Have you ever just really wanted to be scared senseless? It's an odd feeling, but it's exhilarating to be frightened when you're an adult, when the world makes sense and nothing seems as scary as it used to. I've felt that way. Oddly, though, I don't like horror games or horror movies; mostly, I read creepypastas on the internet, especially video game pastas. It's weird, but a non-horror game being turned into something horrifying feels more enjoyable than something that's supposed to be a horror game from the get-go, at least for me…perhaps it's the perversion of something that isn't supposed to be scary that adds an extra creep factor. But there's one game that doesn't fit into either category, neither horror nor innocent, especially not after what I experienced with it recently: Luigi's Mansion.
Oddly enough, Luigi's Mansion is a game very dear to me. I'm not a fan of Nintendo overall (I grew up on the PS1), but my discovery of this game in particular has a special story to it that keeps me coming back for some reason. A little while after it first came out, I was at the house of…an acquaintance of mine - I can't remember how well we knew each other, but my parents were over at her parents' place for some reason and brought me with them. What's important is that she and I were left alone for a few hours. She had a GameCube, and I can't remember how we even decided on it, but we ended up playing Luigi's Mansion. She had never gotten past the closet room in Area 1 because she'd never thought to check the wardrobes - she told me going in that there was no way I could get far in the game, it was impossible to figure out, but me being a completionist and loving the sparkly stuff you sometimes got for opening things, I started pounding on the wardrobes one by one, found the missing ghost, and lit the room. My almost-friend was stunned, and from then on, both of us were playing blind, not knowing what could be next. That's right, even the very idea of the portrait ghosts were completely new for both of us. Time passed, we had a ton of fun, and then of course, I had to leave. I'd already wanted a GameCube because I'd seen a GameCube exclusive in a store once that was a Yu-Gi-Oh! game, the premise of which sounded like I might be able to see how the story arc in the Anime that was airing in the States at the time would end (no such luck of course), but now that I'd sampled Luigi's Mansion, I positively begged my parents for a GameCube, and they gave in. It's been my favorite GameCube game, and one of my favorite games of all time, ever since.
Fast forward many years later. I grew up, went to college, got a job, moved into my own place, etc., as people do. I did of course bring all my game consoles with me, and all my games for them, including my GameCube and all four of the GameCube games I owned. For a while, my PS3 kept me occupied with Dark Souls, but eventually, I felt like returning to Luigi's Mansion. I started up the system, and…nothing appeared on the TV screen. Confused, I checked that the outlet was plugged into the TV; it was. I tried a different adapter cable (luckily, GameCube and PS2 use the same outlets for hooking up to a TV), but this also didn't work. I fiddled with the plug in the socket on the console, which seemed to be loose, and some things flickered on the screen. After a little more testing, I determined that somehow, during the move, the outlet in the console for the TV cable had been somehow bent or jarred out of its proper position, so the plug couldn't stay in properly. There was nothing I could do about this, but I badly wanted to play Luigi's Mansion, so I did some fine-tuning and managed to prop up the plug so that it was inserted at just such an angle that I got perfect sound and black-and-white visuals. This was enough - color or no, it was still Luigi's Mansion, after all. Unfortunately, it only lasted until I got to the first bathroom in Area 2, where you get the key to the ballroom, and the sound cut. I fought off the grabbers, then tried to readjust the outlet, figuring it had been nudged out of place by my cat walking by or the vibration of the console itself, but I couldn't get such good results again. Not being one for computers, I gave up with a heavy heart.
GameCubes are long-outdated, sadly, so Nintendo couldn't fix it; I looked around on the internet a little bit to see if this issue was even addressed anywhere, but I didn't think it would be, and I couldn't find anything. After a few years, the desire to play again got so strong, I made a post on a machine-fixing forum asking for help; though responses were few and far-between, a couple of people stepped up.* With a little tinkering, heavily reliant on instructions from more knowledgeable people, I eventually managed to get it working. Delighted, I waited for night, turned off all the lights, shut my cat in my bedroom (with his food and water and litterbox, of course), and sat down to play. It was one of those nights when I wanted to be scared, and the cartoony visuals of Luigi's Mansion makes it different enough from true horror games that I don't dislike it, while still scaring me enough to satiate my craving for soul-deep fear given the right setting.
Out of pure curiosity, I took a look at my old save files. One of them had a counter saying I'd played through the game and restarted on that same save file 21 times; I guessed I'd kept playing it over and over in the vain hope that some new content would eventually appear. There is no such thing, of course, but I decided to play that file anyway because of the Hidden Mansion being unlocked - it's easier to lose health, and I'm not the best at video games, but it makes getting the large pearls much easier, and as a completionist, that's incredibly appealing to me.
