50 Fun Facts About Luigi

Who created Luigi?

Shigeru Miyamoto: his team needed a character for a second player, and with memory tight they simply gave Mario's graphics a different set of colours.

How does Nintendo officially describe Mario and Luigi's relationship?

Twins, with Luigi the younger: he is nonetheless the taller of the two, a look the Western version of Super Mario Bros. 2 gave him after years as Mario's exact double.

Which Mario-series heroine is usually portrayed as Luigi's love interest?

Daisy: the tomboyish ruler of Sarasaland made her debut in Super Mario Land as a princess for Mario to rescue, yet it is his brother she is usually paired with.

Which 1982 arcade game inspired the two-player mode of Mario Bros., the game that introduced Luigi?

Joust: its second player rode a stork alongside the first, free to help or hinder, and Luigi was Nintendo's answer to that second rider.

One theory says Luigi's name comes from the Japanese word 'ruiji', meaning what?

Similar: apt for a hero who began as a recoloured copy of his brother, though Nintendo has never confirmed the origin, and another story credits a pizza parlour called Mario & Luigi's.

Who voiced Luigi in Nintendo's games for three decades until 2023?

Charles Martinet: he was Mario, Wario and Waluigi as well, and when he gave up the roles Nintendo kept him on with the new title of Mario Ambassador.

Which game introduced Kevin Afghani's Luigi?

Super Mario Bros. Wonder: fans had spent weeks guessing who the new voice of both brothers would be, and Afghani only confirmed he had the roles a week before the game went on sale.

Who voices Luigi in the animated Super Mario Bros. movie released in 2023?

Charlie Day: his Luigi spends most of the film as Bowser's prisoner waiting for Mario to come, the reverse of the Luigi's Mansion games, where Luigi does the rescuing.

Who played Luigi in the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. film?

John Leguizamo: his Luigi is far younger than Bob Hoskins's Mario, who has raised him like a son since their parents died.

Danny Wells's Luigi starred beside which wrestler's Mario in a 1989 television show?

Lou Albano: he and Wells played the plumbers in live-action sketches and voiced them in the cartoons, and Wells died during Nintendo's own Year of Luigi.

A 2013 Nintendo mockumentary hailed Luigi as a legend of which street sport?

Parkour: in 'Finding Luigi', free-runners praise a legend who has mysteriously quit the scene, and two film-makers set out to track him down.

What did Nintendo's 2013 'Year of Luigi' celebrate?

His 30th anniversary: Nintendo also happened to have two big Luigi games in the works at once, and plenty of its staff had been keen to make games with him in the lead.

Which Nintendo CEO announced the Year of Luigi while wearing Luigi's cap?

Satoru Iwata: he said Luigi had spent too long as a supporting act to his brother, and for the year a Mii of Iwata dressed in green was sent out to players' handhelds as well.

Which US city's elevated train was rebranded for the Year of Luigi in 2013?

Chicago: the city's elevated railway is nicknamed the 'L', so for a day its Brown Line ran green as the 'Luigi Line', with a costumed Luigi on board to meet riders.

At the end of the first Luigi's Mansion, what decides how grand Luigi's new house will be?

The treasure he collected: the haunted mansion fades away as an illusion, but the money and jewels Luigi vacuumed up were real, and they pay for a home graded from rank A down to H.

Which Mario & Luigi RPG was part of the 2013 Year of Luigi line-up?

Dream Team: its makers wanted to fill the screen with dozens of Luigis at once, and setting much of the game inside his sleeping head was their excuse to do it.

Luigi's Mansion was a launch title for which console in 2001?

GameCube: the game grew out of a demo made to show what the new machine's graphics could do, and was kept short on purpose, to be finished in a few hours and played again.

Which professor equips Luigi with ghost-hunting gear in Luigi's Mansion?

E. Gadd: the elderly Elvin Gadd bursts in to save Luigi from his first ghost, fails to catch it, and hands over his equipment on learning that Mario, lost somewhere inside, is Luigi's brother.

What does Luigi use to capture ghosts in the first Luigi's Mansion?

Poltergust 3000: it is a souped-up household vacuum cleaner, and once Luigi finds the right medals it can also hurl flame or ice at the ghosts that plain suction cannot beat.

In Luigi's Mansion, Luigi's Game Boy Horror is modelled on which real handheld?

The Game Boy Color: a newer Game Boy was already on sale, but the designers chose the older one as more recognisable, and so nobody would think the game linked up with the new handheld.

Which ghost created the mansion Luigi 'wins' in a contest he never entered?

King Boo: the prize was bait, his revenge for all the Boos the brothers had beaten over the years, and for the last fight he hides inside a huge imitation of Bowser.

In the first Luigi's Mansion, where does Luigi finally find his missing brother?

Trapped inside a painting: Luigi carries the canvas out of the mansion, and Mario is only freed when the machine that turns ghosts into portraits is run in reverse.

In the first Luigi's Mansion, what does a frightened Luigi do in time with the music in dark rooms?

Hum nervously: once a room's ghosts are caught and the lights come on, his mood lifts and he cheerfully whistles the same tune instead.

Finishing the first Luigi's Mansion unlocks which harder second mode?

Hidden Mansion: Luigi's vacuum is stronger but so are the ghosts, and in European copies of the game the whole building is flipped into its own mirror image.

Waluigi, Luigi's lanky arch-rival, made his debut in a game about which sport?

Tennis: Camelot, the studio making Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64, designed him as a rival for Luigi and a partner for Wario.

