Mario's longest-running spinoff series ever has gotten a new, portable game for the DS. This is the 10th game in the series, and I've heard rumors going around outside of this site that it's the last in the series. We haven't heard of any Mario Party 9 in development, it's the middle of 2008 as I type this, and there's usually one Mario Party a year. If this is really the series finale, was it a great game to retire the series or will it just give it a bad name from there on?
Storyline: 8.5/10
One starry night in the Mushroom Kingdom, five sparkling objects fly across the nighttime sky, one of them landing right by Mario. When the sun rises the next morning, Mario tells his friends what he found the previous night. The sparkling object is something called a Sky Crystal. Just then, a Magikoopa flies overhead, dropping numerous letters down. Mario picks one up and reads it, it's a letter from Bowser. He states that he's having a party with free food and everything as an apology for being such trouble to Mario and the gang all these years. Somewhere else, DK and Diddy Kong get an invitation as well. DK sprints over to Bowser's Castle at the thought of free food. The Mario crew decides to come as well and finds a big buffet set up on a table. Ahh...! It was too good to be true, Bowser drops a metal cage over the Mario crew to trap them. He demands that Mario hands over the Sky Crystal he found. He then reveals a scepter called the Minimizer, which can shrink anyone down to a tiny size. He shrinks down all the Mario crew and nabs Mario's Sky Crystal, and needs the other 4 that are somewhere for... something. Bowser tells Kamek to kick them all out, and so he flings them far out of the castle onto a sidewalk. The heroes look at the giant world around them, and despite their size, they are determined to find the other Sky Crystals and beat Bowser to return to normal size. They all jump into action, eager to steal the spotlight as the individual that will save the day, which ends up starting a temporary rivalry between them all throughout the game. And so they make their way towards Bowser's Castle.
Now storylines aren't something I look for in a game, but while the score might be a little high, I can tell you that it’s one of the best stories for a Mario Party game I've seen. I liked the idea of Bowser pretending to apologize for all the trouble he's caused, and the shrinking of the Mario crew makes for some fun minigames as well. The one thing that isn't quite logical about the story is that throughout the game the Mario crew encounters various people on their way to the castle that need help with some things. In these cases, some sort of normal-sized enemy (appearing huge to the heroes) is causing them some sort of trouble, and they ask the shorties to help them. These people have Sky Crystals and reward you with them if you beat the enemy, but sometimes they don't reveal that they have the Sky Crystal beforehand, and it seems like the Mario crew gets too easily distracted on their way to the castle. And why exactly are they asking inch-tall people to do these jobs? Yeah, Mario's a big hero and all, but being tiny can really cut down on the heroism.
Gameplay: 8.8/10
On the boards, gameplay hasn't gone much further from the other Mario Parties. You hit Dice Blocks, collect coins, and go for the Star. You'll probably know how it all goes by now, but Mario Party DS suffers the same problem as all Mario Parties: it's too heavily based on luck. No matter how long you've been playing Mario Party, that won't help you on the boards, as you can't determine which number you're going to hit on the Dice Block. Perhaps if they made it move slower, the game would rely more on skill and you could get more accurate shots at it... Maybe in the next installment. But there is a selection of new items in the game. There are 2 types of items, normal items and Hexes. Normal items are pretty typical, with Double and Triple Dice Blocks and such, and a few new ones. Although the idea has been used before, the new Star Pipe will warp the player over to the Star Space. The newe Block Sensor makes the next space the player stops on contain a Hidden Block, and the Grab Bag, a very rare item, takes away all the player's items, but gives them a Star Pipe, Block Sensor, and Triple Dice Block in return. I'm probably forgetting a few, but I don't think I need to go that deep. Hexes are like Orbs from Mario Party 5, as they can be set on Blue or Red Spaces. These Hexes will usually have a negative effect on the player who stops on them. There are some that don't do much damage, like the 10- or 20-Coin Hex, but some are more serious, like the 1- or 2-Star Hex. Some can have positive effects as well, like the Coin Block and the Star Block.
