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Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (Luigi's Mansion 2 in Japanese, Chinese and European language versions and was tentatively titled as such in the American version) is a video game on the Nintendo 3DS, and a sequel to the Nintendo GameCube launch title Luigi's Mansion. It was developed by Next Level Games, who previously collaborated with Nintendo on Punch-Out!! for the Wii, and was released during March of 2013 with the Korea and Hong Kong/Taiwan getting it during July of that year. It is the second game in the Luigi's Mansion series.

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 amok, 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, such as a flashlight that can reveal hidden items.

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 U DLC for New Super Mario Bros. U.

An Arcade Rail Shooter adaptation of this game developed by Capcom, simply called Luigi's Mansion Arcade, was released in 2015 in Japan and 2017 in North America. A sequel for the Nintendo Switch was released in 2019.

An HD remaster entitled Luigi's Mansion 2 HD for Nintendo Switch is in development, and will release on June 27th, 2024.


Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon provides examples of:

  • 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). He even mentions having accidentally sold King Boo's painting in a garage sale. It almost enters Mad Scientist territory, as E. Gadd is seemingly even more erratic and scatter-brained than usual while sending Luigi out to once again capture hundreds of spirits if not thousands in his name. Although he's so old that Gadd may simply be going senile, if he wasn't already.
  • Absurdly Long Stairway: The second boss is located at the top of twenty sets of three staircases. Pick one of three, and either keep climbing, or slide all the way back to the beginning. Once you finally get to the top, the boss ghost clearly has a sick sense of humor, as it possesses a flight of stairs to fight Luigi with.
  • Absurd Phobia: One Toad has a phobia of clocks. He's found in the Old Clockworks.
  • Achievement Mockery: The multiplayer mode gives achievements to everyone at the end of each level, based on what they did the most of or did particularly well. Anyone who doesn't get any other type of award gets one of a few mocking achievements, such as 'Prettiest Wallflower' and 'Mostly Harmless'.
  • 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.
  • Affectionate Parody: Enter the Underground Lab in Mission E-1 to see two Greenies re-enacting the beginning of Frankenstein. If you finish the experiment for them, you find a hidden Boo.
  • All the Worlds Are a Stage: The final dungeon is Treacherous Mansion, a museum which has rooms with themes corresponding to the four previous areas, plus some themes not seen up to that point.
  • Always Check Behind the Chair: The game has lots and lots of treasure and Gold Greenies hidden in things like furniture, walls and other random decorations. And once you've done that, get out the Dark Light Device, because it turns out a lot of treasure is invisible unless you shine the light on it for a while and then vacuum the Spirit Balls that appear. It's especially true of the ScareScraper, in which every room has at least two invisible objects, a whole bunch of hidden money and goodies and likely a key or two in completely random locations.
  • Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: King Boo is fought in King Boo's Illusion, an Acid-Trip Dimension that has a swirling purplish/blue spiral on a blue landscape as a background.
  • Amplifier Artifact: King Boo's new crown.
  • And I Must Scream:
  • 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.
  • Animate Inanimate Object: The Possessors, which can turn a normal object (mostly non living ones) into this. Like frozen ponds, clocks, suits of armour and staircases. And those stairs then roar at Luigi before lunging at him.
  • Artistic Licence – Physics: The Strobulb functions effectively as a flashbang. Somehow, one variant of Greenie is able to completely nullify its effects with a simple pair of sunglasses. In reality, a pair of civilian sunglasses wouldn't be strong enough to protect against a flashbang's blind.
  • Antepiece: A couple of mechanics appear to train the player for their use against bosses.
    • Gloomy Manor's penultimate level focuses on burning the spiderwebs that have taken over the house, allowing you to practice with web balls and attached web sacs, which are used to clear out larger webs. These skills are necessary to force the Grouchy Possessor out of his spider host in the boss mission.
    • The Tough Possessor haunts suits of armor, who must be knocked onto their backs by pulling rugs out from under them. The first mission of the Treacherous Mansion features a couple of Greenies with the same tactic and defeat strategy so you know what to do when you eventually face the boss.
    • The Boos you capture throughout the game should have you well prepared for the Big Boo fight, which requires a similar approach.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • Every mission ends by having E. Gadd call you once you've completed the last objective. However, he won't call until all the gold on the field is either collected or disappears, so you won't be stopped from collecting the drops from any ghosts you just captured.
    • In Scarescraper, curses and traps are only active when there's more than one player to save others from them. In the event you're cursed or trapped and the only other people in the game disconnect, you'll automatically be freed to be spared from a Game Over or having to play the rest of the floor with inverted controls.
    • The developers of the previous game had acknowledged that the Boo Sidequest was terribly flawed and made considerable adjustments to reduce the difficulty in having to catch them this time around.
    • The game will auto-save between the Tough Possessor boss fight and the final battle with King Boo, despite them technically being part of the same mission.
  • 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. "[The spider webs are] blocking our progress AND they ruin the furniture AND they're just plain gross!"
  • Artifact Mook: The Carnivorous Plants show up in Treacherous Mansion for no real reason, including one that just happens to be sitting in a cupboard. Given that they're probably genetic experiments or something, you just have to wonder how they got all the way across Evershade Valley to a mansion in a middle of a ravine.
  • Artifact Title: Luigi explores various different places, some less mansion-like than others, in this game, rather than a single mansion as mentioned in its predecessor's title. None of them are owned by Luigi to boot, and only two are even legit mansions. The titular Dark Moon, however, is your Plot Coupon, and thus is fairly important.
  • Ascended Extra: Toads go from Save Points to being an Escort Mission, plus in said Escort Missions, they are useful for some of the puzzles.
  • Ascended Meme: The elevator music that plays in the elevator at the start of the first boss battle is a remix of the pause menu music from Mario Strikers Charged; many commenters noted at the time of Strikers release how much it sounded like Elevator Muzak. Not coincidentally, both games were developed by Next Level Games.
  • Asteroids Monster: If a Creeper ghost engulfs you and you break out, it splits into several smaller versions, which are weaker but now mobile.
  • Autosave: The game saves when you complete a mission or ScareScraper game, unlike the original title and its manual save points.
  • Background Music: Lampshaded. Luigi will hum what is actually the background music in an attempt to maintain morale.
  • Badass in Distress: Mario is kidnapped before the game properly starts and sealed in a painting, just like in the first game.
  • 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.
  • Bag of Spilling: The water, fire, and ice medals that allowed the Poltergust 3000 to suck in elemental spirits and expel the substance they represented are not brought back, nor is the Boo radar of the Game Boy Horror, although the latter was built into that machine specifically and the Poltergust 5000 gets an upgrade that works equally well.
  • Berserk Button: During the Three Sisters fight, if you try to stun a member of the trio who is looking into her mirror (instead of the one who lifts it away and becomes vulnerable), her sisters will attack you.
  • 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).
  • Beware the Silly Ones: The game turns King Boo from a snarky, sympathetic Well-Intentioned Extremist to an insane, unfettered sociopath with a vindictive streak ten miles wide who nearly destroys the universe in a mad bid for revenge.
  • Big Boo's Haunt: Unlike the first game, which took place inside a single mansion, this game has multiple haunted buildings for Luigi to explore. The first one is a typical haunted house, but the rest of them combine this trope with other Video Game Settings such as Shifting Sand Land and Slippy-Slidey Ice World.
  • 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.
