YMMV / Mario Party 9

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Shy Guy and Magikoopa in the story mode: Are they really working for Bowser to steal the Super Star for him as the game claims they are? Or are they lying and just want the Super Star for themselves? Considering they join in beating up Bowser's minions, Bowser Jr. and even Bowser himself, the latter seems very likely.
• Awesome Bosses: Lakitu, King Boo, and Blooper. For the first, you hit Lakitu with Bullet Bills while he throws Spinies at you, the second is so creepy it's great with Bejeweled-esque puzzles, and the last is like a pirate ship taking on the Kraken of all Bloopers.
• Critical Backlash: Despite all the outrage regarding changes made to the formula, some became more willing to defend this game, with a large amount of praise being directed to the boss minigames and handling motion controls more tactfully than Mario Party 8 did. Some even argue that a few boards actually handled the car mechanic well, such as Magma Mine taking advantage of players traveling together to create the same frantic and cutthroat scenarios the series is famous for.
• Critical Dissonance: Mario Party 9 was praised by critics for the innovation it brought to the series. The fans, on the other hand, are divided on whether it changed too much.
• Event-Obscuring Camera: The minigame Zoom Room tasks two players with cornering Bowser Jr. as he runs around a small maze. However, while an overhead view of the map is shown before the minigame starts, during the minigame itself, the camera zooms in on the players with a vertical split screen that shows very little of the characters' surroundings.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Many references to Bowser Revolution as "Bowser Communism" have finally made their mark on the series. This game removed coins, but still has the revolution with Mini-Stars.
  • Mario Party 9 was a YouTube video before the actual ninth installment was confirmed. The start of the video has the characters all mention how formulaic the series formula has gotten, which becomes even more hilarious with the many changes the actual ninth installment made to said formula.
  • Daisy's constellation states that she enjoys not getting kidnapped, which becomes hilariously ironic given that she gets kidnapped by Bowser in Super Mario Run four years later.
• Older Than They Think: There was a real Super Mario board game where players shared the same moving piece long before this game.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Having linear maps and all players traveling together in a vehicle is this to some fans, as they felt it was too far a deviation from the original series and being together in a vehicle robs a sense of control for players and makes every round play very similarly. Not helping is the suspicion the Dice Block and special events are rubberbanded, heavily skewing positive results for lower ranked players while harshly punishing higher ranks an unusually large amount of times for it to be a coincidence. Combine that with the lower reward yield from minigames versus the possibility of losing half your Mini-Stars as well (or even worse, Bowser DOUBLING the Mini-Stars of whoever's in last) as not obtaining special Dice Blocks (also subject to rubberbanding) enough to change things, and the game might feel a bit too luck based.
  • Normally, if you choose "No" at the Almost There event when Bowser asks you if you want a lot of presents, there will be fewer Bowser spaces to deal with than if you chose "Yes". However, there is a chance that Bowser will override your choice by calling you a "stick in the mud", forcing you to deal with the full amount of Bowser spaces anyway. Also, if a computer controlled player triggers the Almost There event, they will always answer "Yes" to Bowser.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Getting the "Sad Star" rank in Solo Mode requires having a total of less than 200 Mini-Stars for all six boards. Due to the sheer amount of luck involved with everyone's Dice Block rolls and the board events, it's entirely possible for you to end up with too many Mini-Stars in a board to achieve this rank, even if you go out of your way to place last in every minigame. What also makes this challenge incredibly brutal is that you're forced to start the board over if Shy Guy and/or Magikoopa win. Some boards are a duel match between you and Shy Guy and/or Magikoopa, forcing you to collect more Mini-Stars than them, but not too many. And even if there another opponent who could potentially end up with the most Mini-Stars, Shy Guy and Magikoopa have a higher difficulty set for them in the minigames than the other opponents, especially on the last two boards where you're up against both of them, so the other opponents will almost never win against Shy Guy and Magikoopa in the minigames. If you want the "Sad Star" rank, it's going to be an extremely rough climb up the luck based mountain to get there.
• Sequelitis: The game is considered to be the start of Mario Party’s Audience-Alienating Era by fans of classic games primarily due to the massive formula shift to every character being in a car, a change that they think near single-handedly ruins the game.
• Serial Numbers Filed Off: "Castle Clearout" is basically Seibu Kaihatsu's Senkyu (also known as Battle Balls) but with a wider playfield and a different attack system.
• That One Boss: Bowser Jr. Breakdown is hated for being a boss minigame that's purely luck-based. While Whomp Stomp and Bombard King Bob-Bomb were also luck-based, they at least had an element of strategy to them. All Bowser Jr. Breakdown consists of is hitting a dice block, and hoping that you'll hit the right number.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The game made drastic changes to the Mario Party formula via the new car system, causing controversy among those who were used to the traditional formula.

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