Luigi's Mansion 3

Luigi's Mansion 3 is an adventure game for the Nintendo Switch in which the titular character and his scientifically-created counterpart Gooigi rescue the Mario gang by exploring a huge haunted hotel and exorcising the environs with a vacuum cleaner.

I picked this up to play with my kid, having never played the previous two games. The vacuum/ghost-collecting mechanics are fun and intuitive, there are just enough collectibles on each floor to present a challenge without being overwhelming when you invariably fail to obtain some of them, the level design is creative and the game doesn't overstay its welcome (average playthrough is 15 hours). Aiming the vacuum can be a little wonky but it mostly works out. Some of the boss battles were surprisingly tough and I admit there was a bit of yelling (me barking orders at the kid, the kid barking back) but there was also a sense of accomplishment when we beat a particularly tough foe.

I love how they handle co-op in this game. The second player controls Gooigi and therefore cannot die. The game ends when the first player, who is playing as Luigi, runs out of hearts. This is perfect if you're teaming up with a younger player, because they can run around doing whatever the hell it is their little kid brain wants to do while the more experienced player handles the heavy lifting with Luigi. The only downside is Gooigi isn't available until you upgrade the vacuum, so the very beginning of the game is solo-only.

The game comes with multiplayer options that were a mixed bag for us. Screamscraper is supposed to be online multiplayer, and as local multiplayer we found it prohibitively difficult. The local multiplayer mini games were okay, we played a little bit but the majority of the time my kid wanted to play the main game.

It took us about a month to beat the main game, playing a little almost every day, and I'd had my fill by the time we got to the end of it. I was curious to see if I could trick my kid into becoming a completionist, so some weeks later I broke out the game again so we could search for collectibles we'd missed. The good news is we both picked it back up easily, the "bad" news is... some of those collectibles are hard to find, so we might wander around an entire play session and not have any progress to show for it. We still have fun wandering around but I doubt we'll ever get all the gems.