  • Big, Thin, Short Trio: The Three Sisters. Sister Herlinda is the big one, sister Belinda is the thin one and sister Lucinda is the short one.
  • Blank White Eyes: All of the ghosts get these when the Dark Moon is destroyed.
  • 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 off 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 Device, which will make them taunt and open them up to a strobe flash.
    • 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, but deliberately passes up on the opportunities, suggesting that this whole thing is sadistic "fun" to him. (Much like it was last time.)
  • Bonus Stage:
    • Each mansion has one, which is unlocked by catching all the Boos in the missions prior to the boss. All of them involve clearing out ghosts from randomly chosen rooms.
    • A few missions have these as well, where a door lets Luigi access a special area where a Mini-Game is played under a time limit. Several 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).
  • Book Ends: When we first see Luigi, he is sleeping in his chair, and is jolted awake by the TV going haywire. In the end, he is back in his chair and Polterpup jumps in his lap, and they fall asleep.
  • Boss-Arena Idiocy:
    • The Big Boo in Treacherous Mansion can be broken apart by spiky objects... and there's a giant train with a drill on the front going around a track nearby for you to fling the boss at. And despite the Boos being unable to be caught in the Poltergust, said train just happens to have a bunch of circus animal style cages lying open as the the rest of its carriages, providing a nice convenient place to trap the ghosts in.
    • The Tough Possessor would be entirely invincible with its suit of armour possessing shenanigans and stuff... except the room just happens to have two infinite respawning carpets on the floor that you can suck away to trip the knights up with. And when it possesses a giant suit of armour... the two carpets are perfectly placed to trip the giant knight up in one go.
  • Boss Bonanza: The game normally has one boss per area (not counting minibosses), but The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, Treacherous Mansion, has three. The mansion's fourth mission is initially passed off as the final battle with King Boo, but Big Boo shows up in his place. After defeating him, Luigi has to fight off a horde of ghosts in the next mission. After that, the sixth mission looks like the true final battle. Luigi enters the paranormal portal and ends up in King Boo's dimension, but again, King Boo doesn't show. Instead, he must fight the Tough Possessor, last of the Possessors. Luigi defeats him and grabs the final Dark Moon piece, but when E. Gadd tries to teleport him out, King Boo hijacks the Pixelator and sucks him back in, and the Final Boss battle begins for real.
  • Boss in Mook 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 Mook Clothing is because the Vault does not distinguish 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 Mook 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, and it's fearsome since it comes long before any other Strong enemies (it does have one clever tactic too; 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: All bosses except Harsh Possessor and Overset Possessor are fought in missions solely devoted to their battles. The mission leading to Harsh Possessor has a long staircase puzzle that takes a while to navigate before reaching the whereabouts of the boss, while the mission leading to Overset Possessor requires Luigi to climb the Clock Tower in order to meet the boss at the top. For the remaining bosses, no demanding effort prior to the battle is required.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Luigi, at the game's beginning in E. Gadd's lab, has no problems silently telling the player what he thinks of the professor: that he's a bit nuts.
  • Bruiser with a Soft Center: The Slammers are this when the Dark Moon isn't broken.
  • Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": The ghost dog is similarly shaped to Poochy, including the lack of ears. It seems that dogs in the Mushroom Kingdom are ear-less animals.
  • Canon Immigrant: This game's multiplayer mode involves Luigi and three of his duplicates exploring a randomly generated dungeon together. The duplicates uses three of his alternate colors from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
  • Cartoon Bomb: Small round bombs are thrown in large numbers by the Poltergeists, as well as the third boss.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: With regard to the enemies — the Boos at first are amusing and punny, but later on they actually become quite sinister by the fourth and fifth mansions. A key scene is in D-2 in the crystal mine, where they are experimenting to make the other ghosts tougher and more vicious, and said other ghosts are visibly scared of them. King Boo is also far more frightening in this game than he was in the first.
  • Cerebus Rollercoaster: The music. The main theme is catchy and soft, while some of the rest of the soundtrack consists of ambient SFX tracks that wouldn't be out of place in a genuine horror title.
  • Charged Attack: The Poltergust 5000 can charge up Luigi's flashlight for a strobe like pulse with a greater range, meaning you don't have to spend quite as much time making more light tolerant ghosts, which is nearly all of them in this game, vulnerable, and it can stun multiple ghosts at once. The Poltergust 5000 will also build up meter the longer you attempt to suck in an object with it, allowing for a temporary extra strength pull. This allows it to shave off the health of struggling ghosts more quickly and is necessary when dealing with some ghosts which have unlimited health, so they'll never tire out and can only get sucked in with a forceful charge. Examples include Creepers, who are anchored to the ground with gooey pseudopods, and Possessors, who are weakened by pulling off layers of their skin, not by draining health. The charge is also necessary to get rid of force fields which certain strong enemies can generate, with the color of the field indicating the charge level that can remove it.
  • Checkpoint Starvation: The game has no mid-level checkpoints whatsoever and levels can take over half an hour on the first playthrough. The game isn't particularly difficult, but if you're playing poorly and getting unlucky with heart drops...
  • Chekhov's Gunman: The Polterpup first appears in the very first mansion playing with the first collectable gem of the mansion. From the second mansion onwards, you have to directly confront the aforementioned Polterpup in order to get the mansion's Plot Device so that you can get to the Dark Moon piece.
  • The Chessmaster: King Boo. The opening of E-3 makes it plain that he knew the whole time that you were spying on him and was spying right back at you, and then lures Luigi into the train exhibit to make him fight the Big Boo. This is on top of shattering the Dark Moon so that he would have an army of minions and would keep Luigi busy.
  • Clock Tower: The main sight of Old Clockworks is its huge clock tower. The boss fight against the Overset Possessor (or the Three Sisters in the arcade game) takes place here.
  • Clockworks Area: Old Clockworks, being an old clock factory, is filled with clocks and moving gears Luigi has to cross, and there's No OSHA Compliance. The Clock Tower entrance is blocked since the hands of the clock barring the passage are missing, and Luigi has to get through the factory's dangerous gears and clocks to retrieve them.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each ghost type is a different color.
  • Color-Coded Stones: There are thirteen gemstones in each of its five areas, color-coded based on the "theme" of the mansion. Gloomy Manor, which has purple spiders, has purple amethysts; the botanical Haunted Towers has green emeralds; the desert-like Old Clockworks has red rubies; Secret Mine, the snowy region, has blue sapphires, and the diamonds in Treacherous Mansion are as white as King Boo.
  • Console Cameo: E. Gadd gives Luigi a modified first generation 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.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • 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.
    • Luigi actually lives in the rebuilt mansion from the first game. Apparently the Rank D mansion is the canonical onenote .
    • 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.
    • Boolossus (under the name "Big Boo" in the English version of the game) reappears as a boss, and is fought in a similar way to the original game.
    • E. Gadd almost mentions the ghost portrificationizer until the parascope cuts him off. A part of it is used to contain the Boos you catch in the game.
    • 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 Poltergust 3000 is upgraded straight to 5000 because a Poltergust 4000 already exists.
  • 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.
  • Cowardly Boss: The Overset Possessor combines this with Flunky Boss. The arena is on a huge clock, and the Boss hides inside, sending a bunch of Mooks after you; defeating them causes the hand to move, and a new set of Mooks to appear. However, the Overset Possessor himself comes out after you defeat the ones at the four o'clock, eight o'clock, and midnight positions, and he's vulnerable then; like all the Possessors he has to be hit with the Poltergust three times to defeat.
