Luigi’s Mansion Arcade Game Will Exist
I just checked the calendar and it’s not 2013, but Luigi’s biggest gig yet will be happening in the near future as the humble, cowardly plumber’s assistant gets a star turn in his very own arcade game. This marks the first coin-op appearance of Luigi since Super Mario Bros. Vs, a two-player rejiggering of the NES original…and certainly his first without Mario.
Luigi’s Mansion Arcade takes place in a first-person perspective. The player is given a vacuum cleaner hose as a weapon and must shake it at the screen to evade and entrap ghosts whenever they appear. You’ll see Luigi every so often when he appears in cutscenes, and Professor E. Gadd will appear in the opening tutorial. Other than that, not much else is known about the game, but presumably it will be similar to the previous two games in the series, just with a different camera.
Nintendo has collaborated with other Japanese game developers before, but never two at the same time. Sega made the last F-Zero, while Capcom made Zelda’s The Minish Cap. Luigi’s Mansion Arcade is being developed by both Sega and Capcom. It’s mysteriously unclear which company plays which role in this assembly, but Sega got to officially reveal the game to the press, and it’ll be exhibiting the game during the upcoming Japan Amusement Expo. Capcom, meanwhile, has been spotted performing public testing for the game.
Between this and Pokken Tournament, it’s unclear what’s driving Nintendo’s sudden desire to make arcade machines again. It’s up in the air whether either of them will see a release outside of Japan, in original or ported-for-home form.