During today’s E3 Direct, Nintendo showcased a bit more of Luigi’s Mansion 3. Now the official title, the Dark Moon sequel packs in a host of new features to make it worthy of being the next title in the beloved franchise. Unfortunately, nothing more descriptive than “2019” was given for the game’s release date, so we’ll just have to wait a little longer to find out when we can bust some ghosts as Luigi.
The successor of Luigi’s classic Poltergust, the Poltergust G-00 comes with a handful of upgrades to help Luigi rescue Mario and Peach from King Boo and his highrise mansion. The first upgrade is “Slam.” When sucking up a ghost, a meter will fill and, once filled, the option to slam the ghosts into the ground is available. Doing so will drastically decrease the ghost’s health meter allowing Luigi to suck it up into the Poltergust G-00. Suction Shot was first shown off unofficially in Simon Belmont’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate reveal trailer and now, we get to see it in action. This ability can be used for various reasons, whether that be suctioning away a ghost’s protection or moving barriers and blockades. Finally, the Poltergust G-00 also brings “Burst.” into the equation. This one was first shown off in the game’s reveal trailer when Luigi burst up into the air to avoid being hit by a carpet. Additionally, Burst can be used to blow ghosts away giving you some much-needed breathing space if surrounded.
Returning from his debut in the Luigi’s Mansion 3DS Remake, Gooigi can be used both in solo and co-op play. When by yourself, Gooigi will be used to solve puzzles such as squeezing through gates or walking over traps that Luigi isn’t able to do. When playing with someone else, Gooigi operates much like how he did in the Luigi’s Mansion remake, with the second player controlling him fulltime. It’s also been confirmed that each character can be played with only one joy-con each, making couch co-op as easy as ever.
Returning from Luigi’s Mansion 2 / Dark Moon is the multiplayer ScareScraper mode. This mode plays much like before and the goal is to traverse a randomly-generated floor and suck up all the ghosts before time runs out. New additions include each player being allowed a second couch co-op partner allowing for 8 players to tackle this mode both locally and online. There also looks to be a side objective of helping free all of the Toads stuck in the ScareScraper as well.
Lastly, we got our first glimpse of King Boo who is unsurprisingly the main antagonist of this iteration, and yes, he does look as creepy as always.
