Luigi's Mansion 3 (2019)

[Helmsly]

Congrats everyone, that was great 

[Glen-i]

Well, that rousing success seems a good place to stop for the night. Solid work, everyone!

If anyone wants to play tomorrow, give me a shout.

[Ike]

I had no idea what was going on, but it was fun.

[Hero-of-Time]

This was team N-E stepping up tonight.

Great games.

 

[Glen-i]

Spoiler

 

 

[MindFreak]

Can you play local multiplayer right off the bat in this? 

[Dcubed]

2 hours ago, MindFreak said:

Can you play local multiplayer right off the bat in this? 

No, you have to first unlock Gooigi; which is about 2 hours or so into the game.

[MindFreak]

Oh, then I better start the game before leaving for my friend's house tonight! 

[Ike]

Local multi player, the scream park or something, the was available from the start.

[Dcubed]

4 minutes ago, Ike said:

Local multi player, the scream park or something, the was available from the start.

That's only the Screampark minigames that are available from the get-go.  The main Scarescraper multiplayer mode is only available after you unlock Googi in single player (which makes sense... or else you'd have no idea of what to do in mutiplayer when you actually have to use him!)

[Hero-of-Time]

Put some more time into the single player this afternoon. One of the last things I done was....

Spoiler

...the boss battle on the pirate ship. What an amazing battle that was. The different phases it had, the frantic action of sucking and firing barrels and the race to anchor yourself, made for a very memorable fight.

What a boss fight! Absolutely fantastic stuff.

[Ealdst]

Finally got my copy yesterday having not been in for the delivery on Thursday (@BowserBasher - I also bought from the Nintendo Store with the Boo plushie and mine was in a much more sensibly sized box so not sure what they were thinking with yours!).

Only played for a few hours but loving it so far, I never picked up the 3DS game - hoping that will get a Switch remaster - but this takes me right back to playing the original! The only thing I've struggled with a little is the controls. I'm fine with the motion controls for vertical movement, it's more the horizontal that is sometimes catching me out.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Ealdst

[Helmsly]

14 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Put some more time into the single player this afternoon. One of the last things I done was....

  Spoilers (Reveal hidden contents)

...the boss battle on the pirate ship. What an amazing battle that was. The different phases it had, the frantic action of sucking and firing barrels and the race to anchor yourself, made for a very memorable fight.

What a boss fight! Absolutely fantastic stuff.

Yes, just finished this stage and completely agree with you. Most fun boss fight so far. I also like the 

Spoiler

Goonies

vibe to the stage leading to the fight.
 

One cool thing/secret I just found out about an earlier stage...

Spoiler

The Director Ghost floats off to the editing suit after you defeat his Godzilla boss. I noticed that you could talk to him in there and that he mentions he wants to edit his movie, so I took this as a hint towards something and decided not to capture him.

Well, after returning much later I found out he actually does edit the movie and makes a short black and white film of the boss fight you had, which you can watch. 

And one last thing:

Spoiler

 

 

Edited November 3, 2019 by Helmsly

[MindFreak]

I was disappointed when I found out that ScareScraper doesn't support local play on one Switch. So went on and tried the three minigames and... Yeah, not doing that again. Of the three, only the coin collecting one was a little fun. 

Otherwise, I'm enjoying the game and have just got Gooigi.

Edited November 3, 2019 by MindFreak

[Glen-i]

4 hours ago, MindFreak said:

I was disappointed when I found out that ScareScraper doesn't support local play on one Switch.

Yeah, given the whole thing revolves around working together to cover as much ground as possible, you'd need split screens to make it work.

On the plus side, you and a friend (Who controls Gooigi) can make a 2-player group locally and join a ScareScraper session online that way.

I'd love to get a session going where everyone was doing this and having 8 Luigis running around the place. It'd be utter madness!

Edited November 3, 2019 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

I finished the game this evening, with a time 1 minute under 16 hours. I wanted to get all of the Boo ghosts and find all of the gems before I took on the final boss.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

Hell of a game. Next Level Games have really pulled off something special here and I would say that they have surpassed most of Nintendo's own internally developed games for the Switch, with only Mario Odyssey going toe to toe with it. The level of polish and detail in the game is nothing short of amazing. NLG have shown how to make a very focused game about exploration without just making it a huge open world and calling it a day. The exploration in this game is far more meaningful than a lot of the open world games I have played.

