YMMV / Luigi's Mansion 3

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Did Luigi suspect that King Boo had planned a trap for him from the very beginning of the game? Notice how Luigi acts in the intro: unlike Mario, Peach, and the Toads, who are chatting and enjoying the bus ride, he's asleep. His only luggage is a flashlight and a book, which he doesn't seem very interested in, as when he tries to read it, he immediately conks out. When the gang arrives at the hotel, he's the last person to enter the building, and when he does enter, he's not as excited as the others, to the point where he's cautious toward Hellen Gravely (as indicated by him sneezing at the scent of her perfume). And in general, his attitude toward the whole thing doesn't exactly look like the sort of reaction anyone else would have to, you know, winning a free ride to a big hotel that promises lots of money, fun, and adventure. It's almost as if he suspects something is wrong...but being Luigi, he can't put his finger on what the problem is, or doesn't want to worry his friends about it. Then again, the last time Luigi got an invitation to a big, rich place full of money and treasure all around...
  • How loyal are most of the ghosts? While Hellen is obviously on King Boo's side, the other ghosts are mostly fine with being left alone, with many of the bosses doing their own thing until Luigi shows up. In addition, when King Boo's crown vanishes, the normal ghosts seemingly snap out of a trance, hinting they were brainwashed. So were all the ghosts like this, or were any of them actually evil?
• Angst? What Angst?: While being trapped within a painting is definitely a terrible fate, Luigi's friends don't seem all that bothered or affected by it at all when they are let out, returning to their perfectly bubbly and cheery selves once freed.
• Annoying Video Game Helper: Professor E Gadd is your standard Voice with an Internet Connection in this game, meaning sometimes his hints will be helpful (you won't be spending all day stuck trying to enter Spectral Catch) but will often butt in when the player is exploring or pointing out obvious objectives like "escape the trap you just fell in". He thankfully becomes more hands-off after all the Toads have been saved, and you can also turn his hints off after getting the Virtual Boo.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Polterkitty can be reduced to a Zero-Effort Boss by the fact that during the part where you let her creep up behind Luigi, she won't notice Gooigi in the room until he flashes her before she's about to pounce. This means that while Polterkitty sneaks up on Luigi getting ready to pounce, you can have Gooigi sneak up on her getting ready to flash.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • The Climax Bosses take cues from the Dark Moon formula for its bosses and execute it well:
    • Amadeus Wolfgeist manages to make The Great Stage a truly great stage. His fight has two phases before he even attacks directly, and then he leaps into his piano to possess it like Dark Moon's bosses. From that point on, it's a surprisingly challenging fight as the piano attacks and you have to perform several steps to get Wolfgeist out of it so you can attack, which can be jarring at first, but turns out to be a really fun challenge. As a bonus, Wolfgeist serves his purpose as a pianist by providing music for the encounter, including the frenzied ghost-catching theme.
    • Ug, the second Climax Boss, starts the fight possessing a freaking T-Rex skeleton! You have to frantically wait for him to drop eggs for you to fire into his mouth and after you do, he wises up and destroys one. You then have to use Gooigi in a creative way, get him stuck in the T-Rex's mouth.
    • Captain Fishook takes it up a notch and possesses the ship you are fighting on. From there, you have to fire bombs thrown by other ghosts into his exposed mouth. Every time you land a hit, Fishook will possess the wall and tip the boat towards him and you have to use the suction shot to hold onto the other side in order to keep from falling in.
  • Serpci may not be a portrait-guarding boss like the previous three, but she manages to nonetheless be a very fun and involved fight, with multiple means of attacking you that require you to use every form of movement you have available to you to beat.
  • Nikki, Ginny, and Lindsay grant one of the most chaotic fights in the game. While it starts mostly standard, once you defeat the first sister, things get insane. You need to keep track of which of the spinning hats the remaining sisters are in, or you will get blown up, as all the while the hats are still firing cards at you and trying to ram you. The lights will also start to flicker, turning the fight into a frantic, but fun test of your skills.
  • Hellen Gravely is the ultimate test of working with Luigi and Gooigi in tandem, as you need to use Gooigi to go under the floor and shut off the barriers of Hellen's laser security system so Luigi can safely fight back. While Gooigi navigates the lower section, you have to keep track of Luigi to switch back to him when you need to move him away from the lasers or Hellen's attacks. When the lower floor starts getting flooded in certain paths during the later rounds, the fight is positively hectic, but all the more satisfying to beat.
