Mario Party Advance

"Mario Party finally hits the GBA!"

The Mario Party series has really been dropping ever since Mario Party 4. Fortunately for us now, Hudson becomes really smart and puts out a Mario Party for the GBA!

Story:9/10- Pretty much every Mario Party has had a crap story. But now we got ourselves an interesting story. Party Island has always been where the Mario Parties have been held, and a ton of new mini games and "Gaddgets", special whacked mini games created by (gasp) Professor E. Gadd, have been created. With typical timing, Bowser appears and knocks away all of the games into Shroom City far below! Now its up to the Mario Party gang, this time consisting only of Mario, Luigi, Peach and Yoshi to rescue the lost mini games and Gaddgets.

Game play:9/10- Everything in Mario Party Advance runs smoothly and perfectly. The game itself is nearly flawless. What I'm so glad Hudson finally did was input more emphasis on the Single Player rather than spending it all on Multi player. You get to travel around Shroom City in your personal Mushroom Car and hit dice blocks to move around the board freely. However, were not playing for Coins or Stars anymore. Your playing for certain mini games (Mainly the Duel and Bowser games), but also the lost Gaddgets. Many town villagers have them in their homes, but it isn't fun of they just gave them to you right? You need to complete their quests successfully before they hand over the lost item/game. Some quests are wacky, like listening to lame jokes and clapping at their punchlines, to searching all over Shroom City for some gossip on info required to complete the quest. All 4 players start at different areas of the board. The "Party Mode" is actually just the Single Player story. Its the easiest way to unlock mini games too. There are also tons of different modes you can play with friends like Penguin Racing, head to head battles, and much more. There is so much to do in this tiny Mario Party game.

Graphics:7/10- For a GBA game, we're not expecting XBox graphics at the least, but for a standard GBA game these graphics leave something to be desired. They are pretty good, especially in the very fun mini games, but while on the board they aren't as great as visual. The graphics are sub-par, but could have been made a lot better.

Sound-9/10:Most of the music in the mini games are remixes of mini game music from past Mario Parties. And that's a good thing. The music in this game rocks, and brings back a tearful of memories. Of course, there is new music too. And plenty of it. Most of the music in the mini games fit it quite nicely. Other sounds didn't deserve to be there and should have been replaced, but that's only a few instances.

Buy or Rent? Or pass up?
Definitely a buy, especially if you have friends who are about to get this. This game is extremely fun, and has a ton of replay value. Some of the quests are insanely hard to figure out, and the mini games are well worth the effort to unlock. I don't have all of them, but from what I have seen, there's VERY few button mashers and luck games. And that's an awesome thing.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/29/05