So what’s next for Mario Party on a handheld?
Let’s be honest; Mario Party-E wasn’t too exciting, Mario Party Advance was a disaster, and Mario Party DS was as of right now, the most recent-er Mario Party game on the market. As of right now, there’s nothing that shows any signs out on the horizon related to a possible Mario Party game for a handheld system; however, we can speculate just what can make a handheld Mario Party work correctly with both receiving positive reception, and high sales. With an utmost certainty, (if another Mario Party game is developed for a handheld) the next Mario Party handheld game would be for the Nintendo 3DS. That system that needs some help from top selling games such as these. (well based on some of the sales of some of the Mario Party games)
We would most likely not see another Mario Party on a handheld in a while. Then again, Mario Party DS was released 6 months after Mario Party 8 and was even announced soon after the release of Mario Party 8. Hope is near the horizon, and will probably stay there for a while, because without even a definitive release time frame for Mario Party 9, there’s no way of accurately predicting a release date or even an announcement date for a Mario Party game on the 3DS. But the real question is, what will this current fictional installment bring forth as it takes advantage of the 3DS’s features?
First off, we have to take into consideration all of the features that the 3DS has. One is the slightly improved camera from the DSi to the 3DS with the incorporated gyroscope. It would be great to be able to use gyroscope functions with that camera for mini-game usage. Like those mini-games where you have to find stuff around a large area, or perhaps those mini-games where you would need to scan a 360 degree viewing area. It’ll feel much more engaging to play mini-games like those in this particular style. You may look silly, but hey, we’re all silly. Perhaps this could also be used in racing type mini-games, where the player would be in first-person perspective and controlling the kart or glider with the gyroscope. The 3D will probably be off because of not having a definitive straight viewing range when these types of mini-games are at play, but I don’t think that it will play much of a factor in enjoyment and fun. The gyroscope can also be used for stuff on board too like happening space or other board events. Don’t really know where else you can use it except those things I mentioned and maybe a 360 degree view of the board maps or menu’s and such.
Augmented reality can also be something of good uses for a Mario Party 3DS game. Perhaps placing the ? Card and pointing to it via the camera will activate a mini-game, which you can play and interact with in full 360 degrees as seen in the AR games. Or perhaps this could lead for AR cards specifically for Mario Party 3DS (if there’s one in someone’s mind), which means each card contains a mini-game or several mini-game collections or even some other type of event or happening. Not exactly sure how this would be used when there are multiple players (or CPUs) playing a mini-game at once, but it’s something worth experimenting.
The graphics capabilities of the 3DS are somewhere between late GCN and the “HD” consoles , (based on some specs, and leaning more towards the GCN), and this will mean that there’s no excuse for this not having better graphics than the GCN or even Mario Party games on Wii. Due to the quality for shaders of the system, the graphical details can be very prominent for a Mario party game, so there’s no real reason to hold back. I can’t stress this enough, there’s no reason for a 3DS Mario Party game to look like the GCN Mario Party games, as the 3DS can handle more complex environments.
One thing that we haven’t seen but would be very interesting to see, is a remake of a past Mario Party game. There have been a couple N64 games remade for the 3DS, so why not remaster one or two of the N64 Mario Party games but with of course improved visuals, and perhaps a similar perspective to the later Mario Party games (non-flat boards). And perhaps improve on the weaknesses they had in order to make sure that a remake can be just as good, or even better than the original.
These were all small points I wanted to point out for what could be a great Mario Party game for the 3DS and I have just touched on the surface on what could be something more expansive. We have seen a Mario Party game on the GBA and the DS, so there’s no reason for there to not be one for the 3DS given all of the possibilities of imagination and creation for a great Mario party game.