Why the fuck can't I play pro controllers and joycons for this game. Maps are kind of ehh, minigames are fun and I like that you can play them without playing a game. But party games are super fun the rare times you do actually play them, but besides like 3 fun nights, I have no association with this game.
This one gets a bad rap, but for a simple party game, this was a popular go to for roommates and siblings for a long while - we'll still hop into this to play the rhythm games or the river raft teamwork game. The minigames themselves are pretty fun too, with all the different motion controls! Annoying that this game literally doesn't let you open it with more than one Joy-con, but that's as classic Nintendo as you can get. The boards themselves are definitely the weakest, but those other modes are a blast. And the random single multiplayer portion isn't bad either.
All in all, as a Mario Party game, come for the river rafting and rhythm games, stay for the mini-games, have fun with friends, and avoid the actual Mario Party game.
In retrospect, we'll go to this one for the other modes and Mario Party Superstars for the boards.
All in all, as a Mario Party game, come for the river rafting and rhythm games, stay for the mini-games, have fun with friends, and avoid the actual Mario Party game.
In retrospect, we'll go to this one for the other modes and Mario Party Superstars for the boards.
This is the only Mario Party that will let me main Bowser, so obviously it's the best one. I also prefer it to Superstars in terms of gameplay (with the caveat, of course, that I'm not a big console gamer in general, having grown up on MS-DOS and emulation, and struggle with the z-axis at the best of times). Using one Joy-Con is great and the vibration/tilt-control games are stupid fun. A thorough joy. And also - it bears repeating - I can main Bowser. What's not to love?
There's some promise in nearly all of the modes here, but none of them are executed perfectly, and all of them have too little content to be worth revisiting more than a few times.
One thing I'd definitely like to see revisited in the future is the character Dice Blocks; these feel like a much less invasive and more strategically interesting way to do character-based balancing than 7's unique blue orbs, especially since you can use allies for additional options.
One thing I'd definitely like to see revisited in the future is the character Dice Blocks; these feel like a much less invasive and more strategically interesting way to do character-based balancing than 7's unique blue orbs, especially since you can use allies for additional options.