Played for the Tarvould's Quest Mario Party League, viewable here.
The team at Hudson had a strong high concept for this game right out the gate, making a digital board game with Super Mario 64 theming. But they definitely needed to iron out what would and wouldn't work. You can see a lot of that experimentation at play here, with boards feeling a lot more gimmicky or high-concept compared to what Mario Parties 2/3 would offer. I can't really say that Mario Party 1 as a whole is gimmicky, but you might say that Hudson was trying to find the type of board game they wanted to make.
By consequence, the strongest boards are the ones that feel most like what the series will later offer. It's no surprise that Yoshi's Tropical Island made it to Mario Party Superstars. Peach's Birthday Cake is a bit more of a surprise - anecdotally, I played a game with my mother where she got trapped endlessly in the Goomba loop - but it's reminiscent enough of later greats in Windmillville and Koopa's Tycoon Town. Mario's Rainbow Castle is a decent first draft of a linear board, and Bowser's Magma Mountain is pretty close to what the series would offer for Bowser boards - just a bit more dickish than the average.
But things start to fall apart from there. DK's Jungle Adventure is okay, but overly-centralized by boulders and Whomp loops. Wario's Battle Canyon is a fun high-concept, but it's too easy to get caught in the different islands of this damned war-torn hellscape (and tricky to plan around where you'll end up). Eternal Star is strong on first blush but rapidly becomes a solved puzzle on high-end play. Luigi's Engine Room is just too fiddly to plan around - having even an extra turn between route switches would do wonders.
You also have a complete lack of item play. The boards aren't really designed for it, so you couldn't just plop in Mario Party 2/3's items and call it a day. But you do really feel the relative dearth of comeback mechanics. The exception to this is Boo, particularly since coin steal is completely free in this game, but then the game presents the option to disable Boo (a nice consideration, but kind of like asking if you want a chocolate chip cookie without the chocolate chips). Apart from that, it's mostly a question of how much you get screwed over by board play and how much you dominate minigames.
Speaking of, Hudson was experimenting with these as much as they were the board design. It's a bit more obvious here, considering just how many of these were remade for Mario Party 2, plus how many concepts just seem odd compared to later games (Pipe Maze, Coin Block Bash, Coin Block Blitz, Key-pa-Way, all the One-Player Minigames). Also, the fact that you LOSE coins if you lose a minigame. As if your opponent gaining coins isn't bad enough!
And it hardly bears mention, but for completion's sake - I'm genuinely surprised the control stick-spinning minigames cleared dev testing. You would think the whole "splitting your palm during Tug o' War" thing would've come up before the customers got their hands on it.
The original Mario Party is often suffering. I do find that that gives it its own identity, even after later games surpass it, and there's something to be said for an exceptionally masochistic round of Mario Party. You're generally better playing a later title, but it's not bad. Just don't expect it to be good, clean fun.
The team at Hudson had a strong high concept for this game right out the gate, making a digital board game with Super Mario 64 theming. But they definitely needed to iron out what would and wouldn't work. You can see a lot of that experimentation at play here, with boards feeling a lot more gimmicky or high-concept compared to what Mario Parties 2/3 would offer. I can't really say that Mario Party 1 as a whole is gimmicky, but you might say that Hudson was trying to find the type of board game they wanted to make.
By consequence, the strongest boards are the ones that feel most like what the series will later offer. It's no surprise that Yoshi's Tropical Island made it to Mario Party Superstars. Peach's Birthday Cake is a bit more of a surprise - anecdotally, I played a game with my mother where she got trapped endlessly in the Goomba loop - but it's reminiscent enough of later greats in Windmillville and Koopa's Tycoon Town. Mario's Rainbow Castle is a decent first draft of a linear board, and Bowser's Magma Mountain is pretty close to what the series would offer for Bowser boards - just a bit more dickish than the average.
But things start to fall apart from there. DK's Jungle Adventure is okay, but overly-centralized by boulders and Whomp loops. Wario's Battle Canyon is a fun high-concept, but it's too easy to get caught in the different islands of this damned war-torn hellscape (and tricky to plan around where you'll end up). Eternal Star is strong on first blush but rapidly becomes a solved puzzle on high-end play. Luigi's Engine Room is just too fiddly to plan around - having even an extra turn between route switches would do wonders.
You also have a complete lack of item play. The boards aren't really designed for it, so you couldn't just plop in Mario Party 2/3's items and call it a day. But you do really feel the relative dearth of comeback mechanics. The exception to this is Boo, particularly since coin steal is completely free in this game, but then the game presents the option to disable Boo (a nice consideration, but kind of like asking if you want a chocolate chip cookie without the chocolate chips). Apart from that, it's mostly a question of how much you get screwed over by board play and how much you dominate minigames.
Speaking of, Hudson was experimenting with these as much as they were the board design. It's a bit more obvious here, considering just how many of these were remade for Mario Party 2, plus how many concepts just seem odd compared to later games (Pipe Maze, Coin Block Bash, Coin Block Blitz, Key-pa-Way, all the One-Player Minigames). Also, the fact that you LOSE coins if you lose a minigame. As if your opponent gaining coins isn't bad enough!
And it hardly bears mention, but for completion's sake - I'm genuinely surprised the control stick-spinning minigames cleared dev testing. You would think the whole "splitting your palm during Tug o' War" thing would've come up before the customers got their hands on it.
The original Mario Party is often suffering. I do find that that gives it its own identity, even after later games surpass it, and there's something to be said for an exceptionally masochistic round of Mario Party. You're generally better playing a later title, but it's not bad. Just don't expect it to be good, clean fun.