Luigi's Mansion 2 HD

Luigi's Mansion 2 HD
Also known as: Luigi Mansion 2 HD (JP/HK/TW) Developer: Tantalus Media Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Nintendo Switch Released internationally: June 27, 2024 This game has unused areas. This game has debugging material.

Luigi's Mansion 2 HD is an HD port of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, a 3DS game originally released in 2013.

To do: Document the rest of the unused content, including 3DS leftovers. Document oddities between both versions.

New Files

This section documents all the new files in the internal file system of Luigi's Mansion 2 HD.

filemap.txt

This file seemingly identifies the location of all files in the game's internal file system. The text present in this file can be seen through the directory below.

filemap.txt The text in this file seemingly identifies the location of every file in the game's file system.

BundleHashID.bin

Seemingly, this file identifies all objects in the game via hash IDs. Some of the hex in this file decodes to utter gibberish, but most of the file decodes to readable English. These words must be the titles given to the game's objects the developers placed using level editing tools. Interestingly, this file wasn't present in the 3DS version. Why would it be needed in the Switch version? We are yet to find out.

BundleHashID.bin This file seemingly identifies all objects via hash IDs.

3DS Leftovers

streetpass

Found in RomFS\art is a folder named "streetpass". StreetPass was a feature that many games in the 3DS library supported, although it was a feature even the original 3DS version didn't support. Curiously, the content inside this folder is still used in both versions and contains the data for the ScareScraper boss ghosts you find every 5 floors of a ScareScraper.

Unused Cutscenes

Ghost_BaBomb_Reveal

This cutscene shows two Greenies digging a bomb out of the ground. The music intended to load during this cutscene doesn't for a reason unknown.

(Source: JackSnacksOnBigMacs)

Luigi_Fall

This cutscene shows Luigi picking up an asterisk (*), celebrating, and getting interrupted by an event below his feet. Seconds later, Luigi falls down a hole. As far as modders are concerned, no music is paired to this cutscene.

(Source: JackSnacksOnBigMacs)

Mission4_complete

This cutscene was perhaps intended to show when the player completes Mission A-5: Sticky Situation, hence the spiders visible, or possibly even Mission A-4: Visual Tricks to show that the spiders are up to something.

This cutscene shows Luigi dancing after completing a mission, much like when the Haunted Towers boss is defeated, and getting violently sucked into one of E. Gadd's security cameras. Interestingly, this is the only pixelize cutscene that doesn't feature any of Luigi's pixels.

(Source: JackSnacksOnBigMacs)

GhostChaser_reveal

One out of the two unused GhostChaser_reveal cutscenes featuring Polterpup.

This cutscene is seemingly a duplicate of a cutscene that shows during Mission B-5: Doggone Key but instead, Polterpup doesn't run away. This time, he stays in the same spot after swallowing the special key.

(Source: JackSnacksOnBigMacs)

Unused Layouts

To do: See if the menus themselves can't be loaded as well.

Found in the RomFS\art\fe folder are two unused debugging screen layouts. To see these in-game, replace one of the used layout .data and .dict files.

Mission Select

debugselectmissions.data seems to be a layout for a simple menu containing a list of missions. The mission names don't seem to load.

(Source: Skawo)

Progress Debug

progressiondebug.data appears to be a menu allowing you to set some completion parameters.

(Source: Skawo)

Unused Rooms

Gloomy Manor

room_treasureroom

A complex 3D Maze found in RomFS\art\levels\mansiona\room_treasureroom. A chest is present, which awards you a modest amount of money, and a spring pad that launches you back to the beginning. Notably, this level has had its model updated since its 3DS iteration and now features more detail, such as extra foliage, evidently the developers at Tantalus Media didn't know whether this was unused or not and decided to err on the side of caution.

(Source: Skawo)

Haunted Towers

room_secretroom1

A barely-started bonus challenge found in RomFS\art\levels\mansionb\room_secretroom1 also returns from its 3DS iteration, seemingly unchanged. The teleporter still crashes if interacted with.

(Source: Skawo)

room_secretroomtemplate

An even more incomplete version of the above, with just the outer walls being present.

(Source: Skawo)

Unused Textures

Convergence Plane

A leftover from the 3DS version, found in RomFS\art\global.data, is a texture reading "Convergence Plane" several times over, seemingly with an almost unnoticeable difference in sampling between the Switch version and the 3DS'. Their resolutions, compared to each other, are the same.

Configuration Files

To do: There are only two releases, right? Physical and digital, which likely have the same title version/data.

Located in \ini is one file which seems to contain general ROM information.

buildinfo.ini

Has the version control identifier, as well as the date and time, of the build.

Current Changelist = CL 128620
Build Date = Mar 01 2024 - 13:54

Debug Features

Like in the 3DS version, these can be accessed by adding a dist.ini file to the romfs/ini folder and adding the appropriate switch.

The switches: Skip Frontend, Skip Frontend Level, Skip Frontend Mission, King Boo Hack, Always Unlock All Missions, Smoke Test, Smoke Test Duration, Custom Level, and BootLanguage all work just like they did on the 3DS.

UseTestLevels

If set to true, the game loads a Level Select. This didn't work in the 3DS version, but now it does.