Lots of people have tried ranking all the games, but I'm curious to hear what elements of all the Mario Party Parties people actually think really makes for a great/terrible watching/playing experience? The comment section of every Mario Party Party always has those who say it was both the best and the worst Mario Party Party yet, but most never really explain why they think so.

• Is it all the random bullshit?
• The quality of the minigames?
• The way coins/stars are earned?
• How players can screw over each other?
• Just how it all plays out?

What exactly do you think makes a really great and/or terrible Mario Party Party experience?

Mario Party is the best when it's just random bullshit where nothing actually matters, but it gives a glimpse of hope of you winning by stick waggling skills, board strategy, hostile play style, or whatever. The complete destruction of that hope by total bullshit is what makes the games terrible, and great. That's why I think the earlier ones are the best, since the series actually kinda "improves" itself over time.

I dont see any redeeming qualities of the first 9 games.

The problem is that I think at first glance, it portrays itself as a series that is just a fun kids' board gamey, dice rolling time like Snakes and Ladders, except the dark secret is that it actually is a game of skill. If you can dominate in item use/positioning and winning the mini games (which is its own arcane set of skills), you can get significantly ahead, which Dan demonstrated. Anytime I've played with friends, you can tell that the owner of the game not only has advance knowledge and practice at the mini games and what to expect on the board, they also know which activities are awarded bonus stars, so they might go out of their way to land on certain spaces when given a choice of paths.

Given that, I think the big differences are item shops (I think 5 and possibly 6 have none whatsoever, you only find random items on the board), what the items do in that particular game, the later games (5-8) let you play items onto spaces on the board as traps, and how good the different boards and their mechanics are. The mini games are kinda the same bullshit from MP 1-10, or at least they follow such similar templates that I can't imagine really claiming "this particular game had the best mini games".

Mario Party 9 and 10 (and their cousins Wii Party and Wii Party U which have similar board game modes) are the games that truly make good on the original Snake and Ladders, random bullshit appearance of the series, and frankly should be considered a different series.

One of the big problems is that we all have what we think are fond memories of 'roll and move' board games - Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly, Candyland, Life, etc. The reality is though that roll and move board games SUCK. Modern board games don't use roll and move really at all anymore, and that's why board games now are awesome. Mario Party uses roll and move, and it is terrible.

@bisonhero: I've thought the problem with Mario Party to be the complete opposite of what you said. Much like Monopoly and other games, people instinctively tend to think it is a game of skill, when in reality most of it is based on luck. If everyone in Mario Party tries you'll usually end up with an equal amount of wins for everyone. The other problem is that Mario Party turns take a some time especially if the players deliberate, so most of the time the person winning will end up being the one who doesn't get bored,turning it into a game of endurance (even the 20 turn ones).

Mario Party 9 and 10 fix both of those problems by making the turns faster and making the game more lighthearted. The levels in 10 have a just the right amount of strategy to them to keep it from becoming just an exercise in pressing the A button, but it's still random enough to keep people from tryharding. The problem those games have is that the mini-games are too rare, especially because those are the only two games in the series with mini-games that don't have awkward controls. I mean, they still have awkwardly controlling mini-games and bad mini-games, but they have good ones too. The same can't be said about 1 through 8.

I think the biggest issue is the occasional massive moments of chance that make you feel like an idiot for trying. In Mario Party 7, there are Bowser mini games that happen whenever any player hits a Bowser space. Anyone who loses these games lose all their coins or sometimes a star. This means that on someone else's turn you can lose all the coins you have earned over several turns, all in moment because you got hit by a lava wall or something. Even worse, these games are designed for 2-3 players to lose every time.

No matter the quality of Mario Party games there is a (obtuse and unusual) skill and knowledge game. How much strategic knowledge you have determines how much more likely you are to win with all levels being less than 100%. In other words it's not totally determined by skill (or even largely, in many cases) but, like poker, leans toward the player with more "talent".

I'm not saying it's an engaging or rewarding skill to develop, just that it exists.

Posted for relevance...

EDIT: whoops, wrong GDQ, FIXED

I think the comparison between Mario Party and Monopoly is apt, since Monopoly is based on a socialist's satirical take on free-market capitalism that was designed to be unfair and terrible.