Super Luigi U was designed to be much more difficult than New Super Mario Bros. U and was geared towards experienced 2D Mario players rather than newcomers, which New Super Mario Bros. U caters to.

Luigi's approach is very different from Mario's, and this is the main difficulty of the game. Luigi is harder to control; He's more slippery, he's more floaty, but he has some advantages like his jump height, his speed, he can hover after he jumps. Even if the player gets used to the mechanics, the game still throws up some particularly difficult obstacles during busy periods.