The game played normally for a while; I got through Area 1 in what felt like no time at all. I've noticed that video games seem much smaller and easier to me now than they did when I was a kid, just in general, and sadly, Luigi's Mansion is no exception. I got to Area 2, discovered the Boos, hunted down all the available ones, got the key to Madame Clairvoya's room, and entered the mirror room where you get the fire element medal. I've always loved the element mechanic in Luigi's Mansion…maybe it's because it's a mechanic you have to earn, but the puzzle-solving that comes of it has always just delighted me, especially the optional stuff.
Again, I'm not the best at games, so the grabbers gave me a bit of trouble, but the spookiness factor made it worthwhile. I mean, the idea of only being able to see something when it's in a mirror is just bizarre - how would that even work? Mirrors reflect the same reflected light rays that our eyes absorb for our brains to process into images, so if that light isn't coming off the ghosts, how is the mirror reflecting them? Anyway, I prevailed, grabbed the Boo to make the stupid radar shut up, then went to the chest and got the fire medal. E. Gadd called and gave his basic tutorial blurb on the use of elements, and for old time's sake, as I had been all night, I didn't skip his dialogue. So, I noticed when something weird happened: He kept talking.
"…They're the ghosts of fire itself, if you will. At least, that's the general consensus. Not long before this calamity struck, I was researching them a bit more deeply, and there is some evidence that they're actually larval forms of some other parent entity. What that might be, though, no one can say. Let's just hope it's not around to protect them! Ho ho! Anyhoo…"
The dialogue returned to normal after that, but I barely paid attention. It had been years since I'd last played this game, but I was certain E. Gadd had never said anything like that before - and back when my GameCube was working, I'd played Luigi's Mansion through dozens of times. The implication of this new dialogue wasn't lost on me, either; I was sucking up helpless babies and using their remains to further my own agenda. Definitely an added creep factor.
Still, you can't even get out of the mirror room without using fire, so I went over to the brazier and sucked up a fire ghost. When the "pop!" of the ghost getting sucked into the Poltergust 3000 played, however, something flashed for a moment on the mirror on the far wall. It was a white, lanky figure; I couldn't process much of what I was seeing before it was gone. My first thought was that fixing the cable socket hadn't been a perfect job, and a bit of the screen had lost color for a moment, though why then and there, I couldn't guess. Not entirely sure I'd even seen anything at all, I proceeded to light the candles to open the door, then went into Madame Clarivoya's room and lit those candles to get the key to the laundry room. I guess I was nervous, because I'd used up all my fire doing this, which is not necessary, and of course, you need fire to trigger Shivers. I remember when my almost-friend and I first examined his heart using the GameBoy Horror, and read all his talk about how he was going to woo Melody with passionate, fiery words; she and I had both slowly turned to look at each other, and we'd said at the exact same time, "Fire." We knew about the elements, of course, they're explained in the manual. So anyway, I went back into the mirror room for another fire ghost.
This time, I kept my eyes on the mirror while I sucked up the little fire blob. I didn't need to; the thing did indeed appear again, and this time for longer, enough time to slam its tentacle-arms on Luigi's reflection. Luigi didn't react, and I didn't lose health. It was gone as soon as the false attack was done, but I'd gotten a better look at it. As I'd thought, it was completely colorless, as though my GameCube was still only displaying some things in black-and-white. It had no head, and a few twisted tentacles for a waist; the bottom halves of its legs appeared to have melted into a puddle.
At the very sight of this, I screamed out loud and jumped in my seat - it was so sudden, it was over before I was done reacting. For a minute, I just sat there, my heart pounding; there had definitely never been anything like this in the game before, I would have remembered that monstrosity. Then, I started laughing to myself. I'd gotten what I wanted from playing this game: I was utterly terrified. Catching my breath, I smiled and proceeded to keep playing.
Not much happened for a while; when I finally unlocked the water medal, however, things changed. Water had always been my favorite element to use for some reason - maybe because it's the only elemental ghost I haven't gotten hurt from touching (I don't even know if it can damage you), maybe because watering plants gets you so much free treasure, but water was always my default when playing this game, if I didn't need a particular element then I would have water. And, of course, you need water to move on, to put out the fire on the burning door. As the little blue blob rose out of the sink, I used the last of my fire (some of the rest of which I'd used on Mr. Gluggs's candles) to get the ruby out of the oven, and then I walked over and sucked up the water ghost.
