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Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (ルイージのマンションダークムーン, Ruīji no manshondākumūn^?), titled Luigi's Mansion 2 (ルイージマンション2, Ruīji Manshon Tsū^?) in Europe and Australia, is a game for the Nintendo 3DS. It is the sequel to the 2001 Nintendo GameCube game Luigi's Mansion and the second installment of the Luigi's Mansion series. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon was originally released in 2013, but was soon re-released as a Player's Choice title in 2016.

This game has five mansions and equips Luigi with an upgrade of the Poltergust 3000, titled the Poltergust 5000, along with the item itself. In this game, King Boo returns and has shattered the Dark Moon into pieces turning all of the ghosts of Evershade Valley into hostile beings. It is up to Luigi to recover all of the missing Dark Moon pieces.

On June 21, 2023, it was announced in a Nintendo Direct that Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon will receive a Nintendo Switch remake under the same name as the European release.

Story[]

Spoiler warning : Don't you even dare read the spoiler! Because if you do… Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoooooo… A horrible fate awaits you.

King Boo returns as the main antagonist. In the opening cutscene, shatters the Dark Moon into pieces, turning all of the ghosts of Evershade Valley into hostile beings. It is up to Luigi to recover all of the missing Dark Moon pieces.

Equipped with the Poltergust 5000, the Strobulb, and Dark-Light Device, Luigi travels through all the different attractions of Evershade Valley capturing ghosts along the way, collecting key objects to solve puzzles or gain access to areas tasked by E. Gadd, in addition to fighting bosses for the Dark Moon pieces. Along the way, Luigi will also encounter Toads which he'll have to escort back to E. Gadd's Bunker using old prototypes of the Pixelator screens. Luigi makes his journey through the Gloomy Manor a standard mansion, Haunted Towers a botanical garden overrun with plantlife, Old Clockworks, a clock factory with an ancient ruin underneath it, Secret Mine, a chalet and mining area on a snowy mountain, and Treacherous Mansion, a large museum built above a ravine, and has a well leading to catacombs, as well as containing the most powerful ghosts in the valley.

During Luigi's visit at the Treacherous Mansion, he saves two Toads and they show that King Boo has struck again and it is revealed he captured Mario in a similar way as before. With his older brother in danger, Luigi heads to the Train Exhibit, only to get ambushed by a multitude of Boos which form Big Boo. But after they are all captured, King Boo unleashes a paranormal portal on the Terrace, which causes a mass of powerful ghosts to pop out of it and cause the paranormal levels to skyrocket to the point that, if the ghosts are not captured quickly enough, it could cause Luigi's dimension to collapse.

Luckily, Luigi captures all of them, and gets the final Dark Moon piece from the Tough Possessor. King Boo then drags Luigi into his own illusion for a final showdown. Luigi defeats him and claims the jewel on his crown. After freeing Mario from his painting, with some help from the Toads, Luigi returns the Dark Moon back to its normal state, and thus, returning all the ghosts back to their friendly selves.

Spoiler ends here: You looked! Even if I told you not too!

Gameplay[]

The whole gameplay is very similar to the previous Luigi's Mansion, with Luigi exploring mansions, solving puzzles and defeating ghosts now with the Poltergust 5000. This game is much more detailed in solving puzzles requiring Luigi to explore an area for a while. Now in this game, each mansion is divided up into missions with the final mission always being a boss fight along with there being an bonus mission that requires all Boos to be captured in a selected mansion to be playable.

As for controls, the player can use the R button to vacuum and L button to blow. Luigi always has his flashlight on but stunning ghosts in this game is much more different. After Luigi has acquired the Strobulb, the player can press and hold A to use the Strobe Light flash which is now required to stun ghosts before vacuuming. The player can blow objects from the Poltergust 5000 when some are sucked up. Boos in this game require a much more special way to get captured and they are, at many times, very difficult and tricky to capture. After Luigi receives the Dark-Light from E. Gadd, the player can hold Y to cast a rainbow-like light that can materialize Spirit Balls, revealing hidden doors. Boos will eventually come out and Luigi must use the Dark-Light to see them then suck up the Boos by their tongues. The player can also tilt the 3DS to look around in the room. Also, the player can press X to have Luigi look up and press B to have him look down. Replacing the Game Boy Horror from the first Luigi's Mansion is the Dual Scream, a parody of the Nintendo DS that Luigi uses to communicate to E. Gadd.

