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Today, 14th September 2026, marks the 25th anniversary of the Gamecube and, by extension, Luigi's Mansion. So to celebrate the occasion, Ollie looks back on Luigi's first spooky outing; a game he adored, but somehow never owned...
I’ve always loved horror; it’s no secret at this point. So when Nintendo revealed Luigi’s Mansion as a GameCube launch title, I was all in from day one. It looked absolutely stunning: the spooky lighting, the creepy music, the swirling dust that kicks up when you walk around. Not only was it an excellent showcase for the follow up to the N64, but it just spoke to me on such a deep, visceral level.
The problem, however, is that I never got around to buying it. I didn’t actually get the GameCube on launch day. I had to wait until my birthday just a couple of months after the UK launch on 3rd May 2002, and in a desire to align with my friends’ plans so we could all play multiplayer together, I ended up getting Super Smash Bros. Melee as my first game.
Being a sprightly thirteen-year-old at the time, the idea of adding a second GameCube title to my library so soon after launch just wasn’t feasible, so I was stuck with Melee for the foreseeable future (oh no, what a shame, however will I cope). Luigi’s Mansion never left my mind, though.
This was all before the internet really kicked into high gear – at least for me. It would be a couple more years until I’d start properly frequenting online forums and MSN Messenger, so I still got the majority of my gaming news from magazines like NGC and Official Nintendo Magazine. I still remember flipping through issue 61 of NGC and re-reading the Luigi’s Mansion review over and over, drooling over that 90/100 score from Geraint Evans.
Unfortunately, when I was in a position to finally add another GameCube game to my library, new titles had been released that ultimately took priority: Super Mario Sunshine, Zelda: The Wind Waker, Star Fox Adventures, Metroid Prime, Viewtiful Joe, Resident Evil 4 – the list goes on. Luigi’s Mansion, as much as I still wanted it, kept falling to the back of the queue.
Eventually, thanks to the kindness of one of my friends at high school, I did actually play through Luigi’s Mansion multiple times after borrowing it for a week or two. It was just as good as I was hoping for, despite hearing from many people that it was far too short. I didn’t care. I simply adored the atmosphere, the design of the ghosts, and the whimsical personality of Professor E.Gadd.
Strolling through the hallways, pressing 'A' to call out for Mario while watching Luigi's nose jiggle about from walking and running will forever stick in my mind. I'll always remember using the Poltergust 3000 on the sheet covering the mirror in the Foyer, seeing the way it stretched before shooting up the tube and thinking "what, that's ridiculous!". Then when the paintings came to life in the Parlor and threatened that I'd wander in the dark forever, I felt genuinely creeped out.
To this day, I still consider the original game to be the ‘scariest’ in the series, and I hope the inevitable fourth entry takes some more inspiration from it. Needless to say, I loved it a lot, and I remember frequently replacing the standard circular faceplate on my purple GameCube console with custom Luigi's Mansion prints.
Years later, when Nintendo and Grezzo launched a remake of Luigi’s Mansion on 3DS, this really should have been the moment that I finally took the plunge and actually bought it. I was earning my own money by this point, after all, so it certainly seemed like a reasonable decision.
Alas, having released in 2018, I’d already pretty much moved on to the Switch. I was playing games like Super Mario Odyssey and Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and with Luigi’s Mansion 3 being announced just a month or so before the release of the 3DS remake, I’d already set my sights on that. Yet again, the original game would elude me.
I know what you're thinking: can I really love Luigi's Mansion that much if I never bothered to buy it? Yes – yes, I can. Those couple of playthroughs when I borrowed it back in the mid 2000s were enough to solidify it as one of my favourite GameCube games. I had simply accepted that I probably wouldn't own it for myself. That's just life sometimes, isn't it? If you want a copy for yourself though, you can probably pick it up second-hand for about £20-30 these days.
Now, in 2026, I can play Luigi’s Mansion whenever I like (and I do, you better believe it). It’s been released as a playable title on NSO for the Switch 2, and I may have modded my 3DS to an inch of its life a few years back, so I can play it there too. But I still don’t own it – not properly – yet that never dampened my love for it. Heck, maybe that’s partly why I’ve never been especially bothered about the downfall of physical media.
But gosh, that’s a topic for another time. Play Luigi's Mansion, folks.