  • Cowardly Lion: Luigi, who provides the image in this trope's page, is just as nervous and cowardly as in the prequel, but saves the day through sheer determination.
  • Creepy Basement:
    • Gloomy Manor's Cellar is home to the mansion's Possessor and its host, the Spider Queen.
    • Old Clockworks has an underground ruin with mummies!
  • 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 deal with are a few crows and a Golden Greenie, but this is where a Boo is found and a Mini-Boss battle is fought.)
  • Creepy Circus Music: The music for the level "Ambush Maneuver" is an eerie calliope waltz.
  • Creepy Doll: The Rumpus Room in the Haunted Towers features one whose head follows you around the room as you walk around it. Although its reason for moving is unexplained, the head is actually on a screw and can be fully detached if you run around it long enough. This gets you a gem.
  • Creepy Dollhouse: In the Rumpus Room, there is a large dollhouse with lights in its windows. If Luigi looks through one of the windows, he will see himself looking into the dollhouse window, as if he is somehow watching himself watch himself.
  • Cuteness Proximity: Nobody can really stay mad at the lick-happy ghost dog (named Polterpup), 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 kind of helps you like the little guy. It's the only ghost that Luigi never expresses fear towards, too... just exasperation.
  • 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. Sometimes these cutscenes contain events that completely derail the mission and stretch out the mansion.
  • Cutting Off the Branches: The game makes the D Rank ending of the first game canon.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Vacuuming up mice, bats, or spiders does not give the player any money. Rather, it's using the Strobulb on them that will get them to cough up any cash. Any players who are more familiar with the first or third game's mechanics are guaranteed to get frustrated with this system, especially if it's a golden variant of said critters.
  • Darker and Edgier: Not for the most part, as the game is largely more cartoony and comedic than the original, but specifically in how King Boo is represented, going from a fairly standard nasty by the series' standards to an unfettered sociopath with a personal vendetta against Luigi.
  • Dark Reprise: When Luigi sees Mario stuck inside King Boo's painting, a gloomy remix of the famous Ground Theme plays.
  • 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 done three times, in classic Mario boss style.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • In A-4: Visual Tricks, Luigi is supposed to retrieve the Dark-Light device from E. Gadd's Gloomy Manor lab, but the door is hidden by Spirit Balls — which Luigi would need the very Dark-Light device he's going after to remove — prompting him to take a detour. If you redo the mission with the Dark-Light device already in your possession, trying to reveal the door with it causes the Spirit Balls to emerge from the other side of the door. Even if you manage to vacuum them up through the wall anyway, the Boo responsible will simply spawn more to hide the door again (indicated by the Boo's laughter playing again), as if the developers themselves are telling you to play through the level as intended.
    • In A-Boss, Luigi needs to take the elevator to the basement, which he starts the level right in front of. If Luigi instead attempts to exit the room out of one of the doors, E-Gadd will prevent him from leaving and point him towards the elevator. If Luigi continues to do this, E-Gadd will get increasingly frustrated, ending with him yelling at Luigi to take the elevator and face the boss.
    • In the Old Clockworks area, one room features a key guarded by two Slammers... only both of them are too distracted to notice Luigi. Most players would just capture the two ghosts and then grab the key, but if you instead opt to sneak past them, grab the key, and then leave without them noticing, they'll suddenly realize the key is gone and start looking around for it.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: This is subverted. Big Boo and Tough Possessor would fill this role, but the thing is, while Luigi doesn't know that King Boo is the true Big Bad and Final Boss right away, this is obvious to the player from the start.
  • Dramatic Irony: King Boo is clearly the Big Bad as shown right from the opening cutscene, but Luigi and E. Gadd don't find out until much later.
  • Dub Name Change: In the British English localization, the Poltergeist bosses are known as Boffins, the ScareScraper is called Thrill Tower, several ScareScraper boss ghosts have different names, and some of the levels have different names (such as the final boss, which is changed from "A Nightmare To Remember" to the straight-up "Shatter The Illusion"). Even some of the rooms have different names, despite mostly being straightforward. Can throw one off a bit when consulting a text-only walkthrough.
  • Dumbwaiter Ride: In mission A-4 of Gloomy Manor, Luigi uses a dumbwaiter to get from the kitchen to the dining room to capture a Boo hiding in there.
  • Easter Egg: If Luigi stands under running water for a few seconds, he will take a shower and whistle.
  • 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 E. 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 is very afraid of something that is common in the mansion he's been assigned to), 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 mansion), Luigi has to escort two Toads.
  • Eternal Engine: Old Clockworks, an abandoned clock factory overrun by sand.
  • Exorcist Head: Parodied. In the Haunted Towers, there's a doll in the middle of a room that turns its head to face you. If you walk counterclockwise around it, its head unscrews and falls off.
  • Expy: Some of the ghosts are rather similar to the first game's.
    • Gold Greenies are like Speedy Spirits, being rare, fast, and hard to find, and netting the player lots of money when caught.
    • Slammers are like Blue Twirlers, being the resident tough bruiser ghosts of the game.
    • Gobbers are like Garbage Can Ghosts, being large Big Eater enemies that leave hazards on the floor to make it harder to catch them.
    • Creepers are similar to the Ceiling Surprise/Purple Bomber, as they are anchored to their surface, have no HP, and operate by catching the player off-guard to hurt them.
  • Faux Affably Evil: King Boo talks to Luigi like he's having a friendly chat. He does this while explaining his plans to conquer the Mario world and has already proven to be perfectly willing to put the entire universe at risk if it means getting revenge.
  • Feed It a Bomb:
    • Downplayed with the defeat strategy for the monster plants — you feed them prickly fruits (or, in one case, a flaming roast chicken), which will cause them to expire.
    • Once the defenses are broken, the Shrewd Possessor's icy host is destroyed in this way.
  • Females Are More Innocent: After Luigi beats the Three Sisters (the only female ghosts in the game), E. Gadd says that he is kinda shocked to see them behave so violently, which he doesn't even bother to say about any other ghost in the game. This may also be because they are the only ghosts to really approach character status, as they are similar to the first game's Portrait Ghosts, but without the backstory or visual detail.
  • Final Boss, New Dimension: Both the Tough Possessor and King Boo fight Luigi in a completely separate dimensional area separated from the mansion.
  • Fluffy Dry Cat: This happens to Fuzzballs when you use the Poltergust exhaust on them or pick them up and shoot them out of your Poltergust nozzle.
  • Flunky Boss:
    • The boss of the Gloomy Manor has a swarm of spiders helping it and making it a tricky maneuver when pulling the webbing toward some fire to damage the boss. However, the spiders can be useful, because if 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, with the Possessor appearing after every fourth wave.
    • 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.
    • All three bosses in the Arcade version are this, as they will summon in other ghosts to help them out.
  • Fluorescent Footprints: Luigi can use the Dark-Light Device to track the pawprints of the ghost dog Polterpup and, in the latter game, the ghost cat Polterkitty.
  • Forgot Flanders Could Do That: While Luigi is mostly portrayed (in this game and others) as rather clumsy and accident-prone, quite a few scenes in this game show him to be surprisingly handy with tools and very good at fixing things. Then you remember — he's a plumber. He does that kind of thing for a living.
  • The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: An in-universe example. When you examine the security image before E-3, you see the identity of the final boss, only for him to turn around within the static image and laugh terrifyingly before making the shot fade to static.