Characters[]

• Luigi
• Professor E. Gadd
• King Boo
• Toad Assistants
• Mario
• Polterpup
• Boos
• Ghosts
• Polterpup

Enemies[]

• Greenie
  • Gold Greenie
  • Mummy
• Slammer
• Gobber
• Hider
• Sneaker
• Creeper
• Boos
• Strong Greenie
• Strong Slammer
• Strong Gobber
• Strong Hider
• Strong Sneaker
• Mummy
• Suit of Armor
• Spiders
• Crows
• Polterpup
• Spirit Ball
• False door
• Bats
• Mice
• Beetles
• Robotic bombs
• Flytraps
• Fuzzball
• Orange flowers
• Frogs

Sub-Bosses[]

• Poltergeist
• The Three Sisters
• Ancient Poltergeist
• Paranormal Chain Ghosts
• Strong Poltergeist
• Big Boo

Bosses[]

• Grouchy Possessor
• Harsh Possessor
• Overset Possessor
• Shrewd Possessor
• Tough Possessor
• King Boo

ScareScraper bosses[]

• The Brain
• Bomb Brother
• Beetle Whisperer
• Terrible Teleporter
• Primordial Goo
• Creeper Launcher

Items[]

• Coins
• Poltergust 5000
• Keys
• Gold Bars
• Bills
• Treasure Chests
• Gems

Music[]

Unlike Luigi's Mansion, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon takes on a more orchestral style than its predecessor techno-savvy music style.

PAL Differences[]

• This game is named "Luigi's Mansion 2".
• The Pixelator is named the "Pixelshifter."
• The Poltergeist ghosts are named "Boffins" with the Ancient Poltergeist and any other stronger version of a Poltergeist are called "Boffin Elder" and "Strong Boffin."
• The Shrewd Possessor is named the "Scornful Possessor."
• The rooms of Gloomy Manor have different names as well.
  • The Front Yard is called the Front Garden.
  • The Mudroom is called the Side Entrance.
  • The Guard Hall is called the Guard Corridor.
  • The Mudroom Exterior is called the Forgotten Garden.
  • The Common Hall is called the Downstairs Corridor.
  • The Foyer is called the Main Hall.
  • And Master Hall is called the Upstairs Corridor.

Reception[]

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon received "generally favorable reviews", receiving an 86/100 on review aggregator website Metacritic.^[2]IGN gave the game a 9.3 out of 10, citing that it was "Nintendo at its inventive best."^[17]

Matthew Castle of Official Nintendo Magazine gave it a 92%, praising the game's 3D visuals and mix of old and new features. However, he also criticized the game for its lack of checkpoints, stating that "Death, though rare, forces Luigi to restart missions from scratch, punishing 30 seconds of weak defence with up to half an hour of collecting treasure and solving puzzles for a second time which feels like rough justice when you make a silly mistake in a surprise ambush." He concluded on a positive note, stating "For as much as Luigi's Mansion 2 acts like the class clown, all shrieks and pratfalls, it has more heart than any game in recent memory when it isn't yanking them out of ghost chests, naturally. So man up Luigi and embrace your applause. Funny, gorgeous, crammed full of surprises... but enough about Luigi. Nintendo renovates one of its more oddball offerings into a must-have title. The only thing to fear is that it takes another 10 years to return."^[21]Conversely, Carolyn Petit of GameSpot gave it a 6.5 out of 10, citing "difficulty spikes and a lack of checkpoints", as well as the stiff controls, but praised the multiplayer functionality.^[11]

The visual presentation was widely lauded, with some considering the graphics to be the best yet seen on the 3DS,^[10][13][19]and Oli Welsh of Eurogamer proclaiming that it is "as close to a playable cartoon as anything since Zelda: The Wind Waker".^[7]Richard Mitchell of Joystiq and Petit deemed the atmospheric settings to be the game's strongest asset, with Petit observing that the game "perfectly captures the sort of genteel spookiness typified by Disneyland's Haunted Mansion attraction".^[11][18] The settings were compared to dioramas and ornate dollhouses,^{[7][12][17][21]}and the high amount of interactive elements that react to Luigi's vacuum were said to instill charm in the settings.^[5][14][21] The character animations, particularly Luigi's, were praised for their comedic value, with Welsh elaborating that "Every movement will make you smile, from his pot-bellied scamper when you hold down the run button to his tiptoed ghost-hunting stance, or the elaborate Stan Laurel set-ups for each scripted pratfall."^{[7][9][11][15]}The stereoscopic 3D effects were credited for significantly augmenting the game's visuals by granting added physicality and depth to the environmental details.^{[25][26][27][28][29][30][31]}Chris Carter of Destructoid singled out the ghosts as a visual highlight, but complained that the presentation of the menus was "decidedly cheap and non-Nintendo".^[4]Castle warned that players "may mourn the loss of the first game's gothic murk - spooks are more generic than the portrait ghosts".^[21]

