Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (Luigi's Mansion 2 outside North America) is a video game on the Nintendo 3DS, and a sequel to the GameCube launch title, Luigi's Mansion. It was developed by Next Level Games, which previously collaborated with Nintendo on Punch-Out!! for the Wii, and was released in North America on March 24, 2013.The story finds Professor E. Gadd researching the ghosts of Evershade Valley, but when King Boo shatters the Dark Moon, the formerly friendly ghosts start running amuck, and it’s up to Luigi, armed with the Poltergust 5000, to solve this paranormal problem.Unlike the first game, which took place almost entirely inside the eponymous mansion, there are multiple areas to explore, including a snowy mine and a clockworks in a desert. Luigi has a greater amount of items and power-ups at his disposal, including a strobe function that can stun all ghosts in the room simultaneously (as opposed to having to shine the flashlight on one at a time).In February 2013's Nintendo Direct, this was revealed as one of several "Year of Luigi" games to be released in 2013, along with Mario & Luigi: Dream Team and the "New Super Luigi UDLC for New Super Mario Bros U''.Check out some of the trailers for the game here, here and here.
This game includes examples of the following tropes:
Absent-Minded Professor: Gadd has even worse bouts of this than he did in the first game. In one scene, he can't even remember how many Toad assistants he has (made all the more serious by the fact that King Boo is holding them hostage.)
Almost enters Mad Scientist territory, E. Gadd is seeming even more erratic and scatter brained then usual while sending Luigi out to once again capture hundreds of spirits if not thousands in his name. Although he's so old Gadd may simply be going senile if he wasn't already.
Advancing Boss of Doom: Between battle phases, King Boo will swell up and roll after you, forcing you to run your way through an obstacle course to avoid getting hit.
Animated Armor: Present in Gloomy Manor. They'll try to cleave you when you get close to them, and may block your path. In Treacherous Mansion, Greenies can possess them and use them to attack Luigi. The Tough Possessor uses them as hosts, and ultimately possesses a huge one.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Gadd worries that the absence of the Dark Moon will make the ghosts go crazy, cause worldwide terror, and worst of all, ruin his research.
Invoked once more in A-5's Description. "They're blocking our progress AND they ruin the furniture AND they're just plain gross!"
Artifact Title: Luigi explores various different places in this game, rather than a single mansion as mentioned in its predecessor's title. None of them are owned by Luigi, to boot. The titular Dark Moon, however, is your Plot Coupon, and thus is fairly important.
Bag of Holding: Lampshaded by E. Gadd after giving Luigi a particularly big key item, commenting that it's a good thing Luigi has such deep pockets.
Best Served Cold: The whole plot is King Boo's revenge plot against Luigi and friends. Note that this time the villains are putting the protagonists in paintings. (He only mentions Luigi, Mario, the Toads, and Gadd as targets. Whether he has plans to do this to anyone else is... Uncertain.
Big Boo's Haunt: In a sequel to Luigi's Mansion, what do you expect? The first area, Gloomy Manor, is just a typical haunted house, but the others are a cross between this and other classic Videogame Settings.
Big Fancy House: Most of the mansions you visit are this. Given the setting, every single one is of course a Haunted House as well. Treacherous Mansion is especially big and fancy.
Blinded by the Light: Luigi's flashlight — which, in this game, is used like a dazzler in order to stun ghosts. Some ghosts are wearing sunglasses that must be vacuumed before the light can be shined at them. Others carry objects or wear buckets and the like. For these, you have to either wait for them to attack before stunning them, or shine them with your Darklight, which will make them taunt and open them up to a strobe flash.
Also, some small creatures that aren't ghosts (like spiders, mice, and bats) can be destroyed by the flashlight, which sometimes turns them into Hearts, coins, or bills. Golden versions of these creatures yield more valuable treasure when killed this way.
On another note, here's a good safety tip for this game. A fully-lit room is usually safe. (Safe to a point; they might have something dangerous in it that isn't a ghost.) However, a dark room more than likely has ghosts hiding in it somewhere.
