Luigi's Mansion

Explore a haunted mansion to rescue Mario while capturing ghosts with Professor E. Gadd's vacuum cleaner.

Luigi's Mansion is a 2001 action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo, serving as a launch title for the GameCube. It holds the distinction of being the first Mario franchise game released on that console and is one of the earliest games featuring Luigi as the main character, though not the second—earlier titles like 'Luigi's Hammer Toss' (1982) and 'Mario Bros.' (1983) also starred him. Players guide Luigi through a haunted mansion to rescue Mario, battling ghosts using a vacuum cleaner supplied by Professor E. Gadd. The title received positive critical reception for its gameplay and soundtrack, selling over 3.3 million copies to become the fifth-best-selling GameCube game of all time. While initial fan reactions were mixed, it eventually achieved a cult following and spawned two sequels on the Nintendo 3DS and Switch, along with a 2018 remake.

Quick Facts

Publisher

Nintendo

Director

Hideki Konno, Katsumi Kuga (3DS)

Producer

Shigeru Miyamoto
Takashi Tezuka
Kensuke Tanabe (3DS)
Koichi Ishii (3DS)

Composer

Kazumi Totaka, Shinobu Tanaka

Platforms

GameCube, Nintendo 3DS

Genre

Action-adventure

Modes

Single-player

Programmer

Hiroki Sotoike

Lore & Background

The story begins when Luigi wins a mansion in a contest he never entered, lured by King Boo into a trap set for the Mario Bros. Upon arriving at the sinister-looking house in a dark forest, Luigi finds Mario missing and is saved from a ghost by Professor Elvin Gadd. E. Gadd explains that King Boo created the supernatural mansion to shelter ghosts previously captured and turned into paintings by his 'Ghost Portrificationizer' machine. As Luigi navigates four distinct areas of rooms and boss fights, he discovers Mario trapped inside a painting in a secret basement altar. To progress, Luigi must capture regular ghosts and specific 'portrait ghosts' under unique conditions, collecting treasure like coins, bills, gold bars, pearls, and gems along the way. The mansion's atmosphere shifts from dark and foreboding to bright as rooms are cleared of spirits. After the game's events, Luigi's mansion is rebuilt, but it is not explicitly stated that E. Gadd builds it on the former site, nor does the treasure collected directly determine the house's size in widely-known canon.

Reader's Guide

Players control Luigi through four explorable areas separated by boss fights, plus a training room and gallery at E. Gadd's lab. The Game Boy Horror device provides a map, tracks open doors, examines objects for clues, and locates hidden Boos via beeping sounds that turn red when close. To capture ghosts, stun them with the flashlight, then vacuum them while avoiding their escape attempts. Collect three elemental medals to summon fire, water, or ice elements for puzzles and specific ghosts. Treasure is found in chests, inside objects, or by vacuuming ghosts; if hit, dropped coins must be recovered before they vanish. Completing the game unlocks 'Hidden Mansion,' featuring stronger ghosts and a mirrored layout in European/Australian versions, where traps are trickier and bosses harder. The 2018 Nintendo 3DS remake incorporates most Hidden Mansion changes across all versions but removes the mirrored mansion feature.