#op filler sure has its gems!

[o0kawaii0o]

oh mama

#back to drawing sillies #it's selfcare guys #op filler sure has its gems! #and this is one of them #one piece #roronoa zoro #op #o0kawaii0o

[cardandpixel]

Top 8 Grab & Go Games...

When it comes to packing for anything it's safe to say I'm atrocious. I overpack for even a simple evening away (sorry, for those still following the 20th C, 'evening away's are something we used to do before we took up as permanent residents of our soft furnishings). I've often had this discussion with friends and colleagues - the simplest one is "how many pairs of pants do you need for x-time away"?  The obvious formula here is xdays + 1 for emergencies, but this thinking is waay too simplistic and covers a pitiful array of contingencies. I would argue that a sudden and catastrophic change of weather to downpour conditions needs to be considered, as does an unexpected drive-by of a large lorry thru an adjacent puddle, fall in a stream/burn or river, being unexpectedly caught in a fountain based celebration etc etc etc. This immediately doubles or even triples the amount of basic layers - pants, socks, trousers, tees etc. And then, we can relax into actual choices for formal vs casual, sudden wedding invitations whilst away and national or academic award ceremonies. It's a minefield. Unfortunately, this approach to covering the bases has translated thru to my boardgaming. I blame Ikea. Frankly their big blue bags allow the simple transportation of many, many titles, including some decent sized heavyweights. Never tried it, but I'd reckon you'd have a reasonable shot at getting TI4, Gloomhaven and possibly 7th Continent in just one of Ikea's capacious holdalls. As a result, I used to turn up to games evenings at work with at least 2 Ikea holdalls of big box games (for an evening that in honesty, we'll only really have time for 1 or 2 games), but with the added bonus bag now which includes what I call my 'grab shelf'. Games that are my usual suspects, these are usually my filler or party games designed to give us warm-up plays or while we're waiting for others to arrive at 7. (We did say 7 didn't we: I'm sure we said 7... was it definitely today?) So here's my round up of the games that we rarely leave home without - we actually do keep them on the top of a bookshelf in the games room and sort of 'scoop' them into a bag if we're in a hurry! These are in no particular order of favour, and most probably just what I can recall from the shelf next door, there will also be some crossover with a list I wrote a while ago on 'little' games...... 1) POINT SALAD - AEG Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, Shawn Stankewich apx £16 This deceptively simple card game has become a house favourite since we were invited to play it at Airecon one night in the hotel. It's a simple set collection game with a little twist. The vegetable cards to collect have scoring criteria on the other side. A scoring card may be flipped and converted to a veg card once in your hand but not back to a scoring card. The scoring cards are achievements like 'lowest number of lettuces =10pts', 'pepper+lettuce+onion = 5pts per set' etc. The 'market' starts with 3 rows of cards, scoring side up and 2 cards are flipped to veg side next to each. Players will take either one scoring card or 2 veg. The game is tricky enough in terms of optimising your own tableau, but factor into that if you start paying attention to what your opponent is trying to do, the game soon gets highly strategic and gratifyingly dirty. 2) DEEP SEA ADVENTURE - Oink Games Jun Sasaki, Goro Sasaki apx £15 Oink Games produce some of my favourite small box games. They are usually simple, bright, fun and challenging. Though I would put in a good word for other titles in their range like: Moneybags, Fake Artist, Troika and Nine Tiles Panic, it is Deep Sea Adventure that stands out. Players are all treasure hunting divers departing a submarine, diving as far as they dare before their joint oxygen runs out. As a push-your-luck game, DSA is genius. It's that joint oxygen that is the real trick here, as your greed may end up costing other players the chance to get back to the ship safely. The deeper you dive, the more oxygen you use, and your treasure is collected blind for its value, so all your risk may have been for very little eventual reward. If the oxygen does run out, any unrecovered treasure you are carrying goes in a pile right at the bottom of the sea, adding to the temptation even more. DSA is a brilliant joint screw each other over game, and may be best avoided with very intense and serious players, but with an easy-going fun group, it's a true gem. 3) LOST EXPEDITION - Osprey Games Peer Sylvester apx £18 I'm a big fan of co-op games, and finding a small box filler co-op is always interesting. We bought the game for its artwork as 'er across the table was a fan of the Blake & Mortimer graphic novels which share a design ethic and The Rainbow Orchid which is by the same artist here, Garen Ewing. This game is beautiful to look at, but savage to play. Players must chop their way thru an Edgar Rice Burroughs style jungle to reach the lost city. Along the way they must face a relentless series of challenges that will demand careful management of very limited resources. The players are aided by explorers with useful skills, but limited health, and by the end of the journey it is entirely possible you will have had to have sacrificed at least one of your explorers to meet the demands of the jungle. It became even more horrifying to discover that these explorers are based on actual historical characters, so that choice to sacrifice the lovely little old lady Ines, is actually choosing to leave a real life character to the fate of leeches, tigers, swamps or quicksand! Another group favourite and a great pub game due to its fairly small footprint. This is also available as Judge Dredd - Cursed Earth which also features some very neat solo play rules. 