I wanted to like this game, the aesthetic is solid, the story is written in such an excellent manner with deliberate ye olde english translation, and the (MOSTLY) seamless cuts between gameplay and story leave it a lot to like.

However, the combat is the most mind numbing shit, and it was starting to reach more than the majority of time. It's literally just timing combat and then waiting for your risk meter to fall back down, and it's so pathetically easy otherwise. You use items whenever your risk or MP is down too much, but it's easier to just juke until it's all up again. It's so boring, and this isn't even mentioning the ridiculously disgusting menuing to swap to every weapon and etc., or the block puzzles that impede progress by wasting your time further!

I'm being charitable with my stars here despite my issues, because it's clear a lot of passion and technical innovations were put into this work. It's really hard to hate this game, or for me to flat out say I dislike it. But god I don't want to play it any further, at least not without cheating. (6/10)

make no mistake when i say I Am A Mario Party Expert And Yes I Have A Mental Illness. this is the closest the series ever got to having a perfect party game before feeling the need to bog down every sequel with sometimes good and sometimes incomprehensible changes.

if i knew how to program and could change a few things about this game (item mini-games, no repeating mini-games, quality of life changes, etc.) that i have been thinking about for twenty years of my life (oh god why am i like this), i would have the Definitive Mario Party that would still be played at EVO to this day