Bond Villain Stupidity: There are a few background scenes that suggest that King Boo is capable of ambushing Luigi several times over the course of the game, suggesting that this whole thing is sadistic "fun" to him. (Much like it was last time.)
Bonus Level: Each Mansion has one, which is unlocked by catching all the Boos in the first five missions.
Bonus Stage: A few missions have these, where a door lets Luigi access a special area where a Mini-Game is played. A couple of them require him to collect every Red Coin, another requires him to capture all the Gold Greenies in a giant hourglass that is filling with sand, and another requires him to win a snowball fight with three Hiders. All of them have a time limit. The only real tangible rewards are treasure (and in a few cases, Gems).
Boss In Mooks Clothing: There's something like this in the D3 mission. At one point, Luigi has to defeat a Super Greenie, a Super Slammer, and a Super Gobber to gain access to a door. The Super Gobber is the one to watch out for. It has 300 hp (as opposed to most Super Gobbers, who have 200) and is harder to hurt. In fact, the only reason this isn't literally a Boss In Mooks Clothing is because the Vault does not distiguish it from other Super Gobbers.
Earlier in the game, a Strong Sneaker acts as a miniboss that holds the last piece of a giant clock mechanism in Old Clockworks. Unlike a normal Boss In Mooks Clothing, this Strong Sneaker is weaker than the ones found later in the game (Barring D-2 and E-5), but it sits in the sidelines while it sends regular ghosts at the player once it's cornered. (It does have one clever tactic; this is the Escort Mission, and it can grab hold of Toad and use him like a shield, making itself impervious to Luigi's flashlight for a few seconds.)
Boss Only Level: The final mission of each mansion qualifies.
Console Cameo: E. Gadd gives Luigi a modified Nintendo DS in the opening cutscene. (He later calls it the "Dual Scream".) It serves as the source of the maps of the mansions and as a means of communication between Luigi and E. Gadd, similar to the Game Boy Horror from the first game.
Looking at the promotional art, King Boo has a new crown. Hope it's more valuable than his last one, which was worth only one gold coin. It's a powerful magic item, but to Luigi, it's worthless. He does take it at the end, but it does not increase his money at all.
Luigi keeps the map he used to find the mansion in the last game on his mantel.
Hell, Luigi actually lives in the rebuilt mansion! Apparently the Rank D mansion is the canonical one.
Luigi still shows that first boss ghost who's boss!
E. Gadd mentions having carelessly given King Boo's portrait away at a garage sale to hand-wave his escape and presence in the game.
A Big Boo appears as a boss and is fought in a manner similar to the previous game's Boolossus.
One of the Boos introduces itself as JamBoolaya and demands not to be called GumBoo, the latter being the name of a Boo found in the original game.
E. Gadd nostalgically reminisces about his and Luigi's last adventure early in the game.
E. Gadd once again gives Luigi a communication/map device based on a Nintendo handheld, a DS this time.
The Fright Knight, a boss ghost from the ScareScraper, has this as its description:
"Rumor has that this Greenie comes from the middle ages, where he was a knight searching for a kidnapped princess. Sadly, wherever he went, she always seemed to be in another castle."
Co-Op Multiplayer: The ScareScraper, which has up to four players trying to ascend through the building by either catching all of the ghosts, having everyone search for and stand on a set of switches in time, or chasing Polterpups depending which game mode is chosen.
Cosmetic Award: Getting all the Gems in a Mansion gets you a statue in E. Gadd's Vault; it's kinda cool, but doesn't give you any real benefit.
Creepy Cemetery: Can't have a Haunted House-style game without one of these, right? There's one in the Haunted Towers. (Oddly enough, the only Mooks you have to worry are a few crows and a Golden Greenie, but this is where a Boo is found and a Mini-Boss battle is fought.)
Cuteness Proximity: Nobody can really stay mad at the lick-happy ghost dog, despite the trouble it causes trying to play. Luigi seems to have taken it in at the end of the game.
The fact that the dog is the ghost which gives Luigi an extra life if he finds one of the Golden Bones kinds of helps you like the little guy.