• Best Level Ever:
  • Floor 8, Paranormal Productions, is a more cerebral level that indulges in some fun surrealism and a couple of movie references as well, with a hilarious boss fight and a sympathetic ghost running the show. It's also home to a complicated, yet fair puzzle that really makes the player think outside the box.
  • Floor 10, Tomb Suites, is just as spooky and deadly as you'd expect from an Ancient Egyptian level, with several harrowing death traps and a challenging, fun boss.
  • Floor 11, Twisted Suites, for its eerie, whimsical music and magic show aesthetic, as well as having Cute Ghost Girl magicians with a fun boss battle.
• Breather Boss: Both Johnny Deepend and DJ Phantasmagloria are very simple for late game bosses. This might be a relief for players since some of the previous ones were among the hardest in the game and the following ones, Hellen Gravely and King Boo, are the game's final bosses, being challenging by default.
  • Johnny is a Puzzle Boss whose only attacks are throwing highly-telegraphed volleyballs and spitting a stream of water, the latter of which is more of a nuisance than anything since it is only harmful to Gooigi. Shooting him with a volleyball stuns him for a significant amount of time, and once you find the solution (which can potentially take less than a minute) he can only defend himself with a small shockwave attack and goes down in a single cycle.
  • The ghost dancers Phantasmagloria summons before her fight can be annoying, but her fight proper has no notable gimmicks and is pretty straightfoward. While the spinning records she tosses can clutter the arena, they do damage only by 10- and have a tendency to drop hearts so there is rarely any actual danger. Her level also borders on being a Boss-Only Level, consisting of a straight hallway toward the boss room with only one short fight along the way.
• Breather Level:
  • Paranormal Productions is not very hard, being more designed around a large puzzle than fending off ghosts (even if you do find some). The floor just before (Garden Suites) and the next real floors afterwards (the Boilerworks and the Tomb Suites) are long, difficult and have lots of enemies and hazards to work around.
  • The Dance Hall may as well be counted as a Boss-Only Level on account of it being so short, despite DJ Phantasmagloria not being the guardian of any portraits. It's put in between the long, puzzle-riffic Fitness Center and subsequent second Polterkitty chase, and the big finale at the Master Suite and Roof.
  • The Gathering Gold objective in the initial version of Scarescraper mode is far easier and simpler than the other objectives it may throw at you, given that every little piece of gold counts, giving those small money caches an actual purpose, and most of the gold ghosts, who don't fight back (but can disappear, and it's key to defeat as many of them as possible to reap the rewards). In response, a later update increased the difficulty by having other ghosts spawn alongside the gold ghosts and occasionally being regular encounters that make freeing the gold ghosts less straightforward.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Slamming the ghosts and the bosses is immensely satisfying, especially the bosses that take joy in tormenting Luigi like Clem, Dr. Potter, and especially King Boo.
  • The game massively ramps up the number of interactive objects per room, and the number of loose, vacuumable items and destructible furniture that your Poltergust and Suction Shot can tear up. The game actually delivers both kinds of catharsis—that of creating a huge mess and that of cleaning it up completely. It's very satisfying to empty out a room, and even to waste a good twenty minutes cleaning out the entire Sandy Grand Hall on floor 10 thanks to the almost meditative effect of the sand physics.
  • Launching a volleyball at Johnny Deepend once you're in the second phase of his fight doesn't do any damage to him. But man if it isn't cathartic to keep beaning him over and over.
  • During the battle against Wolfgeist, he possesses a piano and makes it look and act eerily similar to the infamous “Mad Piano” from Super Mario 64. As such it is incredibly satisfying to be able to completely destroy that piano.
  • Sucking a Toad into the Poltergust and using him as a projectile is this if you choose to believe that this is one of the same Toads who verbally abused Luigi in Super Mario 64 DS or Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.
  • Polterkitty is considered to be such an annoying boss, that after spending minutes — perhaps even hours — going floor to floor trying to retrieve the elevator button she swallows, it can be quite satisfying to see her get sucked up once and for all the second time around. Not going through the ordeal again for the rest of the game. This is potentially even more satisfying for those who have played Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon. In that game, Polterpup (who served a similar role to Polterkitty) gets fully sucked into the Poltergust numerous times, but repeatedly breaks out of the ghost gallery until it's repaired and made secure. Here, when defeating Polterkitty the first time, she isn't sucked in, but rather coughs up the elevator button and flees. Thus, when you see her actually vacuumed up the second time around, you know that she's gone for good.
