| “ | I collected famous ghosts from all over the world and turned them into paintings, but those darn Boos went and turned them all back into ghosts again! You've got to catch those ghosts so I can turn them back into paintings. | „ |
| ~ Professor Elvin Gadd in the Instruction booklet description. |
The Portrait Ghosts are ghosts of people who used to be portraits and serve as antagonists in Luigi's Mansion. They are recurring enemies and bosses that are encountered by Luigi in different rooms of the mansion, with each area having a considerable number of portrait ghosts as the game progresses. The portrait ghosts later returned in the 3DS remake of the game with a new platinum frame added.
Appearance
Mosf of the portrait ghosts retrain an appearance similar to when they were alive. Some of the ghosts have tealish skin, pale blue skin and even pinkish and purple skins. Some of the ghosts also have glowing light green eyes or yellow eyes, although all of them are lacking pupils. They all wear their normal clothes while they were alive, except for a few ghosts like Jarvis, Bogmire and Boolossus.
Biography
Professor E. Gadd says that the ghosts used to be portraits until King Boo and his Boos brought them back to life as ghosts. Now they are doing their common hobbies when they were alive, aware of knowing that they are already undead. Luigi must vacuum up all of them and bring them to the Professor to activate the Ghost Portrificationizer, which turn the Portrait Ghosts into common Portraits.
Some of the ghosts seem to be relative to each other such as Neville and Lydia being a married couple and their children being Chauncey, Henry and Orville.
Area 1
Neville is the first portrait ghost that Luigi encounters in Area 1. He resides in the study room and is also the easiest ghost to capture. Luigi later goes on his way capturing Lydia who resides in the master bedroom. Luigi opens the curtains while Lydia was primping her hair, exposing her heart and allowing Luigi to capture her. The boss of Area 1 is Chauncey, the baby of Neville and Lydia. Luigi captures Chauncey after throwing enough balls at him, exposing his heart and giving Luigi the chance to vacuum him. Once the boss battle ends, Luigi will receive the key to Area 2.
Area 2
Luigi starts Area 2 by capturing the Floating Whirlindas. While dancing, Luigi lights at the ghosts exposing their hearts and vacuuming both of them at once. Later on, Luigi accidentally releases King Boo and the Boos which makes Luigi retreat to talk with Professor Elvin Gadd. Luigi returns to the mansion and eventually meets Madame Clairvoya, the fortune-teller ghost who presents herself as the "seer of dropped items". She says she can help Luigi giving him more information regarding Mario and the future events to happen if she is given more items that have been dropped by him around the mansion.
After obtaining the fire element medal, Luigi is able to light Shivers' candelabra which causes him to go mad and goes to his room where he sits down and becomes vulnerable for Luigi to vacuum him, dropping him the key to the conservatory room. Luigi encounters with Melody Pianissima, who is impressed by the music that performed with different instruments in the room. She makes Luigi guess the name of the music she plays in her piano, which are themes from classic Mario games. However, after guessing the correct answer, Melody figures out she didn't need to hold back on him and suggests Luigi to battle with her music sheets. After vacuuming the music sheets, Melody starts to panic and becomes vulnerable, allowing Luigi to vacuum her.
Aftewards, Luigi will encounter Mr. Luggs who proceeds to attack Luigi after vacuuming his dish of food and the ghost waiters. Luigi easily vacuums Mr. Luggs after the latter becomes tries to take a brief break. Once Luigi goes to the Boneyard, he will meet Spooky, the dog ghost of the family. Luigi manages to capture the dog after distracting him with a bone dropped by a ghost skeleton, making him vulnerable to be vacuumed. The boss of Area 2 is Bogmire, Luigi has to suck his shadows that morph into a ball and throw them at the real Bogmire, making him vulnerable to be sucked and finally cleaning Area 2 overall.
Area 3
Biff Atlas is the first portrait ghost encountered in Area 3. While optional, defeating him will guarantee a higher Rank at the end of the game. Luigi must smack a punching bag to Biff three times, making him vulnerable for Luigi to vacuum him. Afterwards, Luigi faces Miss Petunia in the Bathroom and using the Ice Element, he freezes the bathtub causing her to sneeze and become vulnerable to be captured. Later on, Nana is the next after Miss Petunia, it is also revealed in Nana's diary that she pranked Miss Petunia putting ice on her bathtub while she was gone, this serves as the previous strategy to defeat Petunia. To defeat Nana, Luigi must vacuum the yarn balls and shoot them at her three times making her heart vulnerable, Nana will attack in response with her needle eye beams. After capturing Nana, Luigi receives the key to the Billiards Room.
The ghost in the Billiards Room is Slim Bankshot. Just like Biff, Slim is also optional. He is defeated in a similar way to Nana, as Luigi must vacuum the Billiard Balls and shoot them at Slim three times until his heart is exposed and captured afterwards. Luigi later returns to the first area to face the twin brothers Henry and Orville. They play a game of "Hide and Seek" with Luigi. However, they accuse Luigi of cheating even if he doesn't use the Poltergust 3000 and proceed to attack him. Luigi vacuums their toys and makes them vulnerable to be captured.
