Mario Party

The Lucky Lamp, the Boo Bell, the Cellular Shopper/Bowser Phones, the Slow Shroom, Reverse Mushroom, and the Magic Lamp.

Also the Bowser Capsule/orb. :P

Oh man! How could I forget the Slow Shroom? Little miracle, that.

Got to play the game. Fun stuff. Had some bad luck on Bob-omb Factory and Magma Mine (still haven't beaten that yet), and I had to let Koopa take the win on Blooper Beach. Ah well.

Also, Perspective Mode is interesting. They should have done that with more games.

Perspective Mode looks really promising to me. I want to try it out.

Reminds me of the Score Attack mode in MPDS, where they re-jiggered a bunch of mini-games so that you played them for score, and they worked a bit differently. It was a fun and interesting take on all the games, but was kind of disappointing in that there were only ten and they never changed them. ...And I wish the four-player version of Hanger Management existed in the real game. That game's way funner when you don't have a partner clunking it up.

Hangar Management is also a duel minigame. You can play it (and set records for it) that way.

Yeah, but that's only two-on-two. I meant a full-on four-on-four version.

I kind of miss E. Gadd's Garage. Still my favorite stage in the entire series - I don't often like the stages themselves, but that one is just perfect.

I just played this game last night and I am a bit impressed at the changes. The game is definitely more about strategy as you try to figure out how far you should move on the board and screw other people over. The game is also more simplified so you no longer have to fret over getting a jillion coins and then a gazillion stars to stay in the lead and pray some event doesn't force you to give up all you have to another player.

One of the funniest things I like from this game is Bowser's "reverse" mini-games where you have to lose the game on purpose in order to win. I couldn't stop laughing at how I had to suck on purpose.

It's also kinda hard to suck at purpose too.

Got a favorite board in this game? Mine's Magma Mine.

I don't know yet. I only played each board once and I'm about to do Bowser's board.

I also played a bit of the single player mode. I went against Shy Guy and I was pissed that I kept losing my stars but at least Koopa Troopa saved the day so I'm glad you win if your partners win.

Nice!

I won all the boards on my first try in Solo Mode. Something I'm kinda proud of.

I like because of the win condition, you can still win by helping your AI partners out and/or screw the enemy over.

Yes, the Reverse Minigames are amusing. If only I could actually start sucking at those...

On that note, what past minigames do you think would have interesting Reverse Minigames? For example, I'm thinking Mario's Puzzle Party, for a "be the last to 100 or be the first to completely fill up your play area" win condition.

I just realized something horrible. pokecapn and crew will not be able to do Wario Party with this game. The instructions are unskippable, and your objective is listed on the screen immediately.

Reverse minigames? Hmm... I'll have to get back to you on that. A lot of these minigames would be way too easy to lose.

I've got Mario Party 9 too. It's quite cool, but that it's so luck-based is kinda bothering me. :/ Anyways, what do you guys think of the new dices? There's this dice, called "0-1-Dice", and my friends and me are calling it the "Binary-Dice" all the time, thanks to me. xD

edited 16th Mar '12 2:03:29 PM by Jaryl

Mario Party is mainly a board game in virtual form so luck is going to play a big factor in the game. The previous games in the series were a lot worse with luck.

Strangely, a number of reviews I'm reading say it's more luck-based than ever. I'm curious to see what's the case when I actually get around to playing it.

Classic minigames that I'd love to see Reverse Moded:

• Hammer Drop: MP 1. Avoid collecting coins and get hit by as many hammers as possible!
• Bumper Balls: No. Don't go. You have so much to live for. /willywonka
• Toad/Mario Bandstand: Be as dissonant as possible! You don't get anything for not pushing buttons; you have to be deliberately out of tune!
• Crazy Cutter: Crazy Cutter doesn't have enough CRAZY.
• Honeycomb Havoc: MP 2. In this version, you have to actively try to get the honeycomb and keep your rivals from nabbing it!
• Speed Hockey: MP 2. Let's face it, you knock the shell into your own goal all the time anyway.
• Bombs Away: Also hilarious.
• Face Lift: Most ridiculous face wins!

And in terms of not-so-classic games, Call of the Goomba from DS would be pretty funny, too. Play the worst! Drive all the Goombas away!

edited 17th Mar '12 11:21:08 PM by FreezairForALimitedTime

I disagree with the reviews on that actually. Not to say Mario Party 9 doesn't need luck of course, but you're probably going to have to put a bit more attention on the CP Us' (or other players') turns so you know what may happen to them, or to you.

That said, some games probably skirts a bit too close to being luck based if a CPU's involved, but I think this iteration has done well to avoid the really unfair stuff.

As for Reverse Minigames, I can think of one:

• Ice Rink Risk (GET HIT BY THE SPINY!!!)

edited 18th Mar '12 12:09:41 AM by Folt

Game Informer hates the Mario Party series, so I would take their reviews with a grain of salt. The IGN reviewer seems sour at losing near the end of the game.