• Character Rerailment: E. Gadd became both dumber and meaner in Dark Moon which, while not necessarily unpopular, was still very jarring since he was never portrayed like that before. While both aspects are still present in this game, they're much more downplayed, with Gadd now halfway between his original and Dark Moon personalities.
• Complete Monster: King Boo returns. See here for details.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The Luxury Suite showcases Hellen's obsession with King Boo as being to the point of being a Stalker Shrine. Everything from the statues, to the furniture, to the carpets, to even Hellen's slippers is in the image of King Boo. It's so absurd and creepy that it ends up being funny.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Morty is very popular. Similar to Madame Clairvoya from the first game, Morty is the only boss ghost that doesn't want Luigi's head served on a platter. He also manages to provide a fun, hilarious boss fight against Notzilla despite being The Unfought. It's telling that many people choose to just let him finish his film alone instead of capturing him right after.
  • Serpci gets this for her design, her Best Level Ever pyramid, and her Sand Blaster (a popular Swiss-Army Superpower in fiction) skillset.
• Even Better Sequel: Seems to be generally regarded as this in regards to the previous two games. Both the original and Dark Moon were already considered very good, but there were a few notable flaws in each: the first game got hit with a hefty dose of It's Short, So It Sucks!, as well as the fact that there isn't a ton of variety to the environments within the mansion; the second game managed to expand somewhat on the length and introduced much more varied environments, but the mission system was generally considered to somewhat hamper the sense of exploration the first game had, and most of the boss ghosts felt less interesting than the first game's Portrait Ghosts. This game manages to strike a balance between the two formulas: it keeps the extended length and diverse environments of the second game while removing the mission system in favor of continuous exploration like in the first game, and most of the boss ghosts are much closer in feel to the original.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Due to the game taking place in a hotel, many fans immediately started calling it Hotel Mario 2 and Hotel Luigi.
  • Kruller is often called Paul Blart for obvious reasons.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Both literally and figuratively when it comes to the bats that will swarm you. However, any critter enemy that cost only 5 to 10 heart points (like rats, birds, and snakes) can be considered this throughout the game.
  • Oozers, the lean yellow ghosts. They're as fragile as a Goob, but they can easily mess with you in different ways. Their main attack is to hurl junk at you, and they'll often do this while you're in the middle of sucking up another ghost, freeing it if a projectile hits you. They can also leave slippery banana peels on the floor, which can once again be problematic if you're busy with a ghost. Last but not least, they tend to hide in objects, and they'll change positions frequently when doing so. This can be especially annoying in Scarescraper, where wasting time isn't a good idea since you have at least five minutes to clear a floor.
• Goddamned Boss:
  • Dr. Potter is initially very confusing, and once you understand how to get an opening, it's not much easier, as his plant has multiple attacks that won't leave it vulnerable.
  • If you didn't hate Polterkitty the first time it showed up to eat up your elevator button, then you will despise the second time it does (since, by then, it becomes a clear case of Padding). It's not hard to deal with Polterkitty in battle, but the strategy is repetitive and tracking it down through old floors can become boring fast.
  • Clem is infamous for stumping many players, but mostly because of Fake Difficulty. The tube riding controls are not the most intuitive, which makes navigating through the endless mines and spiked walls a frustrating experience, and in order to make Clem vulnerable in the first place, you need to let him get close enough to attempt to whack you (but not let yourself get whacked, which, again, is very troublesome due to the aforementioned controls). If you do manage to put Clem into a stunned state (either due to the dodging strategy or luck from a stray mine), you still have to chase after him when he's spinning around uncontrollably, catch his tube, shoot it into the spikes and chase after him again when he lands outside the pool. Overall, it's a boss with a simple logic behind it, but with plenty of steps and annoyances that are not immediately obvious about how to perform or overcome. The saving grace of this fight are the endless rats that provide health if vacuumed, meaning you can afford to get hurt and pop your tube repeatedly, but inflating a new rubber floatie is still an annoying process thanks to Luigi being unable to move until he finishes doing so.
