Although it was obvious that
Nintendo had invited me in order to reveal
the new multiplayer mode in Luigi's
Mansion: Dark Moon, it
certainly wasn't the thing that left a lingering impression on me.
Don't get me wrong; the upcoming 3DS title does have an
interesting take on part-cooperative, part-competitive multiplayer that
could lend to an engaging communal experience. But the thing that
really left me satisfied was a grueling, ingenious single-player boss
encounter that proved to be one of the most exciting in the history of
the brothers Mario.
I feel like I'd be
doing the honestly entertaining multiplayer mode a disservice by simply
glossing over it, so here's the short of it. The Scarescraper is a
haunted tower that you and three other would be ghosthunters climb with
the goal of ridding each floor of its otherworldly inhabitants. The
core mechanics are immediately familiar to anyone who played
Luigi's initial
adventure on the GameCube -- you
investigate rooms until you find a specter, flash your light to stun
it, and attempt to suck it in using your Poltergust 5000. Though
players can work together to round up the ghosts in a much quicker
fashion, only one person earns points from an exorcism, which is where
the competitive edge comes into play. While a fun and welcome addition,
I don't see the Scarescraper mode in Dark Moon being able to hold my
attention across multiple playthroughs. But before I could get too bummed
out over this, Nintendo let me get my hands on one of the single-player
boss encounters, which completely changed my view of Dark Moon.
There's nothing worse
than a battle against an important foe that ends up feeling like
nothing more than filler; an encounter that acts as a means of extending
a game's length, and seems to only exist in order to fill
some arbitrary quota. What's worse is a fight where the
enemy's weakness is made so readily apparent, that the mere act of
exploiting it becomes a complete waste of time. Being belittled as
a player is one the biggest turnoffs a video game can deliver, and
far too many titles are perfectly fine with this type of patronization.
The way I felt while battling a
gigantic, possessed spider in the basement of a spooky mansion in Dark
Moon was the exact opposite of what I just described. It was a
fantastic, well designed, and perfectly paced struggle that walked a
fine line that few boss battles can ever muster; challenging without
being frustrating. I always felt like I was one mistake away from
death, and yet it never felt like the game was cheating. Dark Moon
never drew a big red arrow towards the solution to each obstacle -- I had
to survey the enemy, keep inventory of my own abilities, and scour the
environment for clues in order to figure out the best action to take.
The best boss battles are
reminiscent of a perfectly-designed puzzle. Like a particularly tricky
tower in Catherine or one of the more memorable rooms in Portal, these
skirmishes should present you with a wealth of tools and leave it to
the player to figure out how to use them in unison. At first glance,
the challenge should seem impossible. There's no way I could scale that
wall, cross that chasm, or defeat that haunted spider. But what
initially plays out as cluelessly running around an environment soon
turns into methodical trial and error as the gears in your head begin
to turn. This basement in Dark Moon was lined with torches, and
something told me that the spider would be averse to fire. But the
creature wouldn't budge from his safe nook at the back of the chamber,
so I'd have to find a way to bring the
fire to him. I don't want to
spoil the exact steps I had to take in order to finally fell the beast
and capture the ghost that resided inside of him, but I can honestly
say that battling this massive, transforming creature proved to be the
most memorable boss fight in a Mario-related game since the first time
I fought Bowser in Super
Mario 64.
By the time I finally
bested the spider, I had used all of Luigi's special
abilities, turned the beast's own weapons against him, and
employed multiple natural elements to my favor in order to finally
capture the spirit that had embodied the creature. When the level
finally came to a conclusion, I felt like I had truly accomplished a
challenge using a combination of my own personal acumen, as well as an
understanding of the game's inherent vocabulary. That sweet
middle-ground is where some of my most personally rewarding game
memories reside, and I couldn't be happier to see it in
Luigi's upcoming 3DS adventure.