My first Mario Party game, and it is probably one of the best ones in the entire series. Most of the mini-games are the best in the entire series, like booksquirm. I love the music and all the unique boards that change up the game. I always played this one with my brother and sister, had a lot of fun.

Also with the game itself, it is one of the most fair Mario Party games. If you are good at the mini games and good at the strategies of the board, then you can win. But also if you don't win, you can still come back with Genie Lamps or chance time. It is really balanced and fun.

For me, Mario Party 4 can be summed up like this: Middle of the road boards, but fantastic mini game lineup. The boards are extremely mid. Not even that bad but they're so boring and there's only one of them I consider good. With the mini games tho, outside of Super Mario Party, this might be the best lineup of mini games in the series. However, the item system is a massive downgrade from MP3. Not only are there not nearly as many, but the game's whole gimmick is shoving the same two items down your throat 70% of the time. It gets old. Probably the most "okay" Mario Party I've played to date

I have the absolute fondest memories of this game so going back and being hit with a face full of shoddy map design shaped retrospect was a little disappointing.

In a way I'm quite nostalgic for it, but it definitely suffers from the early pixar-esque melted cheese CGI look. There's almost a sense of uncanny valley, where the maps should be full of life, and there are elements of life but they're so few and far between that they actually kind of exasperate the emptiness.

Top tier mini games though IMO, and at the end of the day that's what matters

I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to review these and I may forego it entirely. I can say that it is enjoyable but not my favourite of the GameCube ones. It takes quite a bit to make these games truly distinct from one another outside of just having different boards and minigames that are also unique from what came before, especially as more and more Mario Party games came into existence. It wasn't until peripherals came into play like the GameCube microphone for 7 and motion controls for 8 and also board mechanic overhauls in the much later ones that things started to feel distinctly different. As an example of how samey these start to feel, I often forget which one is 4 and which one is 5. They are really interchangeable in my mind. Take of that what you will in regards to both 4 and 5 in how I would rate them, 'cos even I'm not sure how to feel.