This big Comparison reviews all the GameCube Mario Parties. For every Mario Party that comes by it seems like just another one, but is it worth it in that case? Are they all worth getting, or is only a certain one good? This Comparison will say which it is. Hopefully.
By the way, some of you may remember that I did a Mario Party 4 Review already a long time ago. Since I didn't play 1, 2, and 3, it was my first Party, and I was a little overrated about it. But I a more fair opinion of it now that it's no longer a new game. Meanwhile, 5, 6 , and 7 are new Reviews.
The 0-4 star scale is here, and I will state the best game in each category.
Graphics:
4: **1/2
5: ***
6: ***
7: ***
While each Mario Party has a positive
rating, Mario Party 4 was a level below because the boards had a flat theme
to them. The shops would fold out from the board, and I hated the denim
backgrounds with siloughettes of the characters. Later Parties improved
these problems with 3D boards (i.e, steps, ladders, etc.) and better backgrounds.
In each game the characters didn't look bad, so that helps out. 5, 6, and
7 tie for first.
Sound/Music:
4: **
5: ***
6: **1/2
7: ***
Mario Party 4 had a few good tunes, but the rest was boring music. Mario Party 5 had some better tunes, especially in the mini-game modes and on the "better" boards (you'll know what I mean later). Mario Party 6 had some all right tunes, like E Gadd's Garage, but some themes, like the ones for Brighton and Twila, weren't very good, in my mind. However, I did like the realistic sound effect of the crickets chirping for the night versions of some mini-games. In Mario Party 7, I liked the music on the boards, as well as the rare mini-game theme. Some regular mini-game themes weren't my favorite, but it doesn't hurt the score too much. The voices in each one were mostly all right. 5 and 7 have the best themes.
Difficulty:
4: 1/2
5: *
6: *1/2
7: *1/2
Each Mario Party is somewhat easy. In Mario Party 4, the CPUs, even on Expert, were so stupid on the boards and could be beaten by a veteran or a good, new player at the mini-games. Thus, you would be walking around with tons of coins and Stars. It lacked a lot of challenge. A wise board player could have three Magic Lamps in his inventory (wise meaning not using one when close to the Star). That happened to me a lot, and so Mario Party 4 is the easiest. Mario Party 5 was very similar, except you wouldn't be walking around with three items that would get you an instant Star, and the CPUs weren't as dumb as in 4. 6 and 7 are still easy games, just the CPUs are smarter more of the time. Stars were harder to get on some boards too. I've lost a few more games in 6 and 7 than in 4 and 5, meaning that the last two seem slightly more challenging than the first two. 6 and 7 have the best difficulty of the four, but they're still too easy. The difficulty is always easier than it is set to be.
Controls:
4: ****
5: ****
6: ****
7: ****
No contest. The controls do what the controls do. All of them win!
Characters:
4: ***
5: ** 1/2
6: ** 1/2
7: ***
Koopa Kid mostly kept each game from a 4-star rating. His presence is worst in 5, in the Story Mode, where he was divided into three colors. Keeping him off the subject, Mario Party 4 had a good playable character selection (same as Mario Party 3), but the minions in the Mario games were lacking. Basically, Toad, Goomba, Shy Guy, Boo, Koopa (Troopa), and Koopa Kid/Bowser have their own boards, and those are mostly the only kinds of enemies you see on the boards. I wish it had more variety there. Mario Party 5 added Boo and Toad, but unfortunately also added Koopa Kid and made DK's appearance more of a rarity. More Mario minions were seen on the boards and mini-games, which was the only other thing that was better. Mario Party 6 added Toadette from 5, which I don't exactly like, because I don't like Toadette much, obviously. Two new characters, Brighton and Twila, were added, which was all right, though. And, just like in 5, the same variety of characters were on the boards. Mario Party 7 added Toadsworth, who is all right, took out the playable Koopa Kid (a plus), and added Birdo and Dry Bones (another plus). Best? Mario Party 4 and Mario Party 7 actually have the best.
Boards:
4: **
5: ** 1/2
6: ****
7: ****
I don't know where to start here. Mario Party 4 had all right boards, despite their graphics. However, luck (mostly bad) played too much of a role. The fortune spaces were horrible. Goomba's Greedy Gala was a fun board to me, but some may find it frustrating. Shy Guy's was good because it had less luck to it than the rest. Bowser's was fun for some reason, too. But, overall, they weren't my favorites. You would gain a lot of coins because the CPUs were bad at mini-games, but you would also lose a lot of coins just because of the unfairness of the spaces. The DK spaces in 5 balanced out the luck, which helped out a lot. However, the big problem with 5's boards are that there are too many kiddie boards. Toy Dream, Rainbow Dream, Undersea Dream, and Sweet Dream? Please. That made the other three boards more favorable.
