Game so good it brought back one of its modes to jamboree

WAHHHH!!! 😩😫 I can't believe I got invited for milk!!! It's a dream come true!!

Hey everyone, i have every mario party that is available on switch and have played my fair share. I'm kinda looking for something similar to a mario party but with the same quality of something like amiibo festival. I just wanna get drunk with the boys and have fun playing a bad copy of one of my favourite games, thanks. I already have garfield's lasagne party because it was on sale at like 90% off.

Has anyone tried two screens for Super Mario Party 1 with a Switch 1, Switch 2, and two copies of the game? If so, how is the experience?

Hello! It has been a WHILE since the last batch of Peach costumes, which I didn't intend as I really like doing these ;v; But as the series goes on and there's more similar themes to the boards it does admittedly get more challenging to keep things fresh! Castaway Bay in particular had me stumped for a bit as there are a LOT of Tropical type boards throughout the series.

Overall I'm quite happy with this batch! I also took extra time to make day and night palettes of each costume to fit with the game's main mechanic :D Which is your favorite?

Mario Party 1 outfits, and Mario Party 3/4 outfits, Mario Party 5 outfits & MP2 bonus

Thinking of getting switch online to play some Super Mario Party Jamboree games, but looking specifically for VC games.

For as long as Mario Party World (that's apparently what it's canonically called now... huh.) has been around, the Sun and Moon, Brighton and Twila, have been close friends, taking turns partying together all day and all night until one day, they get in a heated argument. Both Brighton and Twila insist they're the most popular and impressive.

Determined to end their arguing, Mario steps up with an idea: We'll throw a Mario Party and fill the Star Bank with lots abd lots of stars. Maybe, just maybe, Star Power will be enough to end this ceaseless celestial feud!

Welcome to Mario Party 6! I've had mixed feelings about this game, but I'm very excited to get to it! If I'm being entirely honest, this is the final Mario Party I've gotten intimately familiar with in my childhood. My brother wasn't a big fan of some of the decisions that went into this game, and at the time we were still resistant to 5's Capsules. I remember getting this game for Christmas, but when 7 came around my brother seemed to have no interest at all.

Regardless, I absolutely loved this game as a kid. I recall its minigames being by far my favorite in the whole series, and from what little I've played so far, I think I agree with mu childhood self! Though I'm reluctant to totally sing this game's praises. Let's go ahead and get into the nitty gritty.

Despite Mario and friends throwing the party to get Brighton and Twila's attention, its the latter two who act as the dual hosts for the game this time around. Splitting their duties between the side modes and hosting the Star Bank and Party Mode together. Brighton hosts Solo and Mic Mode while Twila hosts the Mini-Game and Options modes.

Once again, I'll be playing on original hardware using a Wii. I actually still have my old Mic accessory that came with the game, and it still works! The accessory kinda looks cheap enough I figured it might not work after all these years. But I suppose it's simple enough it's not likely to fail!

Gameplay

In some ways, Mario Party 6 is an evolution of Mario Party 5 with a reimagined Orb System, slightly expanded roster, even more minigames and even a new accessory for just one of many gimmicks. In other ways, it's surprisingly a return to form, bringing back many design ideas from Mario Party 1 of all places! With a hub area reminiscent of Mushroom Village, unlockables purchased from a store, collecting 100 stars to unlock the final board (it's much less daunting this time, I assure you!) and most importantly, the reintroduction of alternative rulesets to the usual "Star Hunt" as I so coined it.

I'll cover the individual rulesets of each board as they come up, but the first two are still standard Star Hunt boards. In general, the basic premise is still the same, of course. Collect coins and exchange them for stars! But there are many shakeups this game introduces to the formula we've all been familiar with since the beginning.

Star Bank

The main objective of this Mario Party is to fill the Star Bank! And the end of each game in Party and Solo Mode, all stars earned will be stored at the Star Bank where they can be exchanged for prizes including an unlockable chatacter, board, and the "Brutal" Difficulty alongside Taunts for each character. There's more to cover here, but that's all that's directly relevant to Party Mode.

Characters

Right away, the available roster is the same as Mario Party 5. But with one hidden character, Toadette, who can be unlocked for 30 Stars at the Star Bank. Since no characters are dropped this boosts Mario Party 6's roster size to 11, the largest roster yet! If you ask me, Toadette isn't a very exciting character. But, although Toad and Toadette are canonically androgynous, it is nice to have another female-presenting member of the cast alongside Peach and Daisy.

Day/Night Cycle

The central gimmick of this game is the passage of time. Specifically, the transition from day to night and night to day. This should sound familiar because it's quite similar to Horror Land's gimmick in Mario Party 2! However, it's got some pretty significant differences. Most significantly, this is game-wide. The gimmick exists on every board, with each board having its own gimmicks separate from the day/night system. The differences between Day and Night even seep into the Mini-games! Most Minigames have purely aesthetic differences while other minigames actually change qualities of gameplay. For example, the minigame "What Goes Up..." sees players climbing up as high as they can by platforming from Parakoopa to Parakoopa during the day. But at night, you're instead racing from the top to the cloud platform at the bottom at nighttime. Some minigames can only be accessed during the day or night, most significantly with duels. This might affect your confidence level when dueling an opponent during the nighttime when there are many more duels available.

