Mario Party

Any game that makes you break your controller just for following directions deserves its hate.

To be fair, Donkey Kong is more of a spin-off Mario character. Well, technically Mario spin-off from the Donkey Kong Arcade series. Regardless, he's still not as much associated with Mario as Wario and Waluigi are.

He's more like an extra. I can understand why he was Demoted. Unfortunately, he was still fun to play with, but he is kind of an opposite to Bowser in some ways, so having him as the "heroic" version does make sense. Regardless, I think them switching Toad and DK's roles was a bit of an oversight. Unless they plan to add another Kong, DK's fine where he is. Where Toad atleast has Toadette(as a counterpart), where DK has no one similar to himself.

I do miss playing as him, though.

Excellent point about Donkey Kong up there. I've only played one game wherein he isn't a playable character (MP5), but I do like the idea of him as Bowser's "good" counterpoint. I rarely played as him in the N64 games or MP4 because it seemed pretty clear to me that this was a DK totally divorced from the Donkey Kong Country continuity, the only version of the character I genuinely like.

@ NONAMEGIVEN: I'm honestly surprised to see anyone espouse MP3 as the best of the lot. I respect your opinion and am glad you enjoyed it, but I personally think it's the worst MP by far, at least among the ones I've played. It just looks so... lazy. Like it was programmed over the weekend, without much time or money, so they took away all the 3D graphics or nice-looking matte-style backgrounds and replaced them with cardboard cutouts. Duel maps would have been a good idea if they had their own theme and didn't all look exactly the same. The art style is seriously bad, especially considering how neat and colorful MP2 was. And they took away the costumes. I'll never forgive them for that.

edited 8th Jul '11 6:41:53 PM by EddieValiant,Jr.

On the other hand, that's my favorite one. I liked the character list, the Duel Maps were fine as is, albeit not great. Story Mode was fun. I had no actual complaints about the game that the other versions don't apply for anyway.(cheating computers, etc.)

Have you played at least one of games 2 through 8?

So... can we turn this to a regular Mario Party thread?

MP3 was fine. It's not like I cared a whole lot about the graphical elements, Duel Mode was lots of fun (Mr. Blizzard and I will snowball over all in our path!), and there were some particularly fun games in the batch. And there was also "What To Do!?!", one of the best regular minigame music in the series. And the "Stardust Battle" music is one of the best Mario boss themes.

I'd say that minigame-wise, I like MP5 the best, more or less. Although I really like MP6's whole day/night thing, with some of the games even changing depending on which it was (though that part was rather underutilized).

edited 8th Jul '11 7:17:14 PM by stardf29

Mario Party 2 is my favorite.

I'll admit that MP3 had plenty of good video games, though. A lot of them are ruined by looking bad, but the gameplay is the bee's knees.

Treadmill Grill, Snowball Summit, Mario's Puzzle Party (if you know the secret!), Rockin' Raceway, Fowl Play, Popgun Pickoff... I'm sure there's plenty I'm forgetting.

Vine With Me! One of the best Duel Minigames ever in my opinion.

I liked Mario Party 3. It is the worst of the N64 lot , but it is by no means bad. It is also the only game to have no Bowser board at all, and I liked Creepy Cavern and Waluigi's Island, and I loved the Duel Mode (Dream Team for that one were Goomba + Boo). The Game Guy spaces can go and die though. They're seriously worse than the Chance Time Spaces. The only fair games are that Chain Chomp one and the Lucky 7 one, and I dont get them often enough. Add that you lose all your coins when you lose and, well. The Game Guy room however, was pretty fun actually. My sis also likes this one the most out of all the Mario Parties she has played.

My favorite of the series is 2. Horror Land and the Big Boo is just so much fun, and the Bowser Board in that game is my second favorite of the series (my favorite Bowser Board is the one from the first Mario Party). Space Land and Mystery Land are also cool, and Pirate Land is decent. I'm not too fond of Western Land though. The secret Driver's Ed minigame was pretty nice, and the Minigame Coaster was good but annoying at some points (the Mecha Shy Guy minigame can go die in a fire!), and the Minigame Stadium was the best. My sis actually likes this one the least however, maybe it's because of all the recycled minigames.

The original Mario Party was pretty cool. I liked Luigi's Engine Room, Bowser's Magma Mountain, and Eternal Star (after Horror Land) is my favorite board in the series. I was also fond of DK's Jungle Adventure, Wario's Battle Canyon, and Mario's Rainbow Castle. Yoshi's Island was just decent to me though, and Peach's Birthday Cake was mediocre (but I liked the Pirahna Plant mechanic). This one also had cooperative 4-Player minigames which were actually quite fun (both of them, and Running of the Bulb also plays the New Record victory music which I really liked in this game). The 1-Player minigames were also good (Whack-a-Plant is my favorite because of the obscene amount of coins that I could win through this. I was so good, I could whack all of them consistently) and so were the secret ones. It also had the Minigame Island which was very fun to play through. The problem I have with it is purely because of the rotating control stick minigames which were awful, though some were pretty fun to clear.

edited 8th Jul '11 8:27:09 PM by Folt

Hmm, I liked the N64 games the best, and Mario Party 2 is indeed my favorite. I'm actually excited for Mario Party 9, it looks so much better than 8.

Indeed. I like what I've seen so far, especially what looks like a reimagining of Platform Peril!

