Luigi's Mansion is a..... Click on continue for more info!
The game starts off when Luigi receives a letter saying that he's won a mansion through a contest that he didn't enter. When he arrives, he finds that Mario has disappeared and that his disappearance is linked to the dense ghost presence in the house. So Luigi, being the good brother that he is, makes his way through the haunted mansion in an effort to save his brother.
The gameplay at its core is fresh and fun. Luigi is equipped with a flashlight that serves two purposes: First and most importantly, it helps him examine the otherwise dark rooms of the mansion. Secondly, it serves as a means to scare the ghosts. When the ghosts are scared they show their hearts, at which point Luigi whips out his special vacuum and sucks up ghosts "Ghostbusters" style. It isn't as easy as that however, as the ghosts don't go down without a fight. They'll tear around the room like a walley on a hook, yanking Luigi in every which way in an effort to break free. Keeping the ghost on the "line" is similar to arcade fishing games, where you have to push the controller in the opposite direction of the fish's movement while reeling him in.
As innovative and cool as this is, it does end up as a bit of a chore since this is one of only two attacks that Luigi has in his arsenal. The other attack actually has three parts, being the elements fire, water and ice. These elements are used to defeat certain ghosts that aren't vulnerable to standard vacuum attacks. However, despite their aesthetic differences these two attacks are essentially the same.
The most imaginative and fun part of the game is capturing the special ghosts that have escaped from their portraits. There is a trick to getting each one to expose their heart, though many of the tricks required to scare the ghosts are very similar. For instance, quite a few ghosts require some object in the room to be sucked into the vacuum and spat back out at them a few times before their heart will be exposed and the cleaning up process can begin. Others are more unique and challenging, though most of the time you'll immediately know what to do. The constant vacuuming does get a bit old after a few hours of gameplay, but fortunately the game doesn't take much longer than that to complete.
I finished this game in a single afternoon, after roughly four and half to five hours of gameplay. I died two or three times, and the save points are frequent enough that dying really isn't too much of a penalty. Some parts are moderately difficult, especially when there are three to four ghosts attacking you at once. However, an experienced gamer shouldn't have a problem with anything that the game throws out at you.
The main problem that this game suffers from is that it lacks any real variety. What you see and do in the first ten minutes of the game is pretty much what you'll be seeing and doing for the remainder of the game. It could be argued that that's how all games are, and to a certain extent that's true. However, the lack of variety in attacks and the sheer repetition involved really takes away from the value of the game. If Nintendo had added some optional side quests or even some platform jumping (which I normally hate but would have welcomed in this case), Luigi's Mansion could be one of the great Mario titles.
The graphics in Luigi's Mansion have aged very well. There are many more recent games that provide a better example of the Gamecube's capabilities, but for the most part Luigi's Mansions is visually competent and at times superb. As mentioned by the Gamespot reviewer, the lighting and particle effects are spectacular.
Overall, I would recommend this game as a rental. There just isn't enough change of pace or replay value to warrant a purchase, but it did provide me with a fun afternoon while it lasted.