Anyway, DK Spaces turn into Bowser Spaces at Nighttime, and Twila takes over as the host. In addition, each board is affected differently by the transition. A small skippable cutscene will play to showcase these changes. Similar to Horror Land, certain board events and paths may open or close, or simply feature altered events depending on the time of day. There are lots of secrets you're bound to discover!

Orbs

Alright, let's get into the elephant in the room. I mentioned the Capsule System was overhauled, but before I begin, I want to address the name. Despite the name being changed from "Capsule" to "Orb" in the west, these are indeed officially returning from Mario Party 5, as in the Japanese version both games call them 「カプセル」, "Kapuseru" or "Capsule." Presumably, this change was made to fit character limits for item names.

Following the same logic I used with Koopa Kid in the early games, I probably should've just called these "Orbs" in 5, but at the time I wasn't actually aware these were supposed to be the same kind of item. I do think "Capsule" is the most technically correct term for these items, but "Orb" is quicker to write, and the one used in official english translations, so that's the name I'll try to use from now on, but I might slip up and use them interchangeably. Just know that "Orbs" and "Capsules" refer to the same kinds of items.

Anyway, Orbs are massively reworked from how they were presented in Mario Party 5, addressing some of the problems I had with them there. To start with, while you still get random Orbs from Orb Spaces around the board just like with the Capsule Machine, there are also "Orb Huts" you can visit to exchange coins for one of three randomly selected options. This means you have a lot more control over which Orbs you get while still giving you lots of chances to play with the freebies you may not have consciously sought out. This approach seems like the best of both worlds. Struggling players can fluke into powerful capsules to hopefully get themselves back in the game, while stronger players have the advantage in the ability to buy whatever capsules they want.

Like before, Orbs may be opened up to use on yourself or tossed onto a space in hopes an opponent triggers their effects. But that's about where the similarities end.

Unlike in 5, you cannot just use any orb on yourself or throw any orb you want onto the ground. Instead, each orb has a designated method of use. Green Orbs are used on yourself, Yellow and Red Orbs are tossed onto spaces, and Blue Orbs are triggered automatically when the conditions are right. Blue Orbs can also be discarded by "using" them, similar to Skeleton Keys. However, Blue Orbs cannot be properly "used" like other orbs and won't count toward your total of Orbs used. You'll understand why I'm bringing up such an odd statistic later on if you don't already know.

One problem I had with Orbs in 5 was that, outside of some niche strategies here and there, there was little reason to throw the most interesting orbs on the ground besides covering dangerous traps or freeing up inventory space for more, better orbs. In 6, however, it's almost the opposite case. You don't need to get rid of your capsules to get more, as obtaining a fourth capsule when you already have three just promps you to choose one to discard. Instead, there's actually almost too many reasons to play your capsules!

The most immediately apparent is that, when a Yellow Orb is placed on the ground, it no longer leaves a generic icon to represent the type of Orb that's there, but rather the space is transformed into a "Character Space" resembling the character who threw the Orb. These character spaces work similarly to how the similarly named Character Spaces worked in Mario Party 3's Duel Mode. If you land on one you own, rather than springing the trap you've set there, you'll simply gain 5 coins. If you land on a Character space owned by an opponent, however, you'll be slapped with whatever trap they've set for you.

When a Red Orb is placed on the ground, it will instead project your chatacter icon over the space, rather than transforming it. The effects of the Blue or Red space will remain if landed on, but the effect of the capsule placed on the space will trigger either as another player passes the space, or lands on it. These capsules might make you think twice about carelessly popping a Super Mushroom. But these capsules will disappear after being triggered only once, so try to place them strategically!

Since you don't have to worry about springing your own traps, you can be a lot more trigger happy about throwing them on the ground.

Second, when you use an Orb, bonus coins will occasionally pop out! I've seen around 7 or 8 coins pop out at once, and that's nearly a full minigame win! I'm sure the odds and numbers are probably skewed in favor of the lower ranked players, but even 1st place can occasionally get pretty big bonuses! If nothing else, adding a new hazard on the board can potentially net you that bonus as well as a chance to land on your own chatacter space for even more!

Orb Star

The most important incentive, however, is the Orb Star. That's right, for the first time in series history, the Bonus Stars have been tampered with! You might recall that, across the series, the Coin and Minigame Star placed heavy importance on winning minigames and saving up those coins, but it was pretty typical that whoever won the Minigame Star would also win the Coin Star. So if you were struggling in the minigames, you would have to get two stars up on whoever kept beating you, which was a pretty harsh uphill battle, or rely on rare events like Chance Time to nab the Coin Star.

But now, the Coin Star is gone! In its place is the Orb Star! Now, in addition to winning minigames and landing on happening spaces, you also have to make sure you're using more orbs than your opponents! This places a heavy importance on movement, as in order to use more orbs than your opponents, you have to get more orbs than your opppnents. You can only use one Orb at the start of each turn, so it's important to stay on top of this. Mushrooms are incredibly powerful because of this, as they can help you get multiple orbs in a single turn to keep a buffer for those dry spells! And you should never, ever, ever pass up a chance to buy a capsule unless you absolutely cannot afford any or don't have any room! Ise capsules at every opportunity. Even if the timing isn't optimal.

