Super Mario Party

[Tim B]

After Nintendo listened to the criticisms about Mario Tennis Aces and acted quickly, I'd be very surprised if we didn't get 2-4 boards more boards as a free update. I hadn't played a Mario Party since the original on the N64. How many boards would be considered 'enough'? I really like the other modes I've tried thus far. The online Mariothon in particular is fantastic.

[MindFreak]

Saw this on reddit but totally agree. They should have added some retro boards and updated them with nicer visuals and some of the new mechanics. That way, there would have been more boards from the get-go that wouldn't have cost them too much time to develop.

[Ronnie]

If the last few years has shown anything it's that they like to constantly update games over time to get people coming back to them. Especially multiplayer ones, so maybe more are coming. But yeah a couple more at release would have been good.

[Ashley]

The boards have two variations (normal and the 2v2 mode) so it requires a bit more work for each one. But yeah, I was disappointed that finishing everything didn't unlock more. 

[Emerald Emblem]

Considering previous iterations have had 5 boards plus a Bowser themed board, 4 doesn't seem that low.

[Glen-i]

On 06/10/2018 at 12:22 AM, Emerald Emblem said:

Considering previous iterations have had 5 boards plus a Bowser themed board, 4 doesn't seem that low.

It's worth noting that each board has a Mario Party layout and a Partner Party layout. So 4 isn't quite right...

EDIT: Duhhhh! @Ashley literally just said that, what's wrong with me?

Played a couple of games with the community centre. It's great. One kid was dominating for like 11 turns and then lost everything in the last 4 turns. It was insanely unfair and that's why I love Mario Party!

I really like the smaller boards. It's balanced well around the lower dice blocks. The character blocks from MP: Star Rush add a whole new layer of strategy and can really turn things around if you have a bit of luck.

The minigames I played are solid so far. Full of non-sensical Boo shenanigans. Falling down holes, ground pounding stuff, the usual. Haven't seen him playing that Trike game, but it's only a matter of time before I die of laughter.

I think Monty Mole is an even weirder inclusion than Spike was in MP 10. Still, Hammer Bro is back and he still has the voice from Mario Strikers, so it's all good.

And Sound Stage is amazing in multiplayer, don't sleep on that!

Edited October 7, 2018 by Glen-i

[Tim B]

Got to play this in 2 player mode last night and it was the most fun I'd had in ages. Might have a chance to play with 4 players tomorrow evening, fingers crossed...

[Sméagol]

 

[Glen-i]

2 hours ago, Sméagol said:

 

Yeah, @Dcubed and I just saw that when we were playing Sound Stage. There's an amazing amount of small details in this game!

For example, if Kamek has to take something from Bowser, Kamek actually tries to not anger him by saying that he's "just doing his job". Peach reacts to being Mario's ally in a different way to anyone else.

Every character has idle animations for running around the hub, most of the smaller characters like Monty Mole and Koopa have brand new sound clips. And in Minigames where height would realistically make a difference, the shorter characters get a box to stand on.

[Ronnie]

28 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Yeah, @Dcubed and I just saw that when we were playing Sound Stage. There's an amazing amount of small details in this game!

For example, if Kamek has to take something from Bowser, Kamek actually tries to not anger him by saying that he's "just doing his job". Peach reacts to being Mario's ally in a different way to anyone else.

Every character has idle animations for running around the hub, most of the smaller characters like Monty Mole and Koopa have brand new sound clips. And in Minigames where height would realistically make a difference, the shorter characters get a box to stand on.

Love things like that. It's what makes Nintendo games special imo, the polish and attention to detail.

[Glen-i]

Just now, Ronnie said:

Love things like that. It's what makes Nintendo games special imo, the polish and attention to detail.

Well, that's the thing. This is a very strange occurence. Mario Party is not known for having attention to detail. They always feel pretty cheap. This kind of stuff is utterly unheard of for this series.

Here's the results of the Mario Party @Dcubed and I had a while back, he was Monty Mole and I was Boo.

