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10: Luigi’s Mansion
Perhaps it’s fitting that when compared to his much braver brother and his (on occasion) fiendishly difficult platforming adventures, Luigi’s debut (you at the back, Mario Is Missing doesn’t count!) would be such a walk in the park. Figuratively, of course. Much of it takes place indoors. Really though, we were to expect little else. Luigi’s Mansion, it seems, was a tech demo for the GameCube, loaded with cloth and lighting effects to showcase the power of the new console in the absence of a Mario game. It was not particularly long, clocking in at around six hours even when taking time to explore. And yet, it was a success, capturing the imagination of thousands of players and paving the way for a long-overdue sequel over a decade later. Well-designed vacuuming mechanics and a unique graphical style only sweetened the deal.
Packed with slapstick humour, plenty of collectable goodies and a brilliantly expressive main character, Luigi’s Mansion should be a staple in every player’s GameCube library.
The one glaring omission for me is Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Ridiculously easy to play, impossible to die, and so charming I didn’t need difficulty to keep my attention.
I remember back when Luigi’s Mansion came out, EGM thought its dual-stick control scheme wasn’t intuitive because it was odd moving with one stick and aiming the vacuum with the other. Years later CoD is the biggest franchise in the world and LM 2 would have controlled even better with a second stick. Smh…