Commentary on the audio was generally positive. The music was described as "gently foreboding" and "delightfully spooky",^[11][18]with Welsh attributing a Scooby-Doo-like quality,^[7]and Mitchell remarking that it "skews much closer to Alfred Hitchcock than Akira Yamaoka".^[18]Welsh commended Martinet's vocalizations,^[7]and reviewers cited Luigi's tremulous idle humming along to the background music as an endearing trait.^{[7][9][11][14]} While Tim Turi of Game Informer affectionately likened E. Gadd's unintelligible prattling to "a lovable Ewok",^[9]Kevin Schaller of GameRevolution was sometimes annoyed by his manner of speech, which he referred to as "Nintendo's version of Simlish". Apart from this, Schaller acknowledged the music as occasionally eerie and the sounds effects as convincingly fitting.^[10]

Awards & Nominations[]

Prior to release, Dark Moon was nominated for Best Handheld game by the Game Critics Awards, but lost to Queasy Games's Sound Shapes.^[32][33] Throughout 2013 and 2014 the game was nominated at various game award ceremonies primarily in handheld game categories,^[34]but lost all nominations to various other titles, including others developed by Nintendo.^[35][36]At the NAVGTR Awards, the game was nominated in categories for its animation and control design, but lost to The Walking Dead: 400 Days and the critically acclaimed The Last of Us respectively.^[37]Various news sites considered Dark Moon to be among the best video games of 2013, including IGN, USGamer, VentureBeat, and Eurogamer.^{[38][39][40][41]}

Sales[]

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon debuted to high sales in the U.S.; selling 415,000 copies in the country by mid-April, it became the sixth bestselling game of the month in only a week's time in March, behind Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. 365,000 of which were physical and the rest were digital downloads.^[43]By mid-July, sales totalled over 750,000 units.^[44]In the United Kingdom, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon charted fifth in the All Formats chart, a position it held for three consecutive weeks, becoming the first 3DS exclusive title of the year to chart.^[45]It continued to remain within the top ten charts until mid-May.^[46]The game was the number-one bestseller in Japan for three weeks in a row, totaling 459,000 by April 7 and 68,423 were from the week prior, ahead of Animal Crossing: New Leaf.^[47]Sales tracker Media Create reported that the game had sold over eighty percent of its shipment in its debut week.^[48]According to Nintendo of America's senior product marketing director Bill Trinen, the successful launches of Dark Moon and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity helped push 3DS sales up 50 percent to a total of 20 million, and expected that 3DS sales would "really take off" in 2013.^[49]Within its first week, worldwide sales reached over 1 million, and by the end of October, 3.13 million.^[50][51]As of December 31, 2020, the game has sold 6.44 million copies worldwide and is the twelfth-bestselling game on the 3DS.^[52]

Trivia[]

• This is Luigi's third time starring a role in a video game.
• Unlike the original Luigi's Mansion, Dark Moon has a total of five mansions that Luigi explores.
• The battle style in this game is much different, definitely making this game much harder and easier both than Luigi's Mansion.
• Luigi hums to the main theme of this game when moving around the mansion.
• Professor E. Gadd makes a reference to how turning down the brightness of a mobile device saves its battery. He makes this reference as soon as Luigi makes it to the first mansion.
• Though they are all labeled as mansions, neither the Old Clockworks or Secret Mine are actual mansions.
• Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon was the first game that was released as part of the Year of Luigi, honoring 30 years since Luigi's debut.
  • Another thing is the game is for the Nintendo 3DS so this could be a theory.
• The mansions (Gloomy Manor, Haunted Towers, Old Clockworks, Secret Mine, Treacherous Mansion), possessors (Grouchy, Harsh, Overset, Shrewd, Tough), and bonus missions (Gradual Infiltration, Hostile Intrusion, Outlandish Interruption, Severe Infestation, Terrifying Invasion) all spell out GHOST.

Gallery[]

To view Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon's image gallery, click here.

References[]

