Luigi's Mansion 3 is one of our favourite games on Switch. We described it as an "immense helping of spooky fun" in our review, praising its gorgeous graphics and animation as well as the overwhelming amount of passion that's clearly been thrown into the project. It really is one of the console's must-have games.
As you may well know, it was actually developed by Next Level Games - the studio which has also brought us titles like Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Mario Strikers Charged, and Punch-Out!! on Wii - rather than Nintendo itself. In the video above, you can see game director Devon Blanchet, art director Barret Chapman, and producer Carmine Carpino talking about the game's design, some of the ideas behind its best mechanics, and working with a character as legendary as Luigi in an interview with Electric Playground Network.
It's well worth a watch in our opinion - we can't imagine how good it must feel to be given such an opportunity as this with Nintendo's biggest names and then absolutely smash it out of the park.
Further Reading: Feature: Best Nintendo Switch Games Of 2019
[source youtube.com]
Comments 21
They should make a new Donkey Kong game!
More games similar design to Luigis Mansion, I’d love to see that. This game had so much detail too
What do you mean "a chance?" These peeps been the go-to for LM games since Dark Moon. Nintendo basically made them the unofficial Mansion Studios.
Let them work on Mario and Luigi RPG (since Alphadream is dead).
It’s a good game for sure. The controls work but there are times when they aren’t fun and feel awkward.
Such a beautiful game
@Tariq1984 hope life makes it easy for you in this sad news. It’s always hard losing one of your idols. Do you need a virtual hug
Bring out Luigi's Mansion 1&2 remade to switch with new system and at style.
Or PunchOut Switch.
@Tariq1984 Kobe Bryant? Is that a baseball player? We don’t play much baseball here in the uk, there is a somewhat similar game here called Rounders, though it is mostly played by children.
On topic: Luigi’s mansion sure is great!
@Hunt3r_Cr0wl3y closest thing I can think of is Toad’s Treasure Tracker
I expect Luigi's Mansion 3 to be in the top 10 best selling Switch games list seeing how well it is selling everywhere
I'm having a great time with it so far. The fact that you can interact with everything and frequently get rewarded for it is very entertaining - I especially got a kick out of turning the light fixture in the room you find E. Gadd in and discovering that it unravelled a wall...
I am really impressed with what the development team accomplished with Luigi's Mansion. I really like how the team designed areas for mirrors in mind - adding details in the foreground that go almost entirely unnoticed until you look in the mirror and see that the unseen part of the room is just as richly detailed as the rest of the area.
It was convincing enough for me to think the developers were using ray traced reflections (even though I know the games does not).
@GamingFan4Lyf very true, the first Luigi's Mansion game taught me to always look in the mirrors.
I think LM3 was a big step up from Dark Moon, which I had already thoroughly enjoyed, but I do think it falls severly short on it's potential in three areas (right off the top of my head ^^):
1. The combat system is broken. The slam feels good, as it is nicely animated and just packs a tangible punch, but unfortunately, it's also unbalanced and takes away any challenge whatsoever form non-boss encounters through-out the game. I just enjoyed the "Ghost Buster"-ing in the original and in Dark Moon more. It felt more engaging than just the sucking in one ghost, slamming "A" and then doing the same thing all over. Larger groups used to be at least somewhat of a threat ... that sensation is gone and I do feel it hurts the experience.
2. The elevator is wasted. The game could have benefited from a metroidvania'esque world- and level-design, but unfortunately - a few exceptions aside - the ability to freely move between areas is not used for anything but chasing missed collectibles. I did not expect Metroid Prime, but I did expect a bit more non-linear exploration.
3. This ties in with 2.: The game lacked progression. Basically you almost get all your abilities within 2 hours or so and after that the way the game plays out remains largely static. I would also have loved for the cash collecting, which is an enjoyable task in and off itself thanks to the highly detailed and interactive world, to have more meaning to it. If I collect all that cash, let me buy something with it that actually impacts the game. Don't just use it to power a really basic in-game hint system of sorts for kinda pointless collectibles.
So yeah, I enjoyed my time with the game, it was an absolutely audio-visual treat, with great atmosphere, many clever ideas and encounters and highly likeable characters in a place with real personality, but on a purely mechanical level, it felt stagnant if not an actual step back.
I hope Next Level Games can address (some of) these concers with their next game, while continuing to use what they learned with LM3 to create another breathtakingly beautiful adventure.
PS: I'd love for them to go right ahead and apply all that wizardy to a new Mario Strikes!
Is there a patch that let's you reverse the y axis already? Its unplayable now for me unfortunately.
Is there a patch that let's you reverse the y axis already? Its unplayable for me now unfortunately.
@Ralek85
Took the words out of my mouth here, the game really is a piece of art but gameplay-wise it could have been a bit better.
I think controls were not as tight as in LM1 and sometimes that brought a bit of frustration with it. Aiming with the plunger for example could have been a bit smoother.
@g_ruz
That was a great moment in the first game!
@WOLF13 Practice, son.
@luke88 I live in rural Scotland, and I despise sport, not least American sport. But even I know that Kobe Bryant is a basketball player. Probably through endless NBA game releases, but nonetheless...
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