I know this a long post, but I hope you consider to read it. I’m a huge Mario Party fanatic who knows almost everything about the series (maybe a little too much 
) It has seem liked forever since a new Mario Party was released and I decided to let all my feelings out about this game. I hope you post responses and all counter arguments are welcomed
I’ve been a Mario Party fan since the beginning and have all the games except the handhelds, 1 and 8 (I played 1 and 8 but not the handhelds). So I’m a big veteran of the series. I thought we would never see another Mario Party again after 8, since Hudson broke up and Wii Party emerged. So you could not believe how excited I was when Mario Party 9 was announced at E3 last year. Its been 5 long years since a new MP and I rented it a few days ago. So, what are my thoughts? I’m going to be blunt and say it was a complete disappointment. It was an extreme anti-climax to my excitement since last year. I was getting kind of worried about the preview videos I saw of this new approach in gameplay they were going after, but give it the benefit of the doubt. I was dead wrong; they destroyed almost everything that made the basic foundations of Mario Party set by the first game.
First, the removal of coins and stars. These two things are what make Mario Party. Coins collected from winning minigames were used as currency to purchase items, participate in or activate board events, and to obtain stars, the game’s most desired object. In MP 9 the coin/star system is replaced by mini stars. This appears to be a way to simplify the game, but I don’t like the way they are given out. Minigames, for which they appear barely, award very low amounts of ministars. You can just get the same amount going across a cluster of them on the board. Even battle games seem not important because Hammer Bro. takes a very small amount of ministars from you (three). The boards contains ministar/ztar clusters which anyone can pass, but it depends on who the captain is. So really its all up to luck (for the most part) who gets/loses ministars while traveling on the board. Most captain events are luck based and who gets the most mini stars from them is random. What was more fun and strategic about coins/stars was that you needed coins to buy stars to win, which made every minigame count and even if you hoarded a lot of coins doesn’t mean you won because stars were more valuable than coins.
If there is one positive thing about this game, its most likely the minigames are fun. It’s a shame they appear at irregular frequencies on the boards. The monition controls don’t seem forced like MP 8. The boss battles are mostly fun. The Bowser Reverse minigames add a new twist. But, one thing that annoyed me was the removal of 2v2 games. It seems like the Bowser Jr. games took place of them instead. Also battle games being the same as 4 player games seem to be a lazy action on part of the developers. All in all, the mini games are good, but I look at Mario Party as a whole and there are too many other faults in the board gameplay as well as the barely existent item system that really drag this game down. This game is in the same category as MP 5, good minigames, but poor everything else.
This new “car” idea which everyone travels together is very restrictive. You can’t move the way you want on the boards. Your freedom is gone as you must sit in the backseat as everyone takes their turn. There are very few junctions on the maps and only the captain chooses the way they want to go (except Magma Mine, where its voted on). All the maps are linear, so its pretty much a boring ride from point A to B as you hit the dice occasionally to help move it along. Also the boards contain many luck dependant “lose half of your mini stars” hazards. Bowser can literally make or break your day. He places a bunch of his spaces near the end of the board and things can go either way between the rankings. In my opinion, the boards seem lifeless because of the linearity, lack of movement freedom and luck dependent events.
The only type of items in this game are dice blocks, that have different effects. there is a 0-1 block, 1-3 block, 4-6 block, slow block and the 1-10 block (which I call the real Mario Party dice block, it seems you can never hit anything higher than 5 with it most of the time). The block items add only a bit of strategy to the game, but the only way to acquire these items are through means of luck of landing on blue spaces, visiting Toad houses or spin spaces and the block you get is once again random. So for the most part, the block items sometimes strategically help you on the boards, but only if you luckily stumble upon them out though the game.
I’m just going to come out and say that I barely had any friends to play Mario Party with. Almost 95% of my lifetime of Mario Party play has been with the CPU. You may think I’m crazy but, I being a huge Mario fan and loving other board games like Monopoly, the series just had an irresistible charm that kept me addicted, even playing by myself. The lack of online support hurt this game too. Us Mario Party introverts (yes, we exist!) need other people to play with sometimes too. Feels kind of weird for a 23 year old to ask other people to play the somewhat deemed childish game of Mario Party. In conclusion, it seems like Nintendo is trying to market the Mario Party brand to a new generation of players. A more causal one, obviously with its much more luck dependant style of gameplay that was subtle in the older titles, as skill in minigames, board knowledge and item usage was much more needed to win. If Nintendo and NDcube think this is the future of Mario Party, which we will find out if Mario Party 10 is made for Wii U, then I will be very upset. Major changes will have to be made to this current system if they think this is the new gameplay style of Mario Party. I’m just a long time fan, who is concerned about the path Mario Party is taking (no pun intended)
) It has seem liked forever since a new Mario Party was released and I decided to let all my feelings out about this game. I hope you post responses and all counter arguments are welcomed I’ve been a Mario Party fan since the beginning and have all the games except the handhelds, 1 and 8 (I played 1 and 8 but not the handhelds). So I’m a big veteran of the series. I thought we would never see another Mario Party again after 8, since Hudson broke up and Wii Party emerged. So you could not believe how excited I was when Mario Party 9 was announced at E3 last year. Its been 5 long years since a new MP and I rented it a few days ago. So, what are my thoughts? I’m going to be blunt and say it was a complete disappointment. It was an extreme anti-climax to my excitement since last year. I was getting kind of worried about the preview videos I saw of this new approach in gameplay they were going after, but give it the benefit of the doubt. I was dead wrong; they destroyed almost everything that made the basic foundations of Mario Party set by the first game.
