Frankly at this current point in time, it just seems like the Mario Party series is doomed to always feature gimmicks and modes that either don't work for it or are extremely polarizing. Thankfully Mario Party: Island Tour has been the closest we've gotten to good old fashioned Mario Party, but that doesn't really mean much when it still falls on it's face. The main party mode consistent of a few boards that are race to the finish progression boards, and while I understand the excitement of progression, the format doesn't really work well when games can end a lot sooner than usual. The single player mode is perhaps the best addition of this game, providing a rather weak story and reason to play all the mini-games, but at the least it feels rewarding and even has some neat mini-game bosses to deal with. Sadly streetpass mini-games were kinda moot at this point as the majority of people have their streetpass spots filled and likely never considered to use this feature over say Bravely Default. Largely this game just feels like half ass attempt at making Mario Party on the go without understanding that we already have that in the form of the DS version. If this was released earlier in the 3DS's life it might have gotten some fans, but as it is it's just overshadowed by so many other Mario parties before it that once the novelty of it wears off, it's not worth picking up ever again.

Not an awful game and probably should score higher objectively but my God this is one of the most forgettable, boring, and generic games I've ever played. And it doesn't have the decency of being fun like the New Super Mario Bros series as most of the boards are dogshit with a few fun minigames sprinkled in there. I actually thought the story mode was alright because you didn't actually have to play on the boards, it was literally just minigames against CPUs. The final boss was also sort of cool but really you're not missing much if you skip this game.