Luigi's Mansion

Well, this certainly isn't the most gut-wrenching of horror games, but it certainly holds its own in the gaming community.  Much like the Super Mario or perhaps Sonic the Hedgehog games, Luigi's Mansion is another childhood classic of those who grew up with Nintendo in their lives.

Unlike previous endeavors by Nintendo, Luigi's Mansion features Luigi in his first starring role.  It also showcased a rather different gameplay mechanics from any other Mario game at the time.  The idea of the game is to capture the ghost's around and throughout a mansion as Luigi to save his brother Mario.  To capture a ghost, first the player must shine their flashlight over the ghost until their heart is visible.  Then the player sweeps the ghosts up into a vacuum sweeper by holding the R trigger and holding the control stick in the opposite direction of where the ghost is in relation to Luigi.  It sounds complicated but it's rather simple.

More importantly, these controls feel very natural.  It's as if you feel the ghost fighting against you as every time you jerk the control stick in the opposite direction, the ghost immediately changes its escape direction.  It also gives people a rather pleasant feeling of accomplishment when they finally manage to capture a ghost.  This is really important for this game because the entire game is about capturing ghosts in the same manner.

Using a simple and juicy mechanic like this throughout the game can certainly make it very good.  However, too much of a good thing is never good.  Luigi's Mansion (in my opinion) dances on the edge of overusing the ghost capturing mechanic.  For every ghost in the game, there is a simple technique for capturing them.  Towards the end of the game, it may take more time or more skill to capture a particular ghost, but the concept is the same.  After a while, this becomes obviously repetitive.  Leaving this as the only battle mechanic could make for an engaging game, but it will most likely become boring and bland after too long.

Making a game that focuses on only one juicy mechanic is walking on thin ice.  There is a possibility that it will work, but the odds are against you.  Personally, I thought that Luigi's Mansion grew to be cumbersome in this manner towards the end of the game.  It was a fun game and I would definitely play it again, but not for eight straight hours (like at a certain gaming event).  The interest is lost after doing the same thing at walking pace across the halls of an entire mansion.  It becomes droning.  I think that this should be a careful thing to consider when making a juicy game.