Preview: Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD Seems Scarily Good

After 11 years, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon left its Nintendo 3DS graveyard and is coming to the Nintendo Switch via a new remaster. I went through the first couple of hours of Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD to discover whether it’s worth diving into in 2024 or whether it should have stayed in the past.

Back in the Nintendo GameCube era, Luigi’s Mansion was one of my favorite games. Fast forward to 2013, and I was so excited to play the sequel Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, on the Nintendo 3DS. I put hours and hours into it, collecting every single Gem. I think I even preferred it to the original title! After getting to experience the remaster on the Nintendo Switch, it brought back all those nostalgic memories. I wasn’t sure if I’d remember much of it, given that it’d been so long since I last played the game, but from the second I dived into the first mission in Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, everything came flooding back. It was amazing seeing the game I’d once sunk long hours into in a new light.

In Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, you play as Luigi as you gather pieces of the Dark Moon to restore peace to Evershade Valley. These pieces are skewed throughout various mansions, and it is Luigi’s job to best the ghosts inside and collect them using what’s ultimately a modded vacuum cleaner called the Poltergust 5000.

Immediately, what stood out to me was how the game looked on the Switch. Gone are the restraints of the Nintendo 3DS 5:3, 800×240 pixel screen, with Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD now looking vibrant and beautiful. This seemed especially true on my Nintendo Switch OLED screen, where the colors really popped off the screen. In each mission, you’ll need to solve various puzzles in order to progress. Some of them require new tools for the Poltergust 5000, which are unlocked through the story.

I found myself racing through the first handful of missions so that I could unlock new tools to find hidden secrets or Gems. There are several of these Gems scattered throughout the game, each hidden behind a puzzle. For example, in an early mission, you get a Gem by revealing a statue with the Dark-Light Device, an attachment for the Poltergust that allows Luigi to dispel illusions. It’s secrets like this that make you want to explore every corner of the mansion to see what you’ll discover next – it’s great.

As you explore, you’ll encounter different types of ghosts, which you must stun and suck up into the Poltergust 5000 so that Professor E. Gadd can study them. Some ghosts are easy to conquer, while others take some work due to blocking your flashlight with sunglasses or other objects. You’ll even come across boss ghosts from time to time who have a gimmick you must pull off to defeat them. In the first mansion alone, I saw multiple ghost types and was curious about which one I’d meet next each time I entered a new room.

The one negative that stands out to me in the first couple of hours I played, which has carried over from the Nintendo 3DS original, is the frequency that Professor E. Gadd bothers you via the Dual Scream, a Nintendo 3DS-like device that allows him to call Luigi. Each time there’s a new puzzle to solve in the story, he calls you to essentially tell you what you do next rather than letting you figure it out yourself. The first couple of times are fine, given that it’s tutorial stuff, but I was still getting these calls a couple of hours in, to the point where I’d physically eye-roll because it was so annoying. I can only hope this happens less as I progress further.

Overall, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD seems like its going to hold up really well on the Nintendo Switch. From what I played so far, the graphics are beautiful, and the gameplay is still as charming as ever. Whether this continues deeper into the game, we’ll have to wait and see. But I’m excited to dive back into this classic sequel!

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD will be released on the Nintendo Switch on June 27, 2024.