On;y thing I disliked about Mario Party 3 was that you didn't fight Bowser. other than that, it ROCKED.. I've played 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, and 3 is my favorite, with 5 in second cause it had the best Bowser fight.

edited 9th Jul '11 11:13:39 AM by lalalei2001

Honestly, I don't mind recycled mini games. If they were fun once, I don't mind playing them again, and a lot of them did change in a way; for example, Shy Guy Says in the first game has the Shy Guy cutting ropes and letting you fall off a waterfall, but in the second he pops your balloon with an arrow. It's a purely cosmetic change, but it matters. Different styles, minor shakeups like that. I'm all for them. Too bad Mario Party 4 chose to recycle the second worst mini game of all time, Bowser's Big(ger) Blast. Only Merry-Go-Chomp surpasses it in terms of pure awfulness. Random chance in a battle mini game? Shove it up your ass, Nintendo.

Yeah, pretty much. Mario Party 4 did have the awesome Dungeon Duos or whatever it's called though.

My favorite minigame of all time has to be the Minecart Madness one (or whatever it was called). Then Bomber's Island comes next. After that it's a tie between Key-pa-Way and Running of the Bulb.

I think te second and sixth ones are my favorites. And although everyone rags on the Advance version of the game, I personally dig it, and my sister and I got a lot of milage out of that one.

I think my favorite mini-game in the whole series is the Battle Game in 2 where you scoop mushrooms into your basket, but I could never beat that [insert many nasty words here] Mini-Game Coster to unlock battle games! I'm also a fan of Trap Ease in 6, Eatsa Pizza in 3, Sort Stack in Advance, and all of the many mini-puzzle games in the series (Block Party, Koopa Krunch, Block Star, etc.) because I'm a sucker for matching colors.

The only thing I wasn't a fan of for the Mario Party series was the gross number of extra ones that weren't necessary. Could've been a really big, awesome party game that came out once/console. Instead, we see at least 3 games/console, and I find them to be, more or less, the same.

Still, they look pretty fun, and I may pick up the latest one for Wii; makes for a fun party game.

I kind of liked have 3 per console, so having 7 on the Game Cube felt annoying. Albeit, it's more of a nitpick, but I just play it on the Wii instead. I mean, 8 really... isn't much different from 7, not that they're the same. But the boards share a similar idea(different goals compared to the generic get the stars, which was nice), they both require you to have a human player no matter what.(argh, I like watching the game while eating snacks/typing on the computer/etc.)

But that's a personal pet peeve. Not that it's a bad thing, though. Earning it yourself is justified. I wonder why it took that long to include that factor. Regardless, the games were still pretty fun.

Vine With Me is still one of my favorite games to this day. 5 is also one of my favorites, having a battle mode with karts! It felt like Mario Kart Battle Mode in a way. Each game has its own unique spin, none being exactly the same as the other. Controls, types of Mini-Games, improvements, and so on.

For me, it goes like this:

• Mario Party 1: I had fun with it, despite having a big blister on my palm.
• Mario Party 2: Had some great fun by myself and with family members. Mini-Game Coaster was a little hard at first.
• Mario Party 3: Had a blast with it alone and with my family again. Sometimes the AI can be crafty.
• Mario Party 4: Smooth and good fun, if a little bit slow.
• Mario Party 5: Not as good as the previous four, but it's still cool with me. The mini-games are good, but the boards could've been better.
• Mario Party 6: A major improvement in my eyes with fun mini games and board gimmicks.
• Mario Party 7: It's okay, but it relies a little too much on gimmicks at times.
• Mario Party 8: Meh. Its key feature is the controls and not much else.
• Mario Party DS: Excellent fun on the go with challenging AI.
• Mario Party Advance: Can be a bit of a downer if you expect the 4-Player, 1-vs-3, or 2-vs-2 games.

I own 2, 3, 6, 7, and DS now. I am enjoy the series overall and am waiting Mario Party 9 myself. Sorry for my long post.

@Banana Ramma: The reasons you provided for the Hatedom are quite valid.

edited 9th Jul '11 2:57:05 PM by SMsoldier

Yeah, Advance is kind of a downer by lacking strong multiplayer, but in my eyes, the single-player minigames it has are pretty good, and the Gaddgets are just good, stupid fun.

The Gaddgets are simple fun. The Shining Star one, though, will probably make people who have go "WTF???" after all they have done (Even if it is shiny).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPuTtvC-WBk&feature=related

The memories...

edited 9th Jul '11 3:30:13 PM by Folt

x5: I see I'm not the only one who liked watching the CPU players duke it out amongst themselves. I managed to find a way to nearly replicate that on 7, involving the 8-player mode, two controllers, and switching which controller was controlling who every turn. A lot of work and you did have to play any 8-player games that came up, but you still got to watch AI antics most of the time...

Yeah. Speaking of that, although the 8 player stuff was pretty shallow, it was kind of neat. That's what I meant earlier by each game adding a new idea to the table. The games are pretty heavily involved. Here hopes 9 goes back to the Computers Only thing.(and to be fair, if it doesn't, it's not the greatest problem ever. Cheat devices can do that for you two.)

edited 12th Jul '11 3:34:32 PM by Hydronix

I gotta tell you guys, Mario Party 9 actually looks like a whole mess of fun... but does that justify a purchase?

I just watched the trailer for it. It looks like Shy Guy is a playable character now.