I think there is a very persuasive argument to be made that capsules are objectively poorly designed. They take autonomy away from the player by removing any choice of what items you can get, there's little that you can do to directly benefit yourself and even less you can do to hinder other players without exposing yourself to risk, it makes the boards have fewer unique spaces and thus less interesting things can happen on them, and overall way more risk with way less reward. More often than not all that strategy amounts to is having the chance to screw over your opponent, putting you ahead by association, rather than doing something that will put you ahead.

With all that said, I still like the capsules. There's so much fun and chaos that can come from how much is thrown onto every board, and there's still plenty of strategy that can go into them. I think the strategy comes a lot more from adapting, both to what capsules you have and what events everyone lands on, and I think each game is unpredictable and interesting because of that. And pretty much every board is really good, all except Rainbow Dream. They're all interesting aesthetically and thematically, they're the perfect size and the paths are well laid out, and overall a huge improvement from Mario Party 4.

I think the mini games took a hit though. There are a lot of stinkers, with many that aren't interesting like all of the coin collecting ones, and many that are just not fun like Dinger Derby or Fish Sticks or Berry Basket. The 1vs3 minigames are often VERY unbalanced, with many that feel like it's impossible for the 1 to win and even more that feel impossible for the 1 to lose. The rumble minigames are lame, there are too many button mashing ones.

But there are some good ones, Pushy Penguins being the easy standout, but I also like Hotel Goomba, Leaf Leap is also good I'm just bad at it, and all the ones where you're trapped in an arena and beat each other up are a good time.