4) DINOSAUR TEA PARTY - Restoration Games Rob Daviau, JR Honeycutt, Justin Jacobson apx £16 Restoration Games have been doing an amazing job the last few years refreshing classic older games and turning them into great new games. They are probably best known for the highly successful Kickstarter for Fireball Island, and their great new version of Downforce. Dinosaur Tea Party id probably their smallest game, but it's big on fun. At its core, it's basically an elaborate bonneted dinosaur version of Guess Who. The utter joy of this game comes when a really cool group goes for it and roll plays the social interactions of these wannabe socialite reptiles. There's a couple of extra little twist rules thrown in like dinosaurs who might always lie, always give the wrong answer etc, and these do spice up an otherwise straightforward deduction game, but honestly, when you are looking for a very light, simple, bright, and funny filler or end of evening game, you can't go wrong with this adorably drawn game. 5) CROSSING - Asmodee Yoshiteru Shinohara apx £9 Known fondly to our group as 'The Pointing Game', The Crossing is a brilliant yet almost painfully simple push-your-luck game with no downtime at all. Players vie for gem treasure on several mushrooms in the centre of the table by pointing at them. If only one player is pointing to a pile, they win it and place it in front of them. If two or more players point at the same pile, nobody wins any gems and the pile grows bigger next round. On the second round, players can either point at a new mushroom or point at the pile of won gems in front of another player. Players may also cover their won gems instead of pointing and thereby convert won gems to stored gems where they're safe. Not impossible with smaller player counts, but the game becomes utter chaos at higher player counts and games rarely end without collapse into hilarity all round. Each round plays in about 2 minutes and the game ends when the gems in the bag run out. Points are awarded for sets of colours, rare white gems and single points for any other gems. Crossing is tense, full of 'dagnammit' moments and gets played to death when it hits the table. Highly recommend though I understand it can be a little tricky to get hold of at the mo. 6) MONIKERS - Palm Court Alex Hague, Justin Vickers apx £20 It takes a lot to take an eye-rolling party game and transform it into something a bit special. Monikers basically takes the game of Charades and treats it to a much more anarchic edge. Starting with the topics to be guessed, Monikers is shamelessly nerdy and often needs a little more of a deep nerd-dive into net and popular culture, citing popular memes, channels, phenomena and personalities. Nyan cat, lightsaber kid, and Bob Ross all make appearances in the card decks. Monikers is a team game, and starts with a simple description round where players are not allowed to use the title on the card or any words in the description. Round 2 moves this to a single word, and round 3, merely a gesture (there are some hilarious community suggestions for other rounds eg glove puppets and shadow fingers). Again, with the right group, this game is brilliant, but I accept with the wrong group, could fall flat as a pancake. There are a couple of expansions which effectively play as stand-alone games, but I can highly recommend the completely insane Shut Up & Sit Down Nonsense Box as a good starting point. 7) CELESTIA - BLAM Games Aaron Weissblum apx £21 Sometimes a good filler game comes in a slightly larger box, especially if it features and adorable 3D skyboat! Celestia is a beautiful game to look at, and a brilliant semi co-op push-your-luck game. Each round, a new captain tries to convince the passengers on their ship to stay aboard and venture to lands anew. The further the ship goes, the higher the reward but the much greater the risk. Passengers have to decide if the de facto captain for that round has the resources in their hand to meet the challenges rolled on the dice for that journey.  Passengers can decide to leap off if things look too dodgy and gain lower rewards, but there's also betrayal and nefarious shenanigans to be had with skyhooks, rocket packs etc which may allow passengers to throw other players off the boat, or even the Captain using a jetpack to abandon ship. Celestia is a classic game, and though the rulebook can take a little interpretation at first, the game is fun, solid and a great filler game. 8) RAILROAD INK - Horrible Guild Hjalmar Hach, Lorenzo Silva apx £16 We play a lot of roll/flip/draw and write/build/draw games in our house and this slot could be filled by quite a large number of them which I might save for another list, but some notables are Welcome To, Roland Wright, Rolling Ranch, Dino World and Cartographers. However, despite all these great games, we keep coming back to one nose ahead title, Railroad Ink. We have the Blazing Red edition, but honestly, they are all great including the two new KS versions that recently funded: Forest Green and Desert Yellow. Each set has its own little foibles and unique mechanisms, but the core of these games are the same. What I love about Railroad Ink is that it constantly feels like you have a little more control in this game than some others, which is a 2 edged sword as therefore goofs also have a greater sense of ownership too. Scoring can be a little tricky to decipher the first couple of games, but the production of the game, wipe clean boards, and unique usage make this a stand out favourite. 8.5) An honorable mention.... I didn’t include this one in the list as it probably belongs better in the Roll & Write list, and it’s also more of a ‘big box’ game, but we nearly always take SUSHI ROLL everywhere with us now. It’s the R&W version of the Sushi series and is genuinely brilliant. The dice for a start look almost edible themselves, and it features some really smart little dice drafting that mimics the mini conveyor belt that caused so much hilarity in ‘that’ episode of Miranda. It’s a great theme, it’s immediately engaging, has great player aids and is one of those rare games you immediately want to play the minute you finish as you’s sure you can do better next time. I hope there's some games here to poke your interest glands and become your next favourite filler or "dinner's a-cookin" game. Happy gaming y'all

