Canonically, Luigi is seen as the simple-minded brother to Mario who is also afraid. This can be seen most recently inThe Super Mario Bros. Moviewherein Luigi tries to keep his cool in Bowser’s domain but fails miserably. He’s a cowering mess in avariety of RPG gamestoo or is just often forgotten.
As much as Luigi has become the butt of jokes, he has had some victories over Mario too. These victories have come in the form of solo games, meme campaigns, or just a series of good jokes in co-starring vehicles. Here’s a look at how Luigi has one-upped his brother Mario over the years.
Super Mario Bros. 2is the first game that gave Luigi a boost, literally, over Mario. All four playable characters in the game had specialties with Mario being less defined than anyone else.Peach, for example, could glidemaking her a top choice amongst players. Luigi was a good choice too because he could jump higher.
This specialty concept would be carried over into future games likeSuper Mario 3D World. In that game, Luigi also got a bigger jump and it felt more solid mechanically. Besides that, Luigi is just taller than Mario so it feels natural to have him get the bigger jump.
Luigi’s Mansionis the first big solo-driven project starring Luigi, not countingMario is Missingwhich is a whole other story. InLuigi’s Mansion, Mario gets tricked by Boos and becomes imprisoned in a painting. With the help of Professor E. Gadd, Luigi becomes armed with the Poltergust 3000 so that he can fight off ghosts.
It’s a good combination of aResident Evilgame since it is set in a mansion and aGhostbustersgame since Luigi is sucking up ghosts left and right. While scared, Luigi can fight back tears because his love for his brother is so strong. Now, players can enjoy all threeLuigi’s Mansiongameson the Switch for more Mario-free adventures.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Doorrecently received a good remaster for players to enjoy. It reminded fans that Luigi, while not a playable party member, did get a leg up on Mario. He was having his own adventure in The Waffle Kingdom, trying to fend off an evil all his own.
From the stories he tells Mario throughout the game, it seems like Luigi is a god to the people of The Waffle Kingdom. That would be a fun spinoff for Nintendo to green light someday. For now, players can just enjoy all of Luigi’s tall tales and talking to his companions too who have a more realistic view of Luigi inPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. It’s also worth mentioning thatLuigi becomes a villainin the next game,Super Paper Mario, and gets a few victories as well before snapping out of his hypnosis.
Super Mario 3D Landwas the bigMariogame for the 3DS. It used the 3D effects well to help players navigate the levels with good depth. After completing the game, they could go through it again with Luigi. It wasn’t just a set of mirrored levels with Luigi.
It was the whole thing, remixed and harder than ever. It’s kind of a big deal that Luigi got the harder version of the game, almost like Nintendo admitting Luigi is the more capable brother. This idea would be replicated with the standalone DLC toNew Super Mario Bros. UwithNew Super Luigi U.
Luigi had another victory on the 3DS withMario and Luigi: Dream Team. It is the fourth entry in this RPG series and the first on the 3DS. It was one of the big games released during the “Year of Luigi” which was an initiative from Nintendo to celebrate the lanky green plumber during the year of 2013 with various games and promotions.
In this RPG adventure, Luigi could fall asleep on a magic rock pillow that would allow Mario to gointo his dreams. In this dream state, Luigi could manipulate the world to his liking. For example, he could help Mario in battle by summoning a hundred Luigis for a special attack. All of the puzzles and attack combos were quite creative in this dream state, making it one of the better entries in the series.
Mario Kart 8is a game that keeps printing money for Nintendo between the original Wii U version and the Switch upgrade. Nintendo is still supporting it with DLC, which helps but on its own, it is just a good racing game. One of the early things that came out of it was aseries of memes involving Luigi.
Some players noticed that Luigi kind of gave off a death stare when passing others on the track. The Luigi death stare was used in everything fromFast and the Furiousparodies to dunking on cartoons likeSpongeBob SquarePants. It was discovered that other characters could do this too, but Luigi was the master of death stares. He conquered memes when Mario couldn’t which may sound like a weird victory to note, but it was a big sensation in 2014.
