Luigi's Mansion

Luigi's Mansion is a game that has always sort of just... existed for me. It was on plenty of GameCube best-of lists, but I didn't have one growing up, and honestly the gameplay concept seemed kind of confusing. What was he even doing there? Why a vacuum? Well, I had a few days to kill and set out to figure it out for myself. What I found was a completely refreshing experience that was charming from start to finish.

Mario is trapped in a mansion and Luigi has to find him by unlocking more rooms until he can confront his captor, King Boo. These keys are obtained by sucking up portrait ghosts, humanoid spectres that lurk certain rooms that must be lured out before you're able to suck them up. What ensues is basic problem solving as you come up with a way to piss off the ghosts and leave them vulnerable. It's a ton of fun and the ghosts themselves are memorable with strong design choices.

The absolute best part of this game is the sheer amount of physical interaction Luigi's Poltergust 3000 has with the environment. In so many games set in mansions like this, the backdrops were merely that - just decoration to fill the screen. In Luigi's Mansion, every single thing you see can be sucked up, shaken, spit out, pushed, and turned on or off. It's fun to just mash A and hold R on everything in every room - you'll be showered with collectables and secrets as a reward. If you think you can do it, you probably can - water that plant, run on that treadmill, light those sconces. The game will reward you for messing around and enjoying yourself.

If I have to nitpick, the boss fights can be a bit annoying because of the strange control scheme, and the backtracking is a bit much at times. But Luigi whistles his way through familiar rooms and I couldn't help but crack a smile even when I was internally a bit annoyed at the game.

It's an off-kilter experience, and it's relatively one-note so if you aren't hooked early on I can see why people might want to put it down. But for those who want to try out something kind of weird that can be beaten in a day or two, Luigi's Mansion is highly recommended. It's the best vacuum simulator/Resident Evil parody/Ghostbusters game ever made.