  • While DJ Phantasmagloria is a straightforward fight, the pre-fight with her dancing Goobs minions is less so. You have to find the elevator button that one of them is holding and burst him twice in a row, then suck up the Goob who had it. Now, here's the problem: Luigi is snapping his fingers to DJ Phantasmagloria's music... which means he's moving slower. This isn't too terrible for the first round of hide-and-seek, but the second round is a Timed Mission (and not a very long one either) where if you take too long or burst the wrong Goob, you have to start over. All the Goobs do full damage to you, which is a problem with Luigi's slowed movement. Depending on the patterns you get for the second hide-and-seek, sucking up that one Goob can be a longer and more painful task than the actual boss fight.
  • Final bosses are usually meant to be challenging. However, due to another case of Fake Difficulty caused by a combination of Depth Deception and an unfair attack pattern, it's fair to mention King Boo. To defeat him, the player is supposed to shoot bombs, that he himself tosses at Luigi, into his mouth. Sounds simple enough, but only if you ignore the wonky aiming and the strange perspective between King Boo and the arena, meaning that you have to adjust your shots in a way that doesn't look natural, otherwise you'll keep missing over and over. This turns an already challenging, yet fair fight into a complete nightmare for people who don't immediately figure out what the heck they're doing wrong, especially because King Boo tends to vanish quickly (becoming faster as the fight drags on). Having endless patience won't save you, either, since King Boo will add a time limit of 4 minutes in his final phase that leads to an instant game over if he's not defeated before then, and he won't throw bombs until after he's cycled through all of his other attacks. To make things even worse, King Boo only leaves himself clearly vulnerable if he decides to throw bombs twice in a row.^note You don't need to wait for King Boo to snarl at you to shoot a bomb into his mouth, but it's very hard to do so, as he's always in movement or with his mouth shut on any other occasion.
• He Really Can Act: Charles Martinet really does an amazing job in the scene before the final boss fight, where Mario cries for Peach upon seeing her trapped in a portrait. While Charles already channels Mario's cheerful energy very well, hearing the plumber cry in such a realistic manner instead of the comical sobs in other games is just jarring.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Upon seeing the bright, welcoming, and fake Last Resort hotel for the first time, Luigi exclaims "Wowie Zowie!" This very phrase ends up being used when a player character uses the elephant powerup in Super Mario Bros. Wonder.
• Ho Yay: Morty's immediate interest in Luigi and his comments about his appearance have not gone unnoticed.
  Morty: I didn't notice until now, but your face... It has some nice features! And your build... Not bad. Not bad at all!
• I Knew It!: Luigi had a different looking Poltergust with a new plunger shooting capability in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. However, none of the Smash gameplay at the time before Luigi's Mansion 3's announcement showed him grabbing anybody, using his new tether ability, or performing his Final Smash (all of which involve his Poltergust). Viewers did get to see the new Poltergust in the animation created for Smash's trailer revealing Simon and Richter, leading to theories that there would be a new game in the series. They were right.
• Improved Second Attempt: Most of the Portrait Ghosts in the first game never actually attempted to harm Luigi unless he provoked them, which made the ghosts come across more like designated villains. Here, the ghosts are genuinely malicious and purposely try to kill Luigi even if he doesn't mean to bother them. The only ghost that isn't antagonistic is Morty; capturing him is made completely optional.
• Jerkass Woobie: Hellen Gravely. Yes, she aids King Boo in his twisted revenge scheme, but it's made abundantly clear that everything she does is so she can gain King Boo's attention. Unfortunately for her, King Boo is so obsessed with his vendetta against Luigi that he couldn't care less about her and even dismisses her as useless despite the fact that the only reason he escaped in the first place was thanks to her help.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The game is set at a haunted hotel. Cue Hotel Mario jokes.
  • One of the early moments of the game is Luigi trying to read a book while lying in his hotel room bed, only to almost immediately fall asleep. It quickly became a reaction clip for sleep-inducing situations.
  • Luigi's entering Mario's hotel room and finding it filled with empty pizza boxes only a few hours after they checked in has caused many fans to poke fun at the plumber's huge appetite.
  • The scene of Luigi bashing ghosts around drawing parallels to Hulk's beatdown on Loki.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Mario and Luigi telling each other "Night night" at the beginning of the game. Awww...
• Older Than They Think: The game's box art isn't the first time Luigi has sported realistic teeth, since this front cover for the August 2001 issue of Next Gen Magazine featured its own contemptible CGI art for Luigi.