  • Free-Sample Plot Coupon: The titular Dark Moon is shattered into 6 pieces by a vengeance-seeking King Boo, who then entrusts 5 of the shards to 5 Possessor ghosts each. When Dark Moon shards are collected and purified, the fog that fell over Evershade Valley after the Dark Moon's destruction lightens up to reveal the next area where the other shard is. Thank goodness one of the shards landed near E. Gadd's Bunker to get the adventure started.
  • Fun with Acronyms:
    • The first letters of the five "mansions", the adjectives describing the Possessor bosses, and their unlockable ghost hunt missions spell G-H-O-S-T. And if you add in the ScareScraper, it spells ghosts.
    • In German, the first letters of the mansions and bosses spell out G-E-I-S-T. In Dutch, they spell S-P-O-O-K.
  • Furry Reminder: The final battle plays with this as more of a Mook Reminder. To defeat King Boo, you have to take advantage of the fact that, as a Boo, he'll follow you when you're not watching him and stop in place when you are.
  • Game-Breaking Bug: The key glitch, where a necessary key fails to spawn in the ScareScraper and hence the run is unwinnable. No one knows what causes it.
  • Gameplay Ally Immortality: The Toad assistants cannot be hurt or killed during their Escort Missions.
  • Gardening-Variety Weapon: Some of the Greenies in the Haunted Towers use gardening tools such as shovels as weapons.
  • "Get Back Here!" Boss: The Shrewd Possessor is like this, and the Boss Battle is very unlike any other in the game (it's sort of like a cross between a bobsled and a shooting gallery). After it takes the form of what resembles a large, monstrous face made of ice (more or less) Luigi has to chase it down a mine shaft in a motorized sled and lob bombs at it to break off its armor, at which point it makes a single attack. If Luigi manages to hit it with one more bomb in its mouth when it tries, the chase ends for the moment, and Luigi is able to use the Poltergust 5000 on the Shrewd Possessor. (The whole process has to be done three times to defeat the creature.) The Health Bar is still in use here, but the greater danger is the sled's engine overheating (which happens if the gauge goes too high, and taking too long or failing to dodge that one attack causes it to go higher).
  • Ghost Invasion: In the level "Paranormal Chaos", King Boo activates a portal that brings waves of ghosts from another world into Evershade Valley. This same portal would show up in the final boss of the arcade game, with King Boo using it to spawn the ghosts you have to deal with.
  • Ghost Train: Invoked in the level "Ambush Maneuver". Prof. E. Gadd shrinks Luigi down so he can enter a toy train set in one mansion. After activating the train, Luigi gets attacked by a giant Boo. He must fight the Boo in the train set, while the train circles around them and Creepy Circus Music plays. Ironically, though, Luigi actually uses the train to defeat the Boo, by using the big drill on its front to split the Boo into smaller Boos, then flinging them into the train cars, trapping them.
  • 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 first boss of the game is a jumbo-sized, purple spider possessed by the Grouchy Possessor. After the ghost is removed, the arachnid shrinks back to its normal size (which is however still massive for a spider).
  • Glowing Flora: A number of luminescent mushrooms grow on the Haunted Towers' large tree, adding to the supernatural atmosphere.
  • Going Through the Motions: Luigi has a few animations (most of them cowering in one way or another) while he's face-to-face with Gadd. Over the DS, he always has a "hmm mmm" expression even when Gadd is saying things that should be terrifying him and always lets out a big shudder when done with the call. Luigi always cowers with Gadd laughing every time he's sent through the Pixelator, which Gadd lampshades at one point.
  • The Goomba: Subverted with the Greenies. While they are the first ghosts fought and are the weakest of the ghosts, they are also the most creative and resourceful, as they begin to arm themselves with supplies in the area to attack with more power, and can use their weapons or armor (or sunglasses that must be pulled off) to protect themselves from your flashlight. Some even wrap themselves up as mummies!
  • Go-to-Sleep Ending: The game ends with Luigi and his new dog Polterpup cuddling up together on Luigi's recliner and falling asleep.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: The main plot has you working to collect the five missing pieces of the eponymous moon to return peace to Evershade Valley. Along with that, each area also has a collection of gemstones; get them all and you get a figurine. Each level also contains a hidden Boo to capture, and getting them all in one area unlocks its secret mission. The treasure in this game serves a smaller purpose; you can upgrade the Poltergust 5000 by collecting enough money, but the game has way more treasure than you'll ever need.
  • 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 book if you want to know about this.
    • There are also many of the gem locations, which range from 'fairly well hidden' to 'absolutely insanely out of the way'. The best known example is in Gloomy Manor, where one gem is gotten by examining a suit of armour to make its helmet fall off, then shooting it at a certain painting. The helmet only falls off in two missions; the third one and the secret one. The painting might only even appear in those two as well. Good luck figuring that out!
  • Happily Adopted: At the end of the game, the red-collared Polterpup gets adopted by Luigi.
  • Harder Than Hard: ScareScrapper has Normal, Hard, and Expert, the last of which fits this to a tee. The description literally states 'virtually impossible on your own', which in this case means 'if you're playing solo, expect to have to take on about 10-15 difficult enemies in one tiny room and get crushed' Seriously, 20 odd floors of Hunter or Surprise mode on Expert is damn near suicidal, and 25 floors of Rush mode is basically a death wish. Endless also ends up coming under this, since it seems to start off on hard mode difficulty and end up being as tough or even more so than expert by about the 10th floor.
  • Heel Realization: Some of the ghosts at the end, when the Dark Moon restores them to sanity. The Polterpup looks particularly ashamed of his repeatedly obstructive actions beforehand. Luigi instantly forgives him.
  • Hell Is That Noise:
    • An eerie, low hum plays when there's an invisible Boo flying about.
    • The music that plays in the Garage and Haunted Graveyard certainly qualify.
    • Distant Piano, which is odd because the actual Library Piano it's supposed to be a distant version of is rather catchy and not at all scary.
    • Luigi has an in-universe case when the first mummy appears in C-2.
  • Hijacked by Ganon: The game plays with this trope. Luigi and Professor E. Gadd don't know who broke the Dark Moon, end up fighting off a bunch of Possessors, and only in the last mansion realize that recurring villain King Boo was behind everything. The player, on the other hand, knows this from the start.
  • 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 takes advantage of his Boo shyness to position him right under one of the falling spiked balls he summons, King Boo is stunned for a couple of seconds, letting Luigi use the Poltergust 5000 on him.
  • 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".
  • Idle Animation: Luigi has quite a few, including but not limited to adjusting the Poltergust 5000 and fiddling with his mustache. He even has a few idle animations specific to different environments-for example, in Old Clockworks, Luigi sometimes sneezes if you leave him alone long enough.
  • Impact Silhouette: The Polterpup leaves ghostly versions of these, only visible by dark-light, to indicate which walls it's traveled through.
  • Improbable Weapon User: The Greenies typically arm themselves with things like shovels and rolling pins, along with garbage can lids to use as shields. They'll pick up 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).
  • Inescapable Ambush: Happens when ghost begin attacking Luigi, but unlike in the first game it's not a door being blocked, but a magical gate popping out of the floor and barricading anything from an opening to a set of stairs until all nearby ghosts are caught. In these games, this is also marked by the lights immediately going off whenever an ambush occurs.
  • Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: A justified example; they disintegrate after you use them. Luigi quickly gets used to this tendency. In an old demo, the keys were eaten by the door instead.