6 and 7, in my mind, were even more impressive. Both had six better boards, and the way of getting Stars on most boards were different. You weren't just going to the random spot that had the Star on all the boards. 7's Windmillville was interesting, and 6's Clockwork Castle was a good idea as well (catch up with the dice-rolling DK to buy a Star during the day). 6's Snowflake Lake and 7's Pyramid Park were cool as well (get Stars by using Chain Chomps to steal them from opponents). Those ideas were great, and the settings of the boards were all diverse. 6's day/night cycles and 7's Bowser Times spiced things up as well. 6 and 7, equally, take the cake.
Story/Solo Mode:
4: *
5: ***
6: ** 1/2
7: ***
Mario Party #4 didn't have much of a difference between Party and Story mode, so it only deserves one star. #5 had a different, challenging one, where you had to deplete the coins of the Koopa Kids by beating them in mini-games. I liked that, but it had too many duels. 6's Solo Mode had you land on all kinds of mini-game spaces, and you tried to get as close to the end of the board as possible without going too far. Other than earning bonuses, getting Stars, and getting the rare-mini games, there wasn't really a point to it. In the 7th Mario Party, you had to beat the CPU in whatever the board's objective was, which was about as good as 5's. #5 and #7 are best in this one.
Items:
4: **
5: **
6: ***
7: *** 1/2
Mario Party 4 had a more useless item selection. The Mini-Mega Hammer was stupid, the Sparky Sticker wasn't worth 15 coins, and the Mega Mushroom made you skip most parts of the board. You would steal coins from opponents, but if you wanted to get to the Star from a distance, you had no item for that. The Warp Pipe and Swap Card were random, but could help if you got it right. he rest of the items, except for maybe the Mini-Mushroom, were all right, however.
5, 6, and 7 changed the items to capsules/orbs, which you could also lay down on a space on the board. I consider it an advantage because it makes you feel like you're creating your own board. In Mario Party 5, you would just get the capsules randomly, and had to pay to use them on yourself. I didn't like doing that, I'd rather pay for what I wanted first-hand. 6 and 7 both had you recieve them randomly and buy them. Worse, in #5 if you had three capsules, you couldn't throw away one if you got a fourth capsule. 6 and 7 fixed that, though. Also, when laying down a capsule in 5, you would suffer the same effect as the other players. What's the point of that? Whenever I got a Piranha Plant capsule, I wouldn't want to lay it down for my own sake, so I wouldn't lose my coins. I couldn't throw it away, so sometimes I would hope for it just to get stolen. Mario Party 5 had a lot of negative coin capsules, and that hurts the rating a bit. Basically, it had a good idea of the capsules, but bad use of them.
In Mario Party 6 and 7, the capsules were more "characterized", which improved things greatly. You would even get the lost coins of the player. A positive note on the capsules in any game was that you could overwrite them on the board, which especially helped in 5. Mario Party 7 wins slightly because of the character-only orbs (like Mario and Luigi's Fireball Orb).
Mini-Games:
4: ** 1/2
5: ** 1/2
6: ***
7: *** 1/2
I'll start with the worst. Mario Party 4 had only about 50 mini-games. Earlier Mario Parties exceeded that much! It didn't have any Duel games (although the Story mini-games and two 2-Player, etc. mini-games are technically duels). The regular mini-games weren't bad, but had a lot of boring button pressers. The Bowser mini-hames were new, I think (I'm not sure), which was good. The fun Extra Room mini-games pulled the score up to two stars. In 5, there were a lot more mini-games, including DK mini-games (collect bananas for coins). The mini-game Mario Mechs was pretty good, one of the better Mario Party mini-games overall. However, in 5, again, there were too many button mashers, especially in duels. 6 and 7 had Mic Mini-Games (speaking commands into the Mic), but 7 had both 4-player and 1 vs 3 versions of it. 6 had many games in both day and night versions, which in some cases changed the gameplay around. 7 had both 1-player and 4-player DK and Bowser mini-games. However, 7 has a big jump over the rest by having 8-player games as well. So, Mario Party 7 wins.
Mini-Game Modes:
4: *
5: *** 1/2
6: ** 1/2
7: ***
For here I'm talking just about the mini-game modes in each game. 4 gets a poor rating because of only having a Mini-Game Battle (whoever gets # wins first) and a tic-tac-toe game. Not much selection, I have to say. It didn't have what earlier and later Parties have. There nothing else to say of it.