(Apologies - no idea why Tumblr suddenly won’t let me add images after posting, but if anyone knows, please get in touch!)

#boardgames #quick play #bgg #pointsalad #celestia #railroadink #lostexpedition #crossing #deepseaadventure #monikers #dinosaurteaparty

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 1st September 2019

There are four new arrivals this week, evenly split into two categories: Taylor Swift and not Taylor Swift. Now, without further ado...

Top 10

One of the biggest stories this week is the new #1, because thanks to a remix by Sir Spyro, grime producer, featuring verses English rapper Jaykae and a rapper we all know too well on this show, Aitch, “Take Me Back to London” by Ed Sheeran featuring Stormzy (And now I guess I’ll have to credit Jaykae and Aitch) is at #1, up 10 spaces from last week in its fourth week on the charts. Sorry to trail off into a bunch of arbitrary numbers for a second, but it’s Ed Sheeran’s eighth #1 and third from this album alone, Stormzy’s second after “Vossi Bop” this same year, and since we’ve got new remix artists, I guess I can say that this is Aitch’s second top 10 hit in the UK, his fourth top 20 and first ever #1, and also Jaykae’s first ever entry into the UK Top 40, so congratulations. I haven’t heard the remix at all, but Sir Spyro is such a great producer name, and now there is a collaboration between Ed Sheeran, Stormzy, Kenny Beats, Skrillex and Aitch that exists in the world, which is perplexing.

Up two spaces to the runner-up spot is “Higher Love” by Kygo and Whitney Houston taking the video boost up to number-two, and since the remix seems to be carrying “Take Me Back to London”, I have no doubts this will hit #1 soon enough... and that’s all that’s of interest in the top 10.