Immediately, lightning flashed outside, and through the window, I saw that white creature again. It was gone when I blinked, but I was getting the message: something didn't want me using the elements. But I had no choice! I put out the door and went outside, fought Spooky, and watered the seedling so it sprouted. I tried to be sparing, so as not to need to suck up another water ghost, and no incidents transpired. From there, I proceeded to Bogmire as normal.
Once Area 3 was open, I faced a decision: Did I want to water the plants around the mansion that were available for the money, at the risk of upsetting this thing that didn't seem to like me using the elements? Well, obviously, the answer was yes - collecting treasure was probably my favorite thing to do in this game. I went to the seedling first, which was a bud, and got a water ghost from the nearby hose and watered it so it bloomed into a beautiful flower. Because I was looking for it, I saw the white thing in the distance, standing where Bogmire appears, for a split second. I decided not to get another water ghost to refill my meter just yet, and instead started going through the first two areas for the few plants there are to water at that point in the game. I looked around with the GameBoy Horror when I went on the little balcony to water the pots beside Toad, but I couldn't see anything in the graveyard or elsewhere. However, when I watered the fern in Lydia's room, I thought I saw a white flash from behind the curtain. Curious, I pulled it aside, and sure enough, there it was, that white thing that was haunting me. It didn't appear for just a moment; instead, it stood there, swaying back and forth slightly, in the spot where Toad usually is. The only thing it did was turn slightly when I moved left or right, so that it was always directly facing Luigi. Equal parts curious and afraid, I went back around to the balcony, but when I got there, there was only Toad, doing his little bouncy animation with a silly grin on his face.
Things went on like this for a while: whenever I sucked up an elemental ghost, the white creature would appear somewhere in the background, facing me. Interestingly, it didn't attack again, but sometimes, I heard a weird, raspy screech that made my skin crawl and that I couldn't remember ever hearing in the game before, usually when I sucked up an element ghost in an enclosed room with no windows or mirrors. It was unsettling to say the least, but apparently harmless - though, in a way, that just made it creepier. When I got the ice medal and sucked up my first ice ghost, something new happened: a text box popped up. The speech icon was a pixellated image of one of the standard ghosts, though I'd never seen one of them talk before.
"stop"
I blinked at that. Was this supposed to be a reference to Herobrine, the legendary ghost of Minecraft? Or was it the other way around, and that myth had been based on this? Not exactly thinking clearly, I wasn't sure about the timeline, but I had a strong suspicion that this game had happened long before Minecraft, and that possibility actually put me a little at ease, as it would mean I wasn't the only one to have ever seen this thing. There was no doubt in my mind that the speaker was supposed to be the white blobby thing - what else would be telling me to stop sucking up element ghosts? But, as always, I had no choice if I wanted to keep playing, and I definitely did, now more than ever; content I hadn't seen before made the game feel alive, made me a kid again, experiencing something for the first time.
At last, it was time to go to the third floor; I went back to the dining room for another ice ghost so I could fight the water-shielded slammers in the Safari Room, fully expecting the white thing to appear. To my surprise, it was actually already visible out the window even before the ice ghost appeared, never mind me sucking it up. It stood there, watching me, and that raspy screech played again when I refilled my ice meter, louder than ever before. All at once, I registered that I was headed for a boss for which the use of elements is vital: Boolossus can only be caught by freezing his individual Boo components, and even getting them close enough to spray gets really hard at the end. Many, many element ghosts would be used up in that fight. As unnerved as I was, I was also curious to see what would happen in that setting, so I proceeded.
When I got to the Safari Room, I got the mouse out of the cheese, then walked over to where the deer heads are posted. As I tilted my flashlight up at them to start using my vacuum to shake them around, another text box appeared, again with the pixellated basic ghost image marking the speaker:
"If only he'd gotten you too. Then your head would be mounted on this wall with the rest of them, and my babies would be safe!"
Well, that confirmed one thing, at least: the white blobby thing was definitely the parent of the elemental ghosts that E. Gadd had mentioned. That seemed pretty dark, having a parent watch its babies be murdered - it definitely turned the rather cute element ghosts mechanic into something much more gruesome, almost more so than the rest of the game. For Nintendo, especially, knowing their reputation, everything about this bit of dialogue seemed wrong. More curious than ever, I kept playing, going back and saving my game with Toad before restarting the system so I could choose "The Mansion" instead of "The Hidden Mansion" and go into the Boolossus fight with a higher defense.