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (2013) was released for which system?

3DS: a fitting home, since Nintendo had built a working 3D version of the first game back in 2001 and shelved it because the special screen would have cost more than the console.

Which studio developed Luigi's Mansion 3?

Next Level Games: the Vancouver studio had also made Dark Moon, and little more than a year after the third game came out Nintendo bought the company outright.

Gooigi, Luigi's gooey green double, falls apart the moment he touches fire or what else?

Water: being made of goo, he can ooze through grates and stroll across spikes that would stop Luigi, but a single splash is enough to dissolve him.

What is the haunted hotel in Luigi's Mansion 3 called?

The Last Resort: the free holiday there is a trap, and Luigi has to win back the lift buttons one by one to work his way up its seventeen floors.

Which award did Luigi's Mansion 3 win at The Game Awards 2019?

Best Family: a second player can drop in at any moment as Luigi's double, Gooigi, and up to eight can hunt ghosts together in its multiplayer modes.

Which 1986 sequel, first sold only in Japan, gave Luigi a higher jump than Mario?

The Lost Levels: Luigi leapt higher but skidded further on landing, the first time the brothers handled differently, and Nintendo of America judged the game too hard to release.

Luigi's 'death stare' became an internet meme in 2014 thanks to his glare at rivals in which game?

Mario Kart 8: players noticed Luigi glowering at every driver he hit or overtook, and Nintendo soon joined in the joke at its own E3 show.

Luigi was absent from Super Mario 64 but playable in its remake on which handheld?

DS: the remake starts players off as Yoshi, not Mario, and he has to explore the castle and free Mario, Luigi and Wario before any of them can be used.

In Super Paper Mario, a brainwashed Luigi works for the villain under what name?

Mr. L: styling himself 'the Green Thunder', he attacks the heroes in a robot spaceship he calls Brobot, until his memory returns and he becomes the last of them to join the team.

In New Super Luigi U, which character takes the absent Mario's place as a playable hero?

Nabbit: in the original game he could only be chased, never played, and here he is the safest pick because enemies cannot hurt him at all.

Julien Bardakoff gave Luigi a squeaky falsetto in the Japanese Mario Kart 64; what was his day job at Nintendo?

Translator: Bardakoff put Nintendo's games into French, and his high-pitched Luigi was heard again in the first Mario Party, even though Western copies of the racing game had given Luigi a deeper voice.

The Mario Party manual describes Luigi as what, relative to his brother?

Smarter: a compliment that sits oddly beside his later image, since from Luigi's Mansion onwards Nintendo has played him as the timid, easily frightened brother.

The 1993 live-action film gave the brothers a surname; what did that make Luigi's full name?

Luigi Mario: the film's writers reasoned that 'the Mario Brothers' must be a family called Mario, which makes his brother Mario Mario, and in 2015 the pair's creator said the names were right.

What is the name of the ghost dog Luigi adopts at the end of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon?

Polterpup: he spends the game running off with the keys Luigi needs, yet goes home with him as a pet and is still at his side in Luigi's Mansion 3.

In the 2023 Super Mario Bros. movie, where does the warp pipe send Luigi?

The Dark Land: the film calls Bowser's realm the Dark Lands, and Luigi is captured there almost at once, so most of the story is Mario's journey to get him back.

What is the co-operative multiplayer mode of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon called in North America?

ScareScraper: up to four players, each a Luigi of a different colour, clear a tower of ghosts floor by floor against the clock; European copies call it the Thrill Tower.

Of the five Super Smash Bros. games up to 2018, in which is Luigi available from the start?

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U: in every other game of the five he is a secret fighter who has to be unlocked, and in the first two his voice was just Mario's, played at a higher pitch.

After Mario Bros., which mid-1980s Nintendo game kept Luigi as the second player's character?

Wrecking Crew: the brothers swap plumbing for a demolition site, knocking down walls with hammers, and once again Luigi is simply the second player's stand-in.

Which 2015 indie game reimagined Luigi as an existentially troubled figure?

Ennuigi: its Luigi can only wander the ruins and ruminate, never jump, because, as the game itself explains, jumping is not consistent with ennui.

Luigi made a cameo in his baby form in which Super Nintendo game?

Yoshi's Island: a stork is delivering the baby brothers when Luigi is snatched in mid-air, and the whole game is the Yoshis carrying Baby Mario across the island to get him back.

In a 1986 Japanese animated Mario film, Luigi keeps wandering off from the rescue to hunt for what?

Coins: this early Luigi is no timid sidekick but a mercenary in a yellow shirt and blue cap, who wants to know what the reward is before he agrees to save anyone.

In Paper Mario: Color Splash, what does Luigi drive to help Mario reach Bowser's Castle?

A kart: when the slippery rainbow road to the castle defeats Mario, Luigi pulls up and drives him there, after a whole game spent hiding in the scenery for players to spot.

Which Year of Luigi release was a falling-block puzzle game?

Dr. Luigi: in its 'Operation L' mode every pair of capsules arrives stuck together as his initial, where the Dr. Mario games had dropped them one at a time.

Luigi's Mansion 3 came out for which console?

Switch: Nintendo marked the launch by declaring October 2019 the 'Month of Luigi', six years after it had given him a whole year of his own.

The 1993 game Mario Is Missing!, starring Luigi, was designed to teach which subject?

Geography: Luigi hops between real cities returning the artefacts that Bowser's Koopas have stolen from famous landmarks, in a game made not by Nintendo but by an outside publisher.