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Next Level explains why Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon features 4 Luigis instead of different characters
A portion of an MTV interview with Next Level's Bryce Holliday and Brian Davis...
Multiplayer: In relation to the multiplayer - I was curious as to why you're playing as four Luigi's instead of four different characters from the Nintendo universe, as a lot of the other games allow for?
Bryce Holliday: The reason why there are four Luigis in the game instead of four different characters was because we really wanted that in-the-same-room multiplayer to be the main focus, and we realized that not everybody owns the game, or brings the game at the right time when they meet somebody with a 3DS. There is a download limit of 32 MB, for the download play system that exists on the operating system, so we had to work within that smaller confine, and therefore the texture and model data for a Mario, and a Toad and a Peach just wouldn't fit in that space. By being limited we actually had to innovate, and do randomly generating maps, use four Luigis, and use the upgrade system from the single player game to really flesh out that experience, because it was planned as a kind of viral thing like, "hey, play this, let's sit down and play it" and we just had to work within that scope.
Brian Davis: I think another point is that we also wanted to have everyone have the same game, even if you're on download play. To ensure that, we had to make sure that we had enough room to have the game loaded for everybody.
Holliday: Yeah, there's only one feature in the multicard game that doesn’t exist in the download play game, and it's a rare boss ghost that you haven't found yet.
Full interview here
Multiplayer: In relation to the multiplayer - I was curious as to why you're playing as four Luigi's instead of four different characters from the Nintendo universe, as a lot of the other games allow for?
Bryce Holliday: The reason why there are four Luigis in the game instead of four different characters was because we really wanted that in-the-same-room multiplayer to be the main focus, and we realized that not everybody owns the game, or brings the game at the right time when they meet somebody with a 3DS. There is a download limit of 32 MB, for the download play system that exists on the operating system, so we had to work within that smaller confine, and therefore the texture and model data for a Mario, and a Toad and a Peach just wouldn't fit in that space. By being limited we actually had to innovate, and do randomly generating maps, use four Luigis, and use the upgrade system from the single player game to really flesh out that experience, because it was planned as a kind of viral thing like, "hey, play this, let's sit down and play it" and we just had to work within that scope.
Brian Davis: I think another point is that we also wanted to have everyone have the same game, even if you're on download play. To ensure that, we had to make sure that we had enough room to have the game loaded for everybody.
Holliday: Yeah, there's only one feature in the multicard game that doesn’t exist in the download play game, and it's a rare boss ghost that you haven't found yet.