Boolossus was, of course, a bitch to fight - I have never gotten the gold rank on that boss, and I doubt I ever will. The white monstrosity I'd been seeing didn't appear once during the fight, though I did end up using many ice ghosts; I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or nervous. Eventually, I beat Boolossus, Luigi did his little victory pose, and the jingle played. Normally, after that, the screen fades to white, then fades back in with Luigi on the balcony and the chest containing the next area key appearing.
Not this time.
After holding his pose for a few seconds, Luigi said "Hmm…" and looked around, confused. The camera changed, indicating a cutscene, following Luigi as he turned around and walked towards the middle of the balcony.
"Hello?" he called, holding up a hand by his mouth like he does when you make him call for Mario.
"You…"
Again, the icon on the speech bubble that popped up was of the standard ghost. The camera angled so that I could see over Luigi's right shoulder, and behind him, the thing that had been haunting me appeared, rising up from the ground and unfolding from a curled-up position. Slowly, Luigi turned around; at the sight of the thing, he leapt into the air and screamed, landing on his butt and quickly trying to slide away from the thing.
"Why do you keep killing my babies?" demanded the thing. "Why do you keep coming back here? Why can't you leave us alone?"
Luigi just sat against the stone railing, shaking, the background sky still twisting and warping with the "boss fight" skybox effect.
"What are you?" I shouted out loud at the screen, dreading a response.
There wasn't one; mercifully, the cutscene continued as if I hadn't spoken. Instead, the thing screeched, that same sound I'd been hearing every now and then this whole time, and then, as the Bogmire fight theme started playing and Luigi stood up, I was given back control of the game.
It was another boss fight.
After fighting Boolossus, I was hurting pretty badly, and this new boss was at least as hard. Sometimes it did that tentacle slam thing I'd seen it do in the mirror once, and this seemed impossible to avoid, the tendrils stretching so that they always hit Luigi no matter where he was. Since I was still not in the Hidden Mansion, this was slightly less devastating than it could have been, only dealing two damage per hit (which, come to think of it, is low even for enemies in the regular Mansion), but it was still massively unfair. I was down to 24 health before it did something different.
A common theme in the boss fights of Luigi's Mansion is using some tool of the boss against it, with the exception of Boolossus. My new foe followed this trope: some orange sparkle effects that I assumed meant fire filled its chest cavity, and when it swung its tentacle arms this time, an orange glow effect that definitely meant fire appeared where it struck. Of course, Luigi caught fire, dealing an extra five damage, but the glow stayed in place for a minute. On a hunch, I used the Poltergust on it, and sure enough, I sucked up the fire, filling my fire meter by half.
After that, there was always a sparkle effect in the boss's middle. It stayed orange for a couple more strikes, taking me down to three health, then changed to a blue-white effect, like ice. Fire beats ice, so I ran over and blasted the thing with the fire I'd collected. It got stuck in a loop of flinching back away from the blow, and its heart, which I hadn't seen up until then, appeared in the very center of the tendrils of its middle, the number ticking down like King Boo's does in the final fight; also like King Boo, it had 500 health. Noting that I didn't have to blast the fire at full force to get a response, I reduced the flow so I could deal as much damage as possible before running out of fire. Suddenly, after I'd dealt about 100 damage, a burst of white spurted out of its chest and struck Luigi, and the monstrosity faded out of sight. Just before the game over screen, I noticed that my element meter had vanished.
Now I had an opportunity to explore something else: Would that extra boss fight happen again? It was about 2AM by this point, and there are a lot of creepypastas on the internet about video games that took on a life of their own, even turned on the player. Most are bad, even laughable, but let me tell you, the idea of actually being in one is nothing to snort at. With only Boolossus between me and the anomaly, I tried to be even more careful. The giant conglomerate of Boos was still a pain, but by taking my time, I somehow got through with 70 health. When Luigi did his victory twirl, I held my breath.
Just like before, the screen didn't fade to white. The exact same cutscene as last time played, there were no variations to indicate that the game was somehow aware I'd already lost once. Only one thing caught my attention: the words "Why do you keep coming back here?" They seemed more appropriate this time, and I wondered if I was expected to lose to this boss several times over. If nothing else, it indicated that this was actually programmed into the game…but I'd never seen any mention of this when I'd looked online to see if there was any extra content to be earned from beating the game, and the idea that I had a hacked copy didn't even cross my mind, as this was the same disc I'd been playing for years, it had never left my possession. I didn't even have a sibling or parent or friend who was good enough with computers to have any effect on a game disc at all, let alone put in something so complicated. Yes, I was on my 22nd run of the game on this same save file, but surely there were people who had gone far beyond that number.
