I played Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD and it looks great but the remaster offers little more than a new coat of paint
LUIGI’s Mansion 2 HD is an enhanced remaster of the oddest entry in the spooky ghosthunting series featuring Mario’s taller brother.
Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, also known just as Luigi’s Mansion 2 outside of North America, was one of the best-selling games on the Nintendo 3DS.
So it’s no surprise that Nintendo has decided to bring an updated version of the game as one of the late releases for the Switch.
Nintendo’s brand-new remaster updates the 2013 3DS game’s visuals beautifully, but misses the opportunity to fix some of the original’s flaws.
Everything from the game you remember – even some of its criticised aspects – is here, with a fresh coat of paint.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD looks great on the Nintendo Switch, with enhanced textures and character models, and one of the best anti-aliasing you’ll see on the ageing handheld console.
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The game is sharp and with excellent lighting in both 720p handheld mode and 1080p docked mode on the big TV screen.
Even though the visuals are not quite on par with Luigi’s Mansion 3, the remaster’s vibrant colours and gorgeous artstyle make it a showcase piece for the Switch OLED model’s display.
This HD version also enhances character animations, adding a few new ones, and brings improved environmental effects, making for more detailed and lively levels.
Apart from the visual enhancements, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD takes advantage of the Switch’s second analogue stick, which was simply not present on the 3DS.
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It’s a welcome improvement over the original’s more limiting controls, as you can now aim your Poltergust 5000 ghosthunting vacuum cleaner with ease.
Besides this gameplay enhancement, the remaster doesn’t address some of the 2013 game’s other weak points.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD doesn’t change the bite-sized mission structure of the 3DS original, which made sense for a handheld experience at the time, but now feels too restricted.
You still get interrupted every time you complete your current mission’s objective, which can ruin the pacing and feel much more limiting than the open-ended gameplay of Luigi’s Mansion 3.
What’s more annoying is that the remaster still doesn’t allow you to save your progress manually during a mission or, at least, have regular autosave points.
This means you can’t end your play session mid-mission without losing progress, which, despite the bite-sized length of the missions, can be frustrating for many players.
Other than that, the remaster is feature-complete and includes the ScareScraper co-op multiplayer mode from Dark Moon, also known as Thrill Tower in Europe.
In it, you team up with three other players to explore and clean up floors of a tower mansion filled with ghosts.
Completing each floor’s objective within a time limit lets your squad of ghostbusting Luigis advance to the next floor.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is the best way to experience a very good 3DS game on the Switch, but the remaster could have gone the extra mile, especially given its price tag.
The game retails for £49.99 / $59.99, which, while not a full price, is on the heftier side for a rather barebones remaster.
If you are in for the more modern open-ended gameplay of Luigi’s Mansion 3, you should tame down your expectations a bit.
That said, it’s still a very competent remaster, so if you don’t have the 3DS original or you crave the fresh new visuals on the Switch, and aren’t bothered by the price, it’s a buy.
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Score: 4/5
If you're looking for more on recent Switch games, check out our Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble review.
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