[Edit]
Major characters	Major characters	Luigi • Mario • Professor E. Gadd • Toad • Polterpup • King Boo
Ghosts	Regular	Ancient Poltergeist • Boo • Creeper • Gobber • Greenie • Gold Greenie • Hider • Poltergeist • Polterpup • Slammer • Sneaker • Strong Gobber • Strong Greenie • Strong Hider • Strong Slammer • Strong Sneaker • The Three Sisters
	Bosses	Story mode: Ancient Poltergeist • Big Boo • King Boo • Three Poltergeists • Possessors (Grouchy · Harsh · Overset · Shrewd · Tough) • A Strong Gobber, a Strong Greenie, and a Strong Slammer • Strong Poltergeist • The Three Sisters ScareScraper: Beetle Whisperer • Bomb Brother • The Brain • Creeper Launcher • Primordial Goo • Terrible Teleporter
Other species and enemies		Bat • Beetle • Crow • False door • Flytrap • Frog • Fuzzball • Gold Robomb • Mouse • Orange flower • Robomb • Spider
Locations	Gloomy Manor	Balcony • Bedroom • Cellar • Coatroom • Common Hall • Dining Room • Entrance • Foyer • Front Yard • Garage • Guard Hall • Kitchen • Lab • Library • Lobby • Master Hall • Mudroom • Mudroom Exterior • Parlor • Patio • Rafters • Secret Pocket • Studio • Study • Under the Stairs
	Haunted Towers	Botany Lab • Conservatory • Courtyard • Crow's Nest • Crypt • East Hall • Eerie Staircase • Family Room • Garden • Gardener's Dwelling • Gardener's Lab • Greenhouse • Haunted Towers Entrance • Hollow Tree • Hydro Generator • Laboratories • Lounge • Old Graveyard • Plant Nursery • Rooftop Pool • Rumpus Room • Seedling Laboratory • Sewer • Skybridge • Solarium • Tool Shed • Toolshed Stairs • Tower Lobby • Tree House • Tree Root • Water Supply • West Bathroom • West Bedroom • West Garden • West Hall
	Old Clockworks	Antechamber • Belfry • Belfry Clock • Canyon Hall • Canyon Narrows • Canyon Stairs • Cargo Room • Clock Tower Gate • Clockmaker's Chambers • Clockworks Court • Container Yard • Crank Room • Drafting Office • Finishing Room • Gear Chamber • Kiln Room • Maintenance Hub • Movements • Pit Slide • Quarry • Roundhouse • Roundhouse Pit • Service Elevator • Storage Room • Storm Cellar • Synchro Gantry • Synchronization Room • Tomb • Transportation Hall • Warehouse • Workshop
	Secret Mine	Airway • Basin • Chalet • Chalet Approach • Cinder Mine • Coward's Chasm • Crossroads • Crystal Quarry • Deep Hall • Drift Hall • Frozen Pit • Fishing Hut • Gondola • High Wires • Ice Lake • Maintenance Room • Pit Mine • Prospector's Crossing • Shaft • Skip Slope • Smokehouse • Smuggler's Hideout • Terminal • Under the Ice • Workshop • Workshop Landing
	Treacherous Mansion	Ancient Exhibit • Archives • Aviation Exhibit • Bottom of Well • Ceremonial Chamber • Cliffside • Dark Age Exhibit • Dungeon Cells • East Balcony • East Corridor • East Gallery • Front Entrance • Gargoyle Roof • Grand East • Grand West • Guard Tunnel • Haunted Catacombs • Ice Age Exhibit • Inner Courtyard • Jungle Exhibit • Kitchen • Nautical Exhibit • Restrooms • Space Exhibit • Study • Terrace • Train Exhibit • Underground Lab • Veranda • West Balcony • West Corridor • West Gallery
	Other	Bunker • E. Gadd's Vault • King Boo's Illusion • Mario's Painting • ScareScraper • Toad's Painting
Items	Items	Amethyst • Bill • Coin • Diamond • Emerald • Gem • Gold Bar • Gold Bone • Key • Poltergust 5000 • Red Coin • Ruby • Sapphire • Strobulb
Objects	Objects	Bulb (gold) • E-Gate • Paranormal portal • Paranormal shield • Sled-mounted shooter
	Equipment	Dark-Light Device • Dual Scream • Pixelator • Poltergust 5000 • Strobulb
Missions	Gloomy Manor	Poltergust 5000 • Gear Up • Quiet Please! • Visual Tricks • Sticky Situation • Confront the Source • Gradual Infiltration
	Haunted Towers	A Job for a Plumber • The Pinwheel Gate • Graveyard Shift • Pool Party • Doggone Key • Tree Topping • Hostile Intrusion
	Old Clockworks	A Timely Entrance • Underground Expedition • Roundhouse Brawl • Play Catch • Piece at Last • Showtime • Outlandish Interruption
	Secret Mine	Cold Case • Hit Rock Bottom • Across the Chasm • Chilly Ride • Severe Infestation
	Treacherous Mansion	Front-Door Key • Double Trouble • A Train to Catch • Ambush Maneuver • Paranormal Chaos • Stop the Knightmare • Terrifying Invasion
	King Boo's Illusion	A Nightmare to Remember
Further info	Further info	Gallery

Games
New Super Luigi U · Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon · Mario & Luigi: Dream Team · Dr. Luigi · Luigi Bros.