During Thursday's Nintendo Direct conference, company president Satoru Iwata declared 2013 would be the year of Luigi, and gave us new insight into Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon.

Shigeru Miyamoto joined the event for a few minutes to give some specifics on Luigi's Mansion, discussing what was new and improved over the original Nintendo Gamecube title, and what to look forward to in multiplayer. Set to arrive on March 24th, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon will see the return of the Poltergust 5000, but it will include some new upgrades.

Instead of just being limited to ghost hunting, the vacuum will now also be used for puzzle solving. Additionally, the Poltergust will be equipped with a new Darklight to find hidden paths, and track down the new ghost dog that will chase Luigi throughout the game.

Ghosts will also be more challenging to catch in this 3DS sequel. Instead of merely being able to suck them up, Luigi will first have to stun ghosts. Of course, later spectres will try to prevent Luigi from stunning them by wearing sunglasses, or sneaking up on him from behind. There definitely appears to be a lot more variety in how ghosts will evade being captured this time around.

We already knew Luigi's Mansion would include multiplayer, but Miyamoto talked a bit about the cooperative component. The multiplayer will work locally, with download play, and online. Hunter mode we already saw in action, but this was the first time Nintendo showed off Rush mode and Polterpup mode. In Rush mode, players must work together to find the escape hatch on a floor of the Scarescaper before time runs out. In Polterpup mode, a ghost dog will be hiding somewhere in a level, and players must work to find and capture him before the timer expires.

With all we've seen of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon so far, it looks like Nintendo's Year of Luigi is going to get off to a great start next month!

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