“Beautiful People” by Ed Sheeran featuring Khalid is down a spot to number-three.

Also down one space is “3 Nights” by Dominic Fike at number-four.

AJ Tracey’s “Ladbroke Grove” hasn’t moved at number-five, keeping pretty steady traction.

Aitch’s “Taste (Make it Shake)” is still at number-six for no good reason.

Joel Corry’s “Sorry” with uncredited vocals from Hayley May has jumped three positions since last week to number-seven.

Also not moving at all is “How Do You Sleep?” by Sam Smith steady at number-eight.

Lil Tecca continues viral success yet still suffers a hit down two spaces to number-nine with “RAN$OM” – you’d think the mixtape release would give this some sort of a boost.

To round off our top 10 we have “So High” by MIST and Fredo down a spot at #10.

Climbers

Despite the four new arrivals, I wouldn’t say this is a busy week per se, but there is definitely some kind of shift going into the Autumn season, and we could be looking at perpetual smash hits rising up this week, like Headie One gaining his third UK top 20 hit with “Both” up four spots to #18 or “Post Malone” by Sam Feldt featuring RANI having a quick and unexpected boost up eight spots to #26, although that’s not exactly appreciated, by me at least, I think that song’s worthless. “Truth Hurts” by Lizzo is also up six positions to #31, 30 spots shy of where it landed on the US’ Hot 100 chart this week, thanks to a DaBaby remix, but I’m unsure if this’ll gain enough traction here in the UK before it fizzles out worldwide.

Fallers

After “Old Town Road” dropped off the #1 spot following its record-breaking streak in the US, anything could get the #1 spot, and I honestly feel that the same is the case with “Senorita” by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello collapsing due to streaming cuts down 10 spaces to #11. While I doubt “3 Nights” or “Ladbroke Grove” would have or will ever reach the top, “Higher Love” had that video and could have very much taken it, and it seems even likelier that “Beautiful People” could have just swiped the #1 back, but I guess in 2019, it all comes down to the remix. The fallers here are actually relatively plentiful, the aforementioned “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, etc. is down five spaces to #22 and I’m honestly quite shocked it’s not off the chart yet, “Motivation” by Normani is unfortunately taking a five-space hit off the debut down to #35 and “I Spy” by Krept & Konan featuring Headie One and K-Trap continues to fall off slowly down five to #37 because of how quickly the remix hype died down.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

There aren’t a lot of dropouts but two out of three of these are actually very notable. While nobody should care about the premature end to the chart run of “Hate Me” by Ellie Goulding and Juice WRLD out from #39, the other dropouts are genuinely pretty important. Out from #21 is “No Guidance” by Chris Brown featuring Drake, even with a video and steady US success, probably due to streaming cuts, which took Stormzy’s “Crown” as a victim this week too, out from #27. Both of these songs peaked in the top 10, just being shy of the top five, so this shows quite an abrupt yet necessary seasonal shift. There aren’t any returning entries, well, not in the top 40 at least, so let’s talk about the elephant in the room that could be a whole lot bigger.

ALBUM BOMB: Taylor Swift – Lover

I’m honestly not shocked at the lack of impact Swift’s new album had here in comparison to the US. Thanks to chart rules, we can only have three songs from Taylor on the chart, and none of the pre-release singles could compete with the new songs, meaning we just have two new arrivals and a boost for fourth single, “Lover”, up nine spaces to #14, becoming Taylor’s fifteenth UK Top 20 single. I’m not complaining about that one, it’s a great song, despite being somewhat Christmassy. Regardless, we have two new Taylor songs to talk about, so let’s go.