Cutscene Incompetence: Whenever Luigi prepares to do something and the scene changes to a cinematic, odds are things are going to go badly for him.
Dark Is Not Evil: The Dark Moon is, despite the name, a Restraining Bolt on the ghosts. Rebuilding it is part of the game. Also, most of the ghosts in this game were actually pretty decent guys before King Boo came and started to cause trouble. In fact, after the battle with the Three Sisters, Professor Gadd remarks that they were very polite and courteous before all this happened, and remarks that he'd like to invite them to "ghost tea" once the situation resolves. (And he does just that, during the end credits.)
Deadpan Snarker: E. Gadd does this through the whole game, sometimes at Luigi's expense.
Demonic Possession: Each of the main bosses except King Boo do this (which is natural, considering they all have the word "Possessor" in the names), possessing a creature or object to fight Luigi. Each Boss Battle requires Luigi to force them out of their hosts somehow to use the Poltergust 5000 on them, and this must be repeated multiple times (one shot won't do it).
Development Gag: The fact that it's on the 3DS is probably a reference to the fact that the Gamecube was meant to be a 3D console, and the first Luigi's Mansion was supposed to showcase that.
Dramatic Irony: We know King Boo is the Big Bad is right from the opening cutscene, but Luigi and E. Gadd don't find out until much later.
Endless Game: ScareScraper Mode, if you set the number of floors to infinite.
Escape Artist: The first two times Luigi captures the Polterpup, it escapes from the Poltergust 5000 before he can put it in the Vault. Fortunately, Professor Gadd manages to make an improvement on the device after the second time, and it stays put after he catches it the third time.
Escort Mission: Luigi has to rescue Toads in several missions. They can't be harmed, so it's more a matter of navigating them past obstacles. If Toad is too scared to follow Luigi, and he often is, (each one seems very aftraid of something that is common in the Mansion he's in) Luigi can carry him using the Poltergust 5000 and even use him like a projectile.
In the rescue mission at the Treacherous Mansion (the hardest Masnion), Luigi has to escort two Toads.
Expy: A few of the ghost types are expies of ghost types from the first game.
Free Sample Plot Coupon: E. Gadd explains what the Dark Moon is and what happened to it, then reveals that he already found the first piece near the Bunker.
The boss of the Gloomy Manor has a swarm of spiders helping it (which can actually benefit Luigi, because if spiders are hit with the flashlight, they might turn into Hearts).
The third boss is a 12 wave endurance match against all the ghosts you've faced atop the clock tower.
Bosses in the ScareScraper always have normal ghosts assisting them. The reason for this is to keep the other players busy so that everyone can't just gang up on the boss.
Fun with Acronyms: The first letters of the five "mansions", the adjectives describing their possessors, and their unlockable ghost hunt missions spell G-H-O-S-T. And if you add in for the ScareScraper it spells ghosts.
Gardening Variety Weapon: Some of the Greenies in the Haunted Towers use gardening tools such as shovels as weapons.
Get Back Here Boss: The fourth boss is constantly fleeing from you, with you giving pursuit in a bomb-launching sled.
Giant Foot of Stomping: Excluding cinematics, all you see of the Tough Possessor's final suit of armor is two of these and a floor-piercing sword.
Giant Spider: The Gloomy Manor Boss. Nasty. Well, truthfully, the true boss is the Grouchy Possessor, who has taken possession of the spider.
The Goomba: Greenies. (However, they get much smarter - for Mooks - as the game progresses; as early as the third mission, some of them use garbage can lids as shields, making them harder to stun, and in the fourth mission, some of them wear sunglasses, making them impossible to stun unless you first use the Poltergust 5000 to get rid of the glasses. Even later, they disguise themselves as mummies or haunted suits of armor, making themselves untouchable until you can expose them.
Green Thumb: Although there are a few monstrous plants to deal with, several plants are useful here, much like the first game. Using the Strobulb on flowers will usually yield treasure, and watering small shrubs can sometimes cause them to grow into beanstalks that Luigi can use to climb to rooms he couldn't previously access.