Anyway, off the boards, Mario Party DS has arguably one of the best minigame libraries of all Mario Parties. Why? Well because they're just GOOD. I'll give examples of some of my favorites. Camera Shy is a free-for-all minigame in which you run around a small, circular maze holding large cameras. You have to press A to take pictures of everyone else in the maze to win, but your battery must recharge after taking a shot. Dust Buddies is another free-for-all where you run from a giant vacuum while it sucks in ribbons (which can pull you backwards if your on them while they're being sucked in), buttons (which can sometimes be shot back out), and other objects as you race to the finish. Gusty Blizzard is a 1-VS-3 minigame where one player has to blow into the Mic to create a blizzard, while the other 3 players must rub their character with the stylus to avoid freezing. Hanger Management is a 2-VS-2 mini-game where you slide a wire hanger across a clothesline while balancing your weight to avoid objects in your way. And Short Fuse is a Battle minigame where each player takes turns stepping up to blow into the Mic to shorten the fuse, trying to get it to explode on the next player. Now those are just a few of the minigames, you can find many more to fit your tastes. Something that should definitely be noted is the new inclusion of Boss minigames. At the end of each board in the Story Mode, you'll fight the giant enemy by playing a Boss minigame. Here, you and the boss both have a Heart Guage. While the boss assaults you, you have to find a way to attack them back. I'm quite fond of this new category, I really loved the one for the board called Kamek's Library. Guess who the boss of that one is!
There's no Wi-Fi in the game, but at least there's Local Wireless Multiplayer. You can have 2 or 4 players in the events you can use it in it. You can do things you could always do in 1-player mode, like Party Mode or Mini-Game Mode, but there are some exclusive games for multiplayer. The first one is called Desert Duel. In it, players must hit Dice Blocks to move around the desert, claiming the land that they cross. The player that moves also gets to dig in the spot where they finish their turn. They could dig up extra Dice Blocks for another turn, or a Power Star to significantly increase their points. Points, by the way, are earned by claiming desert land, and whoever has the most at the end of 10 turns wins. The second one is called Pen Pals. This 2-on-2 teamwork game puts the tiny players in an opened magic book. One team has to use Dice Blocks to jump from panel to panel; this is the defending team. The other team wields feather pens, with which they draw lines as they go, but they can't overlap their other lines. The two team players have to use Dice Blocks to move around the board and try to draw a square around the other team members to capture them. Once that's done, the captured player will vanish from the team. If the team with the pens captures the other team, they will win. But if they don't, the defending team will win. Although these modes are only in multiplayer, I found them quite enjoyable, especially Pen Pals. Desert Duel is fun, but still a bit too luck-based. Pen Pals is more of a balance between luck and strategy.
Graphics: 7.8/10
Yes, they're 3D, but they're pretty average 3D. Well, for the DS, anyway. The graphics look pretty similar to Super Mario 64 DS, mostly applying to the character models, which look good, but their faces look quite blurry and scrunched up. But that's the DS. =\ The environments are not much different. The boards look pretty good overall although there is some billboarding (making an object 2D but always facing the player) you're going to see there. When playing mini-games, you may see a different kind of graphics used, mostly ones that use the touch screen. They're 2D and look a bit more cartoony, not saying that's a bad thing. During the cutscenes, there's more of a comic book style used that looks pretty cool, and surprisingly quite detailed. Despite this, although there are a few cool special effects thrown in here and there, for the most part there's no graphics we haven't already seen on the DS.
Music and Sound Effects: 7.9/10
*shrug* Pretty basic Mario Party music. The music for the boards is actually kind of dull, with the exception of Kamek's Library. I'm not so fond of Toadette's Music Room or DK's Stone Statue. The majority of the better music in the game comes from the minigames. Most of the songs that are worth listening to come from there, and like all the past Mario Parties, there's a Sound Test option; I'm always fond of those. Now there's a pretty good archive of minigame music here, my personal favorite being "Think it Out", a creative medley of puzzle minigame themes from previous Mario Parties. Now, for once, I actually have something to say about the sound effects… well, the voice acting, anyway. It seems a bit effortless in this game. Each character has only 5 vocals, which are the basic cheering, disappointment, "I'm the Superstar!", and such. And Waluigi has worse voice acting than ever, with a somewhat cheesy and hard to understand voice. In most other Mario Parties, each character had at least around 7 vocals, and it's reduced to very basic phrases in this game. At least Luigi doesn't have the voice he had in the N64 Parties... *shudder*
Length and Difficulty: 6.8/10
Like all Mario Party games except Advance, your goal is to clear all of the boards in order. Each board is 10 turns long, which goes by quite fast. The computers start out easy on the first board, but gradually become more strategic and skilled as you go on. But since the game is strictly luck-based, that won't affect the difficulty much outside of minigames. The game really isn't too long, because as I said, it’s 10 turns per board. It's more hard than it is long, but still not all that hard. Actually... it's kind of tough to judge that; it depends on how lucky you are during the game, but just be warned, the statistics of the game can be changed in a flash. If you have 2 Stars and everyone else has 0 at the start of the last turn of a game and you land on a 2-Star Hex, no way you're going to get your first place spot back. If you're in a tie with someone and you duel them with the wager of a Star and lose, that's 2 Stars you have to recover to even have a chance at a tie. But even so, if things look ugly, you can just turn off your DS and redo the turn. It's poor sportsmanship, but you gotta do what you gotta do. But it's better not to do this in the first few turns, only near the end of it. The trick is that you don't have to do EVERYTHING right to be able to win. Still, you'd be surprised at how suddenly the tables can be turned.
