Mario Party 2

"The best multi-player game ever!"

I'm seriously serious here! This is sheer excellence when compared to Mario Party and Mario Party 3...I haven't played Mario Party 4 yet, but, judging on how bad Mario Party 3 was, I probably won't get Mario Party 4...Mario Party 2 is good enough for me! For those of you who aren't familiar with the term 'mini-game', it most generally means, 'a miniature game played during the course of the storyline or adventure, usually fun in nature, and most often played with or against multiple players'. Mario Party 2 (as well as the other Mario Parties) take place upon a large board game with spaces that do different things (more on this in the Story section of this review), and a mini-game takes place after every player has taken their turn. Each mini-game varies but they are either:
A 1-player mini-game (only under certain circumstances)
A 4-player mini game (every player against each other)
A 2-on-2 mini game (one team against the other)
A 1 against 3 mini game (unfairly favoring one side or the other, because sometimes that one player is like 10 times the size of the other 3 in a certain mini-game!)
Duel 1-on-1 mini-game (a new addition to the Mario Party series! play against one other opponent in an exclusive area)
Read on to find out why I love this game so much, and what stopped me from giving it a perfect 10...
Controls: 9/10:
The controls are great for this game...When it comes to your turn on the board game, it shows you each button and what it does, and when each mini-game starts, there is a screen before the mini-game that shows you the concept of each mini-game and even lets you try a practice match of the mini-game before it starts. Also, there is an in-game tutorial that shows you how to use the controller for the various actions during game play.
Game Play:10/10:
Because of the in-game tutorial, even those who haven't played the original Mario Party or the others won't have much trouble trying to figure out how to play this game. Even if you don't watch the in-game tutorial, you probably will be able to figure out what each space on the board does and how the mini-games work by watching the opponent's moves. Plus, up to 4 players can play against one another, adding to the mini-game fun and frenzy! You can also play by yourself, and against 3 other computer-controlled players. There are loads of mini-games, secrets to unlock, drastically different boards to play on, and an area called Mini-Game Land. In this area, you can buy mini-games to play whenever you want by using coins that you've won by playing board games in the story and multi-player modes! There is also a Trial mode available here, in which you play a much shorter version of the regular Mario Party 2 board games. There are many other features available to unlock here in Mini-Game land, but I won't spoil any of them for you...Also, the boards that you play on are specially themed! There is Pirate Land, Western Land, Mystery Land, Space Land, and Horror Land (my personal favorite). There COULD be a secret board...Mabye...Just mabye...You'll just have to find out for yourself!
Graphics: 8/10:
Pretty good for a Nintendo 64 game! The graphics flow nicely with the mini-games and scenery, but, in a future Mario Party, I hope to see some FMV-quality cinema scenes!
Story: 6/10:
Basically, it's pretty much the same as with Mario Party with a new and different twist; everything starts out great, then the characters start to argue, Bowser comes into the scene somehow, and then the characters must band together to try to see who can get the most Stars on the board games and who can win it in the end...The opening scene that you can choose to watch or not is funny, and it brings a nice setting to Mario Party 2. However, when playing the game, you can only choose your character from Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, and Wario. In other words, no new characters to choose from that are different than the first Mario Party, which saddened me a lot, since I had high expectations of new characters, which is a big part of why my final rating is 9/10.
Challenge: 7/10:
For most of the game, the computer players aren't terribly hard (although you can adjust their dificulty...), but some of the mini-games are quite challenging! Depending on the skill of your friends and family that you play against, you might have an easy time beating them, or a hard time beating them...The blend of challenge and fun that this game provides is excellent, also contributing greatly to my final score of 9/10.
Sound: 8/10:
Most of the sounds go very well with the scenery and mini-games, plus there is an area in the Options section where you can listen to character voices and all of the other sounds in the game! For those of you that have played the original Mario Party, remember how the only sounds you could listen to were character voices, of which were randomly generated from a parrot? No more of that! Now you can actually pick and choose what you want to hear!
Music: 9/10:
Some of the music tracks are very enjoyable, plus you can listen to them any time you want in the options section. The main board game music tracks are my favorite ones...
Replayability: 10/10:
This is THE perfect multi-player game! You and your friends will want to play this one over and over again! All of the boards, single mini-games, listening to sound pieces and music tracks...There's almost no way that you can find a mult-player game that betters this experience!
Buy or Rent:
If you like adventure, platformer, puzzle, and even RPG games, you'll love Mario Party 2's adventurous fun. Even if you just like racing and sports-related game, you'll enjoy Mario Party 2's mini-game madness...Even the casual video game player will definitely want to at least rent this game for a while and give it a try.
Final Score: 9/10
The factors that stopped me from giving this game a 10 was the fact that there were NO new playable characters (which Mario Party 3 solved) and not enough board game playing areas. Other than that, I heartily reccomend trying this game out and giving it a chance!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/30/02, Updated 04/20/03