Mario Party

[+kisrael]

So over Christmas, we brought out Mario Party 4...kind of like old times, when me and my cousins would have a lot of fun with 1 and 2.

 

We actually tried the board game, after tripping over the minigame mode where we couldn't get it out of 2 vs 2 player mode. And the board game is so full of confusing crap...special events, different paths, blah blah blah.

 

It's so annoying: the board game is full of annoying extraneous crap that it's hard to know what's going on, and the minigame selection isn't as flexible as it could be.

 

Was it the first game that had "Stadium Mode" or whatever it was, just a simple, stripped down board game, no special events, do a lap, get a bonus # of coins? That was the best. A mix of 4 on 4/ 2 on 2/ 3 on 1 games, the over all element. Does anyone konw if 5 or 6 recaptures that? Even a really good minigame only mode with decent options for removing certain games and mixing up 4-4/3-1/2-2 pairings might be worthwhile...

 

...of course a mega Mario Party that brought back all the games (even the ones that caused kids to rip off their palms on the analog stick...maybe convert the spin move to having to do X Y A B in sequence) would be like the most amazing thing ever...

[sega saturn x]

I dont know about 6 but 5 was terrible i couldent even unlock all the games it sucked so bad.

[+kisrael]

I dont know about 6 but 5 was terrible i couldent even unlock all the games it sucked so bad.

Heh, I hate the unlocking games thing...luckily on like 1-4 at least they made it very easy to set up a 4 player all-computer no-human games to play and play and play and play and unlock all of 'em for the other minigame modes.

[sega saturn x]

Thats not a bad idea i might do that with 5 one of the only games its more fun not to play.

[MegaManFan]

Something I've been wondering for a while now - why do they never make any of the Mario Party games Greatest Hits? Even years after it was released, Mario Party 4 still sells for $29.99 to $49.99 at almost every store. Freakin' ridiculous.

[+kisrael]

Something I've been wondering for a while now - why do they never make any of the Mario Party games Greatest Hits?  Even years after it was released, Mario Party 4 still sells for $29.99 to $49.99 at almost every store.  Freakin' ridiculous.

Dunno. There are some obvious guesses, though: obviously this game doesn't vary THAT much sequel to sequel, so either they don't want to undercut sales of the new game with the old game, or the old game is Just That Good that its value stays intact. Actually, with the exception of Greatest Hits rerelease (which I don't pay too much attention to, usually being either an early adopter or getting it used) Mario games tend to hold much of their price new and used for a long while.

[Cousin Vinnie]

Something I've been wondering for a while now - why do they never make any of the Mario Party games Greatest Hits?  Even years after it was released, Mario Party 4 still sells for $29.99 to $49.99 at almost every store.  Freakin' ridiculous.

 

Ha. I've been waiting since Mario Party 2 to get a decent price on a new MP game for my wife. I finally just bit the bullet and bought 6 for her for Christmas. Me thinks Kisrael has a good take on that question.

 

CV

[joeybastard]

I just got MP6 for Xmas, it's pretty good. MP4 is the worst of them but it's still fun. IMHO, 3 is the best. The "extraneous crap" is what makes this game fun to me. MP6 comes with a mic for some voice activated events. Silly but fun.

 

I think the wholem series is brillant. I enjoy all of them.

[bjk7382]

I own mario party 4. The only mario party mini-game I like is "Domination" where the point of the game is to hit the A button as many times as you can in 10 seconds. My high score is 111, and I have my friends try to beat that every time we play it. (which isn't very often)

 

Other than that I do like playing the board game if you have enough people. And there really isn't that much "extra crap" going on, that isn't relative to the game. I played the new one and thought they expanded on the board game successfully. More stuff, but still more randomness, and the new minigames are great.

[+kisrael]

I own mario party 4. The only mario party mini-game I like is "Domination" where the point of the game is to hit the A button as many times as you can in 10 seconds. My high score is 111, and I have my friends try to beat that every time we play it. (which isn't very often)

That's the only minigame you like? I'm a little confused, you seem to be fond of the minigames below...

Other than that I do like playing the board game if you have enough people. And there really isn't that much "extra crap" going on, that isn't relative to the game. I played the new one and thought they expanded on the board game successfully. More stuff, but still more randomness, and the new minigames are great.

Well, we played the Koopa Beach board in 4, whatever it's called (Koopa Kabana? Dunno), down to 10 rounds because otherwise we think it goes on a bit long, though in retrospect that might amplify the role of luck. But I thought that the board was so complex, with those stupid size changing shrroms, a dolphin that would take you away for no damn reason, a pile of items in the item houses, a spring that launched some one to someone else's square, a monkey whose square's randomly bananapeeled you one way or the other (thus making any attempt at real strategy almost laughable), a house being built in the middle, or something, etc etc...it just felt like a chaotic mess to button mash through, screw any kind of strategy. Plus it seemed to hit 2 on 2 and 3 on 1 games more than the (in my opinion usually cooler) free-4-alls.

 

Like I said, I think the simplified board game of the stadium in the first game was perfect...a little bit of luck so the bad players have something to blame and to stop the better players from just simply dominating, but mostly just a way of setting up minigames in a hurry and declaring an overall winner.

 

Of course now I'd love to see a Meta Mario Party with every minigame ever...as well as the ability to remove specific ones from the regular rotation, and increase the frequency of some of the others. But I figure the game designers don't want to admit that some of their minigames just aren't that much fun...

 

Overall though it is a brilliant series, a terrific way of repackaging classic-style game in a modern form.