Mario Party 5

"Go get your friends. Now."

Mario Party is a series of party games designed with four players in mind. The game is set up like a board game: each player rolls the die, then moves along the board. What spaces you hit decides a different outcome for your turn... sometimes you get coins, sometimes you lose them, or sometimes you participate in a little game of skill or chance. Overall, you collect coins to buy Stars for when you land on a Star Space. When the final turn (you set how many turns are played) is over, the player with the most stars wins. The real fun in Mario Party, though, is the minigames. In between each round of each player moving once, the players divide off into teams (depending on what color of space they landed on) and the red team plays the blue team. Sometimes it's one vs three, or sometimes it's free for all (most of the time). The minigames are where your skill plays part in who is the winner. There are many strange and fun minigames, from dodging a hoarde of penguins to busting blocks (and each other!) with hammers. The victor can win coins or even steal them from his beaten-down opponents.

The first Mario Party was released on the N64, and for a long time, was my favorite. I didn't like the second one much at all, and the third was decent. I was annoyed with the third, and I had almost given up on the Mario Party series. When you could register Mario Party as a game on Nintendo's website, I had to buy it to get my Zelda's collector disc... plus my brother is a big fan of Mario Party and wanted it anyway.

Well, Mario Party 5 restored my faith in the Mario Party series. The game is no longer cluttered with annoying, massive options and things to do. It's fun to have many things to do in the game, but this game works much better on a simplified setting. Now there aren't as many action buttons leaving the game up purely to chance. Now there are "capsules," which are basically the form of items (there have been items in the old ones, too, but these are much more simple) that you can use. You can place a capsule on the board to turn it into the space of that type, or you can use it on yourself (which costs coins!) to bring about the event as if you had landed on that space. This adds a nice level of simple strategy without making Mario Party too complicated or boring or lucky.

The character selection in Mario Party 5 is nice. They removed DK, which is a little upsetting, but he's still in the game, as he has his own special DK space on the board. You can play as any of the classics: Mario, Peach, Yoshi, Luigi, Boo... and some newer characters like Wario and Waluigi... and this stupid thing called Koopa Kid. It's Baby Bowser, by the way, but different... and annoying...

Gameplay

Mario Party plays out nicely... the controls work for what it is. It's hard to find a game nowadays with bad controls... but I don't think Nintendo has ever made a game with bad controls. The strategy to the game is simple, and anyone can play this game. Of course, people who are good at the minigames are destined to win, but players who are kinda decent with the minigames and have good board strategy have just as good of a chance to win.

The game is made to be played with friends. It's all about the four player game... and the one player modes really lack in their fun value. There are also alternate multiplayer modes in addition to the normal "party" mode, and those aren't THAT great (although one is very fun).

Sound

Okay, sound doesn't play too much of a part in this game, and the sound is just kind of bland and normal. It's fun to make fun of the silly announcer voice just as it always was, and the characters have their own little sayings, too. You can now taunt during other players turns by pressing a taunt button, and your character will say their one little taunt phrase. The voices are still funny and cute like Mario voices have been since they were invented. The music is nice and cute and fitting... some of the songs are kindof fun to listen to.

Graphics

Mario looks better than ever, but you should know this since it's a GameCube game. The graphics are great and never glitchy. The environments are kinda boring and not as fun as the old settings and boards, but the real reason you play this game is to play with friends, and you'll not spend too much time eyeing the graphics.

Replay

Anytime you have a group of friends around to play games, Mario Party is always a good choice. Sometimes the game can take many hours to finish, though (you can set a HIGH number of turns!), so you might just play a less time-consuming game like Mario Kart or Smash Bros or Puyo Pop.

There are minigames to unlock (unlockables are in every game nowadays, so you should've expected it!) to keep you playing... but if you're not going to play this with your friends all the time, I wouldn't bother.

Overall

If you like playing multiplayer games with friends, but not things like shooters and things, this is a great game to keep around. It's fun for your family to play, or for people who really aren't into videogames, as there are no confusing controls or game aspects. Mario Party 5 is great for Mario fans and game collectors, and it's a worthy item for a lot of people.

Be warned though, that if you don't have a group of 3 friends to play with you often, this game could get boring very quickly.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/04