  • Internal Reveal: The player knows from the start that King Boo is responsible for the Dark Moon shattering, but E. Gadd and Luigi don't discover this until late into the game.
  • It's Personal: When King Boo finally meets with Luigi face to face, it's clear that this time, despite his composure, that he's really pissed. This combines with some Terms of Endangerment to create some really quite creepy dialogue.
    Hey, if isn't my old pal Luigi. Or is it Baby Luigi? I can't tell the difference. Remember when you sealed me in a painting for all eternity? Good times.
  • Jump Scare:
    • While perhaps not so much to the player, Sneakers are the embodiment of this to Luigi, as their M.O. is sneaking up behind him and giving him a startle powerful enough to break his concentration and interrupt any ghost captures he may be attempting.
    • Subverted in the intro sequence. A Greenie is shown approaching Professor E. Gadd from behind, but as it turns out, he doesn't actually want to scare him.
    • In D-2, you find ghosts being strengthened by being encased in crystals. By the time you get up to them, they disappear, so you peek into one, and see nothing...until a Sneaker abruptly pops up inside before breaking out.
    • Looking into the Workshop window in D-3 gives you a glimpse of the Shrewd Possessor trying to kill a Fuzzball, but the ghost notices you and disappears. Then it pops up right against the window.
    • 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.
  • Jungle Japes: Haunted Towers evokes this, as the house was built close to a large tree whose branches and leaves have overrun it and destroyed its middle section. The exhibit which corresponds to it in the Treacherous Mansion is more of a straight jungle.
  • Kill Enemies to Open: Instead of vine barriers like the original, the game uses purple-colored energy jails that lock up all exit doors until all ghosts in the current area are capture. There's also a special case during the third mission of the fourth area (Secret Mine), when three powered-up ghosts seal the entrance to a cableway car with magical energy chains. These chains are linked to the life force of the ghosts, so Luigi has to hunt them down as he revisits previous rooms.
  • Kill It with Fire: The fire medal that let Luigi turn the Poltergust 3000 into a flamethrower doesn't show up in this game, but he can still make use of torches, logs, spider sacs, 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. Creepers are 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, and take the form of little Boo Balls when defeated.
  • 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, from five types based on the regular ghosts (save for Hiders). The last floor always has The Brain (another Poltergeist boss). Each of the Scarescraper bosses add gimmicks; Bomb Brothersnote  carry huge bombs and drop smaller ones while being vacuumed, Beetle Whisperersnote  have regenerating shields and summon Beetles, Terrible Teleportersnote  create portals to other rooms, Primordial Goosnote  and Creeper Launchersnote  can create Creepers (full-size and mini Creepers, respectively), and The Brain can free himself from the Poltergusts.
  • The Klutz: Luigi sometimes trips and falls while running and when you fail sucking up ghosts. He recovers quickly and it happens infrequently enough to not be annoying and it doesn't hinder gameplay.
  • Knight of Cerebus: King Boo is much more of a threat than he was in the last game, and is even scarier than before, rivaling even the RPG villains for the title of Most Evil Mario Villain.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Prof. Gadd provides this (naturally, since he's one of the only two talking characters), such as the way the same cutscene plays when Luigi pixelates to a level ('You don't have to cower in fear every time, you know. You've done this over a dozen times and nothing's gone wrong.'), the way they're stuck with each other in the same small bunker, and the way Luigi can carry big items around with him (see Bag of Holding).
  • Last Lousy Point: One of the E. Gadd medals requires 100% Completion of the Vault (Gems, Boos, etc.) One of the stipulations is catching one of every type of Ghost, including all of the variants of the Scarescraper bosses. With 5 different bosses, and each having 9 different skins, this means you have 45 of them to catch, and the game randomly chooses from the lot every 5 floors. The game can sometimes be generous and provide you with a long streak of uncaught ghosts, but other times, you can expect to play it out for that last turtle-skinned Gobber for at least a few hours.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Like in the first game, Luigi occasionally hums along to the background music.
  • Lighter and Softer: To the first game, in many ways. While the original was a genuinely scary experience (by Nintendo standards), Dark Moon is much more comedic, has separate missions and more puzzle-solving elements than survival, and the aesthetic is much more stylized and quirky, with Hollywood Darkness in contrast to the true darkness of the first game. The original also has descriptions of the portrait ghosts, how they lived and how they died; this game doesn't have the portrait ghosts anymore.
  • Long Song, Short Scene:
    • The Polterpup songs are all differently orchestrated versions of the same tune, but are all only played in a very short cutscene and overlaid with many, many sound effects. It's noticeable enough that no one's ever figured out what these entire songs sound like.
    • There are tons of these in the Possessor (boss) battles. This is because each battle has about six different songs played: one for each 'hit point' the boss has (it gets faster as the battle progresses, except when against the Tough Possessor), one when the Possessor is trying to charge at Luigi outside of its host, one when the Possessor is being captured via the Poltergust, one when Luigi picks up the Dark Moon piece... Each of these songs is likely to be stopped rather quickly during normal gameplay, and completely wrecked by sound effects to boot.
    • The music for when you pause during a mission is awfully long for a screen players will probably only spend less than 15 seconds on.
  • Lost in Translation: Big Boo is actually Boolossus from the first game. You can only know this if you're playing the Japanese version of the game due to the Dub Name Change, though.
  • Made O' Gold: There is a gold bone you can obtain, which serves as a 1-Up should Luigi die. Upon his HP going to zero when he's carrying one, the polterpup, a ghost dog, will run up, eat the bone, and lick him to restore his health.
  • Man-Eating Plant: These appear frequently in the Haunted Towers, and there is just one in the Treacherous Mansion. They're completely unrelated to Piranha Plants, strangely.
  • Marathon Level: Secret Mine only has three missions compared to the other mansions' five, but said missions are among the longest in the game.
  • Meaningful Background Event:
    • 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.
  • Medium Awareness: Luigi jumps at his own mission complete screen, although since it's serving as a Pixelator monitor, it may be justified.
  • Metal Slime:
    • The Gold Greenies only appear if you search in certain vases, drawers, etc., and once you find them, they run around you in circles. (Except for one area in the Secret Mine where there are two of them that attack Luigi.) 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 or a wad of dollar bills if you use the flashlight on them quick enough.
  • Mind-Control Eyes: The ghosts have visible pupils when they're not corrupted.
  • Mineral MacGuffin: Crystals from the Secret Mine are used to power up the ghosts.
  • Mini-Boss: The Poltergeists (each fought in a different level, and each of which requires a different strategy to be defeated) and the Three Sisters (fought together in one battle). They're strong, but do not make up for major boss battles as they're part of standard missions.
  • Mishmash Museum: While the Treacherous Mansion generally has its museum exhibits delineated in ways that make sense and reference the themes seen in all previous locations, the first floor northwest room based on the Secret Mine has an igloo and a woolly mammoth together apparently only because they're both associated with ice. Justified in-universe: according to Professor E. Gadd, the guy who built the place was rather kooky.
  • Money Is Experience Points: Collecting enough coins will raise the Poltergust's level. Aside from that, collecting enough coins gives you a higher chance of finding a Gold Bone.
  • 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. These two ways of making money stack as well.
    • The golden spiders (and bats, rats, crows, and so on) that roam the grounds and yield money when defeated.
