Game Overview

Luigi's Mansion is an adventure horror game released in late 2001. It was a launch title for Nintendo's GameCube console, and it is the second title in which Luigi is the main character. Luigi wins a mansion from a contest that he never entered in the first place. He asks Mario to investigate, but Mario soon goes missing. Luigi must now search for his lost brother. To help him along the way, Professor E. Gadd gives him the Poltergust 3000, a powerful vacuum that you can capture ghosts with, and a Game Boy Horror, so Luigi and the professor can communicate.

Given that it's nighttime, Luigi's pretty tired, so he decides to find Mario in under one hour so he can get to bed.

For reference, this is about 5 minutes and 35 seconds faster than the current real-time record of 58:09 (RTA timing ends upon receiving King Boo's crown as opposed to last input). The run can be seen here: [dead link removed]

Mini-map w/ Commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrGAx65_Djc

Mini-map w/o Commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj6kOlzYGgM

No Mini-map w/ Commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EghVU3gmmdM

No Mini-map w/o Commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D16saza4QXo

To sync the run:

Objectives

I used the Japanese .GCM with the MD5 checksum: 4686D0580E0358F0C3161984FE5EA2B7

Why start from a save file?

Completing the game once unlocks the hidden mansion mode, which lets you skip the tutorial and gives Luigi a more powerful vacuum to suck up ghosts faster. That's all.

General Overview of Game Mechanics

This game is fairly simple in what you need to do: suck up all the ghosts. Almost always, you need to point the flashlight at the ghost to stun it. Then you can use the vacuum to drain its health. Once it reaches 0 health there are 2 animations that a ghost can do as it enters the vacuum, a twirl and a wave. The twirl is faster in almost every case. I'll get into that a bit more later. If ghosts are close enough together you can suck them up at the same time. Using the Game Boy Horror and then looking at a mirror will let Luigi return to the main foyer. This is used whenever walking to the next location is slower than returning to the mansion first.

Tricks/Tactics

Facing away from a ghost's spawn point and then facing the ghost as it spawns causes Luigi to rotate while getting scared. This way the flashlight immediately points at the ghost so it gets stunned at the first possible opportunity.

Scare Skipping: Using the Game Boy Horror and then closing it right as a ghost spawns causes Luigi to skip the “getting scared” animation. This allows him to move freely as the ghost is still spawning.

Money Skip: I avoid picking up money so that the tally at the end of each area doesn't count up any money at all. This saves a few seconds.

R-Pumping: When sucking up boos, they will begin to move away after losing 10 health. Letting go of the vacuum button and then pressing it again causes the boo to stay in its current position. This can only be done 15 times before the boo gains complete control and leaves the room.

Text Skipping: Sucking up a boo and then sucking up something else causes the game to ignore that you just sucked up a boo. This skips E. Gadd talking to Luigi.

L-Cancelling: Upon entering dark rooms, Luigi will whip out his flashlight while standing still. By pressing L to release either fire, water, or ice, Luigi can move while taking out his flashlight.

Watch the encode with commentary for a more in-depth explanation to some of these tricks and their applications.

Author's Comments

I had a blast working on this. The Luigi's Mansion community was very welcoming and helped me learn everything there is to learn about this game. I couldn't have done it without them. Special thank you to Veman and Skozzy. They both spent a lot of time with me watching the run's progress and coming up with strategies.

Thank you to Kasper, Cody, Veman, and GC who pestered me to do this back during SGDQ2015.

Samsara: Come, friend. You've been waiting long enough. and you may have to wait longer if i can't get this to sync

Samsara: Nope, not syncing for me at all. I'll have to drop this.

Noxxa: Judging.

Noxxa: I managed to get it to sync. Accepting for Moons as a new branch of this game. Regarding branch names, this one shall remain branchless, and the published run should get a branch name indicating its gamebreaking glitch use. "Chest glitch" was proposed in the thread.

Fog: Processing...? Nope, lose sync at the bowser fight.

fsvgm777: Fog loses sync, RGamma loses sync, I don't lose sync.
This is going to be fun.