Luigi's Mansion (video game)

Luigi's Mansion is the second game to have Luigi star as main character, and the first Mario game for the Nintendo GameCube. The game focuses on Luigi as he battles many ghosts in a haunted mansion to save Mario using the Poltergust 3000, a vacuum erected by Professor E. Gadd for sucking in ghosts. The first game to have Luigi as the main character is Mario is Missing!. A sequel called Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon was released March 24, 2013 for the Nintendo 3DS

Story
The story begins with Luigi winning a contest for a mansion. Mario goes to check out the Mansion and tells Luigi he'll meet him there. As Mario checks out the mansion, ghosts and King Boo ambush him and seal him inside a picture. After Mario doesn't come back, Luigi goes to check the mansion. He goes inside the mansion to see a hazy orange light with what looks like a key. It rises up and humorously bumps into the chandalier, dropping the key. It then escapes to a room up the stairs. Luigi picks up the key and unlocks the room, only to be ambushed by an orange ghost called a golden ghost which was the orange light he saw earlier. Suddenly, the ghost starts getting sucked in by something and Luigi turns to see Professor E. Gadd. The ghost drags him around the room and punches him to get away. They go back to his lab where the professor gives Luigi the Poltergust 3000 and tells him about what happened to Mario. After Luigi goes deeper into the mansion, he comes across a storage room where he presses a button that releases all of the Boos and King Boo himself. But King Boo sees Luigi carrying the Poltergust 3000 and he and all the other Boos run away. King Boo stays in a secret room for the rest of the game, up until the final boss fight, where he too was captured and turned into a painting.

Ghosts
These are the Portraits of all the capturable portrait ghosts throughout the game. The ghosts are separated by the Area in which they appear. At the bottom are the fifty boos that appear throughout the mansion.

PAL differences
In the European and Australian versions of Luigi's Mansion, notable changes can be found throughout the level. This has been done, due to players complaining that the Hidden Mansion has generally no differences in the Japanese and North American versions. The differences include:


 * Everything is now mirrored, opposing to the Japanese and North American versions which have the layouts the same.
 * More normal ghosts can be found in the area.
 * Chauncey's rocking horses are much bigger and curve from left to right when sent out. He also moves more quickly when bouncing around.
 * Speedy Spirits and Gold Mice always release Silver Diamonds when defeated.
 * Rooms are darker in this mansion, unlike the first mansion with rooms being lighter.
 * The Boolossus boss battle takes place on a gigantic Poltergust 3000, making the battle much slippery.
 * Boo's stats go from smaller to bigger numbered stats.
 * Forty five, instead of forty, are needed to fight King Boo.
 * Vincent Van Gore now sends out five ghosts at a time instead of three.
 * Boos are much more agile and quicker.
 * Some hearts have become smaller, along with some being removed entirely.
 * Bogmire is visible less common.

Reception
This game has been met with generally positive reviews. IGN gave this game a 7/10 and GameSpot gave a 7.9/10. They were criticizing the game for its short gamespan and repetitiveness. But the game was praised for giving Luigi the starring role.

Trivia

 * An error in the manual for the game has Professor E. Gadd speaking in Japanese on the thirtieth page.
 * Similar to the Wario Land games, the more treasure collected, the better the prize.
 * The boxart resembles Home Alone's DVD cover.
 * Fire strangely does not appear in mirrors.
 * The game was originally going to be in 3D (like the Nintendo 3DS). This feature was later removed as the price for it would have been too high.
 * Totaka's theme can be heard when waiting for three minutes and fifteen seconds in the training mode's menu.
 * This game was released in North America one day before the Nintendo GameCube's release in the area.
 * The game was originally going to be titled Mario's Mansion.
 * The game originally had a time limit for 24 hours, which means that the player had to save Mario before the time expired. If the player didn't saved Mario when 24 hours were expired, the game will end and the player would had to restart again, simliar to Majora's Mask. The time limit was removed from the final version of the game.
 * Peach, even though she doesn't appear in the game, she is mentioned by Toad. Toad also mentions that Mario had left when he heard that Luigi had won a mansion, and he never returned.