Luigi’s Mansion 3

Luigi’s Mansion 3 looked exactly like the wacky type of Nintendo game that I did not want to play. I was definitely wrong. These devlopers know how to put the animations, graphics, sounds and puzzles together for a truly fun time. It has ended up being one of the best games from Nintendo I can remember playing.

For the uninitiated, Luigi’s Mansion 3 actually involves a haunted hotel where Luigi’s crew gets captured by ghosts and it’s up to him to rescue them. The funny thing is his main tool is basically a vacuum cleaner (Poltergust) with a backpack. You use it to suck up ghosts.

He also has a flashlight that you use in Luigi’s Mansion 3 to stun ghosts before sucking them into the vacuum cleaner. This usually involves stunning them first, then trapping them with suction of the vacuum and finally smacking them around. That last step is meant to wear them down before the go all the way into the vacuum (like fishing for ghosts).

That flashlight also has a black light mode that allows you to reveal hidden items in Luigi’s Mansion 3. You also have the ability to shoot plungers (he is a plumber remember) to stick to flat surfaces and then use the suction of the vacuum to pull things.

An all goo version Luigi, called Gooigi, becomes available to help solve puzzles. He can be switched to in Luigi’s Mansion 3 single player or a coop player can take control. Gooigi can squeeze through iron gates and grates. It makes him very useful to get into places Luigi can’t, but Gooigi will melt in water.

The puzzles in Luigi’s Mansion 3 can be surprisingly difficult before the game gives you hints, then seem so obvious after you solve them. It takes so many combinations of the tools you are given solve the puzzles and make you feel like your struggles paid off. It really is a must have game for the Switch.