Late to the party (by about three years or so) but I did finally cave and purchase Luigi’s Mansion 3 for the Switch around the middle of the month.

I’d been wanting to get it since the Super Mario Bros. movie came out earlier in the year. I’d come out of the cinema in Basingstoke having seen it wanting to buy a Mario game. Job done on that front for Nintendo. But the game stores there put me off buying any Mario game with their inflated prices and my tight budget at the time. I was hoping a second hand copy would have been within range. But sadly that was not the case.

I didn’t complete Luigi’s Mansion 2 on the 3DS, and I never played the first on the GameCube (or 3DS). The first one would have come out during the married, step parent phase of my life.

I did enjoy my brief time playing Luigi’s Mansion 2. This action adventure game I describe as Nintendo does Ghostbusters. It kinda had that vibe for me. Obviously there are official Ghostbusters video games (which will one day have a post or two of their own).

However this is a Nintendo Luigi-fied take on Ghostbusters. Very family friendly. It doesn’t have Slimer but Luigi does have a pet ghost dog called Polterpup in Luigi’s Mansion 3.

There are other similarities between the two. Such as Luigi’s Poltergust being the equivalent of the Ghostbusters proton pack and trap combined! Or the rooms throughout the hotel you are exploring being populated with various ghosts doing their thing. Very Ghostbusters-esq.

The boring bit about how I’m experiencing the game

For the record and those coming across one of these types of posts for the first time. I’m playing the game on a Switch Lite. No surprise there.

When I’m playing the game at home I will be using the inbuilt speakers of the Switch Lite to listen to the audio. However any game play away from home will use my usual setup of VANKYO C750 Bluetooth active noise cancelling headphones. Which are over ear, Hi-Fi Stereo, and apparently deep bass.

This is the memory card version of the game that I purchased that when first played downloaded and installed the 1.3.0 update for the game.

Obviously I won’t be experiencing the multiplayer side of the game, but playing it through its single player story mode.

Like all the other Switch games I’m playing at the moment I’m not spending hours at a time playing the game. But grabbing “moments” when I can. And if you have read my recent life, the universe post you’ll know playing anything has been a real struggle.

Potential Movie/Ride Threat to Disney!

I really enjoyed the cut scenes I’ve seen so far they set up the story, the current level or introduce ghosts etc really well. With no words just sounds that convey the meaning in place of words. These cut scenes felt like they could easily be from a Mario/Luigi movie. They have that cartoon quality to them.

Twice now Disney have done a Haunted House movie trying to capitalise on the popularity of the ride/experience with the same name in their parks. More importantly trying to replicate the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Both movies haven’t been a massive box office hit. I don’t think the latest one even broke even at the box office.

I think Disney have to be fearful of Nintendo and Luigi’s Mansion.

I can easily see this game series becoming an animated movie like Super Mario Bros. did. An awful lot of children were introduced to Mario and Luigi this year via the movie.

With the Super Mario Bros. movie Nintendo showed they can produce an animated movie that stays true to the source, appeal to gamers, and a wider audience. My friend Diego was familiar with Mario, hadn’t played many if any of the games. His 5 year old daughter certainly had no idea who Mario was. She loved the movie, and Diego enjoyed it also.

Obviously that’s an antidotal point I make there. But considering the amount of money the movie made world wide at the box office I suspect that experience was not a one off.

Plus in the Nintendo parks that are starting to appear around the world you have the perfect source material to produce a Nintendo version of the Haunted Mansion themed around Luigi’s Mansion.

I love the cartoon Ghostbusters-esq look and feel of the game. It really does feel like you are playing a cartoon. Probably more so than any other Marioverse (has that been used before by others?) game I’ve experienced.

And on that note I’ll end this first look at Luigi’s Mansion 3.

Obviously like all my other game plays at the moment these posts will be sporadic (see reasons above). Plus who knows where they will go?