Mario Party 5 Review by Jeffrey100

Details: Written by Jeffrey100

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For players of earlier versions of Mario Party I can pretty much sum everything up that’s new in a few words: more mini-games, new boards, more game modes and a lot of bonuses. If you loved Mario Party till now, you will love the newest title as well and can leave for the store already. Everyone else lean back - we are departing to Dream Depot.

Story: Not on this plane of existence, beyond this world is the Dream Depot. Here we come when we are dreaming. The “nice” dreams are protected by various Star Guardians that protect this world of fantasy from evil-doing intruders that want to cause us terrible nightmares.

None-the-less Mario's arch-enemy Bowser has intruded the Dream Depot and begins to wreak havoc in the dreams of innocent people. In this time of peril the Star Guardians call Mario to the rescue (who luckily was paying a visit to Dream Depot at this time anyway) and now ourselves, Mario and friends have to defeat evil Bowser!

Ok, I admit it is not the greatest piece of storyline yet you HAVE to come up with something explaining what the game is all about, don’t you? Just leave the storyline aside and you will be happy with the game.

Many, many, many games

While Mario Party in truth consists of many different games of various sizes, the main game is all about different board games. In single player you play against three Koopa Kids in multiplayer against your friends and enemies from the various Mario games that are controlled by (real) friends of yours or by the AI.

Certain fields on the board trigger special events that can either be good or bad for the one that triggers them, like giving or taking away coins to or from the player, teleport you to another field or swapping places with another player. The possibilities are numerous and you can even sabotage your enemy by means of placing your own events if you have the right item.

In Multiplayer other rules apply. The boards are larger and more complex still way too small in my opinion, and you don’t duel every other player you come across. Instead you are hunting for “stars” Reaching a star depends on tactics like taking the right path at the right time and using special actions (so called capsules, distributed by various capsule machines and other spaces on the board) against your opponents - but a HUGE portion of luck is needed too. After every turn a mini game is played and the AI randomly chooses a game from its library.

You’ve got : Mario
23 4 Player Mini-Games
12 1 vs. 3 Mini-Games
12 2 vs. 2 Mini-Games
15 Duel Mini-Games
3 Bowser Mini-Games
6 Battle Mini-Games
3 DK Mini-Games
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74 Party mode mini-games in total

Games each featuring an additional dozen of skill, luck, co-operation of their own – and fun as it takes quite a while before you will replay a mini game. There are racing games, in others button mashing is the way to win, sometimes quick reactions are necessary, and sometimes it’s just luck that decides who is the winner in the end. There are also rare special games like the random “Battle” games and the by special events triggered “Donkey Kong” and “Bowser” games. As you might guess in “Bowser” games you can’t really win anything – all you can hope for is that the other players get of worse than you :-)

As the game progresses you will get near the end of the game that is reached once a number of turns - that you can decide on in the options - is completed. But beware during the last 5 turns Bowser will cause some serious havoc.
The last 5 turns are mean and unfair – but hell of a fun.

Other things in the game

The board game, even if you choose the minimum of 15 turns, can take quite a while to finish, and if you need some fast action because you or your friends lack the time, or maybe just want to try out something new – you will be happy to see that there are other ways to play the game as well.

3 game modes that concentrate on the already known mini games are the Mini Game Circuit, the Decathlon and the Mini Game Wars. The Decathlon is pretty simple, for every played game points are awarded and the player with the highest score wins.

The Mini Game Circuit is similar but reintroduces a little tactics. Players “race” on a track. Every turn a mini game is selected and played, and only players that won in the mini-game may role a dice and move forward on the circuit. Each player is given 3 mushrooms – capsules that allow you to roll one or two additional dices – and may decide to use them AFTER the game was selected, but BEFORE it actually starts. So if you are positive that you will win the game, you will likely use a mushroom, but don’t forget that if you loose you'll have wasted one of your precious “boosts”.

The Mini Game Wars are similar, only that you play on a field of hexagonal fields and for every game you win you may “tag” one field with your color - but beware that an opponent can “steal” back your fields sometimes. It takes no genius to guess the winning condition for this mode – most tiles win.

One unique game mode on the other hand is Super Duel Mode. This mode has nothing to do with the duels you play in the board game - instead it is a very simple racing-shooter game. With points that you gather in the single player and multiplayer games you can purchase parts for a unique vehicle. Choosing a chassis, engine, tires and a weapon you can play against a friend’s vehicle or against the AI’s vehicle. In the VERY basic arenas – plain and square holes in the landscape – you battle it out shooting at each other until one of you runs out of lives. Again not an extraordinary little games but it’s fun if you want to do something different.

But we are not done yet, an additional 3 games which can be found in “Bonus mode” that have nothing to do with the mini-games need to be mentioned before we come to the end. I think it’s really good they’ve putted some other things in the game besides the mini-games because in most Mario party’s you could only do party and story mode.
“Card Party” is played in a labyrinth where stars are hidden. The different fields of the labyrinth become visible only once you reach them and sometimes when you thought you are almost at a star you will be disappointed because you have reached a dead end.

I take that the other two game modes “Beach Volleyball (which you probably know from MP4)” and “Ice Hockey” don’t really need an explanation. They are there and they are fun. Especially the Ice Hockey if you ask me, so give them a try.

Party Time
The basic multiplayer game will keep you and your friends entertained for many hours or more likely weekends. The single player campaign,is very entertaining no matter if you play against the Koopa kids or you play against AI enemies in multiplayer. But while this is good for training. It is just not the same fun to beat the AI’s as to beat the crap *cough* I mean coins out of your friends and relatives. A great multiplayer experience and a lot of fun makes Mario Party 5 a worthy candidate for every “Gamecube Party-game arsenal”.

Good and bad points!
BAD!
1.Boards are way to small!
2.The boards aren’t as entertaining as before(so small games on the board itself)
3.I don’t really like the capsule system because the only thing you need to get a good capsule is LUCK
4. AI’s could have been a bit more intelligent Daisy