Mario Party 6

"An improvement on recent Mario Party titles"

Introduction

I am a sucker for Mario Party games, and I was eager to get this, despite being somewhat disappointed by Mario Party 5. As luck would have it, I saw this in HMV a few days ago and, due to the absence of Resident Evil 4 (my other most wanted game), I snapped it up.

Gameplay - 8/10

The gameplay is improved considerably from the recent games. First, the boards are more interesting. Only two follow the standard pattern from the Mario Party games. Never since the original Mario Party has the format been so tinkered with.

In previous games, the object was nearly always to reach the star spot and buy the star, by throwing the dice, at which point the star would move to a random location.

In this game, there is a board where you start with five stars and have to steal from each other, and another board where you can buy up to five stars at a time in the same spot. The boards are more interesting looking, and have great names - no more childish nonsense like the disgraceful "Toy Dream" from Mario Party 5.

Furthermore, there is the introduction of the day and night system, originally used in Mario Party 2's Horror Land. It makes the gameplay interesting in a number of boards as occasionally big changes will be made.

To make things better, the flow of gameplay seems to be far faster than it has been in any of the previous titles - the characters move around the boards almost as though they were on steroids, and certain measures are taken so that the computer characters turns don't take too long - such as not showing unnecessary details, like the selection they are offered in the orb shops. Also, when passing the orb "dispensers", you are automatically given an orb rather than being constantly asked "do you want a capsule?", as was the case in Mario Party 5.

One of the main complaints about Mario Party 5 was the relegation of Donkey Kong to a non-playable character, and the same is true here. On a lot of the boards, you'll hardly see him, since his spaces turn into Bowser spaces at night. However, he makes up for it on two boards, notably one where he roams around the board, selling stars. Bowser's role is also similarly reduced, and in this game he tends to do the opposite of what Donkey Kong does - and steals your stars.

Another of my complaints about Mario Party 5 was about how incredibly childish a lot of the gameplay elements (not to mention graphics) were, and thankfully this game is not too bad. The exception here is a minigame called "Dust 'till Dawn", in which Mario and friends run around dusting a doll's house. I'm sure anyone who plays this game will pray that none of their friends walk in on them playing this minigame - they'll instantly assume you're playing a game aimed at five year old girls.

The minigames are an improvement. Mario Party 5 had far too many games that depended on Button Mashing or pure luck, and thankfully there aren't too many of these. The worst cases are a 4 player game called "Same is Lame", where you win by pressing a different button from your opponents, and the aptly-named "Pitifall", which is a virtual clone of Mario Party 5's "Get a Rope".

The only thing that lets the game down in a big way is the computer characters' abilities. On any difficulty below Hard, they will be just too easy to beat, even at games you've never played before. As with the previous two Mario Parties, the computer players can be infuriatingly stupid in minigames where you must cooperate with them.

Those problems aside, this is a very fun game. There is the addition of Solo Mode (no Story Mode here, thankfully), where you unlock Minigames and Rare games, though after a few ways it just becomes a quick way to earn a lot of stars.

The other addition is the Microphone Mode, which thankfully is optional. If you can put up with your family thinking you're going crazy when they hear you shouting instructions at the screen while playing alone, then you should have no problem. The microphone technology is fun, but I'm not completely happy with it. I remember on one minigame, shouting out "Nine" as clearly as I could and the game thinking I was saying "Five".

Story - 6/10

It's certainly an improvement on the last. The story behind this Mario Party is that the sun and moon are having an argument and you must use stars to sort it out. One thing gets to me here - it appears that while I was not looking, Mini Bowser (the same character that used to cause you problems in various Mario games) is now apparently Mario's friend. I had a hard enough time accepting Wario as a "good guy" - but with Mini Bowser, this seems a bit silly.

Graphics - 9/10

The graphics are on the whole very good. Nice effects in the opening story (reminiscent of Paper Mario), and the game boards actually look very nice. There is a large amount of attention to deatail, which transcends any of the previous titles - there is the immaculate reflecting stream seen in the background of Towering Treetop, which actually looks very real, and the squirrels (or whatever they are) that run around the edges of Snowflake Lake, for example.

Likewise, the characters are slickly animated, with amusing reactions when they do well (or badly) at a game.

The only reason I dropped one point was because of the occasional moments of childishness - Dust 'till Dawn, and the horrible pink decor seen at the start of "Crate and Peril", which may make you want to vomit in disgust. The animation is occasionally amusing, especially with the hosts, Brighton (the sun) and Twilia (the moon).

Sound - 9/10

The music in this is generally good, as is the sound. The only faults are that Toad still has his horrible, grating, voice from Mario Party 4, and there is a "secret" character with an even worse voice.

Replay Value - 7/10

There is plenty of replay value, just to find board events you haven't seen yet, and to collect stars to get all the various unlockables. Solo Mode gets dull very fast, around the time that you've collected all or most of the minigames, but apart from that, I have no complaints.

Final Recommendation

Buy. If you liked Mario Parties 4 and 5, you'll like this, and if you didn't like them, you'll be pleased to know that this is considerably better. Right up there with Mario Party and Mario Party 2, to be exact.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/27/05, Updated 09/12/05