Luigi’s Mansion: Inspired by Ghostbusters?

Nintendo’s master creator/director Shigeru Miyamoto recently took part in an interview with ABC, in relation to the upcoming Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon (or simply Luigi’s Mansion 2, in the UK).

The multiplayer mode within the game features four players at once, performing the game’s main gameplay mechanic, catching ghosts with the Poltergust 5000. This prompted the question: “Are you a fan of the movie?” citing that this mode has a Ghostbusters vibe to it. Unsurprisingly, Miyamoto stated he is indeed a fan of the movie (I personally have never met anyone who doesn’tlike the movie), but moreso stated that Ghostbusters was not the inspiration for this or the original Luigi’s Mansion. Or did he?

“I am a fan of Ghostbusters,” said Miyamoto. “That wasn’t the inspiration for the original Luigi’s Mansion. In fact, when we were developing the original Luigi’s Mansion, we were taking care as a team, even though that wasn’t our original inspiration, to make sure that people didn’t just assume that that was what we were trying to do.”

Being aware of Ghostbusters’ existence when developing such an idea as Luigi’s Mansion surely means they must have had some influence from it. Ghostbusters was such an original and brilliant idea, equally so is using a vacuum cleaner to catch ghosts, as opposed to nuclear science. However, although they both work the same way; the only differences are the characters involved, and the settings. This is in no way any sort of patent infringement.

Personally, I have no problem even if Miyamoto said it was influenced by Ghostbusters; as I’ve stated before it is my all-time favourite franchise, and to see a quality game such as Luigi’s Mansion, or potentially its sequel (which I aim to purchase) deliver a Ghostbusters-style experience (sorry Shigsy) is a double bonus for me.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 is out tomorrow for 3DS.