Gaming Mario Party 5

[Guest Demonic_Angel]

so what do u think about Mario Party 5? Personally, I am in love. I got it as soon as it came out and i love the new mini games. i think it's one of the best by far. let's talk about it!

[Shinmaru]

Source: [url]http://www.1up.com/article2/0,4364,1379973,00.asp[/url]

[quote]Coming on the heels of the super-fast wacky microgame collection Atsumare! Made in Wario, Mario Party 5 is much less forgivable than past Mario Party games. Nintendo hasn't had much competition in the video board game genre, so it has been able to put together the same types of board games for years, where you move around and stumble onto various options, challenges, and mini-games to see who ends up with the highest score. The competition from games such as Sonic Shuffle and Crash Bash is now mostly nonexistent, and with the possibility of a US release for Made in Wario unknown, Mario Party will likely keep the market to itself for awhile. But what Made in Wario makes drastically evident is just how repetitive Mario Party 5 is.
Let's look at the single-player Party Mode first, since that seems like it should be an easy mode to keep things varied. You are the only one playing, after all. But instead of keeping you engaged and always playing, the game slugs along. There are lots of repeated animations you will see from the characters, you will stumble onto the same player interactions time and time again, and the game will talk (well, use subtitles to communicate) to each of your opponents as if they are sitting right next to you, forcing you to need a lot of patience to really enjoy it. You do have options to speed things up a bit by making the text go by faster and skipping certain events, but the game remains repetitive regardless.

In Story Mode, the game has a new feature that allows your computer opponents to all take their turns at the same time, which does help things and makes the Party Mode almost completely worthless for solitary players. Even with the faster pace, though, you will still sit through a lot of the same events. But realistically, this is not a game created for the single-player modes.

The multiplayer options work better because the aforementioned problems go away to a large extent if the game has only human competitors. Things still move along slowly, but like a real board game, it's more of a social activity than something everyone needs to constantly be playing.

None of this is new to the Mario Party series, however. Like previous installments, the graphics are nothing special (think a slightly more detailed version of Animal Crossing -- short characters laid over plain, clean-looking backgrounds with a fantasy toy store style), and the pace is quite repetitive. These aspects have improved since Mario Party 4, but are still not so great.

What has saved the previous installments is that the quality of mini-games you come across has generally been pretty good. Not spectacular -- nothing mind blowing, mind you -- but you know going into these games that no single mini-game will be a complete waste; they will always be at least worth playing. That line of thinking fits with Mario Party 5 as well, so fans of the series can be confident there are more good mini-games this time around -- more than 60 of them, in fact.

So if the mini-games are the good part and the board game setup is too slow, why not just go straight to the mini-game option and skip the board game stuff altogether? Well, besides the point that you have to unlock the mini-games by playing the board games, there's simply not enough content to make the mini-games worth it on their own. Nintendo's solution in Japan for Made in Wario -- which had the same problem of not having enough mini-games to create a full package -- was to make it a budget release. For Mario Party 5, the company used lots of game modes and repeated events and animations to make it a long and complete package.

We can't neglect to mention that some of the board game elements are pretty well integrated, though. The new capsule system that lets you pick events from a toy machine (like where you would insert a quarter at the supermarket next to the gumball machines to get a "capsule" of fun -- also known as a toy) does a good job of varying what happens where on the playfield, and the events that occur as you play keep the game from being boring since there's usually a chance of a come from behind victory.

So if you can stomach the long periods of waiting, or if you are in it for the characters and Nintendo references that are thrown around, you'll probably enjoy the game. But if you want gameplay that is more than "good if you like hanging out with friends while playing a video game," stay away.[/quote]

This is the review from 1-Up Gaming. Doesn't really sound too promising, heh. However, I'm still willing to at least rent Mario Party 5 and give it a shot so that I can see whether or not the complaints are founded.

[Semjaza]

They're just called 1-Up. My site is 1-Up Gaming :(. Pisses me off that they took the name honestly.

I don't know if it doesn't sound "promising", it just sounds like they're using tons of words to tell you it's more of the same. I had fun with Mario Party 4 in short bursts, so I doubt this game is all that bad.

[Shinmaru]

Yes, I remember your site...I checked it out when you posted it in that web design thread you made. I'm outraged that they took the name and didn't think to put 1-Up Mushrooms on the site like you did.

I had fun with Mario Party 4, even though it wasn't really much more than the original Mario Party games with GameCube graphics. And, based on that, I think that it's more than worth my time to at least rent the game and check it out, especially since I haven't seen an EGM review yet. EGM is pretty much the only source I completely trust for reviews.

[I, Colossus]

[color=#006699]I'm seriously considering buying Mario Party 5. MP1 was awesome, MP2 improved it, MP3 destroyed it, and MP4 was a failed attempt in bringing it back to it's glory.

However, the few MP5 mini-games I have played were sheer fun. No other way to describe it really. I play on the Mario Kart: Double Dash!! bonus disc. My friend (it's his disc) have probably racked up a longer time on the 4 or 5 mini-games on the bonus disc than we have racing in Double Dash!!. Which is strange considering how easy/fun Double Dash!! is, but that's for another topic. I've honestly yet to read anything on MP5, but from what I've played it brings the series back to it's roots. Just a fun, easy to pick up and play, game. [/color]

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]Well, I'd like to rent MP5 some time when I can get my friends together so that we can stay up late playing it. But as for buying it, I don't think it'd be worth it for me. I bought MP2 on the N64 and had a lot of fun with it, but that was the first Mario Party game I had played. Then after playing a bit of MP3 when a friend rented it, and then MP4 when said friend bought it, I don't think the series has changed enough to spend a whole $50 on MP5.

Sure, there are some new modes, like the story mode and the Super Duel mode or whatever it's called that has you building mini tank things and blasting away at each other. But like that review said, the main focus and the most fun you're going to get out of the game, it sounds like from everything I've heard, is the multiplayer party mode. Unless there's a lot more to them than I've heard, the one player modes seem kind of tacked on to try and hold your interest when you can't play multiplayer with friends.

I think, for me, Mario Party 5 will be a sort of "one night stand" game. I'll have a lot of fun playing it for the time that I rent it and am able to play it with my friends, but after that I probably won't want to play it again for a good while.[/color]

[Mike330]

well i never was a fan of the mario party series, but #5 really isn't that bad a game, despite what everyone is saying about it being another crappy mario party game. though it will never replace the the wind waker as my favorite game, it still deserves recognition.

and while i'm here, could you please tell how you get the little picture in front of your name? i'm new here and haven't figured that out yet.

[Guest Heezay]

[quote] and while i'm here, could you please tell me how you get the little picture in front of your name? i'm new here and haven't figured that out yet.[/quote]
Go here.
[url]http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27992[/url]

[Shinmaru]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Crusader [/i]
[B]Go here.
[url]http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27992[/url] [/B][/QUOTE]

It would have been best to answer this question via PM; using a thread about Mario Party 5 to just post an answer to that question is against the rules. Methinks the both of you need to pay attention the them better next time, heh. Thanks.