Analyzing the Year of Luigi and how Nintendo could do it better

It’s no secret that Luigi is one of the most beloved characters in the Mario franchise. Mario is well-liked, too, but lots of Super Mario fans like Luigi better thanks to his deeper personality and his whole “living in his brother’s shadow” trait he has going on. To celebrate this, Nintendo hosted a special event all throughout 2013 called the Year of Luigi. The idea was that Nintendo would release games and merch featuring Luigi more so in 2013 than ever before, all to commemorate everyone’s favorite green-capped plumber.

That being said, while the Year of Luigi is an interesting part of Nintendo’s history, it wasn’t a runaway success. Today, we’re analyzing everything Nintendo released as part of the Year of Luigi, plus how they could do it better if they ever dedicate an upcoming year to a specific character (which, for the record, seems a bit unlikely).

One problem the year of Luigi had was that it didn’t feel like Nintendo planned out the entire event well in advance. More likely is that the company saw several of its upcoming games prominently featured Luigi in some fashion and then decided to host the event with this knowledge. The headlining game of the Year of Luigi was Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon / Luigi’s Mansion 2, the long-awaited sequel to Luigi’s Mansion on GameCube. It was received fairly well, though many reviewers noted that it didn’t hold a candle to its predecessor. Whereas the original Luigi’s Mansion was a cohesive, constant experience, Dark Moon split up its exploration into 15 to 20-minute missions. This meant that you couldn’t really explore the mansions to your liking; you were forced onto a mostly linear path. The game wasn’t bad by any means, but it wound up slightly forgettable – in essence, it’s in this odd territory where it is a sequel, but the storyline is more or less the same as in the original.

The only other Nintendo 3DS game released specifically to commemorate the Year of Luigi was Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, which you’ll notice doesn’t solely star Luigi. That said, the game’s new Dream World completely revolves around the character, so you could argue that the game places a higher emphasis on Luigi than any other game in the series (other than perhaps Brothership, which is more recent). A couple of Wii U games were released during the Year of Luigi, too. Dr. Luigi was a fairly obscure clone of Dr. Mario that was only available on Nintendo eShop, and it included a couple of different game modes as well as online play. By all means, though, it was a rather small release and it’s no longer available to purchase or download via legitimate means.

The headlining Year of Luigi game on Wii U was New Super Luigi U, an expansion of New Super Mario Bros. U that doesn’t feature Mario. The game has redesigned levels that focus on speed, and each stage has a timer of 100 seconds. That means the levels are shorter, but in some cases they’re actually of higher quality than the original. None of the stages drag on and overstay their welcome, and Nabbit is introduced as a playable character for the first time. New Super Luigi U does reuse the world map from the original game, but it’s overall a more focused and enjoyable experience than New Super Mario Bros. U. In our opinion, at least!

The only other game-related celebrations for Year of Luigi were the inclusion of Luigi Bros. in Super Mario 3D World (a reskinned version of the original Mario Bros. arcade game) and Super Luigi Bros. appearing in NES Remix 2. That’s about it! Earlier, we mentioned that it felt like the celebration was more of an afterthought than an actual event, and that’s mostly because of the game release schedule. It’s entirely possible that Nintendo commissioned Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon and then just added a few Luigi-related things into other games and then decided to call it Year of Luigi from there. For 2013 being the Year of Luigi, a lot of arguably more important games came out that year: Pokemon X and Y, Fire Emblem Awakening, and Animal Crossing: New Leaf for 3DS, and Pikmin 3 and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD for Wii U. Nintendo released plenty of Year of Luigi merch on Club Nintendo, including a Year of Luigi Sound Selection and a special coin, among other items. If Nintendo were ever to do another year dedicated to a specific character, it’d be a good idea to maybe feature the character in question in three prominent games compared to just two.

There’d also be the question of which character Nintendo chooses for another such event. Given the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie (which has a sequel coming, in case you forgot), it probably makes the most sense to focus on Mario since the global recognition of Mario as a character is at an all-time high. Bowser is a great candidate for a year of his own – it’d be a great chance to make and release a game where he serves as the protagonist, perhaps having to take down his own enemy without Mario and Luigi’s aid (as was the case in Bowser’s Inside Story). And while the Year of Luigi featured small mini-game reskins like Luigi Bros. and Super Luigi Bros., a theoretical Year of Bowser could reskin these games and their enemies so that you play as Bowser instead. Since Bowser isn’t a simple palette swap of Mario, these ideas would be much more interesting with him than they were with Luigi. Nintendo doesn’t have to choose Bowser for a yearly event, either – they could do it with Wario, Yoshi, or Donkey Kong – or someone from a different series entirely! If we had received a new Donkey Kong game in 2024 in addition to Donkey Kong Country Returns HD and the Donkey Kong expansion of Super Nintendo World, 2024 would’ve been a great candidate for the Year of Donkey Kong. Likewise, early 2023 to early 2024 would’ve made a great Year of Peach – her appearance in the Super Mario Bros. Movie, her playable role in Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Super Mario RPG, and her very own original game in Princess Peach Showtime.

What are your thoughts on the Year of Luigi? Would you like to see it come back with another character as the spotlight, or would you rather it be the last character-specific yearly celebration? Feel free to let us know in the comments down below.