Guide Dang It: Professor E. Gadd never tells you that, when sucking up a ghost with the Poltergust 5000, you can press "B" to make Luigi jump in the air... which is a very useful trick to know, since it helps Luigi dodge attacks by other ghosts. You'll need to check out the enclosed instruction booklet if you want to know about this.
Holler Button: Pressing a direction on the D-pad will make Luigi call out for anyone in a mansion ("Hello?" "Yoo-Hoo?"). Once Luigi discovers that Mario was kidnapped, Luigi's cries to the unknown will change to the cries for Mario from the first game.
Multiplayer uses the same feature as its primary form of communication between remote players by incorporating phrases such as "Help help" and "Good job".
Hoist by His Own Petard: In order to defeat King Boo in the Final Battle, Luigi has to fool him into hurting himself. If Luigi positions him so that one of his own spiked balls falls on him, he is stunned for a couple of seconds, letting Luigi use the Poltergust 5000 on him.
Improbable Weapon User: The Greenies typically arm themselves with things like shovels and rolling pins, along with garbage can lids to use as shield, basically anything that could plausibly be used as a weapon in the area they're in. (Although they sometimes use actual weapons too, like swords and in one area, spears.)
Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: A hilariously justified example; the keys disintigrate after you use them. In an old demo, the keys were eaten by the door instead.
Made all the more hilarious by the fact that after the first time Luigi sees it happen (and is freaked out by it), every key disappearance thereafter just earns a calm "Huh" from him.
It could also be a reference to how keys in Zelda disappear once you use them.
Jump Scare: In E-2, Luigi unlocks the door to Treacherous Mansion before turning around apprehensively, at which point King Boo appears in the doorway behind him and vanishes before being noticed. Later, in the intro to E-3, when you examine King Boo in the final security snapshot, he abruptly turns toward the camera and laughs.
Kill It with Fire: Luigi can't turn the Poltergust 5000 into a flamethrower like he did with the previous model, but he makes use of torches, candles, and combustable fuel often, mostly in places where there are a lot of spider webs or ice.
Killer Rabbit: Most of the enemy ghosts. One variety is described as having a fondness for cuddling, which they express by violently absorbing Luigi into their gelatinous bodies. Boos have pretty much always exemplified this trope, but they now squeak upon receiving damage and being sucked into the Poltergust.
King Mook: Besides King Boo (of course), the main game has the Ancient Poltergeist and the Tough Poltergeist. In the ScareScraper, every fifth floor has one or two of these, the last floor always has The Brain (another Poltergeist boss.)
Level In Boss Clothing: A few missions are like this. First of all, in each of the Bonus Levels, Luigi simply has to run through the Mansion and catch every ghost in as little time as possible. (And it gets harder with each new Mansion.) The fifth mission of the Treacherous Manor, "Paranormal Chaos", certainly qualifies. Its a grueling battle where Luigi has to run from room to room and fight hordes of ghosts, all within a time limit, and after doing that, has to fight an even bigger horde. In fact, the Boss Battle that comes after this mission is probably easier.
Man-Eating Plant: Appear here and there, as seen here. Not Piranha Plants, strangely.
King Boo can be seen flying in the background at several points in the game.
At various points, you get to examine security footage of Boos carrying a mostly covered painting. A sharp observer can easily figure out what the painting contains...
The Gold Greenies only appear if you search in certain vases, drawers, etc., and once you find them, they run around you in circles. They give out a ton of cash when you suck them in, so it is worth looking for them.
A lesser version comes as gold-colored versions of minor enemies such as spiders and mice, which usually drop a gold bar if you use the flashlight on them quick enough.
Milestone Celebration: Part of Nintendo's Year of Luigi, the 30th anniversary of Luigi's debut in Mario Bros. Incidentally, the inclusion of Luigi's Mansion just happened to be by chance, since it wasn't developed for the anniversary in mind. Nice coincidence, eh?
Mind-Control Eyes: The ghosts have visible pupils when they're not corrupted.
Mineral MacGuffin: Crystals from the fourth mansion's mines are used to power up the ghosts.
