Mario Party 5

Unlike other game sequels, Nintendo’s Mario Party 5 does not continue a story, or really change much of anything over its previous versions. While the game does add some new features, and newer minigames than its predecessors, nothing about the overall Mario Party formula is changed.

Mario Party is obviously meant to be played with friends. The main game consists of you and your friends on a board game type of level rolling dice to collect coins and ultimately stars. Stars pop up at random spaces on the board and whoever gets there first can buy it with 20 coins. Coins can be found on the spaces of the game board or earned by winning minigames. The minigames are the real fun of Mario Party kicks in. You’ll compete against your friends at things such as picking up monkeys or dodging a penguin rampage, which despite being odd, are really fun and plentiful (>70 minigames). Unfortunately, all you can win from these games are coins. While these coins are necessary to buy stars and use some of the power-ups you’ll pick up on the board, after that they are really without value. If you play a longer game and end up with all the players having enough coins to do what the please, the minigames lose their purpose. The minigames really are the most fun part about Mario party, perhaps a store function to buy the power-ups at any time would have been prudent here, or a game for a star every 10 games or so would have spiced things up. There are a couple of exceptions though. One is duel games. When a duel is set, you can play for stars, and since it’s not uncommon to win a game with 4 or 5 stars, this is a big deal. Tensions run high, and so does the fun. One of the power-ups also steals an opponents star, and occasionally Bowser will show up and mix things up in a variety of ways.

The game is rife with dialogue, many times when it is not needed. For instance, whenever you enter a new menu, a personified star of forgettable character springs into being and introduces himself before letting you do anything. Not only is this little star unnecessary, but he adds loading times to menu changes. It’s not a real big issue, but if you have your friends over ready to play the game, you really just want to play it; you don’t want to chat to Klevar the Star. The game itself has an average feel to it all the way around. The game models are the same from Mario Party 4, and while nothing is wrong with the way they look, there’s nothing fantastic about it either.

Much of the soundtrack is comprised of remixed versions of familiar Nintendo themes, all sharing a very happy vibe. The sound effects are what you would expect, nothing seems out of place, but nothing really catches your ear either.

You would expect the single player portion of a party game to be disappointing, but Mario Party 5’s single player is actually done pretty well. You’ll play the bully as you face off against 3 Koopa kids and eventually beat them up and take their money. The single player could by no means carry the game by itself, but if you’re waiting for your friends to show up or don’t want to commit to a twenty hour game, it’s a nice diversion. While within the game victory over your friends is rewarding, you’ll find little more than the title “Dream Star” as reward for winning the entire game. The ability to have your own character that kept track of your stats or that you could customize in some way would have been nice here.

What makes Mario Party 5 a good party game is the relative ease with which non-gamers can pick it up and play it. While a couple of the games have to do with how well you know the controller buttons, they are by far the minority to timing and button mashing themed games. Simplistic but fun seems to be what Nintendo was going for here, and they got it, spot on. If you’re looking for gaming experience with any sort of depth, look elsewhere, but if you’re looking for something to break out with your friends, Mario Party 5 might just be what you’re looking for.