A lot of what Nintendo had to show this year was stuff we had heard vague rumours of already, and they simply gave us some details. But of course, E3 is no fun without a few out-of-the-blue surprises, and one announcement in particular made me happily squeal like an injured rodent – a new Luigi’s Mansion title will hit the 3DS early next year.

I loved the original Luigi’s Mansion, and have been hoping for a new one for years. It was an interesting departure from the usual Mario fare, and played like a non-violent Resident Evil. And it helped Luigi, my character of choice in Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Mario Party and New Super Mario Bros, step out of his brother’s shadow and develop his own identity.

Luigi’s Mansion 2 features not one but several new mansions, and appears to revolve around much the same kind of gameplay as its predecessor. Namely, wandering around spooky mansions, stunning ghosts with light and vacuuming them up. The 3DS’ thumbpad will presumably play an important role in reeling the ghosts in – a D-Pad just wouldn’t work. Check out the trailer below.

One main part of the first, that wasn’t shown in the trailer for the sequel, are the “room bosses”. In each room in the first was one unique ghost, with the smaller common ghosts simply getting in your way. The puzzle aspects of the game came from figuring out how to defeat each room’s ghost and clearing the room. All the trailer shows for the second is the common ghosts. I’m hoping they will still include the unique room ghosts, but either way it looks to be a great game.

This surprise title is one of the highlights of this year’s E3 for me, and adds to a strong, albeit delayed, first-party lineup for Nintendo’s new handheld.