The last of the Mario Party games that I both had but had not yet revisited, the very first Mario Party is one that, like Mario Party 2, I’ve had just about all my life. It was a game I played a ton as a kid, though not quite as much as I did MP2. I picked this up for cheap a little while back, and I decided why the heck not play through it until I can get to the credits. I’m pretty sure I’ve done it at least one other time, but it’s been so long I can barely remember it. I unlocked and played through every map at least once, beat the mini-game island side mode, and I beat the final “story” map and saw the credits. I played through the Japanese version of the game on real hardware.
The story of Mario Party 1 is about as simple as these games get. The gang is arguing about who the super star among them is, and to decide it, they decide to throw a big party, with the winner being declared the super star. There is the mini-game island single-player mode, but even that doesn’t really have any story behind it beyond, “here’s a challenge. Can you do it?”. It’s not a problem, though. The conceits of each board being that there’s some problem that only becoming the super star can solve is a bit weird and uninvolved with the actual gameplay, but that hardly matters. It’s a more than fine enough set up for the game to take place, and it does its job just fine.
While the gameplay of Mario Party 1 does set up the formula that would define the franchise for the next decade, it has a lot of other elements that would never be brought back again that really give it a flavor all its own. Many aspects are very familiar to later Mario Party games. Each map is 20, 35, or 50 turns long, and there’s a mini-game at the end of every turn that involves all 4 players, a 2v2, or a 1v3. You earn coins from these mini-games and use them to buy stars on the board game part once you reach Toad, and the person with the most coins is the winner. All very familiar elements to later Mario Party games. It’s the unfamiliar stuff that I have quite a fondness for, though.
For example, there are the mini-games. Of course there are the infamous control-stick spinning mini-games (which I wore a work glove to save my palm from), which I would say are easily the weakest link of this entire game. But beyond that, there’s a real adversarial aspect to the games here that later Mario Partys completely abandon. In just about every 2v2 mini-game, the winners get 10 coins, but the losers lose 10 coins. Many 1v3 games work the same way, with the 3 each getting or losing 5 coins, or the 1 getting or losing 15 coins, but many 1v3 games make it impossible for one side to gain money at all. You also have single-player mini-game spaces spread around the map which do drag out the game longer than it needs to be, yes, but I didn’t mind them too terribly. You even have weird mixes in quite a few 4 player mini-games, where they’re completely co-op experiences. Everyone is working together to win, and if you all win, you all get money, but if you lose, you all lose money. All of this is stuff later games completely abandoned, and it’s kinda a shame, since apart from being unique, it also just makes the game better. The only real design philosophy-level complaint I have aside from the control stick spinning is just how many games last too long. Games that last 40 to 60 seconds can be a real and literal pain when you’re mashing a button for almost the entire time, but it’s only really a problem if you’re playing a ton of Mario Party in one sitting, and it shouldn’t affect you too much if you’re playing more casually.
It not only gives players more control over other player’s finances by winning and losing money in so many games, but the single-player game spaces also allow for players who aren’t so good to still gain money, even if they’re not too great at the end-of-turn mini-games. It keeps money moving through the economy and keeps maps from getting stale with one player far too far in the lead, which is something later Mario Party games REALLY struggle with. They shift from this method to battle mini-games and items to balance out their economies, but I think there was a lot more value in these old games than they assumed, and it’s a shame that they pivoted away from this style of mini-game design philosophy so quickly. Some of the games are pretty unbalanced, sure, but apart from that, it’s honestly one of the stronger mini-game libraries as far as Mario Party goes.
The board design is also something that is quite strong. Like with the mini-games, the boards too follow a philosophy of trying to balance skillful strategy with just getting lucky in a way that I found keeps boards dynamic and exciting. With how Bowser isn’t just a space on the board, but a guy on the field like Toad, he provides a necessary funnel of money out of the economy to keep players from getting too wealthy. Another aspect that does this is how, in maps where Toad moves after he’s gotten a star bought from him, a chance time space is left where he stood before. Covering the board in chance time spaces like this really does crank up the randomness of games, sure, but the large majority of the time, it’s only coins trading hands, not entire star totals or what have you. It keeps chance time from feeling like such a death sentence like it is in later games, and it was actually something I had fun with for a change. MP1 really tries to provide a large variety of experience with its boards in a way that wouldn’t be reattempted until Mario Party 6 on the GameCube, and its massive total of 8 boards would barely be seen again in the series.
The presentation is very good as well, and it manages to survive just how old it is quite well. The peppy, energetic N64-era Mario Party music is at some of its best here, and there are tons of tracks I still love hearing even after all these years and hours listening to them (including one new song that isn’t in the North American version at all, I was quite surprised to learn). The graphics also blend 3D models on 2D texture boards to make environments that look quite nice and utilize the graphical hardware of the N64 in a way that looks nice, even if it isn’t as striking as later MP games on the system.
Verdict: Recommended. This would be a highly recommended if not for the control stick spinning mini-games (which don’t just destroy your hand but your joysticks too). Mario Party 1 has a ton of charm and is really well crafted for being such a clearly experimental product. I thought I’d be suffering through it, but it was easily some of the most fun I’ve had playing Mario Party these past couple of months. No other Mario Party game I can think of has normal difficulty CPUs that provided such a satisfying gameplay experience, and that’s a testament to just how well put together the boards and mini-games are. It’s definitely a game I’m happy I picked up, and even though I’ll need a new, tougher work glove rather than the cheap awful one I used for this if I wanna play more control stick spinning games, this is definitely one I’ll be revisiting in the future to have fun in a nostalgic and strategic way~.
