Luigi's Mansion

It is a spin-off from the Super Mario series. It is the only series within the Mario series to have all of its games feature Luigi as the main protagonist, instead of Mario. Throughout the series, Luigi explores various haunted buildings, taking on a ghost-hunting role by capturing various types of hostile ghosts.

This time, the games are not platformers, and while Mario has been in many game genres, Luigi's is all his own. These are third-person adventure games in fixed-camera "dollhouse" maps, à la Resident Evil— you might even call them kid-friendly "horror" games. Luigi cannot jump on enemies (not that it would help against ghosts). To deal with them, he uses a series of modified and tricked-out vacuums (called the Poltergust (3000, 5000 or G-00 depending on the game), given to him by debuting character Professor E. Gadd, a ghost researcher, to defeat Boos and others spectres.

It all started with the first game, released in 2001 as a launch title for the[[ GameCube. At the time, the game bemused audiences. While the game was good for showcasing the capacities of the console, the fact that it wasn't a traditional Mario game and didn't capture the same atmosphere was criticized, as was the short length of the game. Fans eventually warmed up for the game after the release of Super Mario Sunshine. The game even got a remake on the Nintendo 3DS in 2018.

Luigi's Mansion was officially established as a series 12 years after the first game in 2013 with the release of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon on the Nintendo 3DS. Dark Moon put Luigi's Mansion in new hands, with it being developed by Canadian team Next Level Games, rather than in-house by Nintendo EAD. This entry is stylistically distinct from the first game and adds and changes several mechanics, as well as featuring a more linear and broken-up mission structure.

Next Level Games eventually reprised the series with a third installment simply titled Luigi’s Mansion 3, released for the Nintendo Switch in 2019. The game continues much of the work NLG established before, but with some choices being walked back to be more similar to the first game and a more open-feeling structure.

The series consist of:

• Luigi's Mansion (2001) available on Gamecube and Wii
  • Luigi's Mansion, remake on 3DS (2018)
• Luigi's Mansion: 2 Dark Moon (2013)— published as Luigi's Mansion 2 in Japanese, Chinese and European languages available on 3DS
  • Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, remaster on Switch (2024)
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  Luigi's Mansion
  

  Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
  Luigi's Mansion 3 (2019)