After gathering enough items of Mario around the mansion, Luigi returns to Madame Clairvoya and gives her each of the items one at a time. She talks with the "spirits" and tells Luigi that Mario is alive, but trapped inside a painting by King Boo, and on top of that Bowser is somewhere in the mansion. After using her remaining power on the last item, Madame Clairvoya states that she can finally go back to her portrait and rest in peace knowing she has fulfilled her purpose. While Clairvoya puts some effort when being vacuumed, she returns to her seat with her exposed heart for Luigi to vacuum it.
Boolossus is the boss of Area 3. He is the combination of many boos and face Luigi in the Balcony. In order to defeat him, Luigi sucks Boolossus by the tail and moves to the sharp horn of an ice unicorn statue while bringing Boolossus closer to it. Boolossus explodes into many Boos with the touch of the horn and Luigi uses the ice element to freeze and suck them all until Boolossus is no more, cleaning Area 3.
Area 4
After returning to the Balcony, a lightning strikes the mansion causing a power outage. Luigi is contacted by Professor Elvin Gadd who reveals that a portrait ghost called Uncle Grimmly has locked the Breaker Room where the energy can be restored and he is hiding in a room with "mirrors and clothes". Uncle Grimmly is found in the Wardrobe Room and tries to scare Luigi, but at doing so, he exposes his heart and is vacuumed by Luigi, who grabs the key and restores the energy in the mansion shortly afterwards.
The Clockwork Soldiers appear standing still in the Clockwork Room and are activated when Luigi starts the three clocks in the room. They will proceed to attack him with their popping cork guns, and Luigi will have to vacuum their wind-up keys in order to make them vulnerable and vacuum them one at a time. Sue Pea is an optional ghost, but is required to get the highest rank at the end of the game. When Luigi enters her room, she will demand Luigi to go away and attacks him with dolls. She is soon defeated when Luigi shoots water with the Poltergust 3000 all over here, exposing her heart and getting vacuumed.
Jarvis is also another optional ghost. He resides in the Ceramic Studio and will make Luigi play a Whac-A-Mole style game that consists of hitting him seven times. If Luigi wins however, Jarvis expresses his frustration for losing the game and threatens Luigi with stuffing him into one of the jars. Jarvis is defeated when Luigi vacuums him the moment he pops his head out from one of the jars. Afterwards, Luigi encounters Sir Weston residing in the Cold Storage located in the basement of the mansion. Sir Weston attacks Luigi after he lights the logs on fire and launches waves of ice at Luigi. Luigi uses the fire element to unfreeze Sir Weston making him vulnerable and getting captured in the process.
Vincent Van Gore is the last portrait ghost in the mansion. He resides in The Artist's Studio on the third floor of the mansion. He is also revealed to be the one behind the creation of the common ghosts that Luigi has faced. He will attack Luigi releasing several variants of ghosts that Luigi has to vacuum. After the last ghost is gone, Van Gore becomes angered because of this which gives Luigi enough time to vacuum and end with the artist's tantrum.
Gallery
Images
.png "Portrait Ghosts (Area 1).png (1.96 MB)")
.png "Portrait Ghosts (Area 2).png (1.95 MB)")
.png "Portrait Ghosts (Area 3).png (1.98 MB)")
.png "Portrait Ghosts (Area 4).png (1.97 MB)")
Videos
Trivia
- In the beta of Luigi's Mansion, if the player didn't complete the game within 24 hours, the game over consisted of a depressed looking Luigi at the entrance of the mansion. This game over screen has led many fans to speculate that Luigi became a portrai ghost, although this remains unconfirmed.
- Of all the portrait ghosts, Madame Clairvoya was the only ghost that never wanted to harm Luigi and served more as an ally to him. She was also willing to help him find Mario throughout the game and finally let herself be vacuumed once she ran out of magic (although puts weak effort while being captured).
- The silver and gold frames of Chauncey, Madame Clairvoya and Mr. Luggs can be seen in the Luigi's Mansion battle course in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
- While most of the portrait ghosts are required to be captured to progress in the game, other portrait ghosts can be skipped like Mr. Luggs, Biff Atlas, Slim Bankshot, Sue Pea and Jarvis. However, doing so will prevent the player from getting the highest rank at the end of the game.
The Kitchen Portrait Ghost.
- While King Boo and Boolossus are clearly more boos than portrait ghosts, they still became portraits at the end of the game along with Bowser.
- During the E3 2001 presentation of Luigi's Mansion, it was revealed that a chef portrait ghost was going to appear in the game, and would be found in the Kitchen as the image in the right shows. However, he was scrapped in the finished version for unknown reasons. It's most likely that the chef ghost was later reused and became Chef Soulffle in Luigi's Mansion 3.
- Similarly to the above, there was also speculation that a hunter portrait ghost was going to appear in the Safari Room, this theory gained popularity from a text in the magazine Nintendo Power as seen in the right image. However, unlike the chef portrait ghost, the Safari portrait ghost turned out to be fake and there wasn't any visual representation of said ghost as proof of their existence.
