Mario Party 9 – The Good and the Bad (from info released before 2/16/12)
We are edging ever closer to the release of Mario Party 9, and it’s an agonizing wait; however, that wait allows us to gaze upon new information. Lately, there has been just that: a mountain load of new information revealing so much. With any new floods of information, there are good and bad things to notice. The good news as of now is that most of the information was in fact positive and a cause for excitement. The bad….well….just doesn’t do that.
Good
-Involvement:
There’s more revealed regarding how you will be navigating yourself around the board, and it seems like something exciting. Specific events around the interactive boards can even modify or change the structure of the board. It’s great, because you can devilishly sabotage your opponents by leading all of them into the worst cases possible. Well, that is if you carefully plan out your strategies and hope they don’t do the same to you. Speaking of opponents, it also seems as if you won’t be forced to play with 4 players completely at once if you don’t want to (based on some video’s online, but not sure if it’s to the full extent, as in whether it’s only for multiplayer). Even if you are enemies, all will be working towards one similar goal. That’s right, help from a friendly enemy. Plus, Captain events look like they’ll be entertaining as well!
-Mini-games:
The mini-games here look to be a lot more entertaining than what was previously present on the previous installment. There seem to be better mini-games which will involve using the Wii Remote a lot more complexly. While Mario Party 8 had some usage of the Wii Remote, it was very vague and rather undermined. Mario Party 9 has a chance to change that, by taking full advantage of the Wii Remote’s complete capabilities (hopefully). Unfortunately, there isn’t any proof regarding the usage of the Wii Motion Plus add-on (could be wrong); it could have possibly made the mini-games more realistic. Then again, it doesn’t seem like the mini-games will need to use it at all, as the plain Wii Remote’s capabilities will seem to suffice. That is, considering the mini-games seen. What should happen for these mini-games is balance. There needs to be good amount of motion-based mini-games which are balanced with good ol’ non-motion mini-games.
-Interactive Boss Battle’s
This time, everyone is involved in the Boss Battle’s and you will need to rely on them to win. Well, maybe you might be doing most of the work, but at least you’ll have some help, in a way. Dry Bones, Big Blooper, Bob-omb, etc, it’s all great since there are 14 different bosses to defeat and destroy! So far, it has been shown that you’ll be able to battle them during a map (2 battles per map). It’s a good thing that the players will have a lot to look forward to when traveling about the board. I hope they’re challenging or at least have a way of making them difficult to defeat.
-Graphics
The Graphical aspects of the game are improved from what was Mario Party 8. The character models show smoother edges and the textures look very impressive. It’s not the best looking Mario game on Wii, but it’s an improvement from the Mario Party 8. The developers could have at least added some sorts of anti-aliasing, but unless you’re a jagged lines freak it’s nothing to complain about considering the limitations of the Wii console. Lighting seems to resemble how the lighting was in Mario Party 8, but with an increased intensity and quality. The game is filled with colorful colors of all hues used with nice implied shadowing when needed.
Bad
-Freedom
No Classic Mode, or a mode which allows classic gameplay, as in separately moving about the board alone. This will be something to watch for. Everyone moving around on the same paths will hinder what you’ll be able to do on the board map. It’ll be rather difficult to plan anything out since you will be unable to predict the outcomes of the other players. All you can do is hope they pull you in the right direction. No matter how fun the game may be with the Vehicle, this will always be a problem.
-Character Roster
They’re pulling a Mario Kart 7 here by reducing the roster that was once larger in the previous game. Only 12 characters? Really? Though it’s only a 2 character reduction than from Mario Party 8, they shouldn’t have had any sufficient reason for removing those characters which were in MP8. It’s a disappointment. It’s nice that they added 2 (+ ?) new playable characters (which weren’t previously playable), but the roster would have been better if they simply added on to the previous roster to total 16 (+). Not a must to have a lot of characters, but it’s like the developers didn’t like them.
-No Wifi
Again, for the 3rd time they were presented with a system capable of connecting to the internet. Developers simply shove the idea off to the side as if it didn’t exist, and that’s sad. There was so much opportunity for this which could make this game a bigger hit than what it’s forecasted to be. (Not saying that it won’t sell well, just saying that it would have sold better with Wi-Fi.) I know many will say that “ implicating a Wi-Fi mode won’t make the game better,” but Wi-Fi could be exactly what the evolution of the series needs: a drastic change towards the future. Perhaps in the next game of the series I hope?
-No set amount of turns
It’s just start, drive around, reach the end and finish. One won’t be able to witness and experience all which the board has to offer in one go. A player might even skip something they wanted to get but couldn’t because their trajectory was modified. Oh well…..
These are just a few things to note, both good and bad. Based on what you all have heard so far (regarding information released), is there anything that you’ve seen to be good or bad?