Mario Party 2

"Reasonably enjoyable, but the worst of the first three"

Mario Party. By this time, you have heard the name before. Mario Party. It's everywhere. Mario Party 8 is out. And that's not counting Mario Party Advance or Mario Party DS. I only have the first three at this point to tell you about, so I can tell you which ones are good and which are bad. Of the three I've played, the original Mario Party is probably the best (probably because it is very nostalgic and innocent-feeling). The third comes next, introducing bajillions of mini-games and nice Board Maps. Mario Party 2 falls short of the mark.

GRAPHICS: 8/10. Not a great deal of change from the original Mario Party, although I do think the graphics have been cleaned up a bit. The graphics are, for a Nintendo 64 game, average. Do not expect incredible graphics or horrible ones. The graphics here are average. However, the second Mario Party does keep up with the trend of being very colorful. I wouldn't say as bright and cheery as the first and third, but it still has great coloring and is very bright. For this, I am glad. Also interesting to see is the getup the players dress into. Depending on which Board Map you're on, the players will dress in appropriate costumes, like cowboy outfits, pirate costumes, space suits, and more.

SOUND AND MUSIC: 8/10. Whereas the original Mario Party had some really great music, Mario Party 2's music is average. Some music, like the Roll Call mini-game music, you might even find annoying. The sounds have pretty much been shipped over from the original Mario Party, just like the graphics. The same coin sound. Step-on-space sound. Same sack sound. Even the voices have been kept. Unfortunately, this means Peach's voice stays. (Her terrible voice does not change until the third game.) Now, I am not kidding when I say this. Peach sounds like a man. She sounds like a man trying his hardest to sound like a woman, but failing. Every time you hear Peach, you'll want to plug your ears. The other voices are okay (well, except for Luigi, he's kind of annoying, too), but Peach's voice is the worst.

GAMEPLAY: 6/10. In this area, the game falls short of the mark. It leaped for the prize and landed face-first inches away from it. The rules are the same as the original Mario Party (go see my review on that for more specific details). Basically, get money, buy Stars to win the game. A nice addition was the inclusion of items. Pick an item, any item. There are item mini-games you can play and shops to earn them or buy them. They range from Mushrooms, which allow you to hit two Dice Blocks at once to possibly move farther, and the Bowser Bomb, which makes Bowser appears on the fifth-to-last turn to move a large number of spaces and make life miserable for whoever he happens to pass. (Nobody wants to get the Bowser Bomb, because it naturally backfires on whoever gets it.) Banks have also been added. Whoever passes a Koopa Bank must pay 5 coins. Whoever lands on the space gets all the deposited money. The Koopa Bank is actually very annoying, since seldom do people actually land on the Bank Space.

The mini-games are pretty nice, but they aren't necessarily very good ones. Some have been carried over from the original (are you noticing a pattern here?) For instance, Bumper Balls is here, but upgraded to have three arenas with tricky terrain. Balloon Burst is now a two-on-two game where two players attempt to explode their balloon quicker than the other two. Mario Bandstand is now Toad Bandstand and is also a two-on-two mini-game. Many of the mini-games are so simple as to almost be boring, like simply standing in one place and "hip dropping" repeatedly or pressing A timely. They aren't bad, just a small bit on the boring side. I'll give credit, though, to the fact that it likely inspired Mario Party 2's creators to be even more imaginative with future Mario Parties, which is why I love the third one's mini-games. (Some games in the second one are very well-created, like sailing a mechanical flying fish through the air to the finish line, dodging cannonballs and obstacles. Others are boring. Ones like Torpedo Target are downright stupid. I think you get the point.)

The Board Maps are pretty good, though. They are all themed. For instance, Western Land is a cowboy-town where Mario and the gang dress in cowboy outfits. Mystery Land is an almost Indiana Jones-type ruins site filled with aliens and other, well, mysteries. The characters dress up as explorers there. Just as always, the traps and dangers remain; standing on the railroad track while another character rides the train in Western Land hits the characters on the track and sends them to a certain location. In Pirate Land, stepping on a Happening Space may wind you up back at the starting point after a pirate ship blasts you.

Dueling has also been introduced. If a person lands on the same space as another or uses the item called the Dueling Glove, they can battle someone. The duels differ per Board Map, but they're usually fun and exciting. Whoever wins the duel gains twice the money bet before the match, while whoever loses, loses the money they bet. Be sure you're actually half-good at a certain match before picking a fight!

Remember Mini-Game Island from the original Mario Party? That's here...sort of. Mini-Game Island was fun. It challenged you and gave you a laid-back, take-it-at-your-own-pace style of playing. You could go back and redo cleared mini-games and even stock up on extra lives that way. Not here. Depending on which difficulty setting you choose on the "Mini-Game Island" of this game, you'll be forced to go a certain length in order to clear it. You cannot go back and redo cleared mini-games, and you cannot save at your leisure. To save, you HAVE to reach the end of the "world" you're in. Um...this sucks. Mini-Game Island was tons of fun, challenging you when you were ready. This version, on the other hand, limits and restricts every move you make, which is far from fun. The icing on the cake is, in order to buy certain mini-games, like item games and battle mini-games, you have to clear the Normal and Hard difficulty levels. Easy is hard enough by itself due to the annoying restrictions of everything!!

CONTROL EASE: 10/10. Well, just like the original Mario Party, the controls are easy to use. Outside of mini-games, you press the A button and watch the fireworks, wait for everyone else to move, and play a mini-game. Should you encounter a junction or pass by someone, you can make decisions. Inside mini-games, control is still simple, usually involving all of two or so buttons. While the mini-games may not be as creative as the original's and the third one's, I'll give this game credit for leaving out the horrid rotate-your-control-stick control schemes. As I am writing this, I have a (fortunately un-opened) blister on my right hand from rotating the control stick with my palm in the original while on Mini-Game Island. The instruction booklet for the original tells you not to rotate the control stick with your palm, but it the most effective way of doing it. Thus, you are nearly forced to blisterfy yourself to clear mini-games. So again, I'll give Mario Party 2 credit for leaving out the tons of control-stick-rotating games.

TOTAL SCORE: 32/40. Simply put, an average score for an average game.

FLAWS: Again, mini-games are simple. Simple is good. Remember in Mario Party how simple the mini-games were? We liked that kind of simple. But they are TOO simple in this game, often being a little on the boring side. The Mini-Game Island feature was used but used wrongly, and even the Board Maps don't seem to be as exciting as the original's. Graphics and sound have changed little, with most of the sounds having been recycled from the original. Music itself is not anything to fancy over, as opposed to the original's great musical score.

CONCLUSION: Mario Party 2 sold the best out of the first three Mario Party games. The original sold the most after that. The third was last. My theory is that the first Mario Party did so well, everyone decided they'd buy the second. When the second one disappointed them, they didn't bother to buy the third. (My theories suck, so don't take my word for it.)

Mario Party 2 is a mediocre game in a lot of aspects. Not to say you shouldn't buy it; it could actually be a good piece for a Mario Party collector. (It's getting older and older by the minute, and it's already extremely old.)

This doesn't have anything to do with what I've been talking about, but I also happen not to like the game because it doesn't like me. The original Mario Party left me alone. The second one hates me and picks on me every chance it gets. The third one favors me and showers coins and Stars down on my head. But the second one has something against me, and I don't know what.

That aside, Mario Party two is probably the worst of the first three games. If you're expecting a game better than the first, know that this game is WORST than the first. Collect it if you must, but if you don't plan on collecting your own Mario Parties, then skip ahead to the third.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/08

Game Release: Mario Party 2 (US, 01/24/00)