Poor
Luigi. His biggest claim to fame is that he's constantly overshadowed
by the exploits of his brother. It's not often that Luigi gets a chance
to stop following in Mario's trailblazing footsteps and prove his mettle
on his own terms, but Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon gives him the
opportunity. And at first, this ghostbusting adventure seems like a
success for gaming's most well-known second fiddle. Luigi is an
endearing hero; fantastic animations provide some great moments of
physical comedy; and exploring the game's haunted mansions is a spooky
delight. But alas, before all is said and done, things take a turn for
the grim that casts a pall on Dark Moon's lively charm.
Dark
Moon's greatest asset is its atmosphere. The game perfectly captures
the sort of genteel spookiness typified by Disneyland's Haunted Mansion
attraction. The five mansions you explore are the sorts of shadowy
places children (and young-at-heart adults) can venture into and
conquer, feeling all the braver for it, not the sorts that are going to
cause any nightmares. Creaky old suits of armor covered in cobwebs line
stately hallways. Flashes of lightning cast huge shadows on the walls.
Contraptions that look like the work of mad scientists clutter old
laboratories. Luigi may be afraid to discover what's behind each new
door, but you'll be eager to uncover each mansion's mysteries.
Luigi
is a reluctant hero, more or less forced into once again taking up the
mantle of ghost wrangler by professor E. Gadd. The kooky professor's
docile spectral assistants turn hostile when the magical dark moon
vanishes from the sky over Evershade Valley, and old Elvin Gadd
conscripts Luigi into service, sending him into the valley's creepy old
domiciles to retrieve the artifact's scattered pieces. The professor's
idea of humor is so groan-worthy that it may elicit a few reluctant
chuckles--in a self-proclaimed moment of genius, for instance, he
decides to start referring to the modified DS he gives Luigi as the Dual
Scream--but for the most part, the game's humor comes not from its
writing, but from its animation. You observe ghosts getting up to all
sorts of amusing mischief, and Luigi's encounters with traps often
result in him getting knocked about in ways that Buster Keaton might
have approved of. The sound design supports the game's silly spookiness,
as Luigi often inexplicably hums along with the gently foreboding
music.
Making
your way through the mansions is enjoyable not just because of the
expertly crafted atmosphere, but also because of the wealth of objects
you can interact with. Often, nudging an object or manipulating it with
the force of your PolterGust 5000 vacuum cleaner/ghost-catching machine
has no effect, but opening that dusty nightstand or making that rickety
old merry-go-round spin rewards you often enough with coins, cash, and
gold bars that you feel compelled to leave no stone unturned. Even when
your reward is just a visual gag--vacuuming up a painting of a cheese
circle to reveal a painting of a partially consumed cheese circle, for
instance--you feel like your time interacting with anything and
everything is time well spent.
With
the aid of his not-so-trusty pixelator device, E. Gadd transports Luigi
into the game's mansions, always with a specific goal or set of goals
to accomplish. Whether these goals involve recovering pieces of a
machine ghosts have made off with or rescuing one of E. Gadd's
familiar-looking assistants, accomplishing your task always involves a
combination of solving puzzles and catching ghosts. Any lever, painting,
fountain, plant, or other object might be crucial to your progress, so
solving puzzles often requires both careful observation and the use of
your darklight, which can reveal objects that pesky ghosts have turned
invisible, as well as do things like illuminate the paw prints of
playful ghost pooches, called polterpups. The layouts of the mansions
can make it tricky to figure out how to get from where you are to where
you need to be, and working out the solution often brings with it a
pleasant "aha!" moment as things click into place.Of
course, your explorations are frequently interrupted by ghosts,
requiring Luigi to take up the PolterGust 5000 and vacuum up the
specters for incarceration in E. Gadd's custom-made storage facility.
Capturing ghosts involves first stunning them with a flash of your
flashlight, and then reeling them in like fish with the suction of the
PolterGust as they squirm and struggle, often dragging Luigi hither and
yon in the process.
Each
type of ghost--the small greenies, the hefty slammers, the slender
hiders, and so on--have consistent behaviors you can learn, so you get
better at dealing with them over time. However, these encounters don't
grow stagnant or predictable. Just as the treasure you collect from
missions increases the power of the PolterGust, the ghosts you encounter
get stronger, and they employ new tactics, too. Greenies, for instance,
start wearing sunglasses you need to vacuum off of their faces before
you can stun them, or wearing buckets on their heads and only briefly
peeking out from under them once in a while.
The
controls for catching ghosts are a little stiff, which works fine for
the majority of encounters. You can't rotate around while charging up
your flashlight, for instance, so rather than nimbly moving about, you
need to anticipate the movements of ghosts if you hope to catch several
of them at once in your stunning flashlight blast. However, at one
point, you face a massive onslaught of ghosts, and here, the combination
of the sheer number of enemies you face and your limited mobility
results in a challenge that the game ill-equips you to handle. In the
chaos of these battles involving numerous ghosts at once, it's often
hard to see when an enemy is winding up to attack you, much less respond
in time to evade the attack.
Making
this already frustrating situation worse is that there are no midlevel
checkpoints. This is annoying throughout the game. Solving puzzles the
first time is satisfying; going through the motions of completing
puzzles you've already solved is just tedious. And should you fall on
the final stretch of a boss battle with 12 sections (yes, there is one
of these), you certainly won't relish having to fight through the first
11 sections of it again. But in this particular onslaught of ghosts you
must face, the lack of checkpoints can go from a source of frustration
to a source of rage. The battle drags on as it is; to near the end of
it, lose, and realize you must do the entire thing over again is
maddening enough to obliterate much of the goodwill the game's better
aspects have worked so hard to earn.
On
the bright side, Dark Moon also includes an enjoyable multiplayer
option called the ScareScraper. This tower of terrors allows you and up
to three other players--each cast as a Luigi of a different color--to
stick together or to split up as you explore its floors, hunting ghosts,
racing to the exit, or pursuing polterpups, depending on the mode you
choose. You can visit the ScareScraper in both local and online play,
and you can explore it with friends who don't have a copy of Dark Moon,
via the download play option.
Ultimately,
Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon is a mostly pleasant game marred by the
possibility of moments so frustrating, they threaten to overshadow the
entire experience. These missteps are all the more disappointing because
the better elements of the game are so charming. You may still want to
take up the PolterGust 5000 and explore these haunted houses, but be
warned: the things lurking in these dark places aren't likely to scare
you, but they may well have you seeing red.
0 comments :
Post a Comment