• Player Punch: Morty is the only friendly ghost encountered in the game, being a film director who willingly gives Luigi his elevator button after he helps him with his new movie and the player has the choice to not capture him if they want. However, he is a boss ghost and catching him is an achievement in itself, so the player must capture him if they want to fully complete the game. What's worse is that when Luigi catches Monty, the ghost has the least amount of HP of any enemy in the game, he doesn't try to fight back and after he's captured, Luigi's usual victory cheer sounds far more depressed and regretful than normal.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The Polterpup was quickly saved from this via it being helpful this time around by helping guide Luigi, his behavior with Luigi being so adorable and heartwarming, and it being thanks to him Luigi was able to defeat King Boo. It helps that he has his own Evil Counterpart in the Polterkitty, who fills his role from the last game.
• Salvaged Gameplay Mechanic:
  • Dark Moon received some criticism for removing Portrait Ghosts (which were beloved for their humanoid appearances and personalities) and making the overall enemy design more cutesy. While Luigi's Mansion 3 still has a more goofy design than the original, enemies have been made more intimidating, and the game is once again host to a cast of human-like ghosts as NPCs and boss characters. Also, the bosses guarding Toads possess objects, a much-beloved aspect of the climactic boss fights in Dark Moon.
  • One of the most divisive and complained about elements of Dark Moon was its mission-based structure, which limited exploration due to Luigi constantly being warped out of the mansions. Luigi's Mansion 3 replaces this with a more open design akin to the original Luigi's Mansion: the player can freely travel between floors of the hotel, with the game still maintaining the distinct, themed levels of Dark Moon via the different floors.
  • A concern that most fans have had with the first game was its short length. This game manages to have an impressive 17 floors (or 18 if you count the roof as its own floor), including at least a couple that you end up going through more than once.
  • Polterpup is much less polarizing than his appearance in Dark Moon, as he actively assists Luigi as he explores the hotel, giving him hints on where to go and interacting with the scenery in goofy ways, rather than stealing things Luigi needs and forcing him to backtrack through areas he's already been, making it easier to like him. Instead, Polterkitty, a more overt villain, takes up the role he played in the previous game, allowing for some catharsis when Luigi finally defeats her for good.
  • The game seems to address the repetitive returns to the lab from both previous games by mostly allowing Luigi to keep moving forward after every boss ghost. Only when the plot intervenes is Luigi required to go back to Gadd, but otherwise, he can go at his own pace.
  • The game is much more forgiving than the previous two as far as challenge and ranking go, only tracking the amount of money you collect. This means there is no metric for any of the bosses (you simply need to defeat them, with no reward for doing it with particular finesse), and the lack of missions means there are no ranks for that, either. It's more easygoing than the previous two, as a result.
• Salvaged Story:
  • Many fans didn't appreciate the Dramatic Irony of being let on that King Boo was behind the plot of Dark Moon from the start, whereas Luigi and E. Gadd were totally oblivious to both this, and the fact that he kidnapped Mario again, until very late in the game. In this game, Hellen Gravely is quick to introduce King Boo as the one who brought Luigi and company to the Last Resort, as well as reveal that he's captured Mario, Princess Peach, and the Toads.
  • Quite a few people were disappointed that King Boo basically disappeared after being defeated in Dark Moon, without so much as a mention after being sucked up by the Poltergust. During the credits of this game, we get to see a picture of King Boo trapped in a glass prison, with Hellen Gravely and her Polterkitty right next to him.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • In order to ride a pool floatie in the Boilerworks, you need to either suck or blow with the Poltergust in a specific direction. The problem is that both actions have an opposite effect to each other depending on the direction Luigi is currently facing on the tube, meaning it's easy to fall trap to Damn You, Muscle Memory! as you attempt to avoid all the hazards coming your way by, say, sucking, but end up accidentally blowing and going the other way instead. Turning is a huge issue as well, as constantly pressing in one direction with the stick does not make Luigi continue turning. While it might not be so bad if it was a one-and-done deal, the mechanic then comes back for the floor's boss. It's as fun as it sounds.
  • The time limit combined with the floor size and number of ghosts in the ScareScraper mode makes doing it in single-player almost impossible. Dark Moon's version of the mode was definitely harder as one person, but it was perfectly doable. Here, the positively sprawling floors are fine, but the time limit has not expanded for them and clocks that boost your time are seemingly random drops. This essentially prohibits a single player from clearing a five-floor tower, let alone a ten-floor one, since there's always too much to manage with no assurance that you'll find the right rooms or get enough clocks. It feels like it's built exclusively for co-op with friends or online play, the latter of which is gated behind paid membership to the Switch Online service. For completion purposes, this is a problem since the ScareScraper is where you find the rare ghosts for the gallery, and you only see them on fifth-interval boss floors, which demands that you do well when each floor is mostly up to random chance as a solo player. There are also several achievements earned in ScareScraper that are unachievable as a solo player.