The problems with Orbs...

When you throw an orb, you'll notice you can now throw them up to 5 spaces behind you! This actually isn't often all that useful, but it does have its niche opportunities to set a trap on a precise spot. For example, placing a Thwomp Orb, which stops players in their tracks when they pass it, right behind a time-sensitive event so that a particular threat isn't able to access it before night turns to day.

But more often, you'll probably want to throw orbs in front of you. This is where you'll start to notice the negative impact of some of this game's changes. One of the most powerful startegies in 5 was to use your orbs to cover up dangerous traps ahead of you. Since you could throw up to 10 spaces ahead of you, you could cover up the most threatening space such as a within those 10 spaces, such as a Chance Capsule, with something nice like a Coin Block or Mushroom instead, and guarantee your safety from that threat for your roll.

In 6, however, not only can you not throw Green Orbs at all, but you can only throw up to 5 spaces in front of you to balance out the fact that you can now throw behind you. This is especially noticeable when you're in a position where there are a lot of happening spaces or other specialty spaces nearby, crimimally reducing your options. I mentioned throwing capsules behind you is fairly niche, but this means you can only gaurantee your safety from especially dangerous traps up to 5 spaces ahead of you. That, in turn, means especially dangerous traps set by you are more powerful against your opponents. This creates an interesting scenario where higher rolls are riskier. In general, rolling high is useful because you get more opportunities for decision making during your turn. But this adds some tension to those high rolls, as you can never be sure you're gonna like where you land. Especially as the game progresses and the board is littered with Character Spaces.

I have mixed feelings about the changes to orbs. On one hand, I love that there are so many incentives to be proactive in using them. On the other hand, I'm not sure I like how important just using them in general is to winning. I feel like the orbs themselves should be an asset used strategically to make victory more likely, I don't think you should be rewarded for haphazardly popping orbs at every chance you get. Still, there is strategic value in knowing when to use or hold your orbs. With higher level play, you may want to be more careful when and where you play your orbs rather than just making the most of your precise position.

The biggest problem I have with the Orb Star is that it's very much a luck element. It's not so big of a deal against AI who seem to be very stupid with capsule use, but against strategic opponents, you have to roll high enough to consistently get Capsules, and use them at least more frequently than your opponents want to in order to secure this advantage. I've stressed how important these bonus stars are for securing victory as a strategic player. The Coin star gave value to saving your coins, and even intentionally losing coins at the right times. You were rewarded for showing restraint and passing on using couins for short-term advantages. If you were liberally using items without thought in previous games, you likely weren't getting Coin Star. Now, there's little need for coins at all, so you're being rewarded for spending them all willy-nilly, and hardly even getting a penalty for it because you're getting a lot of your money back upon using those capsules.

A weaker player could fluke into the Coin Star thanks to Chance Time. But even then, there were strategies that could be applied to minimize that risk. Here, there's nothing you can do agaisnt a human player privy to knowledge of the Orb Star if you simply don't move as fast as them to get orbs as frequently. High movement means more capsules, and more options when you're using a capsule every turn, which means more strategic options and a better position overall. If you have the orb star, you're likely in an even better position than you would be if it were just a traditional Coin Star.

I can't wholly criticize the Orb Star, though. It's interesting to change up how Bonus stars are divied out, and it can be kinda fun to brianlessly pop capsules left and right rather than hoarding them for the optimal time. I just think I'd prefer having the traditional Coin Star. And on that note, the Bonus coins obtained from using orbs are also a bit too much. Using the orb itself should be enough of an advantage thanks to the Character spaces they leave.

Orb Types

Another new mechanic at play here is that each board has its own set of Orbs available on them. This is because different kinds of Orbs will be useful in different ways. Excluded orbs might either be too powerful or useless for that board's ruleset. I'll highlight newly available orbs on each board, and note which of the more exclusive orbs will appear.

The only orbs that appear on every board are the three mushrooms.

The Mushroom Orb [5 Coins] and Super 'Shroom Orb [15 Coins] return from Mario Party 5 and do the same they've always done. The Mushroom lets you roll 2 dice blocks, Super Mushroom lets you roll 3. The only difference, obviously, is that as Green Capsules, these can't be thrown onto the board. Remember, the costs are the base price they cost at Orb Huts, Green Capsules are free to use on yourself once you have them.

The third mushroom type is not a Cursed Mushroom, but actually an arguably buffed version of it: The Sluggish Mushroom [10 Coins], lets you roll a sluggish dice block, effectively allowing you to choose your roll. It's a bit of a knowledge check, but the timing is very easy to learn. Just press A when the number immediately before the one you want shows up. For example, if you want a 10, you'll press A when 9 shows up, then by the time your character jumps and hits the block, it will roll over to 10. This is one of the most powerful items in series history. You can use it to land precisely on any space you want, such as a Duel or Miracle Space (Chance Time), ensure you avoid an especially dangerous space like an enemy's Chatacter Space or... Miracle Space, or just ensure you roll a 1 or 10 where you want to go as slow or fast as possible. This item is incredibly versatile and I even daresay is comparable in utility to the Reverse Mushroom from 3!

