Use your favorite Nintendo character in this multiplayer bliss
Mario Party is pretty much a basic board game with characters from the Nintendo universe thrown in, and with the addition of mini games.
Mario Party was released well into the Nintendo 64's life cycle, and really utilized the 4 controller slots on the system, making it a nice party game, as most games intended to be on the N64. If you are familiar with the usual type of board game, or even right down to the basic board game, you'll easily be able to jump right into Mario Party. Each game has 4 players, and each hits a die to determine whom goes in which order, and for every turn hit the die as well to determine how many spaces to move on the game board. There are different colored spaces on the board, such as blue giving the player 3 coins, or red taking 3 coins from the player. The last type of space would be the green, and that is called the happening space, and depending on the level or what symbol is shown on the space, is what happens. Bowser spaces are red with his face on the space, and those aren't exactly fun to land on, as you get really fucked, because he can take many coins from you or even take a star, which is the main objective in the game, gather the most stars.
The gameplay boils down to your basic board game, but shown on screen. But the real meat of Mario Party is the Mini games, which occur at the end of the round, in which is when everyone has finished hitting their die and completing their turn. The mini games are randomly selected, and each contain something different for each player to do, like platforming, or even real brain mashers. Mini games can be ranged from 4 player, 2v2, or even 1v3 depending on what colored spaces the players land on during their respective turns. But, all in all, the mini games are what you really want to play, the are simple, yet extremely fun just duking it out with 4 players, especially if you got some buddies playing with you.
Mario Party doesn't take any leaps when it comes to visuals. The game boards use pre rendered backgrounds, and they look somewhat muddy, but the characters are rendered in polygons, and well, N64 polygons don't look so great now, so you'll get the picture of what to expect. The game does run extremely smooth, and gameplay is always perfect when playing mini games. Mario Party is quite a barrel of fun, and for all those Nintendo fans out there looking to face off with your favorite Nintendo superstar in a board, well here's your chance, and a very solid multiplayer experience, highly recommended.
Mario Party is a fun game, and kids should definitely have unlimited fun with this, and even adults, but one game a day is fine enough, as you'll easily get burned from one game, and a perfect time to get drunk with 3 buddies and play some video games, Mario Party is perfect for that setting.
