The game's mechanics are fundamentally broken, as is the in-game economy. Losing mini-games still rewards players with coins. Stars cost only 10 coins, which is the equivalent of winning one mini-game. Golden pipes (which teleport you to the star) cost 10 coins. Boards are so small that you can literally get 2 stars back-to-back if you're lucky. Basically, the best strategy is to visit the item shop as much as possible to buy the golden pipe. There is no advantage to planning your route to get the star, because on average every 2 turns someone will use the golden pipe and reset its location.
The allies are, in my opinion, a very unwelcome addition to the franchise. Allies are basically other characters that can join your selected character to hit their own dice block and add to your dice roll each turn. At one point in my latest match, the AI-controlled Shy Guy had a total of 4 allies and was hitting an average of 12 spaces each turn. By the end of a 20-turn match, the entire cast of Mario Party will be running around on the board.
Then there are the bonus stars. Upon reaching the end of the match, two bonus stars are rewarded based on random categories that rotate each match. The two bonus stars in my most recent match were for "The player with the most allies" and "The player that moved the most spaces" which as you can imagine by logic will go to the player with the most allies. So Shy Guy won 2 bonus stars to add insult to injury, and ended up winning the game. By having the bonus stars be a random category, you can't rely on excelling at the core gameplay to increase your odds of winning.
I've played this with family, friends, my partner, and alone. No-one had any particular fun, save for with roughly half the mini-games, but the mini-games need a strong, cohesive board game experience to work.
With some minor adjustments to the game's economy and mechanics, it could have been a good entry in the Mario Party franchise. Instead, you'll be lucky to get 4 or 5 matches out of it.
The allies are, in my opinion, a very unwelcome addition to the franchise. Allies are basically other characters that can join your selected character to hit their own dice block and add to your dice roll each turn. At one point in my latest match, the AI-controlled Shy Guy had a total of 4 allies and was hitting an average of 12 spaces each turn. By the end of a 20-turn match, the entire cast of Mario Party will be running around on the board.
Then there are the bonus stars. Upon reaching the end of the match, two bonus stars are rewarded based on random categories that rotate each match. The two bonus stars in my most recent match were for "The player with the most allies" and "The player that moved the most spaces" which as you can imagine by logic will go to the player with the most allies. So Shy Guy won 2 bonus stars to add insult to injury, and ended up winning the game. By having the bonus stars be a random category, you can't rely on excelling at the core gameplay to increase your odds of winning.
I've played this with family, friends, my partner, and alone. No-one had any particular fun, save for with roughly half the mini-games, but the mini-games need a strong, cohesive board game experience to work.
With some minor adjustments to the game's economy and mechanics, it could have been a good entry in the Mario Party franchise. Instead, you'll be lucky to get 4 or 5 matches out of it.