History ThatOneLevel / MarioParty

* Creepy Cavern. The layout of the board is quite a pain, being divided into four sections beginning with having to contend with the Thwomp Mine Cart ride, which you can either ride on willingly for five coins or unwillingly be chased by if you're in its way whenever anyone steps one of the many "?" spaces on the track which can send you in either direction. This is most unfortunate if the star is on the other side of the map. Oddly enough, as arduous as this is, it's also [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption it's the most viable way to cross the board]] unless you want to buy or win a key. Furthermore, your range is limited due to a giant sleeping Whomp that blocks half of your path and will only turn over in his sleep if you hit a "?" space near him or give him a certain item (usually a mushroom of a key), so if you aren't willing to part with your item, you'll be forced to go around in circles unless you ride or chased down by the cart.

** The board is three landmasses separated by a series of bridges. Each bridge has three happening spaces on it, and if anyone lands on one, the nearby pirate ship begins firing its cannon, taking all the players on the bridge back to the start. Better get good at the duel minigame (a quick-draw button sequence minigame), since if more than one person gets sent back to start in the last five turns of this game, the person who caused the cannon launch can and most definitely will initiate a duel minigame, meaning that someone '''will''' lose a possibly a lot of coins. Then, if that isn't bad enough, there are Thwomps blocking a shortcut that fine one coin or higher for the first player, and if the first player gives them more than one coin, the amount the next player would have to pay would be the same amount the first player paid. If the first player had somehow obtained 30 coins, he or she (or it, as the AI for computer players favored this strategy) could pay the Thwomp ten coins and still have 20 left over for the star, putting the amount at 10 coins for the rest of the game. This put the three other players in a world of hurt.

** Seen as the longest level in the game, you are forced to play on five different mini-islands that deal with being cannon-blasted between each land by feuding Bob-ombs. Since the cannons aim is dependent on your landing skills (or lackthereof), it's quite possible for you to miss either or both the Koopa Troopa and Toad spots when they're on the respective island, cheating yourself out of ten coins or a star.

* ''Don't Wake Wiggler'': Luckily, this is one of the few pure luck minigames in Super Mario Party. You have to try and pet a sleeping Wiggler as many times as you can. However, if you pet him too many times, he wakes up and you automatically lose ''all'' of your points. Since this moment is sheer luck, if you get this minigame on a board, there is no way of ensuring if you are going to win or not.

* ''Wheelin' and Wigglin' ''. You and your opponents control Wiggler vehicles with four segments, and you'll need to knock the segments off of your opponent's vehicles with yours. You can dash to try to close in on your foes, but chances are that dashing might put you in a position to be hit instead, since dashing is ''not'' required to hit the segments. This, along with the awkward movement on the Wiggler vehicles when turning makes this minigame a rather annoying one to get through.

[[AC:Minigames]]

* ''Odd Card Out'' plays [[PropRecycling all but identically]] (warts and all) to the above-listed M.P.I.Q. from ''Mario Party 3'', despite the premise (picking the [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers unique card out of a set of three]]) attempting to tell players otherwise. Just like M.P.I.Q., playing the minigame against humans will [[GameplayDerailment inevitably devolve into players quick-drawing a button of their choice]] and then [[LuckBasedMission praying that they got the right one]]. The only difference between the two is that a player needs two points to win instead of three.

* ''Track Star'' combines both IKnowYouKnowIKnow and ButtonMashing to make an unpleasant minigame for both sides. If the solo player picks the same path as the team of three, the solo player needs to mash the A button to hit the others with the train, while the team of three must alternate between two buttons to try to outrun the train. The problem is that not only is mashing one button easier to do than alternating between two buttons, but the two buttons can be a combination of B and X or A and Y, which are much harder to alternate than the other four button combinations of A and B, A and X, B and Y, or X and Y. If the team of three get stuck with the former two button combos, they're very likely to get eliminated. To top it off, this minigame becomes completely [[LuckBasedMission luck based]] against computer players since you'll never be able to predict which path they'll take.

* The 2 vs. 2 mini-game ''Battery Ram''. This mini-game requires you and your partner to carry a battery to the goal. Unfortunately, it doesn't look easy as it sounds. It's pretty much like a perplexing maze, and the thing you and your partner are holding that carries the battery is pretty long, meaning it can only make 135-degree turns (or 90 degrees in one)

* Bowser Station played on Story mode. Having two AI opponents, and requiring 1st place if there is only three characters is steep, but fits the difficulty curve up to that point. Even having the two [[GangUpOnTheHuman collaborate]] is frustrating, but makes narrative sense. Things go a step too far when the AI '''blatantly''' [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard cheats]], always getting ideal dice rolls for themselves and quite possibly fudging yours too, resulting in mini-star gains that simply cannot be offset by minigame skill. Adding insult to injury, the entire board is luck based. The board's Captain Events have a lot of luck involved even if you are the captain and can decide things, the miniboss is simply rolling a die and hoping you get the right number (and vulnerable to the same AI cheats), and even the final boss is [[LuckBasedMission luck-based.]] Pretty much the only way to get a victory not based on trying over and over until the AI lets up is exploiting the "Wager half of everyone's stars" Bowser event to put that insurmountable lead right back in your pocket at the last moment, but getting that is - you guessed it - [[LuckBasedMission luck-based.]]