#27 – “Cruel Summer” – Taylor Swift

Produced by Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift – Peaked at #20 in Ireland and New Zealand, and #29 in the US

Our first Taylor Swift song to cover this week is one of many collaborations with Jack Antonoff off of Lover – even if you don’t recognise the name, you’ve definitely heard a song he’s contributed to, whether it be from his old band with Nate Reuss, fun. or Lorde’s Melodrama. Most recently, he’s been working on music with his band Bleachers as well as Lana Del Rey, Kevin Abstract of BROCKHAMPTON and St. Vincent, which brings us to “Cruel Summer”, Taylor Swift’s 27th UK Top 40 hit with additional writing and guitar from Annie Clark of St. Vincent. The album bored me, if I’m going to be completely honest, but there were definite gems that I appreciated throughout and don’t get me wrong, it’s a pretty decent album, but a shortened runtime to mill out the filler records would have definitely helped it achieve greatness. As it is, I’m not disappointed with it and it can definitely go toe to toe with her best at its peaks. This song in particular is pretty great, with blocky 80s-esque production Antonoff is known for, which is immediately cut off by Taylor and her pitch-shifted echo. Her inflections in the pre-chorus especially have a lot of flavour, and that chorus is almost ballad-like, which is somewhat unfitting, but it soon picks up momentum with some more vibrant synths and some rattling hi-hats, admittedly buried in the pretty cloudy mix here, but oh, my god, that bridge is amazing. The combination of the quirky synths, Swift’s vocals building in intensity and, you know, actually being able to hear the percussion for the first time, is incredible, and when it stops for Taylor to just belt into the next chorus, that’s when it wins it for me. Lyrically, it depicts the uncertainty of a new relationship but how exciting that fling is, specifically in this case with Joe Alwyn, who she describes as a “bad boy”, and the music perfectly represents that with how animated Antonoff and Clark’s instrumental is, as well as Taylor herself with some pretty passionate vocal performances I honestly didn’t expect initially. I’ve been listening to the Billboard year-end list for 1984 in the past week for the sake of a Top 10 list, and this would probably fit right in, although I’d question its quality when compared to pop girls at the time like Cyndi Lauper or even Laura Branigan. Admittedly, that year-end list is male-dominated but my point stands. Oh, and this has the same title as a Kanye album from 2012. Sneaky.

#21 – “The Man” – Taylor Swift

Produced by Joel Little and Taylor Swift – Peaked at #15 in New Zealand and #23 in the US

Now this song isn’t one of the first three tracks or even a promoted single but attracted a lot of attention and some controversy for its lyrics, which I’ll only somewhat get into because I don’t get the fuss. In her 28th UK Top 40 hit, Taylor Swift “plays with the ideas of perception”, asking the listener how people would feel about her mistakes, her accomplishments and her public persona and image if she were male, and, well, she has a point, at least on the surface, because people who go through a lot of relationships like Taylor would not be clowned, they would not be mocked for that, they would be “players” as she says. There would not be a focus on her fashion in the press if she was a male, and people would comment on her “Good ideas” and “Power moves”... although I wouldn’t exactly say the debacle with Kanye and Kim Kardashian was a “Power move”. The bridge also seems iffy, commenting less on male musicians but rappers, forgetting that there are indeed so many female rappers talking about the same thing now who are all a lot bigger than they would be years ago when this song might have been written (I assume 2016), and while she has a point that even female rappers (Although this is not directly what she refers to) are seen as subservient and not “Ballers”, I’m not sure if Taylor Swift can comment on that culture, exactly, although I do admit that’s pretty accurate of a comparison. I’m not sure if the press is any kinder to mental health issues in men, either, if that’s what she’s going by when she talks about being okay when you’re “mad” – reminds me of Pitchfork’s Azealia Banks op-ed from 2017 or so. Anyways, I get her overall point – “Women are given less leeway in the industry and harsher press attention than men” - and admittedly, the line, “If I were a man, I’d be the man” is a pretty great wham line for the chorus. This song really sucks, though, there’s no atmospheric intro which works for a “Powerful” song, but Taylor Swift does not sound powerful, she sounds tired. The instrumental is similarly exhausted, with some pretty awful vocal manipulation as a “Drop”, trap percussion because it’s 2019 and some pretty cloudy synths, accentuated by some funny sound effects... I guess? Yeah, no, skip this one, whether it’s for a misguided lyrical attempt, an awful instrumental or Taylor’s odd and unfitting inflections. Honestly, I’m just surprised the song about London didn’t chart this week, featuring an Idris Elba and James Corden sample, but that’s probably a good thing.