 

It took Dcubed 10 turns to get one star and then he gets 4 in the last 3 turns!

Oh right! One more thing. It's not a proper Mario Party without some ridiculous Boo shenanigans.

Boo climbed a big pole to get here. I HAVE MANY QUESTIONS!

Doesn't quite beat the king of "WTF Boo!?" moments though.

[Ashley]

Boo also high fives people. Let's not ask too many questions. 

[Glen-i]

1 minute ago, Ashley said:

Boo also high fives people. Let's not ask too many questions. 

Fair enough.

You seen Goomba do a high-five? Hilarious. Facepalm takes a whole new meaning there.

[Ashley]

4 hours ago, Glen-i said:

Fair enough.

You seen Goomba do a high-five? Hilarious. Facepalm takes a whole new meaning there.

I probably have but didn't spot it.  He should jump really high and high five with his foot.

Interesting thread here: 

And she agrees with @Glen-i

 

[Aneres11]

So I picked this up last week as me and my BF have been on holiday until today in Bath so wanted to have something to play in the evenings. 

Ive always loved MP but haven’t played one since the last GC version as they’ve all been reviewed awfully. 

We LOVE this. Such good fun even with just two of us.

However there are some annoyances to me, namely the “bonuses”. I always think back to MP4 where there were like 4 bonuses and they were always really good ones that you couldn’t really judge. Like the person who held most coins at one time, most mini games won, who landed on most blue spaces, etc. These have been weak so far. 

Alwaya get the ally bonus and seeing as the ally is stood right behind the player, it’s obviouscto know who had the most during the play through. Same with who had the worst luck. 

But disappointing that there’s only two bonuses. I feel the game used to really change during the bonus section but in the 4 goes we have had so far it hasn’t. It’s always been a forgone conclusion. 

The mini games are amazing. Love them all so far and they feel really fresh to me. 

I don’t have much of an issue with the boards apart from the amount of ally spaces. Seems like there’s too many on a lot of the boards. 

Mine thing I don’t get with allies is you get one (like Shy Guy, for instance) and it says he’s great if you want to roll a 4 as his dice is 0, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4. Brilliant. But then you won’t ever roll a 4 as your ally also rolls and adds to that number. 

I thoigt the ally was just there to provide you with their dice, not to also roll with you. Whilst that sometimes helps to increase your roll it kinda contradicts the benefit that is touted when an ally joins as you’ll never be able to just roll their dice only - unless I’m missing something? 

Minior niggles aside it’s great fun and as others have mentioned the attention to detail is spot on. 

[Ashley]

There are more bonuses. I was saying the same to my housemate during a game and then at the end we had different ones (it knows). Doesn't seem to be many and you can mentally keep track of them anyway. 

You can choose to roll and ally's dice. If that's not what you mean I'm confused. 

[Emerald Emblem]

9 minutes ago, Ashley said:

You can choose to roll and ally's dice. If that's not what you mean I'm confused. 

I think Aneres means that the ally also gets to roll a die, which can mess up your target roll I'm guessing.

[Aneres11]

28 minutes ago, Ashley said:

There are more bonuses. I was saying the same to my housemate during a game and then at the end we had different ones (it knows). Doesn't seem to be many and you can mentally keep track of them anyway. 

You can choose to roll and ally's dice. If that's not what you mean I'm confused. 

 

17 minutes ago, Emerald Emblem said:

I think Aneres means that the ally also gets to roll a die, which can mess up your target roll I'm guessing.

Yeah Emerald is correct. 

So if you get an ally with all 3’s and 2’s it’ll say “great if you want to roll a 3 or a 2!”  But it’s not because if you use their dice the ally still rolls and will therefore push you over rolling a 2 or 3. It almost makes it a redundant feature. 

[Ashley]

Now I get you

[Glen-i]

I kinda like that allies aren't a straight up advantage though. The downsides help to balance out the luck people have with landing on them quickly a bit.

