Luigi’s Mansion 3 Needs Portrait Ghosts, Or I’m Done

Portrait ghosts are a staple of the Luigi’s Mansion series. Though they were absent from Dark Moon, many fans agree they need to be in the third game.

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Luigi’s Mansion 3, which is slated to release this fall, will mark the series’ first appearance on a major home console in nearly two decades. The original Luigi’s Mansion title, which launched alongside the GameCube in September of 2001, has evolved into something of a Nintendo cult classic over the years, and many fans are hoping that this upcoming iteration borrows several features native to the first game which were missing in its 2013 3DS followup. By that, of course, we mean portrait ghosts.

What Are Portrait Ghosts?

For the uninitiated, portrait ghosts were a series of minibosses strewn throughout Luigi’s first romp through a haunted mansion. They were astral remains of the beings who lived and worked in the place, the heart and soul of the experience, and stopping their ethereal hearts cold with the beam of Luigi’s flashlight was perhaps the most thrilling element of any first-party GameCube game.

Each of the 23 mansion residents were memorable in some way, with some of the most popular being Madame Clairvoya, fortune-telling ghost, Melody Pianissima, the posthumous pianist who quizzes the player on retro Nintendo music, and Chauncey, the devilish baby who serves as the first boss. The game wouldn’t have been nearly as vibrant or varied without these entities, and they feel like a major pillar around which the game was built.

Their Absence From Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon

So, when these beings were completely absent from Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon — that’s Luigi’s Mansion 2 for those of you outside of the United States — it came as a bit of a shock. While the five explorable abodes in that title oozed with personalities of their own, it felt a bit strange that players couldn’t actually meet face to face with the long-deceased inhabitants. Sure, there were plenty of regular with which to do vacuum cleaner-based battle, but few of them left much of an impression.

To compensate, Dark Moon featured a few more regular boss fights than the original game did, but it felt a bit hollow. Part of what made the portrait ghosts so memorable was the fact that they weren’t exactly malicious; they were mostly confused ghouls who seemingly couldn’t quite come to grips with the fact that they had died. Conversely, what we got in the game’s sequel felt a little bland and uninspired — need we remind anyone that one of the encounters was against a possessed staircase?

Why They Need To Make A Comeback In Luigi’s Mansion 3

What’s more, going through Professor E. Gad’s gallery and admiring all the ghosts Luigi has captured and staring at the still-empty frames while wondering what could be coming next felt pretty potent. It’s something that really needs to be reintroduced in Luigi’s Mansion 3, as it was both incredibly satisfying and motivating. Few things were quite as fulfilling as seeing that portrait in the final room finally fill with King Boo’s ugly mug.

Now that it’s been established that these characters and mechanics really need to return to the franchise, it may be a good time to mention that Nintendo rep essentially confirmed that portrait ghosts would be returning in LM3. The game was shown off briefly during the Nintendo Treehouse Live event at E3 2019, and, in reference to these ghosts, it was stated that “there’s a couple dozen of them to explore in the game.” While there doesn’t seem to be an incredible amount of discussion or speculation on the matter from fans, it seems at the very least safe to say that they will play a major role in the upcoming release. No word on the demon-baby Chauncey and his possessed rocking horse, though.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/luigis-mansion-3-portrait-ghosts-inclusion/