  • Monster Compendium: E. Gadd's Vault, where the ghosts Luigi has captured in his quests (both in the story mode and in the Scarescrapper) are recorded. Each ghost type (be it mook, mini-boss or boss) has its own log entry.
  • Monster of the Week: Each boss of every location has a creature or object possessed by a Possessor.
  • Multi-Mook Melee: In the final level before the boss in Treacherous Mansion, the timed ghost hunt culminates in a fight with a horde of over 20 ghosts, who come in waves from the portal on the Terrace.
  • Mummy: Mummies appear in the ruins section of the Old Clockworks. Unwrapped, they're actually Greenies on stilts.
  • Murphy's Bed: In the first mansion. When Luigi sits on the rather large bed in one of the rooms, it swings up against the wall that the headboard is adjacent to, tossing the poor guy into the next room. This is needed to progress in a couple of missions, and is used to access a 'secret room' in the arcade version.
  • 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.
  • Musical Nod:
  • My Brain Is Big: Poltergeists, also known as Boffins. This is lampshaded by the name of the super Poltergeist in both the ScareScraper mode as well as the boss of Gloomy Mannor in the arcade version, "The Brain".
  • Mythology Gag:
    • The Toads make a squeaking sound whenever they walk, like in the DIC Entertainment cartoons.
    • 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."
  • 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 (which makes you wonder how secure all the other ghosts Luigi caught in the first game are...)
  • Nightmarish Nursery: the Rumpus Room in Haunted Towers. It's a playroom containing a Creepy Doll that follows Luigi's gaze by rotating its head to any angle, some Scary Jack in the Boxes that do an Evil Laugh, and a Creepy Dollhouse that, when looked into, gives the player another third person view of Luigi instead of the first person view you usually get when looking into things.
  • 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: Boos are the only ghosts in the game to lack translucence and glowing effects, instead appearing as solid white ghosts like in other Mario games. This was not the case in the first game.
  • Nonstandard Game Over: If you blow up the bomb sled by taking too long against the Shrewd Possessor or run out of time during the penultimate Treacherous Mansion mission, it's an automatic game over.
  • No OSHA Compliance: You'd be hard pressed to find any security feature in the Old Clockworks, which are filled to the brim with moving and dangerous gears. Luigi can even walk freely on the conveyor belts and gears. The original version of the Old Clockworks implied that the reason they were abandoned was because one of the workers was pulled into the gears and crushed to death. Said version even contained articles of clothing visibly caught in the gears.
  • Numbered Sequels: In the Japanese, Chinese and European language versions. The Switch remaster calls it Luigi's Mansion 2 HD across the globe.
  • Obliviously Evil: Unlike the other Evershade Valley ghosts, the loss of the Dark Moon hasn't made the Polterpup Luigi encounters throughout the story hostile. It's simply lonesome and wants someone to play with, but its antics still cause trouble for Luigi.
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: The Boo of mission E-3, Booreaucrat, acts like this towards Luigi, stating that the mansion is under the ownership of King Boo and that he would be penalized due to not having an ID and mansion-roaming licenses on him. He attacks just like any other Boo in the game.
  • Obviously Evil: King Boo, even more so than last time.
  • Oddball in the Series: Became this in hindsight with the release of Luigi's Mansion 3 which was a return to the more exploration-based gameplay style of the original game. This game features a cartoonier artstyle, a linear mission-based gameplay structure, takes place over the course of multiple mansions, has a generally lighter atmosphere, and finding Mario doesn't become your main objective until the last chapter.
  • Odd Name Out: The only game in the series that does not have a numerical digit, though it did in the Japanese, Chinese and European language versions. This would be rectified with the Switch remaster, where it is titled Luigi's Mansion 2 HD in all regions.
  • 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.
    • Impressively, some of the ghosts start having this reaction to Luigi as he builds up a reputation in Evershade Valley. Instances include a Greenie in the B-3 mission, a Strong Sneaker in the C-5 mission, and five Greenies at once in the E-1 mission.
  • Ominous Music Box Tune: There are some jack-in-the-boxes in the Haunted Towers' Rumpus Room that play a music box version of the "Library Piano" music before popping out and doing an Evil Laugh.
  • 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. Only three spirits are confirmed to have once been living humans (the Three Sisters), while the others are implied to be organic supernatural forces, which is a similar dichotomy between the Portrait Ghosts and the regular enemies from the first game.
  • Overheating: The Poltergust 5000 can be modified to let Luigi's flashlight shine "dark-light", which reveals and makes solid what ghosts have made invisible and intangible. The dark light feature only lasts a few seconds before it has to cool off, however. This will be upgraded for a longer limit with money.
  • Palette Swap:
    • The sets of gems in each of the mansions are identical, but they have different colors for each area.
    • All of the ScareScraper boss ghosts are large palette swaps of ghosts found in the single-player campaign, and each of the five types has eight of its own palette swaps in the form of themed skins.
  • 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: The Hiders embody this, lurking in various pieces of furniture and popping out with a laugh if Luigi tracks them down. Several other ghosts get in on the game, too.
  • Phantom-Zone Picture: Once again, Mario gets trapped into a painting, and this time some Toads fall victim to this as well. Unlike in the first game, they're not able to move around in the portrait. King Boo also wants to do this to Luigi and Professor E. Gadd, but it thankfully never happens.
  • Pinball Gag: Capturing the Boos essentially boils down to this — you use the Poltergust to pull on their tongues, then let go and watch them bounce all over the room.
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The first mission in the Haunted Towers is called "A Job For a Plumber", and indeed, Luigi has to restore the water supply to the mansion to complete the mission. Of course, the way he does it — fighting ghosts, monstrous crows, and Man-Eating Plants — isn't the type of thing you learn for such a profession. Professor E. Gadd's statement after finishing the mission implies he doesn't know that Luigi is actually a plumber by trade either.
  • Plot-Induced Illness: In the ScareScraper mode, there is a curse status effect that reverses your controls and can only be cured by using another player's Dark-Light. It comes complete with coughing from the player and is contagious, too.
  • Portal Network:
    • 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 six pairs of teleporters for navigation, however, with the main hall hosting portals to various exhibits throughout the mansion. These are especially critical because they serve as the only way to carry puzzle-relevant items on your vacuum between rooms, since you cannot use doors with an item on the end of your Poltergust.
  • Post-Final Level: The final mansion is the Treacherous Mansion, but after clearing it, Luigi is transported to King Boo's Illusion for the last showdown.
  • Pre-Final Boss: Luigi faces the Tough Possessor to retrieve the final shard of the eponymous Dark Moon, and then King Boo who aims to turn him into a painting like he did with Mario before.
  • Pulling Themselves Together: Luigi has to fight Greenies possessing suits of armor in the Treacherous Mansion; in most cases, he has to defeat them by knocking them over, causing the armor to break apart and making the ghost vulnerable. However, in the Boss Battle with the Tough Possessor later, it can possess two — and then three — suits of armor at once, and if Luigi knocks only one down, it will put itself together quickly. To make the Tough Possessor vulnerable, he has to knock them all down at the same time. (Unfortunately, once he manages to do that twice, it possesses one gigantic suit of armor...
  • Pulling the Rug Out:
    • This is how you defeat the Tough Possessor. It first divides itself to possess multiple regular suits of armor, which all must be lured onto one rug, which then must be pulled out with the Poltergust to force the Possessor to exit and regroup. (Some Greenies have a similar tactic and defeat in an earlier mission.) Then it possesses a gigantic suit of armor whose huge feet you need to lure onto separate carpets which must be pulled out in succession.