New Spaces

Duel Space: Duel Orbs are no longer an item. Instead, Duel Spaces simply exist on the board. When you land on one, you can choose an opponent to duel for Coins or Stars. Similar to Mario Party 5, when dueling your opponent for a star, you have the option of wagering 40 coins. Since there's no Coin Star, there is little reason not to take this choice. But do note that the number has been bumped to 40 instead of 30. Don't put yourself in a bad spot thinking you could get away wirh only wagering 30!

Miracle Space: It's Chance Time. You know what to expect. This time, though, the player on the left is always giving to the player on the right. If you're on the left side, the best you can maybe hope for is to swap coins or stars. But if you have the advantage in both... yikes, sorry. Just pray you're only giving up some coins.

Orb Space: Not really a space as they don't count against your movement. They operate like Capsule Machines from 5, though you don't have an option to turn them down for the super niche situation you might want to do that. There's even less reason to turn it down, though, because you can simply discard a capsule when you get a fourth one you'd rather have.

Character Space: Bearing the icon of any of the four active player characters to mark an Orb on the board that character owns. If you land on your own space, you'll earn 5 coins which is a huge plus, especially considering these can overwrite red spaces. Landing on an opponent's space means you've triggered a trap!

Donkey Kong Space: Not quite a new space, but bearing a new look and new functionality. These spaces only appear during the daytime. The space mostly works the same, but the DK Roulette event has been removed in favor of simply adding a Star as a possible prize from the DK Bonus event. The minimum coins you can win from that event is 5, which is still better than a standard Blue Space, while the maximum is 30, making DK a lot more satisfying to land on. Of course, DK Minigames return, too, which work the same as they did before.

Bowser Space: Donkey Kong spaces turn into Bowser Spaces at night. Just like DK lost an event, Bowser will no longer give Bowser Revolution. A shocking omission as this was one of the most iconic events present from the beginning! Bowser Revolution does exist in a different form this time around, though it's a bit strange... Bowser will now offer either a Bowser Minigame, which works as before, now with three new Bowser Minigames, or a Bowser Bonus which isn't quite as punishing as before. There's still a chance that he'll steal a star from you, but it's only a chance. This is now just a proper inversion of DK Bonus, where Bowser rolls a dice block and takes that many coins, or a star, from you.

Mic Minigames

Every once in a while, when a 1v3 minigame would be played, you'll get a Mic Minigame instead! These minigames have the solo player holding the mic accessory, speaking a variety of commands into the mic, which the team players will have to react to. To my knowledge, an AI will never be the solo player in these minigames. Which makes sense because these games are designed for the team to hear the speaker's command and react before it's processed by the game.

The Mic accessory, which was packaged with this game, plugs into Memory Card Slot B. It's just a stick with a green button you press to activate the mic to speak into. It's a very "Nintendo" idea... honestly kind of lame and cumbersome. I'll respect the developers' vision but I really don't think this concept is a good one.

The solo player can cheat these games by speaking gibberish into the mic, but that's just not in the spirit of the game. Unless your friend group is down for the joke, bear in mind how these games are actually designed with the added reaction time as a balancing factor.

Speaking of "spirit of the game," you have the option of going into the options menu and either turning the Mic off entirely, making Mic minigames never appear, or switch it to accept input from the controller instead of the mic, at which point you can bring up a menu of commands on the screen using the R button. Select a command and the game will treat it like you spoke that command into the mic. These are clearly alternative options designed for if you simply don't have a mic. Maybe you've lost it or broke it. There isn't much lost, but these minigames clearly want you to use the mic.

Thankfully, the Mic Minigames don't have to be unlocked like most other minigames, so it might even be beneficial to turn them off until you have all the 1v3 minigames unlocked.

Last 5 Turns

As is series tradition, during the last 5 turns a special event will occur. This event is hosted by Brighton if the last 5 turns is in the day, or Twila if it's night. The events here much more explicitly benefit the last place player who stops the roulette.

Red and Blue spaces effects are tripled: Not only do untouched spaces give or take 9 coins, but Character Spaces are affected, too! Landing on your own Character Space will net you a whopping 15 coins! Thankfully, the Orb events themselves aren't affected by this multiplier... can you imagine?

+40 Coins: The last place player gains 40 coins. It's a sizeable chunk of coins for sure, but... really? Isn't that kinda lame?

+5 Character Spaces: A much less chaotic counterpart to the one in 5 where Capsules were placed on every space. 5 random capsules will be placed under the last place player's ownership on 5 random spaces around the board. There's no telling what they are, but this should be fully beneficial to that player!

Bowser Revolution: There it is! It's kind of exciting to see such an iconic event given such a prominent spot, but this event is quite rare and... honestly not that big of a deal. The only reason Bowser Revolution is so dangerous is the threat of your Coin advantage being robbed. But when everyone's getting crazy amounts of coins left and right... who cares? I mean, this might muddy the waters if you're expecting a star tie, but other than that, who cares? This one is the only event that could also be to the detriment of the last place player. Though that player probably has the least coins.