  • The floors in the Scarescraper often feature a switch that all players need to stand on to unlock a door to more rooms containing ghosts. If just one of those players is occupied with catching ghosts in another room, collecting treasure, just plain ignores repeated calls of "Over here!", or is simply too far away to get to the switch room in time, the door cannot be opened and you run out of time, failing the mission. This is especially annoying if you've otherwise had a good run.
  • Then there are the random events that deliberately screw with the players, such as a power outage or taking away their Poltergusts, making them have to scrounge around the floor to find them.
  • Worst of all, though, are the various traps set around the Scarescraper floors. If a player is caught in one, they are completely helpless unless another player frees them from the trap, and there is almost no way to tell a trap apart from a normal object.
• Self-Imposed Challenge:
  • The series-wide challenge of getting as much/little money as possible is still prominent here, but unlike the first game, there is no ending rank for having an extremely small amount of cash.
  • It's possible to complete the game without slamming ghosts, save for a few mandatory cases like Polterkitty, Johnny Deepend, and King Boo. Since slamming multiple times in a row does a lot of damage, going without it makes most fights, especially bosses, last much longer than they normally would.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The first few floors of the game are quite short and have mundane themes that would appear in a real hotel (lobby, suites, shops, etc.), and their associated bosses are very straightforward to defeat. There are also a few mandatory visits to E. Gadd's lab during this time, and you don't yet have the option to instantly teleport there. It's not until you encounter Amadeus Wolfgeist, and visit Castle MacFrights afterward, that the more bizarre floor themes, intricate puzzles, and complicated boss fights really come into play.
• Squick: During an earlier part of the game, you can spy on a ghost in a bathroom brushing his teeth with a toilet brush... who then proceeds to scrub his butt with it... then brush his teeth again after doing so...
• Spiritual Adaptation: A lovable coward wearing a green shirt, and his dog, chased everywhere by ghosts? Are you sure we're not playing a Scooby-Doo game?
• That One Boss:
  • Serpci is uncharacteristically strong for a boss that doesn't guard a painting, featuring some nasty moves and requiring the player to get up close, where she is even tougher.
  • Hellen Graveley can come off as this, especially if you're playing in solo mode. It can be difficult to keep track of what's going on above the floor when you're playing as Gooigi, trying to turn off the colored laser beams. You not only have to run around below the ground to turn off the switches (and try to avoid water coming in on you later in the fight), but you also have to keep an eye on Luigi, and make sure he doesn't get clobbered by Hellen, or hit with a laser, all at the same time.
• That One Level:
  • The Tomb Suites (10F) are suitably deadly, mainly because they literally don't give the player time to think. It introduces some downright evil death traps under surprisingly strict time limits that will insta-kill Luigi if the player is too slow at figuring out how to solve its puzzles (especially the laser room one).
  • Boilerworks (B2) can be really bad, mainly because of the tube riding gimmick, which is a major pain for those who have trouble with the controls. The worst part is that it's one of the floors you'll need to revisit later in the game (and for an Escort Mission too, because of course), though mercifully, you only have to ride the tube on your first visit.
  • The Twisted Suites (11F) are pretty straight forward until the magician sisters decide to pull one final trick to keep you from facing them. They proceed to scramble the rooms meaning that the level turns into a complete maze. Yes, every room is dark until you go through it once. Thankfully, it shifts back to normal once the level is beaten.
  • The Scarescraper has become that much more difficult than in the previous game, mostly because of how much larger each floor is, and the greater abundance of traps. There are also certain obstacles that require absolute co-operation, and certain events that make things even more difficult, such as power outages. A later update made it even harder.