Luck is still involved, but it's not nearly as bad as it was in the previous games. There's like 2 luck based mini-games, which is good since there's a lot more focus on the boards this time around. Whomp's Stomp and Big Bob-omb's Bombyard are luck based when playing with CPUs, but when playing with human players, it becomes a metagame of epic proportions. It all comes from the ability to read your opponents, which is a blast. Incidentally, the Big Bob-omb mini-game is different when playing with 2 players. The Big Bob-omb actually takes a bomb from the platform, and throws it away at random points. (He throws it at you if he's angry though.) Probably because 2 players are unlikely to collide with each other.

I got the game and played it with my friends, and we had a blast. I gotta say, my favorite board has got to be Magma Mine. So much opportunity for dickery there. The rising lava adds a ton of tension.

Also, the 0-1 dice is godly when wanting to avoid certain events.

Anyways, the game's not that bad with luck. Especially if you know how to manipulate the dice roll in your favor.

My favorite boss minigames are Sock It to Lakitu, the Chain Chomp one, Spike Strike, and the Bowser one. Bowser Jr.'s boss mini-game I hated at first. Then I figured out how to manipulate the dice roll in my favor, and now that mini-game is a complete cakewalk for me. This is where the game tells you how to manipulate the dice in this game, by the way. Though you still have to practice to make sure you get the numbers you want.

For the Whomp boss minigame, if I'm duelling against one CPU, I tend to wait until the CPU decides on something, because it seems more likely that he will choose to not pull the lever the first time, allowing me to pull it for Ground Poundy Goodness. The next time, I wait until the CPU decides, then pull the lever, since the CPU is already under the Whomp, it would likely pull to move away. When Whomp get's angry, I wait for the CPU to make a decision, then pull or don't pull the lever according to how badly Whomp messed it up, I think. It's a bit too long since I played that Boss Minigame. It could be that the CPU just doesn't pull the lever in general if I wait for it to decide.

Coincidentally, my favorite Boss Minigames are both of Magma Mines' games, the one with Bowser, and the two DK's Jungle Ruins minigames (because they remind me of the Bonus Minigames).

edited 19th Mar '12 12:51:07 AM by Folt

So in short: "good buy or not good buy?" I bought 8 and returned it the next day (I disliked it that much), but I've held onto 6 and 4 for years and do want to play a new installment.

Should I buy?

Yeah, it's a very fun game. I definitely recommend it. It's definitely one of the better Mario Party games in the series. Like, it's miles above 7 and 8. It's also a very nice change of pace. (Unless you were very attached to the old formula, in which, you might not like the changes.)

Playing the old Mario Parties, holy carp, those games are so slow paced. This new mini-star system really allows for craziness of all kinds.

I have no idea why the reviews are complaining about the losing conditions in Solo Mode. It's possibly one of the most lenient single player campaigns ever in a Mario Party game. Plus, playing through the board again isn't so bad considering how much more faster paced the gameplay is in this game.

Solo mode is kind of odd though. The number of players you fight against in each board is random. It could be a round of 4 players, to 3, to a duel with Shy Guy or Kamek. (Why does the NA version of this game call him Magikoopa?) It's only on the last 2 boards you're guaranteed a 4 player session, and have both Shy Guy and Kamek playing.

Mmm, that's some delicious jazz.

But 7 was a good Mario party IMO...

Anyways I will get this one so yeah.

Well, Kamek doesn't really have a unique design so it was probably easier to use Magikoopa since they are a generic enemy character.

I only played Solo Mode once so I don't know about the randomness, but this is what I had:

• 1st board: Me and Peach VS Shy Guy
• 2nd board; Ms VS Magikopa
• 3rd board: Me, Luigl and Koopa Troopa vs Shy Guy
• 4th board: Me and Daisy VS Magikoopa
• 5th board: Me and Toad VS Magikoopa and Shy Guy
• 6th board: Me and Wario VS Magikoopa and Shy Guy (I giggled at this one since I was playing as Mario so it was Mario + Wario fighting to save the day)

Out of all the playable characters in my single run through, Yoshi and Waluigi never appeared.

edited 19th Mar '12 3:43:32 PM by Steven

^^ @Kamek being Magikoopa.

Kamek is in a similar situation to Yoshi in Japanese - there's Kamek: Bowser's caretaker and second in command, and the Kameks: who are named Magikoopas in English.

Basically, all of the Magikoopas are named Kamek in Japanese, which is highly confusing - if this is intended to be the Kamek as apposed to a generic Magikoopa then it's a translation error, but an extremely easy error to make (and one I'm surprised didn't happen more often).

But it's also possible he is intended to be a generic Magikoopa as apposed to the Kamek, but I don't know how we would find that out given that they're all named Kamek in Japanese.