Conclusion

I think that's just about it! I'll elaborate on some of these things later on down the line. But for now, I'm very much excited to see what else this game has to offer! I'll see you soon when we start our climb! 🌳

Y’all don’t want to hang out and have a hootenanny together? So rude.

Join Mario and His Friends on Enchanting Adventure in the New Royal Kingdom, Meet Mario's New Friend Princess Rosella, On Her Last Birthday, Her Parents Gives Her a Royal Enchanted Princess Wand With Royal Enchanting Magic. She Used Her New Wand to Cast Royal Enchanting Spells, And Created New Magical Lands, A Winter Wonderland (Snow Kingdom), A Land of Sweets and Desserts (Sweets Kingdom), A Fairy Forest (Fairy Kingdom), Brings Toys to Life and Created An Amusement Park (Toy Kingdom), And So Many More! Mario Invited the New Royal Enchanting Princess to the New Star Amusement Park, There Are Three New Minigames With Royal Enchanting Magic, Coming Soon to the New Mario Party Game!

References:

Super Mario Wiki

Mario Party Legacy

Nothing compares to our beloved regular Boo.

¿Cuál es tu título favorito de “Mario Party?” Personalmente, mi favorito es “Mario Party 2” porque siento mucha nostalgia al recordar el videojuego. Era niña, mis hermanos y yo jugábamos a este videojuego en el Nintendo 64. También, me gusta Mario Party 2 porque los minijuegos son muy divertidos. Entonces, ¿cuál es tú titular favorito, y por qué? ¿Es un videojuego nostálgico, tienes recuerdos emocionantes, o es divertido para ti ahora? 

Super Mario Party has a lot of fun minigames that I played the heck out of, so I was wondering what this subreddit thought of them. All seeds are randomized. Whichever minigame gets the most comments will move onto the final round.

Welcome to Round 2!

Without further ado, here are the reminders for how every minigame competing today is played:

Trip Navigator: Reach the center of the arena by running through a field of banana peels. Tripping on peels will lose you time, but could potentially unlock shortcuts.

Sphere Mongers: Drive your UFO to pick up metal orbs with your magnet and drop them in your socket. Silver orbs are worth 1 point while gold orbs are worth 3. You can lower your magnet to pick them up and carry many of them at a time. However, you move more slowly with more orbs and opponents can knock them away from your magnet's pull.

Please only vote for 1 minigame at a time. I'm curious to hear your opinions.

It's finally time to send off our coverage of Mario Party 5. We've covered everything from Party to Story to Bonus to Mini-Game to Super Duel Mode. I swear these games just keep getting packed with more and more content every time!

Just like Mario Party 4, the only other thing we have to cover is the Options menu, hosted by Kalmar where you can view the mini-games in each Pack, turn controller rumble on/off (games that require rumble will instead use visual indicators when rumble is off which I feel is against the spirit of these games' designs and I think this is more of an accessibility thing for players who simply can't handle the controller rumbling, or whose controller's rumble may be broken), switch audio between stereo or mono, and view your records from Party, Story, and Mini-game Mode.

Options mode is framed like an observatory, with each option being represented as a planet in a 3D model of a solar system.

Mechanics [4/5]

Coming into this game right off of its predecessors was an interesting experience. I had nostalgic feelings for this game and was wholly ready to defend the Capsule mechanic before finding myself getting incredibly frustrated with it on my first run due to lingering frustrations with 4 and an apparent increase in reliance on RNG.

But after I took a break from the game and reflected on how the Capsule Mechanic works, I quickly started to come back around and realized just how interesting these capsules were! But don't get me wrong, they're still deeply flawed in a lot of ways.

The biggest problem is that Capsules randomly acquired. Items have traditionally been the single most reliable resource in Mario Party, and they made coins incredibly important to cherish! Your biggest chance at coming back used to come from spending your wealth on powerful items like Magic Lamps or Boo Bells. And if you couldn't afford those items, you were probably not winning enough minigames and relying on luck for your win in the first place, which was rarely a viable strategy against experienced players.

But here, you cannot guarantee you'll get a capsule that's useful for you, even in dead last in the last 5 turns but have 100's of coins, you might just get a Hammer Bro or something equally useless for you. And even if you can get a strong capsule, it might very well be stolen from you before you even get the chance to use it! This turns what used to be a quick detour toward a shop into several dedicated turns of finding the quickest loop around an area of the map with a Capsule Machine in the hopes of getting something useful. And it also means not being able to make an emergency stop at the item shop for Boo Repellent or a Plunder Chest.

But there is a fascinating gamestate these capsules can create, where a weaker player gets a powerful capsule and can't afford to use it, but has to throw it on the ground to prevent someone else from stealing it. Now, suddenly, there's an incredibly powerful event on the board that anyone can access, even the first place player who may otherwise not be able to get ahold of such a capsule. And that capsule will stay there until it gets covered up!