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “Dance Monkey” – Tones and I

Produced by Konstantine Kersting – Peaked at #1 in Australia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden

Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Okay, so Tones and I is an Australian singer who immediately came to local success with her debut single and EP, but this new single became a massive European smash, and to my surprise, it’s not even really a sleeper hit; the song was released in May, which isn’t that long ago. I haven’t heard anything about the song, admittedly, but it’s gone #1 in so many countries so I guess we’re just slow to this and the US will never get this to chart because they’re repellent to anything they didn’t make that’s this big in Europe. This is obviously Tones and I’s first ever UK Top 40 hit, and, well, this song is about how musicians are “Puppets” for the industry, or at least pop musicians, and it’s not exactly subtle about that, but I’m really not sure how she’s trying to prove that point when she’s making music just as uninteresting. There’s a couple conflicting synth and piano riffs and none of them are particularly interesting or even nice-sounding, it’s just a lot of cheap presets with a couple finger-snaps and eventually a chorus of people singing back-up with strings, but for the most of the song, we’re supposed to be focused on Tones... and she sure is an interesting singer, which I’m pretty sure is the only reason this has caught on so much, since she’s the only part that stands out and it’s an acquired taste for sure, and she’s definitely putting on the voice for the sake of the music, but honestly I don’t mind it; any attempt at making this boring pop song any interesting is appreciated, and by the end, you don’t notice it that much. Still not a great song, though, it has potential and I’m interested in what she does next.

#33 – “frick, i’m lonely” – LAUV featuring Anne-Marie

Produced by LAUV – Peaked at #9 in Singapore

Do you seriously expect a pre-amble? It’s a song by LAUV and Anne-Marie made for the 13 Reasons Why soundtrack. If that doesn’t scream, “Derivative pop music in 2019 on its last legs”, then I don’t know what doesn’t, it’s LAUV’s second Top 40 hit here in the UK since “i’m so tired” with Troye Sivan and Anne-Marie’s ninth, and it’s bloody awful. It starts with an awfully mixed percussion sample that transitions immediately into a preset beat you can easily find on a school-provided keyboard, with a random kick drum and stray vocal sample. It makes  a really odd contrast between lo-fi preset beat and LAUV’s clean vocals, until the chorus which is just ugly. The actual percussion and a strong 808 comes in, and LAUV’s in his falsetto, and it sounds pathetic. What a “Chorus” that is, oh, yeah, Anne-Marie’s incoherent and barely harmonises with LAUV at all despite an obvious attempt to. Also, “It’s been me, myself and why”? What?! The bridge tries to create non-existent momentum with no groove and instead of any musical coherency, they just ad-lib for a while on dead space until the chorus comes in, and I shouldn’t care anyway, because I don’t want to hear over-processed vocals layered on top of each other to the point of ridiculousness over a beat that I can make in seven minutes or less, with obnoxious ad-libs from Anne-Marie and sickly lyrics. This is lowest common-denominator stuff and it’s not great at all, I’m starting to think “I Like Me Better” was a fluke; if you remember my best list, I really liked that song. Oh, and just when you think the song’s ended for good, you get an extra isolated LAUV vocal riff. Why?!

Conclusion

It should be pretty damn obvious what’s getting Worst of the Week; it’s going to LAUV and Anne-Marie for “frick, i’m lonely” (That is not the true title, by the way, if it wasn’t obvious), which has no redeemable qualities at all; I’m shocked this ever got out to the public. In fact, there’s not much good here at all, so Dishonourable Mention goes to both Tones and I and Taylor Swift for being both uninteresting and completely misguided in “Dance Monkey” and “The Man”. Funnily enough both songs are overly vague commentary on the music industry. Best of the Week also goes to Taylor Swift for “Cruel Summer” though, that song rocks. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more musical ramblings and I’ll see you next week!