Puzzled, I fought the boss again, this time waiting for it to start using fire or ice. As before, fire was the first element to be brought out, and I gathered as much fire as I could. When it switched to ice and I started burning it, I suddenly registered that, apart from that weird screech, I had never heard this thing make any sort of sound at all, not even when I was hurting it. Between that and its complete lack of color, it felt like something that just didn't belong, and an extra thrill of fear went through me at the realization.
Once again, at about 400 health, the thing spat out a fountain of ice and faded from sight. This time, I had enough health to withstand it, and I quickly shook Luigi out of the ice trap he was caught in, like the one that happens if Bowser hits you with an ice blast during the final boss. I had not imagined completely losing my element meter; even though I'd had plenty of fire left, all at once, I had no element power to use.
After a few moments, the thing rose up from the ground, growing and unfolding into its full form; this time, though, the ice effect still sparkled in its middle. Knowing what to expect, I braced myself to be hit and frozen solid, with a bit of ice remaining in the air for me to suck up once I had full control of Luigi again; this was exactly what happened. By this point, I was running low on health again, and out of desperation, I ran for the unicorn statue at the far opposite end of the arena, hoping to shake it and maybe get a heart out of it. I wasn't sure if that ever actually happened in the boss fight arena, but I was desperate enough to try - I really didn't want to fight Boolossus again. The new boss kept slamming me, but when it was far off screen, something interesting happened: the long tentacles didn't reach far enough to hit Luigi. I hadn't wanted to get this far away from it because I wanted to watch it, but apparently, its range was limited after all. The camera zoomed out as I reached the unicorn, and I saw the white abomination start moving. It didn't walk towards me; instead, it started sidestepping, the puddle that was presumably what remained of its lower legs moving with the limbs as if it were solid. It bumped up against the wall and began to slide along, apparently unable to more forward or backward and either unable or unwilling to stop facing Luigi. While it was trying to maneuver its way over to me, the particles in its body switched from blue-white back to orange. Ice is not effective against fire in this game, but with no water on hand and very little health, I ran over to see if I could hit it anyway. Surprisingly, my ice affected it as the fire had when it was in ice mode. At about 300 health, it spat out a burst of fire, and Luigi ran out of health.
Groaning, I selected my save file and pressed on. I've mentioned a couple of times that I'm not very good at games, but there is one thing I have to my name that has gotten me through nearly every game I've ever played in the end: my stubbornness. I do not give up, ever, so I definitely wasn't going to walk away from this, not even for the night. Boolossus was especially difficult this time, and I was down to 50 health at the end. The same new cutscene played out, and I was fighting the new boss again. This time, at least, I knew its attacks did actually have a range, and that it wasn't very good at maneuvering when forced to do so. With this new revelation on my side, I managed to only be down to 40 health by the time I got to attack it once. Unfortunately, the damage inflicted when it decided to fade out with every 100 health points lost was unavoidable, meaning I couldn't afford to get hit by anything else again. This, of course, was easier said than done, and it was at 100 health when I died again.
Gritting my teeth, I went back in - I had it now, I knew how to fight, I just needed to not lose so much health to Boolossus. It was like a Dark Souls boss, which I was fond of by then, so I soldiered on. This time, Boolossus got me down to 65 health - not my best, but maybe enough, if I was lucky. Again, nothing different happened with the new boss fight, and I used everything I'd learned about it in this fourth attempt. It was very close, but finally, its health got down to zero. When the music stopped and a cutscene began, I shouted in triumph, not caring who in my apartment building might hear me.
A moment later, I realized how odd it was that I wasn't sucking up this creature. It was talking again, bent over in the position it's in when it appears.
"Is your brother really that important to you?"
Relief washed through me at this, because it meant the thing was definitely talking to Luigi - I don't have a brother. So, not a haunted game. Probably.
"You think your family matters more than mine?"
Luigi made the little "Oh" sound he makes when faced with something curious, but at least he didn't make his affirmative gesture.
"Fine then. If that's how you feel…I'll show you my pain."
Abruptly, the Poltergust 3000 started up, with a surprised exclamation from Luigi indicating that he wasn't doing it on purpose. The white thing was sucked into the vacuum top-first (again, it had no head per se), and there was the sound of an explosion as the screen finally faded to white.