    • Luigi can also do this to himself, if you have him vacuum up a rug while he's standing on it.
  • Punny Name: Like last time, all the Boos have puns for names. Several of the levels do as well, such as A-5 (A Sticky Situation), C-5 (Piece At Last), and the final boss (A Nightmare To Remember, at least in American English).
  • Randomly Generated Level:
    • All the floors in the multiplayer mode are randomly generated (including the types of enemies and boss ghosts found within).
    • Intrusion Missions use the normal mansion layout, but the enemies appear in random rooms.
    • The smaller cobwebs you need to suck up in "A Sticky Situation" are randomly generated each time you visit the level.
  • Reality-Breaking Paradox: In the "Paranormal Chaos" mission, King Boo creates a portal that summons a horde of ghosts, which threatens to create an effect like this unless Luigi can defeat the horde within a time limit (seeing as this is a Timed Mission, it is implied that it happens if you fail to do so).
  • Recurring Riff: The classic theme from the previous game returns in some scenes.
  • 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. A circular spotlight suggests that it is Luigi looking through the dollhouse window at himself looking through the dollhouse window.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter
    • The Toads, even more so than in other games. They're prone to hugging Luigi upon rescue and high-fiving him after solving a puzzle, make a squeaky noise like a soft toy when walking around, get scared easily and cry if they're separated from Luigi for too long, and yell "Wheeee!" if you send them flying with your vacuum.
    • The Secret Mine has Fuzzballs, little fluffy monsters that are only interested in sleeping and playing with Luigi. While they can get stuck in your vacuum and be a nuisance, they frequently roll around to move, and their fur can adorably poof out if you blow on them with the Poltergust. One even smiles at you when the Possessor tormenting it notices you watching through the Workshop window and leaves it alone.
  • Rolling Pin of Doom: This is one weapon that Greenies use in the game, mostly in the kitchen of the Gloomy Manor, a place you'd likely expect to find a rolling pin; they tend to use weapons that fit the place they're in.
  • Running Gag:
    • Luigi falling in a different way almost every time he is transported by the Pixelator.
    • Each Possessor scaring Luigi in a different way.
    • Luigi celebrating after defeating each boss, only for something to appear and startle him.
  • The Sacred Darkness: The Dark Moon itself. It normally projects a powerful calming shade on Evershade Valley that allows the ghosts there to exist happily and peacefully. King Boo shattered it and corrupted the fragments to empower certain ghosts as his minions, but E. Gadd is able to purify any fragments Luigi recovers to their original state.
  • Save-Game Limits: An interesting variant, in that you can't COPY the save files. You can save three of them, continue at any time, save after any mission and delete them, but for whatever reason the copy functionality doesn't exist.
  • "Save the World" Climax: The game's story goes from Luigi having to prevent Ghosts from causing chaos in Evershade Valley to stopping the entire dimension from collapsing.
  • Scary Jack-in-the-Box: There are plenty of them, and it's made worse by this theme/laugh that plays when you activate them.
  • Sea Sinkhole: The Treacherous Mansion somehow stands on a very precarious rock in the middle of one of these.
  • 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. Probably wouldn't have broken out so quickly if Elvin Gadd didn't sell his portrait in a garage sale...
  • See the Invisible: The Dark-Light Device attachment allows you to expose illusions (revealing items that ghosts have removed from the physical plane) and ghosts that are currently sneaking around invisible. This is required for some Greenies in the Old Clockworks, who will not come out of hiding until exposed with the dark-light.
  • Sequel Hook: At the end of the game, Elvin Gadd releases all the imprisoned ghosts after the Dark Moon is fully restored; the remote used to do so has a button for this. It also has a button for releasing the Boos. In Luigi's Mansion 3, one half of the Big Bad Duumvirate, Hellen Gravely, tricks Professor E. Gadd into coming into the hotel so she can re-release King Boo and trap E. Gadd, the Mario Bros. and their friends in portraits. However, the remote is never mentioned.
  • Shifting Sand Land: The Old Clockworks combine this trope with Eternal Engine and Big Boo's Haunt. Sand can be absorbed with the Poltergust 5000, but there are other dangers to watch for (such as ghosts disguised as mummies). The boss is the Overset Possessor, which takes control of the topmost floor's clock.
  • Shockwave Clap: Slammers use this as an attack.
  • Shoo Out the Clowns: Once Luigi gains access to Treacherous Mansion, the Toads have all been found and Polterpup is captured and stays captured. The scares become more and more frequent along with the danger.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The opening scene has nods to Poltergeist and TRON.
    • Luigi playing with the teleporters brings to mind the TV advertisement for Portal 2.
    • The final story mission, "A Nightmare to Remember", 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".
    • Continuing the previous Ghostbusters shout-outs, there is now a ghost containment machine.
    • In the jungle exhibit inside the Treacherous Mansion, there are Greenie ghosts that use spears to attack. These spears have Tiki masks on them, namely Kalimba from Donkey Kong Country Returns.
  • Sibling Seniority Squabble: Subverted with the Three Sisters in that the fact of who is older is the debate, as their bios state that Sister Herlinda and Belinda both claim the other is the eldest.
  • Silent Snarker: Luigi shows signs of this during the few moments he's not scared out of his mind.
  • Slapstick: When something goes wrong for poor Luigi, nine times out of ten, it's going to go wrong in the most humorous way possible. Luigi ends up on his butt or flat on his face at least once a mission. This also applies to the Boo defeat method- pulling back on their tongues to ricochet them around the rooms they appear in.
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Secret Mine, located within a snowy region. The ice terrain makes the navigation more difficult, especially during the Escort Mission as the Toad is afraid of thin ice.note 
  • Snowy Sleigh Bells: The music that plays during the boss fight against the Shrewd Possessor in the chilly Secret Mine is rythmed by sleigh bells.
  • Songs in the Key of Panic: The game does this all the time. The bonus missions all have three versions of the theme, with the last being at three times the speed to go with the increased number of ghosts and tense atmosphere. And the bosses do this too, with the last phase having super sped up music to go with the Turns Red feel. There's also the 'you are going to die soon' music used in the multiplayer's Rush Mode, which feels even more urgent as the timer goes down. The one odd subversion is the Tough Possessor fight, where the music actually slows right down for the final phase to go with the Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever feel.
  • So Proud of You:
    • E. Gadd tearfully says this to Luigi right before the final battle, after spending the entire game making jokes at his expense.
    • Mario's compliments to Luigi after being saved from being a painting.
  • Speaks in Binary: One of the Boos, Combooter, says the word "Boo" like this.
  • Spot the Thread: The Spirit Ball illusions work in this way, as they are objects turned invisible by ghosts. Noticing them requires either a good memory of the layout from earlier missions or an eye for missing pieces through suspicious asymmetry or conspicuous doormats and the like.
  • Stealthy Mook: The Sneakers are ghosts who go behind Luigi while invisible in order to scare him while he's in the middle of sucking up other ghosts, only appearing visible during their scares or for very brief moments during their sneaking. The Dark-Light Device can reveal their location, but when capturing ghosts, this is not an option.
  • Stompy Mooks: The possessed suits of armour controlled by the Tough Possessor are like this. Their maces hitting the floor when they attempt to hit Luigi only make things even louder.