* The luck-based minigames strike back very hard in this game, with notable examples being ''Garden of Eatin' ''and ''Helter Shellter''. However, some of the worst is ''Pachinko Wizard'' and ''Spin and Bear It''. The earlier basically plays like Day at the Races, where placement determines the spot the player gets while the player in first place might be forced to take the worst spot, while ''Spin and Bear It'' relies on one-player's spin power, which can also backfire on that player. You can easily be forced to lose doing absolutely nothing just because of bad luck for the latter two.

* ''Fruit or Foe'' is the entirely luck-based game of this installment, and it's arguably one of the worst yet. Players take turns picking one of 5 houses to open, 4 of them contain Shy Guys with apples, which awards points, and one contains a Chain Chomp, which will get you ''jack-squat''. The number of points you receive varies depending on how many apples the Shy Guy has, ranging anywhere from 5 to 1. However, once a house has been checked, it can't be checked again until the next round, so if the first 3 players all pick houses with Shy Guys in a round, that leaves the last player with a '''50% chance''' of picking the house with Chain Chomp in it. An even worse case scenario is if the only Shy Guy that hasn't been found is the one that only has 1 apple, meaning you won't even get much even if you do get lucky. The cherry on top to all this is that the order each player checks the houses is random.

* The ''Don't Wake Wiggler'' challenge. Just like in the free for all paragraph above, You have to try and pet the sleeping Wiggler as many times as you can. However, if you pet him one too many times, he wakes up and you automatically lose. Even worse on Challenge Road, there is only one opponent you play against so you don't have any other opponents to act as a safety net. And winning often requires you to be just one pet away from losing then to stop so your opponent cannot recover when it is their turn otherwise they might do it instead and turn the tables on you. Since it is random, you could lose very badly, also sometimes your opponent does one less pet than the limit so when it is your turn you are doomed to lose.

** The hardest of the bunch is easily ''Volleybomb''. You must slam a Bob-omb onto your opponent side and hope that it'll blow up on them or that they will miss the bomb. Not only is the [=CPU=] completely aggressive and will easily deflect the Bob-omb at the very front, it is also largely luck-based on whether the Bob-omb will end up blowing up on your opponent or on you. Even in Shroom City, this minigame is a doozy.

* ''Bombard King Bob-omb'' and ''Whomp Stomp'' when not playing with other people. They are based around a certain element of strategy (IKnowYouKnowIKnow, more specifically) that simply does not exist when playing against the AI, making both of them luck-based.

* The final minigame in Shroom City, ''[[spoiler:Trap Floor]]'', can prove quite a challenge. You have to drop Koopa Kids down a pit without letting any reach your control panel, or you will get burned and lose. The main problem is that as you progress later into the minigame, more Koopa Kids will be on the screen at once until you can't handle both trap doors properly for both sides of Koopa Kids entering the center floor. Also, some of the Koopa Kids may bounce when they fall down, saving them and knocking them to the side away from the trapdoors. A bit of a nuisance as the final minigame on Shroom City, it is painful on Bowser Land or Minigame Attack when there are 50 Koopa Kids at stake that drops at a faster rate than on Shroom City.

* Also, by association, Mystery Land. Take Wario's Battle Canyon from the first game, strip it of its cannons, make landing on Happening Spaces the only cheap way to switch from island to island (the others either require use of a Skeleton Key or by gambling and having an alien airlift you to the island on the top left/bottom right, which can also backfire), and add the ability to put a curse on your opponents for cheap which only lets them roll up to 3 on a dice block, and you have the perfect recipe for a low-scoring board.

* ''See, Monkey?'' yet again falls under the same problem of an unforgiving time limit while having awful controls. You must ride a speedboat to collect Ukikis that are struggling in the water. However, the entire area is scattered with rocks and there is no indication on where the next Ukiki might be, so it is very easy to get lost in the lake. You have 50 seconds to clear the minigame on Shroom City, and even less with 40 seconds on Minigame Attack.

** The ''Chicken!'' minigame is a special case in that the AI will usually be dumb enough to escape almost immediately at the start of the minigame. However, in the rare chance that the AI will stay put and escape at the last second, your reaction time to get out of the Thwomp is going to be superhuman. Also, if you and your opponent gets squashed at the same time, it ''will count for a loss only for you, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard while the AI]] [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules will still win]]'' (this is indicated by your character doing their losing animation while your opponent does their winning animation on the Duel Dash results screen after the "draw"). Talk about fair, especially in Duel Dash or Minigame Attack.

* ''Sea Monkey?'' yet again falls under the same problem of an unforgiving time limit while having awful controls. You must ride a speedboat to collect Ukikis that are struggling in the water. However, the entire area is scattered with rocks and there is no indication on where the next Ukiki might be, so it is very easy to get lost in the lake. You have 50 seconds to clear the minigame on Shroom City, and even less with 40 seconds on Minigame Attack.