It's nice playing a game that requires a bit of thought from the player. Some of the puzzles really do take some thinking but none of them are really obtuse. You always have everything at your disposal and it just requires you to look around at your surroundings and manipulate things in order for you to move forward. It's the type of game design that seems to have been lost in most games these days, with a lot of games just telling you what to do or doing away with such things all together. I've already witnessed a few on Era getting frustrated with the game simply because they are used to not having to think about what you need to do, instead they are wanting a quick and easy option. I know @Dcubed you said something similar in the Link's Awakening thread and there's evidence here with people playing this game that it is indeed the case.

I quite liked how the Boos were implemented in this game. Using the rumble in the controller was a great idea to help you find them. It was still a bit tricky to nab them though. Even if you find the right area you still have to make sure you pick the right item to search, otherwise the Boo will mock you and then sod off.  If there were a few options to choose from what I done was attach the plunger shot and then drag the item away from the others. This made it easier to check if it was the correct one without the others interfering with it.

This may sound weird but I think this is a far better Zelda game than BOTW ever was. Certain floors in the hotel are essentially act like dungeons from classic Zelda games, with you having to figure out puzzles in order to progress. The boss battles also have a certain Zelda feel to them. Again, more so than what the Divine Beast battles had to offer. 

Lastly, I think Nintendo need to stop messing around and make an offer for these guys. They have shown they have the chops to take on various Nintendo franchises and they should be officially brought in to the Nintendo family of developers. We are in a time where studios like Cing!, AlphaDream and Skip have shut down or are struggling. These were also close partners to Nintendo and I would hate to see NLG end up the same way purely because Nintendo didn't want to put their hand in their pocket. Microsoft and Sony are investing in other studios and I think it's time Nintendo done the same thing.

As I said at the start, it's a hell of a game and I think NLG have beaten Nintendo at their own game with this one. I can't say i'm that surprised. Mario Strikers, Luigi's Mansion 2, Punch-Out!! Wii are all top tier games and the studio has just gone from strength to strength.

[Ike]

Yeah, I found a lot of stuff just messing around with the items in the room. It's great!

I've not figured out how to catch the Boos yet though.

[Dcubed]

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I finished the game this evening, with a time 1 minute under 16 hours. I wanted to get all of the Boo ghosts and find all of the gems before I took on the final boss.

  Boo ghosts and gems (Reveal hidden contents)

 

  Ending pics (Reveal hidden contents)

Hell of a game. Next Level Games have really pulled off something special here and I would say that they have surpassed most of Nintendo's own internally developed games for the Switch, with only Mario Odyssey going toe to toe with it. The level of polish and detail in the game is nothing short of amazing. NLG have shown how to make a very focused game about exploration without just making it a huge open world and calling it a day. The exploration in this game is far more meaningful than a lot of the open world games I have played.

It's nice playing a game that requires a bit of thought from the player. Some of the puzzles really do take some thinking but none of them are really obtuse. You always have everything at your disposal and it just requires you to look around at your surroundings and manipulate things in order for you to move forward. It's the type of game design that seems to have been lost in most games these days, with a lot of games just telling you what to do or doing away with such things all together. I've already witnessed a few on Era getting frustrated with the game simply because they are used to not having to think about what you need to do, instead they are wanting a quick and easy option. I know @Dcubed you said something similar in the Link's Awakening thread and there's evidence here with people playing this game that it is indeed the case.

I quite liked how the Boos were implemented in this game. Using the rumble in the controller was a great idea to help you find them. It was still a bit tricky to nab them though. Even if you find the right area you still have to make sure you pick the right item to search, otherwise the Boo will mock you and then sod off.  If there were a few options to choose from what I done was attach the plunger shot and then drag the item away from the others. This made it easier to check if it was the correct one without the others interfering with it.

This may sound weird but I think this is a far better Zelda game than BOTW ever was. Certain floors in the hotel are essentially act like dungeons from classic Zelda games, with you having to figure out puzzles in order to progress. The boss battles also have a certain Zelda feel to them. Again, more so than what the Divine Beast battles had to offer. 

Lastly, I think Nintendo need to stop messing around and make an offer for these guys. They have shown they have the chops to take on various Nintendo franchises and they should be officially brought in to the Nintendo family of developers. We are in a time where studios like Cing!, AlphaDream and Skip have shut down or are struggling. These were also close partners to Nintendo and I would hate to see NLG end up the same way purely because Nintendo didn't want to put their hand in their pocket. Microsoft and Sony are investing in other studios and I think it's time Nintendo done the same thing.