[recentanimenews]

Luigi's Mansion 3 Provides A Ton of Charm, Variety, and Gooigi

October, Halloween, and the season of scares might be over this year, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to pack up all of your horror media. Nintendo has brought back everyone’s favorite ghost hunting Mario brother as Luigi’s Mansion 3 has hit the Switch and lets you take Luigi and all of these pesky ghosts everywhere. For the first time since the debut of the series on the GameCube, Luigi’s Mansion 3 returns to home consoles which brings with it new ways for Nintendo and Next Level Games to give you new kinds of puzzles, gameplay, multiplayer, and all sorts of detail on Gooigi. With all of that, does Luigi’s Mansion 3 provide the kind of charm and fun that is normally associated with first party Nintendo titles? How much enjoyment is there when you’re vacuuming up the hotel you’re in? Will busting make you feel good? Is Gooigi the best? Well, that last question has a fairly obvious answer, but let’s find out about the rest!

    One of the first things you’ll notice when playing the game is that Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a beautiful piece of visual fidelity. In fact, it’s easily one of the best looking games on the Switch currently. Which seems like a weird thing to write. It’s as if I need to constantly double check that, because this isn’t a mainline game starring Mario or Link, this is Luigi, the B-tier Nintendo protagonist. Sure, a Nintendo franchise taking full advantage of the hardware in their console makes sense, but who expected this from a game starring the usual butt of jokes in the Mushroom Kingdom?

  There’s just an incredible amount of detail on Luigi’s character model, all of the different environments you find yourself in, and with the enemy designs. It’s easy to see the stitching in Luigi’s hat and his clothing constantly. All of the different floors in the hotel have a distinct look from one another and the game is great with how it utilizes different kinds of lighting. Obviously there will be a lot of dark areas, which are used to be foreboding and spooky, but in areas that are lit up quite well, it’s vibrant and warm in the opposite way other sections of the game are. Again, Nintendo games are gonna look good, but I was anticipating this game to look good, but not great. Instead, this is one of the best looking games on the system, period.

    Unlike what the title suggests, you’re actually in “The Last Resort” hotel, not a mansion. No, you won’t have to cut your life into pieces to enter, but despite its initial cheery staff, things quickly turn scary for Luigi as everyone on this trip with him gets put into a painting. After that, you have to navigate each of the seventeen floors of the hotel to fight ghosts, bosses, and boos, while giving the place the deep cleaning it’s clearly needed for quite some time. There’s so much to blow around and suck up that you’ll probably wonder how Luigi is able to carry everything in his new Poltergust.

  It seems as if the hotel’s proprietor, Hellen Gravely, found the chief architect behind the castle in Symphony of the Night to make The Last Resort with how wild and bizarre some of the later floors get. The first few floors are what you’d expect in a hotel. There’s a lobby, a dining hall, and rooms where you’d stay. Then it gets weird where there’s enough space to have a museum, a giant body of water on one of the floors, a pyramid, and so much more ridiculousness. All of this variety that you get makes for many different kinds of puzzles and boss fights that will keep you on your toes throughout the entirety of the game. You’ll also find yourself using Gooigi a lot as bosses and puzzles will force you to utilize both Luigi and Gooigi in intriguing ways.

    One aspect of the game that was surprising was how much of a physics playhouse it becomes, pretty much immediately. Most things that you’ll see in rooms, hallways, or wherever you end up and be tossed around, manipulated in someway, or vacuumed up to truly clear things up. It gets to a point as well when at certain points, the game begins to be reminiscent of the Red Faction series with how much destruction you can cause to an area. Luigi might be scared of all the ghosts that he encounters in this hotel, but if one thing is for sure, he’s an agent of chaos.