...unfortunately, there's little incentive to actually throw such powerful capsules onto the ground, you'll generlaly be incentivized to hold into them until you can afford to pop them yourself. I imagine a room full of strategic players likely would keep the board relatively minimalist the whole way through. This places crirical importance on capsules like Lakitu or Ukiki to pressure these kinds of capaules into play on the board.

Because capsules are given for free, you also have much less to spend your coins on in this game. Yeah, you spend them to use the items, but if you're trying to save those capsules just in case? You're gonna hoard them for as long as you can. The only thing to spend coins on otherwise is often just a few for board events or stars! And we've already discussed at length how dangerous buying up all those stars is! Chance Time can and will take them all away from you!

When I first started playing this game for this series, I thought Capsules took one of the most important strategic layers of Mario Party's design and replaced it with yet another layer of RNG you have to just hope for the best with. But the more I though about the strategies--saving weaker capsules to cover up more dangerous ones, stealing powerful capsules before they can be used, or forcing them onto the board so I can hopefully swing by and cover them up, dropping good or bad capsules at junctions to pressure people into making the wrong choice, or just taking that choice from them entirely by dropping a Bubble or Bullet Bill before the junction and leaving their choice up to chance. There are so many cool strategies you can employ with capsules, and it makes the game so much more strategic than I'd initially given it credit for!

Boards [5/5]

The capsule mechanic makes it really easy to design boards. All a board really needs is an opportunity to go out of your way and sacrifice board position to farm a Capsule Machine, and a junction or two to give players choices for where to land and which route to risk. Many boards in this game even give you an area where you can try to farm for happening spaces.

While the boards are called "dreams," I've mentioned before they seem to be themed around dreams as in wishes or imagination rather than literal dreams like what you see when you got to sleep. The dreams here are more like "dream homes" or "dream vacations," not so much "I had a dream last night that I was in a world made of sweets."

The boards do a great job of tying into that theme. Though they do tend to be a bit generic here and there, their environments are nonetheless quite beautiful pr would be fun to explore, though certainly not all made equal.

These boards do suffer from the capsule mechanic in that they're missing static features like Boo or Banks to incentivize fully exploring the board, which leads to the boards looking featureless and questionable on a surface level. But as you play, you'll find questionable routes on the board make a lot more sense when you're trying to avoid having your coins or capsules swapped or lost. With how much strategic depth there is to this game, it's beautiful to see the board slowly become covered in traps and events.

Minigames [4/5]

As per usual, the minigames are pretty hit or miss. This game has some high highs and really low lows. I do think there is a bit too much emphasis on button mashing and luck, but admittedly each Button Masher is a bit different than the others, they might be different categories or mashing in different ways. As for the luck games, some are alright, but some are the most shameless in the entite series so far. Even as a defender of Luck minigames, I absolutely cannot defend Viscious Vending or Get a Rope in the slightest. Previous comaprable games like Bowser's Big Blast or Merry-Go-Chomp at least give you an illusion of strategy and tension.

Nearly all of the 1v3 Minigames are heavily weighted toward the team's side. It could just be a skill issue, but I often find it really difficult to win the majority of these games on the solo side, yet effortlessly win on the team side. It really feels like a lot of these minigames just have low skill ceilings on the team's side that makes winning on the solo side impossible if even one player meets it. I'm normally okay with this, 1v3's are inherently imbalanced, but there needs to be a roughly equal amount of games where the solo player has the advantage as there are games where the team has the advantage. And I've voiced it before, but while I believe Luck games are important for Duels, having so many of them being luck just feels wrong.

Atmosphere [2/5]

Atmosphere is probably weaker in this game than ever before, and that includes Mario Party 4 which I was already pretty harsh on!

To start with, what the heck is Dream Depot? I'm not asking what you can find there, I'm asking what is it? Because when you're welcomed to Drean Depot on the main menu, you're just floating in a cosmic void. There's a starry backdrop with magical light emerging from an orb that all the Star Guards emerge from. Great! But... that's it? When you select a game mode, you follow that mode's host into the orb where you're met with a differently colored cloudy background as you set up the game. Then, you're transported into another bubble to an entirely disconnected world that has nothing to do with "Dream Depot" aside from being accessed from there.

Dream depot could've been a magical castle in the stars, maybe a library, a hotel, some kind of luxury space resort? Maybe a convenience store or fuel station filled by magical artifacts from a variety of dreams? A funhouse with crazy decorations of strange shapes and sizes? A traditional shinto shrine where wishes are heard? A wishing well? Wishing fountain? What about a train station or some kind of highway or airport that leads to various dreams? What about a nebula with lightning coursing throgh it resembling neurons firing in a brain? Hell, I'd have been ecstatic if they just reused Star Hill from Paper Mario. You already have the Star Spirits. Why not, right?

Instead we just get this strange abstract... concept of an area. With no central place to relax between games, I can't really imagine all these boards being tied around a central location. In Mario Party 4, the Party Cube had a defined interior that would change and morph depending on the mode you enter. Same with the Magical Toybox from 3. The only places that try to convince you they're actual, tangible places here are the indiviudal boards and gameplay areas... and for some reason Super Duel Mode gets its own physical room rather than a cloudy backdrop, and it's a beautiful addition! I really wish more menus were designed like this one. You had a chance to really flesh out the personalities of the Star Spirits by giving them all their own domains to introduce you to their game modes and all they get is different colors of clouds.