Mario Party 5 gets a good rating because it introduced the cool Mini-Game Decathlon, and this one also had a Mini-Game Circuit, which I liked. Plus, Mini-Game Wars wasn't bad either. In Mini-Game Decathlon, you would play ten certain mini-games, and whatever score you got on one, would transfer to decathlon points. Whoever had the most points after the ten games was the winner. In Mini-Game Circuit, you would win mini-games to roll dice, to drive through the circuit. The Bowser and Duel spaces spiced things up with moving backwards if you lost, and the items you had helped things out too. As you can see, I'd rather have game modes like these. The half-star off is due to no 1-player Mini-Game Island/Coaster-like mode like in MP1 and 2.
Mario Party 6 still had the decathlon, but the Circuit was taken out and the Wars were replaced by a Treetop Bingo game, which wasn't as fun. However, it did have Endurance Alley, which was a good idea but a bad mode. You had one life and you couldn't gain any more. So, you had to flawlessly make it through 100 mini-games to win, which is impossible for me, as easy as the mini-games seem. Plus you couldn't save, which made things worse. But, nonetheless, Mario Party 6 does get credit for each mini-game mode and gets a positive rating.
Mario Party 7, again, had the decathelon mode. The underwater game (can't remember the name) was very luck-based, as I could never easily find one with my character's head in it. So, it wasn't as fun. However, King of the River beats 6's Endurance Alley, as in this one, you could save, you had three lives, and you could gain lives back. That makes 7 a half-star better than 6, but not as good as the winner, 5.
Extra/Bonus Modes:
4: ***
5: *** 1/2
6: ***
7: no stars
This category covers the extra modes to the game, not necessarily the mini-game modes. Mario Party VII didn't really have one, so it gets the no star rating. Mario Party IV had the Extra Room, which I liked. It had some 1-player mini-games, two small multiplayer boards, two multiplayer mini-games, and Beach Volleyball. Plus, Thwomp and Whomp hosting it made things "cool" as well. It's a cool mode, and gets the 3-star "good" rating. In Mario Party V, there was Super Duel Mode. By playing the four main kinds of mini-games, you would earn points to buy parts for a machine. Once you complete a machine, you can go against another human (fun) or go into tournaments (also fun). With several machine parts and many stages to fight on for two-player mode, it was great. The only complaint was you could only have one saved machine at a time, which was slightly annoying, but very minor. In Mario Party VI, there was the Mic Mode. In the Mic Mode, there were two games (other than the mini-game free play): Speak Up and Star Sprint. Speak Up was an almost-excellent gameshow-like mode, and especially fun with four players. However, I wish the questions were more specific and harder, instead of like counting the number of Thwomps are something like that. Star Sprint wasn't half bad as well. You would carry a Star to the goal. It's sometimes fun, but sometimes gets a little repetitive. 5 barely wins this.
Replayability:
4: ***
5: ***
6: *** 1/2
7: ** 1/2
Each game has an all right amount of secrets to play for, and the Fun Factor helps this too by making you want to play boards some more. Mario Party 7 is actually slightly lower because, while I haven't finished getting all the souvenirs, there won't be much more to play for that. Mario Party 6 gets a slightly better rating because I thought that it took the longest to unlock everything, plus getting all the bonuses in Solo Mode and the difficult Endurance Alley provided extra challenge. So, Mario Party 6 is a slight favorite here.
Fun Factor!:
4: ***
5: *** 1/2
6: ****
7: ****
Each of them are Mario Parties, so the Party Mode fun itself is great. Mario Party 4 was a little behind because of too much coin-losing on the boards. 6 and 7, in my mind, are really the most fun, and they do get a perfect rating. 5 would've been fun but the capsule problem actually hurt it a little. So, Mario Party 6 and 7, for another time, are on top.
Overall:
4: ** 1/2
5: ***
6: *** 1/2
7: ***1/2
Mario Party 4, the worst of these four, was still all right, just not impressive compared to later and earlier Parties. So, it is likely to be the worst in the series. But it is still all right. Mario Party 5 was a slight improvement over 4, but I still would say that it is not the best one. It had some things I liked, but other things I didn't really like. However, it did help the next two get better, so it gets credit for that. Mario Party 6 improved off of both 4 and 5, in more ways than one. In fact, it's a very good game. Mario Party 7 is very much like 6, but different enough to not be a worse game. Which one is better? That's a tough decision. 6 has some better stuff than 7, and vice-versa. They are pretty much equal. Since I haven't played all the N64 parties, I can't compare these to them... yet. Which ones are worth buying? 6 and 7, definitely; 5 is pretty good, and 4 won't be a bad choice if you're a Mario Party fan. I don't want to make the mistake I did when first reviewing MP4 for MP7 now, since it still is somewhat new. I don't think I did. Anyway, go with 6 and 7 for the best Mario parties I've played so far. (Remember, I haven't played Mario Party 2 or 3 yet, so I can't compare.)
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