Money Spider: If you finish off a ghost with a charged vacuum suction (by pressing A), you will get money for catching it. The higher the meter is charged, the more money you get. You also get more money for catching multiple ghosts simultaneously.
Museum Of The Strange And Unusual: Treacherous Mansion, though the exhibits aren't actually strange as much as haunted and possessed due to the place being a favorite haunting ground of ghosts.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Apparently, E. Gadd is partially responsible for this mess, having accidentally given away King Boo's portrait at a garage sale. (Kind of makes you wonder how secure all the other ghosts Luigi caught in the first game are...)
No Nonsense Nemesis: King Boo is made so much more menacing since he adopted this attitude. Justified since his revenge is what kickstarted the game's plot.
Nonstandard Character Design: The Boos are the only ghosts in the game that don't glow, and they're also the only ones who appear opaque when not completely invisible altogether.
Oh Crap: Gadd has one when King Boo abducts Luigi in the Pixelator.
Luigi gets his fair share over the course of the game too, but the best example is when King Boo gets sucked into the vacuum, only to pull himself back out.Twice. Complete with what is probably the closest thing a Boo can do to a Slasher Smile. Luigi's fear is pretty justifiable at this point.
One-Man Army: Does Luigi qualify? Once you complete the E-5 quest, I would say so.
Our Ghosts Are Different: Obviously. E. Gadd implies that ghosts have the ability to evolve and adapt like living things, and many of the spirits native to Evershade Valley are unlike any he's ever encountered. Boos are apparently different enough to have their own container separate from all the other ghosts Luigi captures and sends to the Vault.
Pass the Popcorn: Gadd claims he did this while watching the Boss Battle of Haunted Towers. (Fortunately, he takes the rest of them a little more seriously.)
Peek-a-Bogeyman: In the garage, a mook is seen scaring Luigi by jumping out of an old-fashioned car, then laughing about it.
E. Gadd's Pixelator, which is used to link the five areas to his bunker.
Later levels also have more traditional portals, but they only work in pairs. The final mansion has a central room with six teleporters connected to various parts of the mansion, though.
Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: The Dual Scream always gives you a message with Luigi's current objective, changing if his objective changes, and then checking it off when he completes it. During the Final Battle, it simply tells you, "Defeat King Boo!", the first time it includes an exclaimation point, which is fitting.
All the floors in the multiplayer mode are randomly generated (including the types of enemies found within).
Intrusion Missions use the normal mansion layout, but the enemies appear in random rooms.
Recurring Riff: The classic theme from the GameCube version returns in some scenes. Otherwise, the soundtrack appears to be more varied this time around.
Recursive Reality: At one point, you can find a dollhouse with windows you can look through. If you do so, you see the very room that contains the dollhouse, with Luigi looking through the window.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Luigi did this to King Boo in the first game... suffice it to say the can didn't last long. And was apparently rather shoddy since King Boo broke out by himself, before he even found his new crown.
Luigi playing with the teleporters brings to mind the TV advertisement for Portal 2.
The final story mission shares its name with a Dream Theater song.
One of the nicknames a player can get when you don't help out much in ScareScraper Mode is "Mostly Harmless".
Silent Snarker: Luigi shows signs of this during the few moments he's not scared out of his mind.
Take Over the World: King Boo's ultimate goal, at least what he claims. Whether he's capable of doing so or delusional, is unclear.
Seeing how Mario, Luigi, and Gadd are probably the only people in the world who stand any chance against the ghosts, and judging by the power he and the other ghosts displayed in this game alone (warping space, creating entire dimentional worlds, saying nothing of controlling the minds of other ghosts), I'd say he's PRETTY DAMN CAPABLE!
Terms of Endangerment: King Boo has quite a few for Luigi, referring to him as his 'old buddy'.
Theme And Variations Soundtrack: The music that plays in each mansion is a variation of the same melody, arranged and orchestrated differently. Here's a few examples:
Glooomy Manor has a bass clarinet melody accompanied by piano and plucked strings.