• That One Sidequest: Getting all of the "rare ghosts". You can only catch them in the ScareScraper, but there are a few things that make this tedious. For one, the game doesn't make it clear exactly how you even find rare ghosts; you need to play the 10 Floor Mode or 20 Floor Mode specifically, since the rare ghosts appear on the 5th floor, so playing 5 Floor Mode won't yield any rare ghosts. Secondly, the 10 floors are quite long, each floor lasting around 4 minutes apiece. Lastly, and most crucially, you can only find one type of rare ghost per run. This wasn't so bad back when there were originally only 9 ghosts but the number has since expanded to nineteen, making this quite the Luck-Based Mission since there are no measures in place to prevent you from encountering the same rare ghost types) over and over. The only saving grace is that ScareScraper is a pretty fun mode, especially with friends, but even then, that's quite the grind if you want to reach 100% completion. Then there's the themed ghosts which only appear on floors themed after certain levels from the main game. How do you get these floors to appear? DLC costumes. That's right, unless you happen to get really lucky with your ScareScraper partners, 100% completion is now locked behind a paywall.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Aside from King Boo, this is the first game in the series where the Boos have no story importance. You can capture one on each floor of the hotel through optional backtracking, but none of them pose any active threat to Luigi.
  • Despite all the sympathy he gets for being a cute and helpful Canine Companion this time around, Polterpup falls under this for some players. For someone who is initially presented as a major ally (who even appears on the boxart alongside Luigi and has an own figurine), he vanishes for most of the game, only popping up now and then to goof around and assist Luigi, just to disappear again afterwards. Consensus seems to be that he should have replaced Gooigi as the co-op-partner, especially since the latter is a Featureless Protagonist.
  • Unlike previous games in the Luigi's Mansion series, Mario is rescued before fighting King Boo. What does this amount to? Absolutely nothing, since he's hardly free for five minutes before getting captured again immediately before the boss battle begins. Players hoping that Mario and Luigi would have teamed up against King Boo were sadly disappointed. Similarly, Princess Peach has practically no role beyond being a Damsel in Distress. Contrast with the Toads, who at least serve a role in gameplay with an entire Escort Mission built around Luigi and Toad navigating the Boilerworks.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Many fans wish that there was a special cutscene when you ran out of time during the Final Boss fight, since King Boo was trying to absorb the entire hotel into the one group painting during the final stage of the boss fight. However, the player just loses all of their health and the game runs a typical Game Over screen when you run out of time, which caused some disappointment.
  • Many players would have liked to see some kind of additional scene or alternate ending that involved Morty if the player chose to spare him.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • The ghosts' human disguises at the beginning of the game are also uncanny, with their un-emotive grotesque cartoon masks.
  • On the boxart, there's just something awkward with Luigi averting Tooth Strip which looks very realistic compared to the cartoon teeth he normally has (including in-game).
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • Super Suction, for being a satisfyingly destructive powerup and requiring an entire Escort Mission to obtain it, is introduced late in the game and only has three places where it can be used. Only one of those is tied to progression through the game, with the other two merely opening up puzzles for collectibles.
  • E-Gadd's shopping network only carries three items, and nothing else is ever made available to purchase beyond that. Even then, none of the three are particularly useful aside from golden bones (which function as extra lives, and you are given one for free by E-Gadd anyways). Gem trackers show you the room where a gem is located, but it doesn't indicate how you get them, and it only works for one gem at a time, meaning you're better off just looking up the locations online. Boo trackers are slightly more useful, but Boos themselves are completely optional to catch, and all you get for your troubles is a cosmetic reward, so they're completely worthless outside of 100% completion.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The animation and visuals are ab-soul-utely spot on, with many people noting that Luigi's design is ludicrously detailed, from the stitches on the L on his cap to his overalls having polyester similar to Super Mario Odyssey. The animation itself has gotten a fair amount of praise too, with many claiming that it looks close to a film made by Pixar. The game also has complex dynamic lighting and tons of interactive objects with full physics in each room, and overall completely outclasses the original and even the Dark Moon art direction it's built on. Many reviews of the game were quick to call it one of the best-looking titles on the Switch, which already has games noted for their visuals.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • Fans were generally unimpressed by the first trailer, with many apprehensive about how similar the game looked in gameplay and visuals to Dark Moon, which had a very different direction that disappointed many fans of the first game. However, the E3 spotlight in 2019 got many of those viewers on board by showing drastically improved visuals, the return of character ghosts like the first game's, the new mechanics of the game, and the less restrictive structure, which all changed many opinions to excitement.
  • This is the game that put Next Level Games back into prestige after their highly controversial previous work (Metroid Prime: Federation Force).
• Woolseyism: In the Dutch translation, Morty is named Rogier Mortis, after the term rigor mortis, which is how the human body becomes more stiff after dying.

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