The little bubble thing is a convenient way to blend together a variety of environments, though. These bubbles serve as portals from Dream Depot to game setup, and from setup to the boards, and from the boards to the minigames. But that in turn makes each of these areas feel cut off from the rest of the world, and less like one cohesive place. Of course, they literally are, but it didn't have to be made that way.

And speaking of the Star Guards, as exciting as it was to see these guys return from Paper Mario of all places, I really can't give points for originality here. These are already established characters who are redesigned admittedly much lamer. The Star Spirits had much more personality in their Paper Mario designs. They're more flexible and have more expressive, individualized faces. Here, they're far more rigid, resembling the stars from Mario Party rather than the more squishy look of their Paper Mario variants, and their faces are consequently more uniform. They don't even get to keep their mouths!

Being introduced to these charcaters through this game as a kid, I used to think of Misstar as some kind of "holy mother" type character. Her Paper Mario design gives off more of the vibe of a sassy diva. Muskular goes from looking like a tough sailor ready to kick ass to a sweet little baby who needs to be protected. And Kalmar just looks truamatized. Without a moith, Klevar's ribbon looks like a he's sucking on a binky! The designers probably needed some degree of consistency with the way stars are already depicted within the Mario Party universe, and it made sense to redesign the Star Spirits like this rather than redesign the iconic star that's been with the series for four whole games. So I get the redesigns, I just think it's a bit sad so much is lost in translation.

What good I will say about the choice to make these Star Guards the hosts is that it is pretty cool to see them resort to characters from Paper Mario to fill the role of hosts rather than something like Piantas and Nokis, or Lakitu or something. Though I think it could've been equally interesting if this game was hosted by characters from Subcon like Snifits and Shy Guys. But I don't think I'd be nearly as excited about them as thr Star Spirits, and it fits the narrative better this way! Again, this game is more about wishes than literal dreams. Regardless, I could definitely have given more points for originality if they made their own original characters to host this game like they did in 3. Even if the "original" characters were simply highly derivative of the Star Spirits. I wouldn't be directly comparing them at that point. But who knows, maybe in such a world I would be asking why they didn't just go ahead and use the Star Spirits.

Aesthetic [5/5]

Mario Party 5's aesthetic is perfectly ideal in my eyes. The world has a cartoony look that makes the mario characters seem right at home. It's not trying for some hyper-realistic style to show off the gamecube's power. The environments are usually bright and colorful, making them fun to explore. There are lots of surreal environments around this game, environments that don't really make logistical sense but do work out within each world's own self-contained logic. Mario characters feel right at home jumping up giant beanstalks and dashing across collapsing bridges made of cookies. This game is filled with cool environments for the characters to jump around in.

Not to mention, the boards themselves provide far more opportunities for the characters to jump around and actually interact with their environments. I've always been a huge fan of the high detail environments of the N64 era, but this game does its best to make the most of what it can do that those pre-rendered environments couldn't. These boards have so many moving parts and quirky animations, environmental interactions. It's great!

Narrative [3/5]

Right away, I want to call attention to the fact that this is the only Mario Party game that doesn't place some kind of porlogue to add context to the rest of the game in the intro. Mario Party 1 had the cast arguing over who was the superstar with Toad introducing the idea of settling it with Mario Party. 2 had the cast arguing over the name of the theme park, with Toad once again introducing the idea of settling it with Mario Party. 3 introduces you to the Millenium Star and shows the cast arguing over eho gets to claim it, settled again through Mario Party! And 4 introduces you to the Party Cube in celebration of a birthday! In 5, instead, you're basically treated to a gameplay trailer of one of the six boards that are available from the start that transitions into the title screen. The closest thing to a prologue you get is Klevar introducing you to Dream Depot with a couple of textboxes, and the introduction in Story Mode where Bowser basically repeats what Klevar says.

I genuinely thought this game didn't have a backstory. That it was all supposed to be a dream or something in and of itself. There is a backstory, which I summaraized in the introductory post, but it's only explained in the manual of all things! This game came out in 2003! I'm shocked there isn't so much as a skippable PNG slideshow at the start of the game to outline Dream Depot, introduce the Star Spirits, and show how the dream worlds were created and Mario and friends were invited.

Regardless, the Narrative in this game really doesn't do anything particularly special. It's pretty basic stuff, though it's pretty cool that Story Mode sees you actually battling against "bad guys" rather than just playing arbitrary games of Mario Party for a reward. But the whole thing feels kinda pointless when you learn that you were just playing into Bowser's hand the whole time. I suppose he would've selfishly done damage to each of the dream worlds until you gave him the attention he sought. Though I feel like this kind of flies in the face of the direction of his character from 2-4. I think it's more likely Bowser wouldn't actually cause any damage to these places, and is just threatening to create a sense of urgency.

