Luigi’s Mansion 3: Cleaning Simulator

Vacuuming, yard work, and maybe some ghost hunting

Title screen cap from my Switch album

Last week I finally decided to play my first Luigi’s Mansion game. I picked up Luigi’s Mansion 3 for the Switch.

To get it out of the way, I’ll say I do like the game, but I am unable to fully engage because I cannot invert the vertical aim. This has been a common complaint for this game, so it’s not just me. While you can tilt the controller in an inverted way to look up and down, tilting is not the same feel as just doing it on the right thumb stick.

Okay, now that’s out of the way, I’d like to share my other observation. Luigi’s Mansion is a cleverly disguised house cleaning simulator.

While the main purpose of the Poltergust G-00 (Luigi’s all-in-one backpack vacuum/flashlight gizmo) is ghost hunting, you’ll spend more time vacuuming all of the objects in a room looking for hidden money and gems, than actual ghost sucking.

Vacuuming the trash that I just emptied out of that can — Screen cap from my Switch album

It’s still fun, don’t get me wrong, but vacuuming a haunted hotel should probably be somewhere on the tagline for the game. I laugh internally each time Juliet walks past with me virtually vacuuming instead of doing it in real life.

On one floor, Luigi also gains access to the equivalent of a table saw with his Poltergust G-00. This effectively turns it into a handheld weed eater. Coincidentally, this floor’s theme is a Ghostly gardener and plant gone wild. Yard work time!

Instead of being limited to indoor cleaning activities, we now get to simulate weed whacking. A fun dynamic to be sure, as we get to hack our way through overgrown plants and furniture.

An entire floor of weeds for whacking — Screen cap from my Switch album (table saw attachment not pictured)

The other game dynamic hitting a bit too close to home is using the flashlight to kill spiders and mice. Our new apartment doesn’t have spiders or mice exactly, but we do have roaches (thanks to the prior tenants), and chasing them around to smash them is a common practice the past couple weeks.

I like to imagine, each time Luigi flashes his light at a spider or mouse and it turns into gold, how nice it would be if each roach I killed also turned into cash.

I’d still rather do video game cleaning than real cleaning most of the time. Maybe Nintendo can continue down this path and release Luigi’s Mansion 4: Laundry Day, to help me practice loading and unloading the washing machine and dryer.

Maybe an entire lineup of cleaning and chore simulators featuring popular Nintendo characters. We have Mario Party, we could just update that title to “Mario’s Cleaning Party”

Gonna workshop some titles while I internally chuckle at this train of thought…

Super Mario Mopping

Super Mario Sweeper

Luigi’s Lawn Care

Luigi’s Laundry Day

Wario’s Wacky Weed Whacking

Yoshi’s Yard Work

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Trash

Peach’s Plumbing Problem (Featuring Mario & Luigi as plumbers of course)

Bowser’s Bug Hunt

Peach’s Pest Control

Feel free to add more to comments. And, if you need a virtual break from your real vacuuming or yard work, grab a copy of Luigi’s Mansion 3.