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Release dates
Platform: Game Boy Advance Developed by Hudson Soft Published by Nintendo Players: 1-4 |
Overview
The seventh iteration of Mario Party was no other than the to-go version of it, Mario Party Advance was released back in 2005 and it provided a plethora of minigames and microgames (called gaddgets) that could keep anyone entertained for hours. Featuring the button mashing, timing and challenging mini games that are a staple of the “Party” series.The best and probably the unique feature of Mario Party Advance was the inclusion of the Bonus board which could be used to play an actual board game with the aid of the Gameboy Advance, a paper mat was included and players would use the GBA as die and to play with gadgets as the board would require.
Official Description
Mario Party Advance takes all the fun of the home console game and puts it in your hands. All-new mini-games and a host of Professor E. Gadd's incredible Gaddgets -- unique trinkets, toys, detectors and tricks like the Lip Disguise-o-matic that let you play tricks on your friends, test your compatibility and much more. Discover the 60 mini-games as you play through the single-player game boards. Earn coins as you play the mini-games, use those coins to unlock Gaddgets, and link up with your friends to duke it out in a two-player battle game, or trade Gaddgets, mini-games and coins to share the party fun. With Mario Party Advance life is a party. Go live it!
An official group artwork from Mario Party Advance
Official Description
Mario Party Advance takes all the fun of the home console game and puts it in your hands. All-new mini-games and a host of Professor E. Gadd's incredible Gaddgets -- unique trinkets, toys, detectors and tricks like the Lip Disguise-o-matic that let you play tricks on your friends, test your compatibility and much more. Discover the 60 mini-games as you play through the single-player game boards. Earn coins as you play the mini-games, use those coins to unlock Gaddgets, and link up with your friends to duke it out in a two-player battle game, or trade Gaddgets, mini-games and coins to share the party fun. With Mario Party Advance life is a party. Go live it!Gameplay
Aside from the mini games the game would have several game modes which included quests, unique microgames that once completed would give access to more minigames and gadgets to play with. The game modes were as follow:Shroom city:
Shroom city was the main mode in the game, the only one playable after starting the game, controlling either Mario, Luigi, Peach or Yoshi they travel through Shroom city completing micro games known as quest unlocking mini games and gadgets to play on other game modes.
The quests:
Shroom city is divided in sections, every section has a whole different set of quests, most of them are minigames that are intuitive but the quests have types on its own. The types are:
Yoshi Winning the Jackpot
- Adventure
- Bomb
- Duel
- Gambling
- Love
- Diversity
- Mystery
- Sports
- Research
The sections the city offers are:
- Town
- Desert
- Seaside
- Horror
- Snow
- Forest
- Bowser
Play Land:
Playland hosted by Toad and Professor E. Gadd is where the mini games and gaddgets can be played with, it is also a play to give away gaddgets to other players. There are 30 single player games, 8 dual minigames, and 6 Gambling Minigames, aside from these there are 6 Bowser minigames.
Party Land:
Hosted by Toad and Toadette features the multiplayer mode with several modes like a 100 player battle and a 100 player attack.
Challenge Land:
This time Toadette hosts the game and is a mode where players can play minigames to earn coins, you earn these coins to exchange for gaddgets.
Gaddgets:
31 microgames or pass timers that you can use that go from… someone talking to a snow globe, going through a sheep counting contest. They were the inspiration for doodads on Warioware Touched microgames.
Characters
Lots of classic characters from the Mario universe have come to party, alongside some lesser known friends.Playable:
Mario wielding the crazy hammer - Mario: Mario comes back and starts in the Town Area
- Luigi: Luigi starts in the Seaside Area
- Peach: She is adventurous now and starts on the Jungle Area
- Yoshi: Probably took a darker turn and start in the Horror Area
Hosts:
- Tumble: A Dice like toad who is on Shroom City
- Toad: Your everyday toad on Play Land and Party Land
- Professor Elvin Gadd: Co-hosting on Play Land
- Toadette: On Party and Challenge Land
Toads:
Shroomlock, the Mushroom Detective
- Shroomlock: A detective who arrives at the scene of the crime whenever there is a case to be solved
- Mr. E: This toad loves mysteries and will always arrive to help the player whenever there is something to investigate.
- Mushbert: A Toad Force V Fanatic, he will always provide the player with rare Toad Force V merchandise.
- Mrs. Shroomlock: The Wife of Shroomlock who lives at their house, she will give tips to the character about what to do next.
Antagonists:
- Bowser: The main antagonist who is all around Shroom City, stealing Minigames and Gaddgets.
- The Koopa Kids: Green, blue and Red Koopas who appear on minigames, trying to make them harder!
The Bonus Board
Mario Party Advance came with a Bonus board in it, it is a real life board game that you could play with. It used the Gameboy advance and the game pak as accessories to play with included tokens that you had to build and depending on the spaces you landed upon you had to use the Gameboy advance to play a game, use a gadget or just get coins. The game was over when any of the players would get a Star, just like other Mario Party Games.
The Bonus Board
Reception
Due to its complexity, its abundance of boring and not interesting games and the need to either use a four way link cable or to pass the Gameboy advance through players for a game that is quintessentially a multiplayer game the game was not really well received.Even if the single player “campaign” mode was well received, the transition into single player from multi player was not smooth enough and the game received bad reviews from gaming publications.
- IGN's Craig Harris gave it a 6/10
- Frank Provo from Gamespot gave it a 6.5/10
- Eurogamer gave it a 1/10 calling it the “worst videogame Nintendo has ever had the misfortune to publish”
Videos
Some videos of Mario Party Advance including it's opening intro when you load the game, a Japanese TV Commercial (the Japanese ones are always better.) and the trailer for when it got re-released on Wii U VC.A Japanese TV Commercial for Mario Party Advance
The intro video & opening sequence for Mario Party Advance
The trailer for MPA's re-release on the Wii U Virtual Console
An all mini-games video by NintenU on YouTube.
Trivia & Facts
- Mario Party Advance did so poorly that it earned a Guiness World Record as the worst received Mario game on July 28th, 2014
- A lot of the music in this title comes from Mario Party 3 and 4.
- This is the only Mario Party title that doesn't feature Wario. It was also the first Mario Party series game not to feature Donkey Kong.
- Princess Daisy and Waluigi were also absent from this party, for the first time in the Mario Party series after Mario Party 3.