  Luigi’s Mansion 3 also allows your friends to get into the action with a few different kinds of multiplayer modes. If you want to try and tackle the main story with a friend, that’s doable through local co-op with one person being Luigi and the other taking control of the fearless and tough Gooigi. What if you find yourself in a group of 8 people who want to play? Split them into teams of four for local Luigi vs. Gooigi competition. There’s also local and online co-op that sees you tackle randomly generated floors with different kinds of objectives such as capturing ghosts, acquiring money, making birds go away, or trying to escort some Toads to safety. The only downside is that I wish that the story co-op extended to being online as well, since playing this game with a friend throughout its entirety would be a blast.

    While there is fun to be had by vacuuming up rooms, flinging ghosts around, and being enamored with the games charm, it’s not always a smooth ride throughout. The overall movement of Luigi can take some time to get used to. It doesn’t quite have the same level of control that you’d expect from a third person action game. Moving and aiming the Poltergust feels just slightly off in a way that forces you to adjust to the games controls in the first few hours. This happens again later when you have to maneuver Luigi on an inner tube and you feel as if you’re fighting with the controls again. Luckily, this section isn’t too long, but it does correspond to a boss fight where the game hopes you’ve figured out the precise movement needed for the fight.

  When the game wants you to be precise with where you’re aiming, that also brings up a problem as the game really isn’t designed for that. There will be times when you grab something with your vacuum and can then shoot it out. Most of the time, this is inconsequential as you’ll be doing it to get money or to cause outrageous destruction. However, when the game forces you to do this against bosses, especially the final boss, the game’s precision really begins to let you down. The aiming reticle you get is not the easiest to see at times and trying to get it where you want can be difficult as the slightest movement can send it across the screen. There’s a reason this game wasn’t made to have you constantly picking things up and flinging them at enemies. It doesn’t work great. Which makes it a shame it’s one of the key components to the last fight in the game.

    The pacing at brief times does get dragged down by some padding as well. For the most part, you’ll be going from floor-to-floor trying to find elevator buttons to continue upward. However, a certain enemy will sometimes get in your way, causing you to chase after and backtrack a bit. These sections really hit you like a wall with how they halt your progress and don’t feel as if they’re necessary. Considering the rest of the game has a really good flow throughout, it’s strange this roadblock shows up not once, but twice. Instead of feeling like more progression, you’re instead hit with what's basically just filler.

  After playing through Luigi’s Mansion 3, if there’s one person who doesn’t deserve the flack he gets, it’s Luigi. Even if Gooigi is inherently cooler, Luigi is a tactician. He might be scared when making his way through the hotel, but he’s methodical, takes his time to think things through, and comes up with a plan. Unlike his hard charging, moving-forward-no-matter-what brother, Luigi makes sure he has options. Maybe if he had been in charge of all of the other games Nintendo puts out, the Mushroom Kingdom wouldn’t constantly have kidnapping issues. Although, there’d probably be much less games, which is probably a bad thing.

    The charm that Luigi’s Mansion 3 provides keeps going throughout the entirety of the game. It won’t take you a long time to get through the story. Without going and trying to collect all the gems or fight boos, you’d probably breeze through the game in about twelve hours. Of course, if you want to get a high ranking at the end, you’re probably be playing for much longer. I went into this game with basically zero expectations and was pleasantly surprised throughout. If you need something to play that’s fun and enjoyable throughout, this is certainly a game to pick up. And hey, who knows, maybe someday down the road, we'll get a Gooigi spinoff game.

  REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Gorgeous visuals that rank among the best on the Switch

+ Hotel floors and bosses give a good amount of variety

+ A fun physics playground

+ Gooigi

+ Puzzles are fun and keep evolving throughout the game

+ Good multiplayer options

- Controls take some time to get used to

- Precise aiming isn’t the game’s strongest aspect

  Are you a newcomer to Luigi's Mansion or have you played the previous games? What sort of ridiculous locale would you like Luigi to be sent to next? Do you think Gooigi really tastes like coffee? Let us know down in the comments below!

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Jared Clemons is a writer and podcaster for Seasonal Anime Checkup where he can be found always wanting to talk about Love Live! Sunshine!! or whatever else he's into at the moment. He can be found on Twitter @ragbag.

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