| System: 3DS |  |
| Dev: Next Level | |
| Pub: Nintendo | |
| Release: TBA | |
| Players: 1 | |
| Screen Resolution: N/A |
by Angelo M. D’Argenio
Nintendo's E3 presentation this year was mostly focused on the Wii U. In fact, their booth only had Wii U setups available for play to the public. However, if you were waiting in line for a Wii U game and had some extra time to kill, one of the Nintendo booth babes might have walked up to you with a 3DS strapped to her waist. This was the only way you could play one of the only 3DS games available to demo at the Nintendo booth, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon. Luckily, I was looking rather bored while waiting on line for Pikmin 3 demo, and so I got a chance to give Dark Moon a whirl.
I'll admit, I wasn't a big fan of the original Luigi's Mansion—or at least I thought I wasn't. Truth be told, I had no idea how much I missed the game. Once I got my hands on Dark Moon, memories of the early GameCube years started flooding back. This game is almost identical to the original Luigi's Mansion, but not in a bad way. In fact, if you didn't know any better, you might mistake Dark Moon for a handheld remake rather than a sequel.
Luigi has the same tools of the ghostbusting trade this time around. Once again, your job is to immobilize ghosts by using your flashlight before sucking them up with your Poltergust. You'll have a lot of smaller ghosts to deal with while you continue on your hunt for the boss of any particular sequence, which generally has to be combated in a puzzle-like style before you can give him the suction treatment. Lather, rinse, repeat until Luigi has cleaned whatever mansion he is in of all its spectral pests.
As nostalgic as this is, there is a certain problem with a sequel being nearly exactly the same as its predecessor. E3 tends to be a place to show off the newest video game tech, but Luigi's Mansion 2 didn't really have new tech to show. In fact, my nostalgia eventually wore off as I stood in line, and I slowly got bored of the same old ghost hunting grind.
The Nintendo reps said that the game was going to introduce a lot of variety including new enemy types, new ghost hunting tools, new levels, and more. They even said that Luigi will actually be visiting multiple mansions this time around. That's all pretty cool, in theory, but the demo didn't show these new gameplay elements off. I guess we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope Nintendo delivers on their promises.
