like Mario's foot in the picture frame. I was thinking, "No, please god no... Please only let that be a minor thing in this game." As it turns out, though. It wasn't a minor thing. It was just as big as it was in the first one. GOD DAMMIT!! Why rehash that agian? I know that they do that with Mario and Peach over and over, but Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach at least makes sence! Bowser wants to get inside Peach! So, what you're saying game is that Mario is Luigi's Peach? Is Luigi going to have to save Mario in every f@%king game where Luigi stars? Actually, why does King Boo kidnap Mario in this game? It was explained in the first one, but not in this one... If Mario is Luigi's Peach, then what is King Boos interest in Mario?... *shiver* I don't want to think about that... Anyway, they play off Mario being kidnapped as the big twist in the game. Why on earth would you do it that way? Were you just trying to piss everybody off Nintendo, or do you now have a minimum s#!ttiness requirement that you have to meet with each game you make?

The way I would've done it was have Princess Daisy be the kidnappee instead of Mario. I actually have some very good reasons for that. First, ever since Mario Kart Wii, it's kind of obvious that there's something there. Hell, even if it's was a damned good friendship, Daisy wouldn't have a statue of her and Luigi dancing built on her racecourse for all to see. The second reason for having Daisy be the kidnappee is that it would be a great opportunity for Luigi to actually break out from under Mario's shadow, and actually feature a game with just Luigi, and no Mario. Very simular to what Wario did, and now Wario has his own business which is doing very well. Third, Luigi would feel just as important as Mario having to rescue his own princess whenever she gets in trouble. Now, this isn't as strong of a reason because Luigi having to rescue the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom is pretty important, but Luigi doesn't get tail for that job. Mario has to rescue Peach on a constant basis, so tell me he doesn't get SOME tail sometimes. Either way, that's just what I would've done and they didn't do it, so there's no point in thinking about it. SPOILER OVER

In conclusion, this game is really fun, and well worth playing, but there is a ton of stupidity in this game. There's plenty of things to make fun of, as well as have fun playing. I might actually go back and play it some more and that's f@%king rare, but just be fore warned about the stupidity that awaits you.