For what it's worth, using a Custom Dice Block stops the allies from rolling on that turn.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Glen-i

[Aneres11]

1 hour ago, Glen-i said:

I kinda like that allies aren't a straight up advantage though. The downsides help to balance out the luck people have with landing on them quickly a bit.

For what it's worth, using a Custom Dice Block stops the allies from rolling on that turn.

Yeah I know that. 

But you don't often get a custom dice block. 

Also, it is a straight up advantage in my opinion, as the higher your roll the better chance you have of approaching the star with the boards in this game not being so large. That's what I've found from playing all the boards now anyway. 

I think if you use an allies dice, you should literally have that roll and that's it - that's what I was expecting upon playing anyway. 

[Ashley]

I think the disadvantage you get works better (is more prominent?) in the partner mode as the number needs to be exact.

[Glen-i]

@Dcubed and I had our second game together. And this time, @Ugh first aid joined in.
I was Boo, @Dcubed was Goomba and @Ugh first aid was Rosalina.

Spoiler

 

At least the CPU tried.

This game was mental! Proper upsets throughout! We probably should have seen the signs when @Ugh first aid got hit by Waluigi's Poison Mushroom and it was the best thing that could have happened to her.

Time for a game, guess who wins this 2 VS 2. Ugh First Aid and me or Dcubed and the CPU.

Anyway, right before the last turn. Ugh First Aid was 1st. But Dcubed and I were right next to the star but didn't have enough coins. Thankfully, there was a minigame still to play. We just needed a few coins. What could go wrong?

Anyway, she nicked the star. Dcubed couldn't get the 2 Bonus stars he needed to win and she clinched it.

MARIO PARTY!

 

[Hero-of-Time]

I picked this up at launch and I didn't really care for the game. I found the single player to be very slow and pretty boring. Sure, Mario Party is built for multiplayer but i've had great single player experiences with past Mario Party games.

Last Tuesday the stars aligned and one of my mates from Wales came up here with his girlfriend. We went to another mates house and we had a four player game on Super Mario Party. We played on two boards and tackled the rafting game mode. It's been a long time since I had such a laugh playing a multiplayer game. There was so much shouting and laughing going on in the game. Monty Mole was my character of choice (why the hell isn't Toad playable ) and he served me well during the course of the game. The rafting game was easily the highlight of the evening. We were all playing our party and working as a team to make our way through the mini games and down the rapids. We were all well into it, with each of us doing the high five motion to earn those precious few seconds and we raced towards the finish line.

It's a shame that I don't have the opportunity to play this more in this kind f scenario but sadly as you grow older you generally find that friends and family move away and work and life gets in the way of playing games. It's why I have been wanting online in Mario Party for a while now and this leads me to my next point.

The game was announced as having an online mode that offered a few mini games. There are 10 to choose from but you only get a selection of 5 on any given day. I didn't take issue with this and figured I would take what I could get. What I found is that the game is pretty much unplayable online due to the absolutely terrible internet connection that the game has. I tried numerous times to play online and 99% it either ended with me getting disconnected or someone else got booted. Whenever there were 4 players the game lagged a stupid amount, to the point of where you couldn't really play the game even if you did stick around. While playing the game at my mates house I asked him to try it out. I knew it wasn't my internet connection ( been playing Fifa 19 on my PS4 fine and Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate on the Switch with no issue ) but I figured I would check anyway. We fired it up and the same thing happened. He was getting lag and then someone ended up getting booted.

I mention this because we are now having to pay for online and I think this kind of thing is unacceptable now that Nintendo are charging for it. I have to think they knew the online was a mess as the mode was apparently unavailable for those who were reviewing it.

The game is kind of a mixed bag for me. It was amazing when playing with my friends but this is the first Mario Party where I haven't really enjoyed it when playing solo.

[Ronnie]

OMG @Hero-of-Time is back! Where you been 

As for the game. I’m in a similar situation as you. I was very tempted by the game but I’m not really in a position to have mates or family down often enough for it to be worthwhile, so didn’t buy it. 

Edited October 17, 2018 by Ronnie