Replay Value: 9/10
The Mario Party DS equivalent to MP8's Carnival Cards - Mario Party Points. Such originality! Mario Party Points can be collected a variety of ways. On the boards, you can get them by getting Stars, coins, winning minigames, increasing CPU difficulty, setting new records, and other such things. These points are used to get 2 types of things for your Collection, which I'll explain first. The Collection can be accessed from the Gallery, and there are 4 types of collectibles for it. Character Figures can be earned either by beating Story Mode with the corresponding character or by collecting high amounts of Mario Party Points. Board Features can be collected on the boards by doing things such as landing on a certain Happening Space a set amount of times. Boss Trophies can be earned by beating a boss minigame numerous times. And Badges are unlocked the same way as Character Figures. Each one of these things has a description under it, but most of the time they have no use other than to just... be collected. The only minor exception is the Badges, which you can equip with Y, but I am yet to discover what use that has. Despite having no use they're still fun to collect. However, luck still plays a strong role with the Board Features. Like I said before, most of them can be unlocked by landing on a certain Happening Space several times. These odds aren't very high, but the boards are generally smaller than in past Mario Parties so it might not be as hard as you'd think. Collecting Character Figures and Badges doesn't depend as much on luck, as beating Story Mode and collecting Mario Party Points requires a balance of luck, skill, and patience. Boss Trophies, however, are solely based on skill and are pretty much the easiest to unlock. You can just beat a boss minigame 5 times to get all the Boss Trophies it has to offer. A disappointment for me in terms of replay was that there were no unlockable characters, especially considering the game's very basic roster.
Fun Factor!: 8.4/10
As proven by previous Mario Parties, just because a game has the word "party" in it doesn't mean it's super-fun. But there's still a great experience to be had with the series, Mario Party DS not being an exception. I can compare Mario Party to Smash Bros - 1 player mode is kind of lacking, but multiplayer is a blast. Since this is a handheld game, though, multiplayer isn't as accessible as ih console Parties. You have to go through all that DS Download Play business, but once it's done you can play the game. Well, at least it's better than GBA Link Cables. Contributing even more to multiplayer are the exclusive modes that I told of in the Gameplay section. I still am quite fond of Pen Pals, sometimes I just get my old DS and my new DS Lite to go in to multiplayer and control both of them. But the overall game is more fun in multiplayer, because there's not as much pressure on you. For example, if you land on a Bowser Space in single player after a slew of bad luck, you'd normally just grit your teeth and get angry over it. In multiplayer, even if you're in that same situation, it's easier to just say "Oh well," especially if it's in 4-player. Nonetheless, the luck-based format will occasionally make the game just frustrating. While it does make new players better able to keep up with the game, it can be unfair for veterans. Minigames don't suffer this problem as much, as they more rely on other qualities such as skill, concentration, or reflex. There are a few minigames that are just as luck-based as the main game itself, unfortunately, the best example being Chips and Dips, which I have grown to dislike as my least favorite Battle minigame. The luck system, as I've pretty much summarized, prevents Mario Party DS from being as much fun as it could have been.
Overall: 84/100
Despite suffering from some of the same flaws as the past Mario Parties, I can say without doubt that it's one of the best games in the series. In fact, I'd even say it ties with Mario Party 4 as my favorite in the series. Fans who have been taking a break from the Mario Party series might want to consider coming back now by picking up this game. An excellent minigame library is surely gonna be one of the main selling points, as long as your touch screen is still accurate. A lack of length and nothing-special graphics are some of the bigger flaws in the game, but Mario Parties have never specialized in those and it shouldn't come as much of a surprise, and the game is still worth a rent at the very least.
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