Luigi's Mansion, A Game for Beginners

Luigi's Mansion, For Beginners

Luigi's Mansion is a game that I played often and was one of the first games that I beat as a child. I would play this game every chance I got, due to how it is very basic to follow. The game begins with Luigi walking up to an old looking mansion with a flyer that says he had won a mansion with a picture of a nice modern mansion, but the mansion he won is actually an old mansion that is haunted. Mario had to come to the mansion before Luigi and Luigi is searching for Mario, as you walk in you have to find a room where a three ghosts jump out and start harassing Luigi. This is followed up with Professor E Gadd saving you from the ghosts barely with his vacuum machine. This is where you learn that the mansion is over run with ghosts who have taken Mario. This is where Luigi takes over to rescue his brother by taking on the ghosts in the mansion to find his brother with the help of E Gadd's inventions. Armed with a flashlight and a special vacuum device you begin your journey of taking on this mansion. This is where you get sent back into the mansion to take revenge of their ghosts. After you beat the ghosts that originally harassed Luigi a chest appears, this is where you learn that when a room is ghost free and beaten the lights of the room will turn on and a chest often appears. As you progress through the game you encounter a special room where you have to find a button using a mirror which actually extends the room and you are able to find a new event. The new event being you unleash 50 boo's which you later will have to catch. As you progress through the game you will have to face many different types of enemies, you will get many different types of attachments and will discover many ways to use your gadgets. 

As you progress through the game and face different enemies you will discover how difficult some parts of this game can be. The first enemies you encounter are simple ghosts that do not have anything incredibly special about them besides their health difference. They will just charge at you and try to grab you or throw an object at you that can be sucked up by your vacuum. They have small health bars of around 15 to 30 health and do not do anything to stop you from sucking them up. Then as you progress through the game you will encounter bosses who are called portrait ghosts. These ghosts are bosses who each have their own special abilities. The boss I remember the most is the first boss, the baby. The baby would shrink you down and the arena would turn into a baby cradle where the baby is giant and flies around. While flying around it throws balls and body slams the ground, your chance to attack is when the baby is throwing balls, because you can suck them up and shoot the baby with them and proceed to then suck away the life of the baby into the vacuum. After you beat the boss, you go back to E Gadd's house and he turns the large ghosts into paintings, but you always get a new area from beating the boss. With new areas you are closer to getting new attachments, like being able to shoot fire from your vacuum.

 The attachments that you begin the game with is your vacuum, a flashlight and a GameBoy Advanced. The GameBoy is where you can open the map, see your progress, or use the camera. One feature that I found useful with the camera was if you took a picture of a mirror it would spin the screen and then teleport you to the entrance of the mansion. At the entrance you could find a Toad, as well as through out the map, but you can save and heal at these Toads. As you progress through the game you are able to get a fire token and a water token. These are what you would use to spit water or fire out, which is useful for finding secrets as well as defeating bosses. One thing I remember is that you can use the water token outside to make a plat grow which then drops an extra life as well as some money.

This game is considered to be one of my favorites due to how it is an enjoyable game with simple controls and a story that is not complex. I would often play this game with a notepad near by to try to create an easier map that I could follow to know where to go. Luigi's Mansion is not a hard game to beat and does not take very long, if you are interested in an easy game to play to learn how to handle a GameCube controller better, I highly recommend Luigi's Mansion.