Haunted Towers has a pan flute melody accompanied by low strings, marimba, and a tribal drumbeat to create a more adventurous atmosphere.
Old Clockworks has a harpsichord melody and pipe organ harmony to create a more classical and refined atmosphere. Clockwork Ruins, on the other hand, is an Egyptian style remix, fitting for the environment.
Secret Mine has the melody played on bells and a quiet electric bass harmony to create a mysterious atmosphere.
Numerous Ghost Themes, thesetwo for example, are dark and suspenseful takes on the main melody.
Theme Naming / Hurricane of Puns: The Boos once again are all puns with the word "Boo" in them. In addition, the "Possessor" ghosts that serve as the bosses each have an adjective one would often use to describe a college professor, such as "Harsh Possessor", "Tough Possessor", "Grouchy Possessor", etc.
The Polterpup urinates on a garden in Treacherous Mansion.
And the first time Luigi meets Polterpup, in Haunted Tower, he apparently steps in dog doo it left behind, given the fact that he makes a rather unpleasant face while looking at his shoe.
In Treacherous Mansion, Luigi will accidentally walk in on a Slammer on the toilet.
Took a Level in Badass: In the first game, King Boo couldn't battle you on his own; he needed the False Bowser suit. Here? He's firing lightning bolts all over the place, changing size to crush you, becoming intangible, ramming you, and executing divebombing tackles that cause steel spiked balls to rain from the sky. "Fight you like a true Boo", indeed.
The Boos in general are much tougher than last time. In the first game, about half of them couldn't attack Luigi at all, and even the ones who could (other than Boolossus and King Boo) usually chose to run from him anyway. In this game, the Boos hide while invisible, and attack Luigi using dangerous ambushes from the shadows. (Having said that, once you get used to their MO, fighting them isn't all too hard.)
On that note, Professor E.Gadd himself has taken a few levels. The upgraded Poltergust, that completely blows the last model out of the water? His doing. Replacing the fragile process of turning ghosts into portraits with ghost-sealing canisters? His idea. Creating means on the fly to repair and replace necessary items to get through the mansions that the ghosts periodically destroy? He's got that. Heck, a teleporter that only requires a monitor and security camera? Take a guess.
In-game example: Most versions of the Mooks have a stronger version that appears later in the game.
Also, in comparison to the first game's ghosts, Dark Moon's ghosts are much more crafty and resourceful in general, even without being powered up,. The Greenies in particular especially show it, equipping themselves with weaponry and defenses, disquising themselves, adapting to the situation (or to the enviroment) at hand, and just keeping their tactics and antics varied in order to take you down (or make things harder than they should be).
Took a Level in Jerkass: E. Gadd spends a disproportionate amount of time making backhanded comments about Luigi's fearful nature and skill as a ghost hunter.
One time he even compliments Luigi and says that he "may yet" become as famous as his brother... Which he punctuates with a small chuckle, indicating that he was being sarcastic.
Weaksauce Weakness: During part of the Final Battle, King Boo has a weakness that Boos tend to have in Mario games: If Luigi looks at him directly in the face, he cannot attack Luigi or even move. This weakness is part of the strategy needed to defeat him. (See Hoist by His Own Petard above.)
What Happened to the Mouse?: King Boo is not seen again after being sucked into the Poltergust 5000. He's not in the vault, there's no cutscene showing him being pumped out, he's not put in a painting... His crown's jewel also gets an unknown fate. Luigi picks it up and pockets it after the battle, but we never see him take it out nor does it count for any money.
When All You Have Is a Hammer: Much like the first game, Luigi uses only two weapons to fight monsters the entire game: A flashlight to stun ghosts (which is a lot more effective than the one in the first game) and the Poltergust 5000 (an upgraded version of the model he used in the first game; he does upgrade this several times during the course of this game too).
Wolf Pack Boss: The Three Sisters. (Technically, this is a Mini-Boss, but it's three individual enemies at once.) There are a few other battles that could be considered Mini-Boss fights which have more than one enemy, but in the other cases, the ghosts involved become common enemies afterwards.
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