Release Date: February 8, 1999
Developers: Hudson Soft
Publishers: Nintendo
System: N64
Rated: E

Mario Party is a different type of Mario game. There are now seven of them, which I personally think is too many. Mini-Games are the heart of this game, as I'll explain later. This game will have a new section only for the Mario Party series called Mini-Games. 1-10 will be the grading scale as usual, so let's role.

Gameplay: 9
Here's how it works. In Adventure mode, gameplay takes the form of a traditional board game, with players taking turns to roll the dice (dubbed a "dice block") and moving ahead the number of spaces shown. There are many different types of spaces players can land on, each producing a different effect. The primary objective of the game is to collect more Stars than any other player. The winner of the game is the player with the most Stars after all the turns have been completed. A secondary objective is to gather coins, as well, for they are necessary for buying essential items such as Stars, and determine the game winner in the event of a tie. Coins are earned from landing on blue spaces, from passing the start point, and from winning mini-games. They are lost from landing on red spaces, from passing Bowser, and from losing mini-games. They can also be stolen by other players who pass Boo and ask him to steal coins from you. Only one Star is present on the board at a given time, appearing randomly on a space on the board, where it remains until bought by a player for 20 coins from Toad After a Star is collected, a new one appears on a different space on the game board. Stars can also be stolen from other players by passing a certain location on the board where a Boo resides; the player must then pay Boo 50 coins for the service. At the end of each round of play (i,e; after each of the four players have taken their turn), a random mini-game commences. At the end of the entire game there are three bonus Stars: one is given to the player who collected the most coins overall, one is given to the player who collected the most coins in mini-games, and one is given to the player who landed on the most "?" Spaces (spaces that, if landed on, cause certain pre-determined events to take place). The person with the most Stars is declared the winner. In the event of a tie, the leader with the most coins wins. Mini-games happen at the end of each round or occasionally during a round when a player lands on Bowser or 1-player mini-game spaces. You start out with six boards, though my favorite is Yoshi's Tropical Island.

Apart from Adventure mode, you have Mini-Game Island, where you travel around a land and must beat every single mini-game in the game to win. You must save occasionally, otherwise if you lose all of your lives (you lose your lives by losing a particular mini-game) then you must start over from your last saved spot. Then you have the mini-game house, where you but mini-games to play any time in free mode. You also have a practice board here, and a Fly Guy challenge, where you wind up a Fly Guy and try to keep him afloat for as long as you can. You also have a shop where you buy specific events for your boards.

Controls: Depends
It depends on which mini-game you're playing. Some are very easy to control, and some are a pain, and I mean LITERALY a pain (I'll explain below). So really, if you're talking about choosing modes to play, it's really easy of course, but mini-games you'll just have to experience yourself.

Mini-Games: 8
There were some great games, really. One cool thing that is NOT in any other Mario Party is 1-player mini-games. Some of my favorite mini-games are Slot Car Derby, Bumper Balls, Bombs Away, Skateboard Scamper, Running of the Bulb, and Handcar Havoc. Then there were ones I didn't like at all that I will not mention. The reason I took off two points here is because there are certain mini-games where you have to continuously rotate your control stick with your palm. Think of SM64; yeah, your palm will be swelled up. This is bad because whenever you get these type of games you may want to just quit playing altogether. Believe me, it might not sound like that big of a deal, but it becomes a REAL pain.

Music: 7
The music outside of the mini-games isn't good, but the mini-game music impressed me. I liked a bunch of the songs and I think you will too. I took off points because they eventually get annoying and the board music stinks. Oh well, no big complaining here.

Difficulty: Depends
I know you're sick of me saying "Depends", but it's true, it depends on what you're doing. If you are wanting to play adventure mode with all easy computers, you're looking for just an easy game. Now if you are looking to beat Mini-Game Island, you're looking at something a little harder, but not that bad. Now if you play an adventure mode match with all HARD computers, you're looking, of course, at a hard match. It depends on how you set the game up. Really, I think even while the computers are on hard, it's still easy.

Graphics: 8
The graphics are really nice for N64. The boards look good, and so do the characters. Bowser looks cool, and I like the way the Stars look too. Really, for N64 this game was quite impressive in the graphics. There were a few flaws, but still good.

Characters: 6
This was an ok part of the game. You have Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Wario, Bowser, Toad, and Koopa Troopa. The only unique and different character you get is Donkey Kong, who was my favorite. The problem was it was just too boring with all  the same characters in all the other Mario games out there. Yeah, sure, they added Donkey Kong, but maybe some other Mario characters (Lemmy, Morton, Roy, Wendy, Larry, Ludwig, Iggy). But of course, Nintendo's just going to completely skip the Koopalings again. Anyway, it was ok, I just got so bored of seeing the same ones AGAIN!

Originality: 9
Besides the sequels, there are no other games like this. This is not only a one-of-a-kind Mario game, but also a one-of-a-kind game itself. There have been mini-games in other games, but not set up like in a board game format. I loved how it was something different for a change (although the characters were the same). Anyway, the only reason I took off a point was because of the characters.

Items: 4
Ok, you don't have any items during gameplay. You have this ridiculous shop that sells you warp blocks, coin blocks, minus coin blocks, and other ones that appear randomly when you are playing the game. What I didn't like is why didn't Nintendo just put items on the board maps, instead of buying them from a shop and letting them appear RANDOMLY? I didn't like this very much, but I did give them credit for at least putting some in the game.

Secrets: 7
There are some. You unlock boards, but that's it. What really disappointed me was the fact that there were NO secret characters. It would have been nice to unlock at least one secret character, but NO, instead you only unlock boards. I did like the secret boards, but maybe they could have added secret characters too. Oh well, it doesn't matter anyway because the characters have no effect on the way you play the game anyway.

Boards:
Explained below (1-6, six is worst, 1 is best.)

Mario's Rainbow Castle -(2)- This board is ok. The only thing is if you go up to the top and find out it's NOT Toad, it'll be Bowser, which means you'll get a Ztar that doesn't add to your total at all.

Luigi's Engine Room -(5)- I really don't like this board. The paths are constantly changing back and forth and it's really confusing to get to the Star. It's obvious that an idiot like Luigi wouldn't be able to design a board like this anyway....

Peach's Birthday Cake -(4)- This board ain't too bad. You must travel to the top of the cake, but sometimes turns permit you to go a certain route to Bowser.

Yoshi's Tropical Island -(1)- My favorite board in the game, and that's including the secret ones. I love the Happening Spaces' events, and everything else. I'll let you explore this awesome one.

Wario's Battle Canyon -(6)- I hate this board, and it's by far my worst in the entire game. You have different islands and traps, and you have to time your cannon jumps really well too. You'll see what I mean, this board is awful.

DK's Jungle Adventure -(3)- I like this board. Really, this is pretty plain, and it's mostly for beginners.

Overall Board Grades: 7 (I'll keep the secret ones a surprise)

Overall: 7
Great game, and I think a little more could've been added. Anyway, I would recommend this game to anyone, really. Even if you're not a Mario fan, you might end up liking this game.