Luigi's Mansion
Mario's brother finally got top billing—as the nervous lead of Nintendo's GameCube launch. Luigi wins a mansion in a contest he never entered, finds it haunted, loses Mario inside, and armed with a ghost-catching vacuum cleaner, nervously hums his way through rooms of poltergeists. The Poltergust 3000 was ingenious enough to spawn a franchise.
Nintendo EAD launched Luigi's Mansion as the GameCube's headliner, releasing it September 14, 2001 in Japan and November 18, 2001 in North America. Instead of opening its new console with a Mario platformer, Nintendo bet on Luigi—the second fiddle, the sidekick—as the hero, with the Poltergust 3000 vacuum as the central mechanic. You'd suck up ghosts, listen to Luigi nervously hum over the soundtrack, and solve light puzzles. The game sold 3.33 million copies worldwide, making it the fifth best-selling GameCube title—proof that Luigi's cowardice was exactly what you wanted to roleplay.
The success didn't stop there. Sequels followed: Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon on the 3DS in 2013, a 3DS remake in 2018, and Luigi's Mansion 3 on the Switch in 2019. What started as a launch experiment became a franchise of its own, one where the anxious younger brother finally didn't need Mario to carry the game.
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Super Mario Sunshine
A tropical vacation goes hilariously wrong when Mario arrives on Isle Delfino and is immediately framed for vandalism. Armed with a talking water-cannon backpack and a court order to clean the island, you chased 120 Shine Sprites across a bizarre, sun-soaked adventure. Divisive at launch — no castles, just a goofy water gun and a wrongfully convicted plumber — it's aged into a GameCube classic.