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In the past, Disney games have seemed to lack that certain magic that their big screen counterparts emulate. Thankfully, this is not the case with Disney’s latest, The Haunted Mansion. The game is based on the popular Disney World ride, not the newly released feature film by the same name. Surprisingly enough, The Haunted Mansion may very well have some of the most original and innovative gameplay elements we’ve seen in a long time.

The Haunted Mansion starts off with our unsuspecting leading man Zeke, who is looking desperately for work. When Zeke notices an ad in the local newspaper for a position as assistant janitor in a mansion on the outskirts of the town, he heads off to seek the job. What Zeke gets once he arrives at the mansion though, is not what he expected. Zeke is dropped into the middle of a supernatural battle over the estate between two groups of undead residents. After a short briefing by a talking head in a bowl, Zeke sets off to rid the mansion of the dastardly dead that have intruded on the mansion.

Armed only with a magical lantern deemed the Beacon of Souls, Zeke must scour each room of the gigantic mansion and capture each of the ghouls inside the beacon. Things aren’t as simple as they sound though. Every room in the house is completely unlit when Zeke arrives. It is then his job to find the rooms light switch and turn it on, illuminating the entire room, and forcing all the resident ghosts into hiding. Zeke must then search the items in the room to find where the ghosts are hiding, and capture them in the lantern. There is a lot more to this than it would seem. 99% of the time, Zeke must solve a puzzle in order to be able to reach, or have access to the light switch. While this doesn’t sound like the most original gameplay ever, it’s actually the way the game plays out that’s original about it. The game is full of clever puzzles and challenges for you to overcome. For example, one puzzle has you playing instruments strewn about the room in order to create a moving staircase out of books from the various shelves in the room. Another puzzle shrinks you to the size of a pool ball and has you running around as an invisible specter tries to hit you with the pool balls. There are plenty other examples of extremely clever puzzles in the game, but it’s best for you to see them for yourself. This game is just bursting with inspiration and originality. Some of the puzzles are so challenging at times that you might find yourself confused beyond belief and utilizing the game’s hint system that cleverly tells you what to do without giving away the solution to the finished puzzle.

Aside from lighting Zeke’s way and sucking up souls, the Beacon also acts as Zeke’s only means of offense. The lantern is capable of shooting energy balls at any ghouls that attack you. During Zeke’s quest to rid the mansion of the evil that dwells within, Zeke can acquire pieces of death certificates that you can give to their respective owners, who will then give you crystals to power up the lantern. The power ups are essentially basic power ups that one would expect to come from a game of this type, to the effect of charge shots to hit for more damage.

Once Zeke collects all the souls from one room, he can then advance to the next. Each room in the game has a magical seal on it that requires a certain number of souls to enter. This is how the game controls to order of the rooms you enter and lets the story unfold properly. Once you leave one room, you’ll have exactly enough souls to enter another one. This makes the game a bit linear, despite the size of the mansion, but it also keeps things going at a steady pace.

The Haunted Mansion looks good. The graphics are clean and stylized. While they may not look overly impressive, the game has some nice lighting effects that help add a level of spookiness to the mansion… or at least as spooky as a Disney game gets anyway. The mansion is immense, and each room is full of sharp details and impressive lighting effects, adding to the atmosphere of the game. Zeke is modeled well and animates extremely smoothly. The lantern illuminates the area around Zeke, casting shadows around the room. There are some nice particle effects in the game, though they’re pretty standard for the genre.

The game sounds just as good as it looks, but much like the visuals, its somewhat generic. The game’s voice acting is well done and everyone matches their characters very well, making the experience that much more enjoyable. The game’s sound effects are run of the mill, nothing special. The music is nice, and tries to add a bit of tension to the action. However, it doesn’t work, since the game is constantly throwing in cutesy reminders that it is a product of the fun loving bunch at Disney.

All around, The Haunted Mansion is an enjoyable experience from start to finish. The gameplay formula is repetitive, but the execution is original and never gets stale. The actual action mechanics are boring, but since they aren’t that big a part of the game, it’s forgivable. The game is really quite the experience, especially when you consider the usual caliber of Disney’s games. Even if you don’t have much interest in the game, you should at least rent it so that you can have the pleasure of experiencing some of the game’s puzzles.