Conclusion

When I went into Mario Party 5, I was as ecstatic as I was about going into Mairo Party 3. I am deeply nostalgic with this game. On revisiting, I was initially turned off by the Capsule Mechanic after singing the praises of traditional items for three games straight. But the capsules gave so much more variety to the item system and the ways each item could be used. The ability to essentially place a Boo Bell you can't afford anywhere on the stage so that it becomes a Boo until someone decides to cover it up is simply fascinating.

But beyond that, this game has so much to enjoy! It's got the best variety of minigame competitions yet, including a reimagining of the Mini-Game Stadium in the form of Mini-Game Circuit which felt like a thing of the past ever since 3 dropped it. The Bonus games are really all pleasant distractions if you're bored of the rest of the game, and Super Duel Mode is simply beautifully complex, if not a little needlessly convoluded. There is very little in this game that I think is genuinely bad. There are simply some areas I think it falls short in comparison to other Mario Parties.

Unlike Mario Party 4, I didn't feel like it was a particularly nasty grind to explore all of this game's content. Bowser and DK Minigames were common enough this time around that I was naturally able to get all three of both categories just from normal gamepaly. The only game I had to go out of my way to get was Random Ride because who in their right mind is going to willingly select that game otherwise? Grinding for all the Super Duel Machine Parts was another story, but it wasn't nearly as painful since I got to just press some buttons in sequence over and over while watching YouTube videos. Still, I do think demanding Battle Points for the most expensive category of parts was cruel. But at least they had the decency to make the points easily farmable in mini-game mode so it wasn't too big of a deal. And I greatly appreciate that there isn't some game mode locked behind clearing Story Mode with all S-Ranks like in 3.

Current Rankings:

1. Mario Party 3

2. Mario Party 2

3. Mario Party 5

4. Mario Party

5. Mario Party 4

Ranking Mario Party 5 is difficult since it's a very different game from its predecessors. There are some areas where I genuinely thing 5 beats even Mario Party 2 out! But I don't feel right ranking it above 2. Not only do I think 2 has the better minigame selection, but I think 2 simply has more character all around. This game has some creative boards, but they don't hold a candle to the level of imagination that went into 2 from the details in the boards themselves to the narrative surrounding each one. But I still believe this game deserves a relatively high spot on the list. We'll see how my feelings on it change as I play future games. But for now, know that I see it as a higher tier game even though it's in the middle of the numerical list right now.

That's it for now! I thought there might be some Flash Game associated with this game, and I considered making a post about the very small "game" that existed on the japanese website promoting this game where you just answer a couple of Japanese trivia questions about the game and are rewarded with some wallpapers, but I'm not thinking that's gonna be the case.

So, with that in mind, I think we're done with Mario Paety 5! When it comes to the next game, I think you'll find the difference is night and day. See you soon! 🌞

What is the absolute best minigame. One from each category, 4 Player, 1v3, 2v2, Duel, Battle, etc

Introducing the newest variant of Ticktock Clock: Deadly Ticktock Clock!

This is related because I made this Mario Party minigame in another game. Play it now and die…or not, let’s see how good you are.

Join Mario and His Friends in the Japanese Kingdom, Meet Mario's Friend Master Leonardo the Ninja Master of the Fire Dragon, Learn How to Master the Arts of Shinobi, Protect the Kingdom of Komodo, And Master the Power of the Fire Dragon. Mario Invited His New Friend Master Leonardo to the New Star Amusement Park, There Are Three New Minigames For Master Leonardo, Learn to Become a Ninja Warrior in the New Mario Party Game!

References:

Super Mario Wiki

Mario Party Legacy

Are the developers stupid? No. It's been two years since Super Mario Party Jamboree came out, and I know complaining about a character roster might seem petty. Some people argue that the roster is the least important part of a Mario Party game, and that's fair. However, I doubt they'd feel the same way if a beloved character like Rosalina had been relegated to NPC status. Of course, that's not exactly a fair comparison since she's a major character in the franchise.

I've said this several times on this subreddit already, but there were much better choices than Spike. He's honestly a pretty forgettable character. Besides, bringing Dry Bones or Hammer Bro back to Jamboree shouldn't have been that difficult since their animations already existed. Meanwhile, the developers had to create Spike's animations from scratch. At that point, wouldn't it have made more sense to save themselves the extra work and bring back one of those two instead?

Edit:I don't hate Spike; I just find him irrelevant. And you're right, they should've added two more character slots.

Super Mario Party has a lot of fun minigames that I played the heck out of, so I was wondering what this subreddit thought of them. All seeds are randomized. Whichever minigame gets the most comments will move onto the final round.

Welcome to Round 2!

Without further ado, here are the reminders for how every minigame competing today is played:

Stake Your Claim: Players must select a portion of a rectangle that is divided in 4 uneven ways. Your goal is to pick the largest piece, but once it's selected, you cannot unselect it. Whoever gets the most points after 3 rounds wins.

Slaparazzi: Punch players out of the way to get the optimal photo taken of yourself in 7 rounds. Anyone in the image will be ranked based on their pose and position and be given points.

Please only vote for 1 minigame at a time. I'm curious to hear your opinions.

Credits to Nintega Dario

Source

Whats your favorite map in mario party 2? My favorite is western land, it has been my favorite since I first started playing it and that hasn't changed :)