  • Stupidity Is the Only Option: While capturing them isn't required, there are a couple of Greenies in the Treacherous Mansion that will only come out if you fall for their pranks. The first time, it is likely they will genuinely fool the player, but in replays, you still have to willingly lead Luigi into their tricks if you want to catch the ghosts.
  • Suddenly Voiced: This is the closest the series has gotten to full voice-acting since Super Mario Sunshine — while the characters don't directly speak their lines, they have some clear English phrases. This is most noticeable in the ending, when Mario congratulates Luigi.
  • Super Cell Reception: Zig-zagged. The Dual Scream has pretty bad reception when Luigi goes underground, but it works perfectly fine when he's in an alternate dimension.
  • Super Spit: Gobbers' main method of attack is spitting goo at Luigi. It damages you if it falls on top of him, or it can fall on the floor, which you can slip on.
  • Surprise Slide Staircase: Those are encountered a few times during the game, most notably if you choose the wrong paths during the ascent of the Eerie Staircase in the Haunted Towers.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: A few of the ghost types are expies of ghost types from the first game (see above).
  • Swallow the Key: Luigi has to deal with the playful yet mischievous Polterpup, who eats the items he needs to progress in three different levels. Each level ends with Luigi finally capturing Polterpup after traversing the entire area and chasing the dog throughout said area. The first two times, Polterpup manages to escape captivity, thus setting up his additional appearances, but after the third time, Luigi gets the dog sealed up for good.
  • Take Over the World: King Boo's ultimate goal, at least what he claims.
  • Teleporter Accident: King Boo intercepts Luigi and drags him to a different dimension while he's being pixelated back after the Disc-One Final Boss.
  • Television Portal: How Luigi first gets to the Bunker.
  • Tempting Fate: Before starting one of the missions, E. Gadd jokes to Luigi that he doesn't have to cower in fear every time the Pixelator starts up, as he's used it a dozen times and nothing went wrong. After the battle with the Tough Possessor, the Pixelator is hijacked by King Boo to beam Luigi to his own dimension. The resulting Oh, Crap! from Gadd after he sees that Luigi didn't return carries a hint that Gadd thought it was his fault.
  • Terms of Endangerment: Just before the final battle, King Boo taunts Luigi in a very friendly-unfriendly way.
    Hey, if it isn't my good buddy Luigi! Or is it Baby Luigi? I can't tell from here! Hey, remember when you sealed me in a painting for all eternity? That was a laugh, I can tell you!
  • Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: The music that plays in each mansion is a variation of the same melody, arranged and orchestrated differently, likely as an extension of the first game having one theme for the bulk of the mansion. A few examples:
    • Gloomy 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 buried mummy-filled environment.
    • Secret Mine has the melody played on bells and a quiet electric bass harmony to create a mysterious atmosphere.
    • Treacherous Mansion has an ominous woodwinds and strings melody to evoke a lurking danger.
    • Numerous Ghost Themes, these two for example, take on the main melody.
  • Theme Naming: 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. In addition, putting the first letter of each of the Possessors' names spells out "GHOST".
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Nicely summarizes Luigi's demeanor throughout the whole game. Also his reaction to the fifty-foot living knight armor boss.
  • Timed Mission:
    • Every multiplayer floor and boss battle has a time limit. Run out and it's game over.
    • So does the final non-boss level of the single-player game, "Paranormal Chaos."
  • Toilet Humor:
    • Gobbers, the obese yellow ghosts, run off this.
    • The Polterpup urinates on a garden in Haunted Towers.
    • 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 the Treacherous Mansion, a bathroom is haunted by 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 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.
    • 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, disguising 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.
    • King Boo has become noticeably more ruthless and sociopathic since the last game, now being willing to experiment on or use his fellow ghosts as bait and attempting to destroy the entire universe when his plans go awry. One of his lines before the Final Boss shows just how much more dangerous he's become:
      King Boo: And now I'm painting the town RED!
  • Trouser Space: Lampshaded. Luigi occasionally needs to take large items (often being half of Luigi's size) back to the Bunker. One time, when you're taking three of them back to a level, E. Gadd chuckles and says "It's a good thing you have such deep pockets in those overalls!"
  • Turns Red: The Possessors become more difficult as you take away their defenses by pulling off their skins, which become progressively redder.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: The Scornful/Shrewd Possessor boss has you man a bomb-launching sled to blow up its giant ice face first-person style. You use similar machines twice before in the game — once earlier in the level to shoot burning charcoal, the other back in the second level as an optional way to get money and a Gem — but it can still be jarring (especially since it requires more precision and you only have a limited amount of time before the sled overheats).
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable:
    • The Thrill Tower/ScareScraper if a necessary key fails to spawn. There's also the story from this article's comments of someone who managed to quit between the Tough Possessor and final battle and find themselves locked out of the final boss and ending as a result.
    • You can lock yourself out of Treacherous Mansion if you play around with ghosts, teleporters, and objects in the Nautical Exhibit. But you have to be really, really trying to pull this one off.
  • Unique Enemy: While they belong to a class of recurring minibosses, there is only one Ancient Poltergeist and Strong Poltergeist in the game.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Treacherous Mansion. It's a huge castle-like structure suspended on a tiny piece of land above a gigantic ravine/waterfall, which also happens to be a museum based on the earlier levels in the game.
  • Victory Pose: He'll start off with a happy leap into the air (complete with streamers). Then once the Results screen tallies his earnings and stats, he'll shrug or dance depending on the rank.
  • Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: King Boo and his fellow Boos are a much more serious threat than before, in comparison to the berserk ghosts native to Evershade Valley who were just merely causing mischief. In fact, it is when Luigi discovers that King Boo is behind all of this that the story starts to become very serious.
  • Voodoo Shark: Luigi uses E. Gadd's teleport system called The Pixelator to go from his bunker to each level, and regardless of where Luigi's at, he can always be pixelated back at the level's end. At some points, the game features Escort Missions where you need to rescue E. Gadd's Toad employees from paintings so they can be pixelated back as well. However, you still need to escort them to specific points so they can be pixelated out, a problem Luigi doesn't have to deal with. E. Gadd tries to justify it by saying he can't pixelate two characters at the same time, and you need to escort the Toad to his own Pixelator Screen before Luigi can get teleported out, and this is a Voodoo Shark in two ways. First, at no point is it explained why E. Gadd can't simply pixelate them one at a time. Second, the final escort mission has you rescuing two Toads, and they use their Pixelator Screen at the same time.
  • 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 covers his face in shyness and cannot attack Luigi or even move. This weakness is part of the strategy needed to defeat him.
  • Weapons That Suck: Luigi once again uses a Poltergust vaccuum cleaner to suck up ghosts.
  • What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: E. Gadd says this as he's briefing you on the first mission of the clock tower area. As usual for this trope, his words tempt fate.
  • 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 he's never seen taking 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).
  • Wolfpack Boss: The Three Sisters; technically 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 those cases, it's a lot of common enemies and a more powerful one behind them.
  • Zerg Rush:
    • The game likes to simply throw a large number of Greenies at you in a small room, which can cause you quite a bit of difficulty if they get on top of you. Doubly so if they're equipped.
    • The Overset Possessor's fight turns into this near the end.
    • This is the whole point of mission E-5, when a paranormal portal opens in the mansion, releasing a large number of ghosts. Luigi must quickly capture them before the dimension itself collapses, and the level culminates with an absurd amount of ghosts fighting Luigi at once.

Alternative Title(s): Luigis Mansion 2

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