YMMV / Mario Party 7

• Breather Level: "Tunnel of Lava" is by far the easiest single-player Bowser minigame when compared to "Treasure Dome" (Trial-and-Error Gameplay) and "Slot-O-Whirl" (a Luck-Based Mission). In it, your goal is to seek out the Mechakoopa who swallowed the key among a group of circling Mechakoopas, which isn't hard to do since you just have to chain-stomp them until you eventually find the one that has the key. They'll occasionally light up red to breathe fire, but there's no real penalty for taking a hit from them, making this minigame a breeze. If all your coins or a star is at stake, getting "Tunnel of Lava" is a guaranteed save.
• Game-Breaker: The game has the Special Orbs for each designated character pair. Of the six, there are three that are considered above the others.
  • Yoshi and Birdo's Egg Orb turn any character space walked onto into eggs which turn into orbs after your turn is done. This allows you to avoid any traps especially if you're near a star and able to use the orbs against your opponents back.
  • Boo and Dry Bones' Magic Orb doubles whatever number you rolled for two turns and turns them invisible, allowing them to avoid all roadblock orbs placed.
  • Toad and Toadette get the Triple 'Shroom Orb. This allows them to roll double dice (or quadruple in team matches) for three turns in a row. As a result, using either character makes getting that Running Star bonus all the more easier.
• Genius Bonus: Windmillville is an economics-themed board where ownership of windmills is rewarded with stars at the end of the game. Only one player can own each windmill, and Bowser can destroy a windmill outright, so escalating investments and crushed dreams are both likely. The board is adorned with tulips, a reference to the 17th-century Dutch Tulip Mania.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The entire theme of the game revolves around Mario and friends travelling to different countries in the world, a good 12 years before the release of Super Mario Odyssey which revisited that idea.
• Paranoia Fuel: "Balloon Burst" puts the three players besides the one who was last to inflate the balloon at risk. In spite of it going out of its way to remove the scary imagery of the similar Bowser minigame "Balloon of Doom" (as it's no longer one anyway, instead being a Mic minigame), the players still cringe in anticipation once the balloon starts reaching its limit, and it's fairly hard to predict when exactly it's going to explode.
• That One Boss: The final battle of the game, "Bowser's Lovely Lift", is so hard that in Solo Mode, your progress on it is saved if you lose. Just hope that you didn't get to the 99th floor and your opponent gets the next shot at it. To make matters worse, in the Free Play Sub, you need to do it all in one go.

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