First, the removal of coins and stars. These two things are what make Mario Party. Coins collected from winning minigames were used as currency to purchase items, participate in or activate board events, and to obtain stars, the game’s most desired object. In MP 9 the coin/star system is replaced by mini stars. This appears to be a way to simplify the game, but I don’t like the way they are given out. Minigames, for which they appear barely, award very low amounts of ministars. You can just get the same amount going across a cluster of them on the board. Even battle games seem not important because Hammer Bro. takes a very small amount of ministars from you (three). The boards contains ministar/ztar clusters which anyone can pass, but it depends on who the captain is. So really its all up to luck (for the most part) who gets/loses ministars while traveling on the board. Most captain events are luck based and who gets the most mini stars from them is random. What was more fun and strategic about coins/stars was that you needed coins to buy stars to win, which made every minigame count and even if you hoarded a lot of coins doesn’t mean you won because stars were more valuable than coins.
If there is one positive thing about this game, its most likely the minigames are fun. It’s a shame they appear at irregular frequencies on the boards. The monition controls don’t seem forced like MP 8. The boss battles are mostly fun. The Bowser Reverse minigames add a new twist. But, one thing that annoyed me was the removal of 2v2 games. It seems like the Bowser Jr. games took place of them instead. Also battle games being the same as 4 player games seem to be a lazy action on part of the developers. All in all, the mini games are good, but I look at Mario Party as a whole and there are too many other faults in the board gameplay as well as the barely existent item system that really drag this game down. This game is in the same category as MP 5, good minigames, but poor everything else.
This new “car” idea which everyone travels together is very restrictive. You can’t move the way you want on the boards. Your freedom is gone as you must sit in the backseat as everyone takes their turn. There are very few junctions on the maps and only the captain chooses the way they want to go (except Magma Mine, where its voted on). All the maps are linear, so its pretty much a boring ride from point A to B as you hit the dice occasionally to help move it along. Also the boards contain many luck dependant “lose half of your mini stars” hazards. Bowser can literally make or break your day. He places a bunch of his spaces near the end of the board and things can go either way between the rankings. In my opinion, the boards seem lifeless because of the linearity, lack of movement freedom and luck dependent events.
The only type of items in this game are dice blocks, that have different effects. there is a 0-1 block, 1-3 block, 4-6 block, slow block and the 1-10 block (which I call the real Mario Party dice block, it seems you can never hit anything higher than 5 with it most of the time). The block items add only a bit of strategy to the game, but the only way to acquire these items are through means of luck of landing on blue spaces, visiting Toad houses or spin spaces and the block you get is once again random. So for the most part, the block items sometimes strategically help you on the boards, but only if you luckily stumble upon them out though the game.
I’m just going to come out and say that I barely had any friends to play Mario Party with. Almost 95% of my lifetime of Mario Party play has been with the CPU. You may think I’m crazy but, I being a huge Mario fan and loving other board games like Monopoly, the series just had an irresistible charm that kept me addicted, even playing by myself. The lack of online support hurt this game too. Us Mario Party introverts (yes, we exist!) need other people to play with sometimes too. Feels kind of weird for a 23 year old to ask other people to play the somewhat deemed childish game of Mario Party. In conclusion, it seems like Nintendo is trying to market the Mario Party brand to a new generation of players. A more causal one, obviously with its much more luck dependant style of gameplay that was subtle in the older titles, as skill in minigames, board knowledge and item usage was much more needed to win. If Nintendo and NDcube think this is the future of Mario Party, which we will find out if Mario Party 10 is made for Wii U, then I will be very upset. Major changes will have to be made to this current system if they think this is the new gameplay style of Mario Party. I’m just a long time fan, who is concerned about the path Mario Party is taking (no pun intended
) 