As I said at the start, it's a hell of a game and I think NLG have beaten Nintendo at their own game with this one. I can't say i'm that surprised. Mario Strikers, Luigi's Mansion 2, Punch-Out!! Wii are all top tier games and the studio has just gone from strength to strength.

That's exactly how I felt when playing it.  It feels like the Zelda Wii U game we never got and that was the kind of feeling I was trying to get across in the review (without being too explicit about it); the boss battles, level design and puzzles feel like they were ripped right out of a long-lost Zelda game and it's amazing!  

Edited November 3, 2019 by Dcubed

[Tim B]

@Chris_Dring on Twitter said this was the biggest Nintendo launch of the year in the UK.

I’m really surprised. Anecdotally speaking, none of my friends have picked this up yet whereas they were all over Zelda and Super Mario Maker 2 at launch. They’re all waiting for Pokémon.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Tim B

[killthenet]

I saw that on reddit @Tim B, it's really impressive. I think it has a great chance of surpassing the total sales for Dark Moon by the end of the fiscal year.

I've mostly been having a great time playing this over the weekend. The variety the each floor offers is great, I particularly enjoyed the depth of the 6th floor. Finished the 10th floor earlier though and ran into a few issues, the boss fight was needlessly frustrating due to me being an idiot but the way the sound changes as your health drops closer to zero was infuriating - all the other sounds and music fade into the background and you're forced to listen to Luigi's thudding heartbeat. Probably doesn't annoy others as much as me but it really put me off. Otherwise though the presentation is wonderful, I especially liked the 'movie posters' that paid homage to Next Level's previous games.

 

[Dcubed]

4 hours ago, killthenet said:

I saw that on reddit @Tim B, it's really impressive. I think it has a great chance of surpassing the total sales for Dark Moon by the end of the fiscal year.

I've mostly been having a great time playing this over the weekend. The variety the each floor offers is great, I particularly enjoyed the depth of the 6th floor. Finished the 10th floor earlier though and ran into a few issues, the boss fight was needlessly frustrating due to me being an idiot but the way the sound changes as your health drops closer to zero was infuriating - all the other sounds and music fade into the background and you're forced to listen to Luigi's thudding heartbeat. Probably doesn't annoy others as much as me but it really put me off.

6 million by the end of March!? No way.  As great as that would be? I think that's overly ambitious.

I do think it'll outsell LM2's life-time sales by a fair margin (8-10 million is very doable), but not that quickly.

Quote

Otherwise though the presentation is wonderful, I especially liked the 'movie posters' that paid homage to Next Level's previous games.

Yeah, I cracked a big smile when I saw that  Was nice to see that Metroid Prime Federation Force got included too.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Dcubed

[BowserBasher]

Guess I got around 3 hours play in so far. Absolutely love it. The charm of it is pure Nintendo. Luigis mannerisms, voice, victory dances all scream love and appreciation by the team that made this. 
I think like most I’ve seen, the only fiddly controls is when I have the torch on and can’t easily turn Luigi around, yeah I found the motion control to move it up and down ok but it does make it a little awkward when there’s a few ghosts to deal with. 
Other than that this is easily one of the best releases this year. Can’t wait to get stuck in some more and I’ll have to try to get online with you guys sometime. 
Early moment in the game so it shouldn’t really be too spoilery but I loved this. 

 

[MindFreak]

44 minutes ago, BowserBasher said:

I think like most I’ve seen, the only fiddly controls is when I have the torch on and can’t easily turn Luigi around,

I guess you mean the dark lamp or rainbow lamp or whatever it's called - the one you activate with X? Because the flashlight can also be activated with R - and I don't understand why they didn't turn on the dark lamp with L as well as X. Seems a bit weird.

[Glen-i]

17 minutes ago, MindFreak said:

I guess you mean the dark lamp or rainbow lamp or whatever it's called - the one you activate with X? Because the flashlight can also be activated with R - and I don't understand why they didn't turn on the dark lamp with L as well as X. Seems a bit weird.

L activates the plunger. Holding L and R gets you the dark light. All the features of the poltergust can be used with the shoulder buttons, leaving your thumb free to use the right stick.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Glen-i

[Ronnie]

Started this last night, put in an hour and a bit. Loving it. The animations and cutscenes are fantastic. You can't go 10 seconds without smiling and chuckling. Usual Charm set to a million like most Nintendo games.

My only real gripe is having heard from reviews that money isn't particularly useful so I don't get too excited collecting all the cash, as I'm not sure I'll ever use it. Maybe they could have what Odyssey did and have it unlock costumes for Luigi to wear or something.