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Luigi is a relatable human character who many fans find themselves rooting for, especially considering how Mario treats him at times. So, in honor of him, let’s take a look back on all his solo games over the years and rank them all from worst to best.
8 Mario Is Missing!
Many people think that Luigi’s first role as the “star” of a game was with Luigi’s Mansion in 2001. Those people are wrong. In actuality, the plumber appeared as the MC much earlier in an educational SNES game called “Mario Is Missing!” way back in 1993. This game was part of an initiative at the time to use Mario characters for educational-based games that were all of very low quality. All it takes is one look at the cover of the box to get a feel for just how “great” this game was. It featured Luigi traveling all over the world to find clues that would point him to Mario’s location, but believe us, it’s not worth anyone’s time in this day and age.
7 Luigi’s Mansion: Arcade Version
People may not even know this exists, but new arcade games do actually come out every once in a while. Arcades might be pretty close to dead in the US but they’re still thriving in Japan. And Nintendo apparently pushed forward an arcade version of the 2001 ghost-based plumber adventure into our barebones arcades. The game itself is pretty basic but it has all the gameplay elements you’d expect from the vacuum-centric adventure and even most of the locations from Dark Moon. The main difference is this time 1-2 players take control of multiple Luigis in first-person as they roam around hunting ghosts to compete for the highest score. The physical vacuum players use is nifty but at the end of the day its still an arcade game with little to no actual depth.
6 Dr. Luigi
The classic Dr. Mario game isn’t exactly what the plumber is known for nowadays, but for a time back in the day it was his biggest game. This classic formula was obviously Nintendo’s own attempt at Tetris, but rather than random blocks the antagonists are viruses Mario fights in the form of pills. Dr. Luigi is exactly that, just made for the Wii U in 2013.
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It’s not a bad game but it is also not an amazing game, it’s just Dr. Mario with much higher graphical fidelity and a slight twist on the MC. The new virus designs for Luigi are charming in their own way, and the game does have a few modes but all in all it’s a pretty shallow game that quickly faded from our memory.
5 New Super Luigi U
New Super Luigi U technically wasn’t a full game but rather a DLC expansion/add-on for New Super Mario Bros U for the Wii U. This 80+ stage DLC revamps most of the stages from the game to tailor to Luigi’s specific jump arc and slip-and-slide running style. It’s fun in its own right and it was pretty neat that Nintendo released the DLC as its own standalone game later on, but for the most part, New Super Luigi U just felt like a tacked-on addition to the Year of Luigi that really encapsulated why that year didn’t quite work out as Nintendo had probably planned.
4 Super Mario Galaxy NG+
This is probably the most unique example on this list, especially since it’s only really available in the post-game of the base game. After collecting all 120 stars in Super Mario Galaxy, players then unlock a new “mode” called Super Luigi Galaxy which is basically just the main game slightly tailored for Luigi. Still, Galaxy was a fantastic game, and playing it as Luigi added a lot more than we thought it would to the overall game.
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Plus, they reincorporated the option in Galaxy 2 and even gave players a taste of playing as the mansion-owner Luigi himself earlier on in the game.
3 Luigi’s Mansion
Did anyone else expect these three games not to make the top three? It was pretty obvious from minute one that all three Luigi’s Mansions are absolutely the best standalone Luigi titles. They give Luigi his own lore! It’s likely no surprise is that they follow their chronology in their respective rankings. The first game is the most dated and archaic, LM: DM improves upon the original but has plenty of flaws of its own, and LM: 3 is the most streamlined and creative of the sequels, having nailed everything it set out to achieve. That said, the speedruns for Luigi’s Mansion are some of the best out there simply because of how easily the game is to break and how it was put together.
2 Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon
Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is the “middle child” of the trilogy in every sense of the world. Yes, it’s literally the game in the middle, but it also fills the stereotypical role of a middle child where it’s not the worst but also not the best. The perfect example of how it fits this role is the fact that both the original and the third game both have a number in their name while this second game only gets a “subtitle name.” It’s still a B+ to A- title, but once you play LM: 3, there’s no going back to this.
1 Luigi’s Mansion 3
Like we said before Luigi’s Mansion 3 is absolutely the best this game series has even been. It takes everything people loved about the other two games and improves upon them by adding new mid-fight ghost mechanics, new types of vacuum tools, tons of detail work, and plenty of things to destroy and suck up in each room. The original game dragged on for a bit and really fell flat after you were tasked with finding all the boos, the second game was just more of the first with some pretty great new characters, but the third is just everything we wanted and more. Plus that art style! It might be the best looking Switch game so far, at least in our opinion. All that combined makes this new title by far Luigi’s shining example, affirming that he can indeed be the hero. Not to mention he looks good doing it!
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