E3 2019: Hands-on with Luigi’s Mansion 3 story mode

After a hiatus of more than a decade, it was a joy to get Luigi’s Mansion 2 on the Nintendo 3DS. Luckily we’re not having to wait that long for Luigi’s Mansion 3 which still doesn’t have a date – but will be out this year.

At E3 2019, Nintendo invited me to check out the game and I eagerly agreed, because I will always say yes to more Luigi.

If you have played any of the Luigi’s Mansion games then you will have a basic understanding of the game is all about. This time, Luigi is joined with Mario, Peach a few Toad’s at a fancy hotel they were all invited to, but soon after, something happens and it is up to Luigi to rescue everyone. Luigi will have to search each floor of the hotel to find them, those pesky ghosts, however, have stolen to buttons to get to each floor. Luigi’s got to fight against the hotel’s spirited guests to get them back.

The base controls are the same they were in Luigi’s Mansion 2. You can press and hold A to charge up the Strobulb, hold down X to illuminate secrets with the Dark Light. But as Luigi is now sporting the brand new Poltergust G-00, it has some even more advanced moves, such as the Slam, Suction and Burst, each offers up more moves for Luigi in his ghost-busting arsenal and with a quite tutorial on the moves, it was time to start playing the game.

The demo started out with Luigi standing on a balcony, that was overlooking a jousting arena, complete with castle walls and parapets all around, after testing out all the new moves, to help collect the various coins on the screen, it was time to move on. The next room contained a few ghosts to deal with, so after lighting them up with the Strobulb, the fight to absorb them into the Poltergust began. In Dark Moon, if you fought back against the pull of the ghost, dragging the stick back into the opposite direction from them, you could press and get a strong pull on, here though, you can start to slam them. When the circle is full, you can just keep pressing A to slam the ghost around, if you don’t touch the stick, they will just go in the opposite direction that they are facing, however, if you direct them, you can actually damage other ghosts.

After clearing out the ghosts, it was time to hunt for secrets, the suction addon comes in handy, when you have it engaged, a little reticule appears on the screen, to show where it is aiming and when you fire it, if the surface it lands on, is nothing, it will fall right off. Hidden in the room was a door, that contained a purple gem sword, what it does I don’t know, but I can say, it was one of six. It was time to move on, the next room contained some traps and that is where Gooigi came into play.

Gooigi makes a return after appearing in the 3DS remake of Luigi’s Mansion, but this time he is even more useful, as he can let a second player join in, but he is used to getting through some traps and solve puzzles. In this new room, there were two sets of spike traps on the floor and when the ground front of them was activated, they would shoot up and if Luigi walks into them, he gets hurt. Gooigi, which is enabled by clicking the right stick, can walk through them and take no damage, doing this on the first trap, allows Gooigi to open up a chest and obtain some money and jewels. While you can skip that first one, the second one requires Gooigi to pull down a rope with the Poltergust, but it must be held in place, doing that lowers the spikes and allows Luigi to cross over. When you swap back between the two characters, if the one you are leaving is completing any action, they remain to do it.

A few rooms later, one of which was taller, rather than wider, it was now a battle against the boss, which took place in the room that we were over looking at the start, that jousting arena, so the ghost brought his armour into the fight. Taking him down requires some good timing as well as quick reactions, you first need to stun him, then rip his weapon away, before hoovering him up and performing a slam. The problem is, he is only available to be stunned, after he charges you, but if you don’t move away fast enough, you can take some serious damage.

Sadly I never got to beat him, as my time with the single player was up, but I was lucky enough to try out the multiplayer next, look for thoughts on that soon. Luigi’s Mansion 3 is that is it more Luigi’s Mansion and I am more than ok with that, the new powerups are fun and offer more options to interact with the world.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 is out in 2019. Look for more Luigi’s Mansion 3 coverage in the next few days.