Luigi's Mansion 3

Release: 2019

Developer/Publisher: Nintendo

Genre: 3rd person, Puzzle, Action

Gameplay Stats: 15+ hours, Game complete with A rank

I waited a bit too long to type up my thoughts on this game, so this will be a quick review! I really enjoyed the previous games in this series, but will the third installment live up?

I didn't really think so. The previous games have been really good because they were brief and communicated fairly well. I had several issues with some of the communication in this game, with me not knowing what to do. I don't commonly have to google what to do in a game these days, but I did a couple times in this game. I don't like that they took away the upgrades idea from the previous games, and I think it was kind of a poor decision to do away with the level structure from the previous game. Part of the enjoyment of the previous games was kind of a score-attack structure where you complete a level and get to see how you did and learn of some of the optional goals for each area. In Luigi's Mansion 3, you get to have access to the hotel (not a mansion!) by unlocking a single floor at a time. This is fine! But the game doesn't tell you any of the optional goals or really let you know how you're doing as the game progresses. 

The optional goals in particular are particularly heinous in my mind because you only learn what they are as you complete them. As in, once you clear off the pool table you learn that was one of the goals and (look at that!) you completed it already, well done. The give you the option to talk to Professor E-Gadd for help at any time in the game, but largely when you call him he just says "Keep exploring the hotel." but if you stand around wherever you are supposed to complete an action, he will actually tell you the information you need to progress. Why doesn't he tell you when you call him?!

This game is really well polished in terms of visuals and sound design, as with pretty much all Nintendo products. It seems like they leaned really heavily on the gameplay in this game, but they actually stripped it down from previous iterations of the series. I have seen this game getting pretty high praise, but I honestly think this is the weakest in the series. By allowing you to completely explore the hotel they could have made the game more of a Metroidvania in structure, but they largely didn't. There are a couple sections, in particular the tail end of floor 4, where you need a later upgrade to find the last gemstone. You don't get the upgrade until floor 13! And the game doesn't give you any information about needing something else, I spent about 30 minutes trying to puzzle out the solution before Googling and seeing that you can't complete it until you get a later upgrade.

On the positive side, I really liked the Gooigi addition to this game. Letting you play in co-op with another player seemed really neat addition and needing to use him often for puzzles was also really cool. It seemed like the game was a bit rushed actually, like they had some good ideas and started down the path to complete them, but I don't think they actually finished everything that they set out to. I could be way off base, but I think this is the weakest game in the Luigi's Mansion series. [6/10]