"Feeling Lucky?"

I'd like to start by saying that I've been playing Mario Party since 4 and have loved every game. Even 7 is great fun, but simply doesn't cut it when compared to the other, great, Mario Party games, and it can be get tedious to have 6 stars only for the opponent to steal 5 of them with one lucky dice roll.

GRAPHICS: 6/10
Mediocre. Well, it's a Mario game, did you expect Metal Gear Solid? The graphics are cartoony and child-like, which fits the game perfectly, but the fact is they haven't at all improved, and may have gotten WORSE, since Mario Party 4. Whereas Mario was always short compared to other Mario characters, now he's marginally taller than Toad. When Dry Bones opens his mouth, his entire mouth is the same bright-grey colour with almost NO shading or texture. When someone turns invisible with Boo or Dry Bones's special, they look horrible, like a blurry grey outline of the actual character.

STORY: 4/10
I would've preferred Mario Party 4 to this, and that barely HAD a storyline. The storyline in this is that Toadsworth decides the Mario crew need a break, and so takes them on holiday. Everyone who's anyone in Mario, alongside Dry Bones, have been invited, except the Bowser family. Bowser is furious and vows to ruin the holiday. It sounds at least better than a 4, but Story Mode (or Solo Cruise, as it's called) doesn't reflect this AT ALL. In Solo Cruise you face a randomly selected character on a board of your choice under special rules, with Bowser only making brief appearances in Party Cruise.

GAMEPLAY: 5/10
This is what the tagline is about. The game is a bit like a board game, with certain spaces. For instance, a Blue Space gives you 3 coins if you land on it; a Red Space takes 3 coins away, and a Mini Bowser space prompts a Mini Bowser to come and make your life miserable. There are other spaces, such as DK Spaces and Bowser Spaces, which I won't go into. You get Orbs which may influence something; Mushroom Orbs make you roll with two dice instead of one for a turn; Hammer Bro Orbs turn one space into a special space where 10 coins are taken from whoever lands on it and given to you. When everyone has rolled, a minigame begins, with the winner getting 10 coins as a prize. Each board has a unique way to get Stars, which all cost coins in some way. The winner is the person with the most stars at the end of the game. The thing is, the game is incredibly luck-based, more so than before. In previous MP games, if you won a Duel, you would get the option to take 50 coins or a Star from the person you beat. Now you spin a slot, which means you may get half their coins, all their coins, one of their stars...or you may get nothing at all, and the entire Duel would've been a waste of time. In one minigame you wander through a haunted mansion, where some corridors are guarded by Boos and you may not go through them. If you're lucky, you'll pick all right and won't be troubled by a single Boo. If you're unlucky, you'll find Boos at every turn. This is only scratching the surface of how luck-based the game is, but let's just say that whereas previous games were about 60% luck, 40% skill, this is about 90% luck, 10% skill.

In this game there is Battle Royal (1-on-1-on-1-on-1), Team Battle (2-on-2) and a third mode of which the name escapes me (2-on-2-on-2-on-2), which implements an 8-player minigame system explained later. Sometimes a Mic Minigame pops up, which are very annoying. It's just like a normal minigame, but you play by saying commands into a microphone. So you may say "Left" and "Right" into the microphone in a race-kart-driving game, or "Fire" in a cannon-firing game. The mic minigames are nowhere near as good as Mario Party 6, and the microphone finds it hard to pick up your command; once I said "9" into the microphone and it interpreted it as "1", which meant I fired into the completely wrong numbered panel.

When teaming up with a computer, the computer will be just as unlucky as a human player, despite the fact that computer players are usually incredibly lucky (rolling doubles FOUR CONSECUTIVE TIMES defies belief). The computer is also lacking in skill---a Hard-level computer, when paired with a human, can be outmatched by an Easy-level computer. Also, in one Team Minigame in which you must flip over tiles to your colour by ground-pounding them, my computer partner spent the entire game smacking ME around while my computer foes flipped over all the tiles to their colour.

STORY MODE: 3/10
Good god, this is HORRIBLE. If Party Cruise were luck-based enough, in Solo Cruise it's like Party Cruise, with slightly altered rules and against one guy...but there are NO MINIGAMES! Yep, the closest thing to skill there is, is the DK, Bowser and Duel minigames. But, for a reason already mentioned, Duel implements some luck, and landing on a DK space is lucky in the first place. In a DK minigame, you face DK in a unique duel in DK Jungle. Win, and DK gives you a random amount of coins; 10, 20 or 30. Lose, and...nothing happens! With Bowser, it's the opposite; land on a Bowser space and you must escape from Bowser's Castle. Lose, and you lose all your coins. Win, and...nothing happens! Landing on a Bowser space CAN'T be good, and landing on a DK space CAN'T be bad, so once again it's a matter of luck. Also in Solo Cruise you encounter stone dice blocks with numbers up to 20 in multiples of 5 on. You roll the dice, and get the amount of coins displayed on the dice. You may find yourself 20 coins richer just because you got lucky in a dice roll, or you may find yourself getting an inconsequential 5 coins.

THE POSITIVES:
Since I focused on the negatives the ENTIRE review, here are the good points; most minigames are fun, even if the skill-earned 10-coin prize may be inconsequential due to your opponent's luck-earned 3-star prize in some other event. The game's great to play with 3 friends when everyone's unlucky as the next person and it's an even playing field. 8-player mode is great and unique; two people share a controller, with one person using L and the Analogue Stick with the other using R and the C Stick. Despite the controller-sharing, 8-player games can still be played every man for himself. Minigame Cruise is fun, and contains several mini-modes with virtually no luck involved and playing minigames is the way to win. The game can still be great fun...if you're lucky.

RENT OR BUY:
Rent. The game is good enough to be given a chance. I had a blast when playing it with four friends, even when while playing it single-player I came VERY close to throwing the controller into the TV screen. Just make sure you have 4 controllers, and 3 friends/siblings, definitely buy. If you lack these, rent it and try it out. If you're the lucky type, you may have a blast with this game instead of wanting to blast this game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/09/06