The story of Mario Party 1 is about as simple as these games get. The gang is arguing about who the super star among them is, and to decide it, they decide to throw a big party, with the winner being declared the super star. There is the mini-game island single-player mode, but even that doesn’t really have any story behind it beyond, “here’s a challenge. Can you do it?”. It’s not a problem, though. The conceits of each board being that there’s some problem that only becoming the super star can solve is a bit weird and uninvolved with the actual gameplay, but that hardly matters. It’s a more than fine enough set up for the game to take place, and it does its job just fine.
While the gameplay of Mario Party 1 does set up the formula that would define the franchise for the next decade, it has a lot of other elements that would never be brought back again that really give it a flavor all its own. Many aspects are very familiar to later Mario Party games. Each map is 20, 35, or 50 turns long, and there’s a mini-game at the end of every turn that involves all 4 players, a 2v2, or a 1v3. You earn coins from these mini-games and use them to buy stars on the board game part once you reach Toad, and the person with the most coins is the winner. All very familiar elements to later Mario Party games. It’s the unfamiliar stuff that I have quite a fondness for, though.
For example, there are the mini-games. Of course there are the infamous control-stick spinning mini-games (which I wore a work glove to save my palm from), which I would say are easily the weakest link of this entire game. But beyond that, there’s a real adversarial aspect to the games here that later Mario Partys completely abandon. In just about every 2v2 mini-game, the winners get 10 coins, but the losers lose 10 coins. Many 1v3 games work the same way, with the 3 each getting or losing 5 coins, or the 1 getting or losing 15 coins, but many 1v3 games make it impossible for one side to gain money at all. You also have single-player mini-game spaces spread around the map which do drag out the game longer than it needs to be, yes, but I didn’t mind them too terribly. You even have weird mixes in quite a few 4 player mini-games, where they’re completely co-op experiences. Everyone is working together to win, and if you all win, you all get money, but if you lose, you all lose money. All of this is stuff later games completely abandoned, and it’s kinda a shame, since apart from being unique, it also just makes the game better. The only real design philosophy-level complaint I have aside from the control stick spinning is just how many games last too long. Games that last 40 to 60 seconds can be a real and literal pain when you’re mashing a button for almost the entire time, but it’s only really a problem if you’re playing a ton of Mario Party in one sitting, and it shouldn’t affect you too much if you’re playing more casually.
It not only gives players more control over other player’s finances by winning and losing money in so many games, but the single-player game spaces also allow for players who aren’t so good to still gain money, even if they’re not too great at the end-of-turn mini-games. It keeps money moving through the economy and keeps maps from getting stale with one player far too far in the lead, which is something later Mario Party games REALLY struggle with. They shift from this method to battle mini-games and items to balance out their economies, but I think there was a lot more value in these old games than they assumed, and it’s a shame that they pivoted away from this style of mini-game design philosophy so quickly. Some of the games are pretty unbalanced, sure, but apart from that, it’s honestly one of the stronger mini-game libraries as far as Mario Party goes.
The board design is also something that is quite strong. Like with the mini-games, the boards too follow a philosophy of trying to balance skillful strategy with just getting lucky in a way that I found keeps boards dynamic and exciting. With how Bowser isn’t just a space on the board, but a guy on the field like Toad, he provides a necessary funnel of money out of the economy to keep players from getting too wealthy. Another aspect that does this is how, in maps where Toad moves after he’s gotten a star bought from him, a chance time space is left where he stood before. Covering the board in chance time spaces like this really does crank up the randomness of games, sure, but the large majority of the time, it’s only coins trading hands, not entire star totals or what have you. It keeps chance time from feeling like such a death sentence like it is in later games, and it was actually something I had fun with for a change. MP1 really tries to provide a large variety of experience with its boards in a way that wouldn’t be reattempted until Mario Party 6 on the GameCube, and its massive total of 8 boards would barely be seen again in the series.
The presentation is very good as well, and it manages to survive just how old it is quite well. The peppy, energetic N64-era Mario Party music is at some of its best here, and there are tons of tracks I still love hearing even after all these years and hours listening to them (including one new song that isn’t in the North American version at all, I was quite surprised to learn). The graphics also blend 3D models on 2D texture boards to make environments that look quite nice and utilize the graphical hardware of the N64 in a way that looks nice, even if it isn’t as striking as later MP games on the system.
Verdict: Recommended. This would be a highly recommended if not for the control stick spinning mini-games (which don’t just destroy your hand but your joysticks too). Mario Party 1 has a ton of charm and is really well crafted for being such a clearly experimental product. I thought I’d be suffering through it, but it was easily some of the most fun I’ve had playing Mario Party these past couple of months. No other Mario Party game I can think of has normal difficulty CPUs that provided such a satisfying gameplay experience, and that’s a testament to just how well put together the boards and mini-games are. It’s definitely a game I’m happy I picked up, and even though I’ll need a new, tougher work glove rather than the cheap awful one I used for this if I wanna play more control stick spinning games, this is definitely one I’ll be revisiting in the future to have fun in a nostalgic and strategic way~.