- JP release: 18th December 1998
- NA release: 8th February 1999
- PAL release: 9th March 1999
- Developer: Hudson
- Publisher: Nintendo
- N64 Magazine Score: 85%
The start of one of Mario’s most successful – and most plentiful in terms of games – spin-offs. Mario Party is a board game combined with a large amount of minigames. The first one is the simplest, but sometimes simple can be best.
The objective is to make your way around the board to find Toad, and then pay 20 coins for a star. Blue spaces give you coins, red ones take away coins and others have varying effects. Everything comes down to the roll of the dice, although there are junctions where you can choose which way to go.
The boards in Mario Party have a few ways which change how you get around the board, but really its all to just randomise everything so that anyone can win.
While the board is how you win, the main enjoyment is the minigames. The kind of space you land on determines your team, which can result in 4v4, 2v2 or 3v1 minigames. The enjoyment of them can vary a lot, but usually the ones where everyone is competing tend to be the best – such as everyone balancing on balls in a small island, everyone having to rush to a mushroom of the right colour, shaping Bowser’s head (based on the Super Mario 64 start screen) and following a shape to cut out an object.
One thing I found quite curious (as I don’t remember it from owning the game) were that some of the minigames are completely co-operative, so you’re all working to get 10 coins. I suppose if someone is near the star and has 10-19 coins, you can attempt to sabotage them, but they ultimately feel fairly pointless.
The 2v2 and 3v1 games do add to the mix really well, and there are solo minigames that can be played from one spot on the board, although they really slow the game down.
One of the biggest issues with Mario Party is how many of the minigames rely on spinning the analogue stick as fast as possible. Not only does this wear out the controllers, but the competition encourages people to try techniques to spin faster – I was one of those dumb kids that blistered my palm due to Mario Party.
The minigame island is a nice option for playing the minigames, although as some can be very luck-based, it can be frustrating losing lives due to doing nothing wrong.
Mario Party is a terrible board game that manages to be fun due to its silliness and mainly the minigames. With the amount of games in the franchise, it’s a shame they never tried to get away from the roll and move mechanic.
Fun
Mario Party’s a great leap forwards for the genre, and massively fun, but for all the variety and spankiness it’s still not quite “there.” Moving still relies on random numbers (without the tactility of dice, you never appear in control, and a poo throw feels annoyingly cheap) and, crucially, you can’t skip irritating bits in the way you’d agree to ignore a rubbish game rule in real life. Also, you can’t cheat. Drat.
Jonathan Nash, N64 Magazine #27
Remake or Remaster?
A perfect Mario Party collection would include all the boards, have different rule sets and let you mix and match minigames.
Official Ways to get the game
There is no way to buy a new copy of Mario Party, the only official way to play is to rent it via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak.
Europe
Japan
North America
Re-releases
2022: Nintendo Switch Online (subscription only)
N64 Games by Date
1997: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1998: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1999: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2000: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
Feel like you’re underselling the NSO version. Because you can play it online, which is a huge deal! The randomness feels cheap when playing with computers, but with 3 other people, it adds to the funny.
That said, 2 and 3 are far better due to the items, which add a much needed element of strategy.
Also Bumper Balls sucks. If 2 people are even remotely competent, the game will end in a draw every time! Don’t believe me? Ask S.C.G, BowserBasher, or Dcubed. Awful minigame!
You have to remember that @Cube is approaching the game as an IRL board game aficionado, so naturally he’s gonna detest the random elements of the game; despite that being an inherent facet of the series’ game design.
Mario Party is not a straight board-game simulator though. It’s a party video game first and foremost that happens to have a board game theme; and the key element of its strategy gameplay comes in the form of risk management. It would never work as an IRL board game, and that’s the point.
The Mario Party series is amongst the finest series of local multiplayer games ever made in the history of the medium. Literally anyone can pick it up, understand it at a basic level and have a great time. While more experienced players, who have an in-depth grasp of how its more intricate mechanics work, will generally win more often; any player has a legitimate chance of victory.
Despite outward appearances, Mario Party is actually not a board game in the traditional sense. At the most fundamental level, Mario Party is a strategy game that is about risk and resource management. The goal is to manage and increase your resources, while mitigating your own risk and actively increasing the risk of your opponent’s gameplay; by screwing them over as hard as humanly possible. It is a beautiful social nightmare of a game that encourages you to be as evil as possible, where you are forced into situations where you have to make uneasy political alliances that advantage yourself, while selectively targeting players who may have an advantage elsewhere. The social element is the true essence of what makes Mario Party so brilliant, and its reliance on omnipresent randomness is what allows the social aspect of that gameplay to work. For however best laid your plans might be, you ultimately have to think on your feet and adapt to the unpredictable situation at hand. You may even end up intentionally throwing the game and sacrificing yourself, just to screw over a particular rival and ensure they don’t win.
Mario Party is a game with literally endless replay value, with copious turnaround mechanics that mean you can’t ever predict how each match will play out; which makes every game exciting. No two games will ever play out the same way, and never will that social element ever grow dull. Mario Party is bullshit, and that’s what makes it brilliant. It’s also what makes it an utterly miserable and mind numbing single player experience, despite being an incredible multiplayer game.
While the first game may come across as rather basic compared to its sequels (indeed, the lack of items does cripple its strategic potential in comparison to later games in the series; because it really was just that groundbreaking of a mechanical addition), the first game has such an incredible mean streak with its board and minigame design that it offers a unique flavour, even in a series with no less than 16 entries at this point. Every Mario Party game is unique and well worth playing today, and this first game (along with every other game in the series) has remained in my regular multiplayer rotation for the past 26 years for a damn good reason. It is simply local multiplayer gaming at its absolute finest, and it (along with its two N64 sequels) represent the absolute apex of multiplayer games of that console and indeed the entire console generation.
It’s certainly not perfect, indeed, quite a few of its minigames are outright poorly designed, such as Bumper Balls (which is basically guaranteed to end in a draw if two players are even remotely competent), or Piranha Plant Pursuit (a guaranteed victory for the lone player unless they actively try to lose), but those flaws are indeed part of the bullshit that makes Mario Party such a legendary multiplayer title and series as a whole. I wouldn’t change a thing about it 😀