"An older concept shown to newer eyes!" Disputes, Rivalries, and Complications. These are the things that Mario and his gang face when trying to enjoy a board party with each other as the Moon named Twila and the Sun name Brighton argue about which one of them is more impressive or better suited for hosting this special time with the Mario crew. After many arguments and long repetitive speeches, as our mushroom plumber thought to himself in sub-conscious he had received a revelation! If they used the power of the Star's located throughout the land then the battle could be swept away in the blink of an eye, but for such a petty problem is this really worth all the trouble? Well it seems the only way to find out is to get this party start so as his brother in green would say "Let's a go!".
Same creative looks, with interesting new designs!
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Of course we should all already know that this series won't ever look the best on any system by any longshot (<-- no not the Hyrule Item), however; they do always manage to make them creative in certain ways such as interacting with the background in order to make the game challenging for your friends or just give them some good laughs. I know you're probably yelling like Wario over there saying "Hey! Hurry up already! Give us some reasons why!" so I won't make you wait any longer and let's go into some reasons and examples of why I love the art style/graphic designs of Mario Party 6!
First off let's talk about board designs and how it relates to other Mario Party games, specifically like how the previous game #5 used older board ideas and molded them together with newer designs to make it new but also reminiscent to older fans of the series. This game does the same thing but in different ways, for example the unlockable level Clockwork castle is sort of a throw back to either Mario's Rainbow Castle (Mario Party 1) or Rainbow Dream (Mario Party 5) but then takes that idea and forms it together like dough with the area Toy Dream from the previous game. These two combined together make a sort of a childish town square up in the sky surrounding all around by clouds.
Secondly this one will be shorter but the new type of board addition is the Towering Treetop area which as you would guess is a land based around a tree-like setting, which is correct as you'll be jumping across big stumps of wood from trees and its branches as well covered by bushes of leaves. Heck you can even go across a bridge made of wood as well, all I can say is I'm glad no-one is a woodsman or firebreather (besides bowser) in this game otherwise this could've been a complicated map haha.
Now the graphics for the characters haven't changed all that much from the older addition in the series so I feel no need to
dwell in on this so I'll leave it off here with my score for the Graphics as a solid 8 out of 10!
~Continuing the creativity with each addition~
Invigorating, and yet a slope type Soundtrack...
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Mostly all of the Mario Party games in my opinion always have had good music mostly being all upbeat and putting you in the right mood after a victory or certain error in judgement, but; then when I played this game my prior idea from above had changed since from what I could tell the music stopped being more so dramatic therefore using less powerful beats in the song which had me disappointed as always enjoyed the music this in this series the most. Does this mean that the music is just ear-bleeding bad though? No it doesn't but it is like I said more so of a let down compared to older entries that were made in the Mario Party Saga which I'll give some songs which I do find at least decent or enjoyable to listen to (though they sound better in game rather than on the computer).
The beginning example I can give is the Miracle Event theme which plays when a player,computer or non-computer lands on a Miracle space or is in last place at the last 5 turns on a board (similar to the chance time in previous installments) in which this character is given the ability to earn certain prizes, all the while having a theme that puts everyone is a anxious and shocked state similarly to the last few minutes on a trivia game.
Another example could be the Menu theme wherein you
select which mode you'd like to go into as you begin your board
adventure maybe with some friends along as well, it gives you that nice/calming feeling when you're on that screen as identical to Jolly Roger Bay from SM64 this melody creates a peaceful somber tone just releasing you of any troubles you may have had to pass through that day.
Last but not least we have the Towering Inferno theme, a board that is located in the solo mode of this game...now do not
confuse this with the story mode found in Mario Party 5 as that's no where to be found in this game! Either way this theme is
what you would expect to hear from a place inhabited by the evil Koopa monster "BOWSER" all dark and full of a dangerous
atmosphere as if it wants to crush your very hope and dreams. Just like with the graphics though the sound effects haven't changed that much besides one new voice found in this game for a secret character unlockable in this game so can't say much here either so my score here for this department is only a 7 out of 10! ~passable but could be better~
New looks, New Music, But same old FUN!
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Well based on what I've said I guess that means like the section above the gameplay has also been dumbed down alot correct? *Throws podoboo orb at speaker* Looks like that theory just went up in flames...*owl hoots*...I GET IT!...-_-. All horrible puns aside this game's well gameplay (for the boards at least) is just as great as the previous entry into the series with a few minor losses here and there, for example the minigames are great and all but idea of the game seems kind of lacking as for the most part it just feels like a carbon copy of Mario Party 2's Horror Land Board (wherein if you land on a ? Space, you'd change the board from day to night) however; this board already changes from day to night every 3 turns or so which kind of makes you think they really were running out of ideas for game mechanics.
Is the board completely playless and boring because of this blatant similarity though? No I wouldn't say so but it does lose some charm due to that, as it would be nice to have some more innovation. Although; this board does use the day and night system BETTER than Mario Party 2's board did, for the reason that instead of just using it to use Boo and nothing else this one actually opens new paths that you may not have been able to reach before therefore making each move that you make vital which in my case is addictive since it's not just roll and move all the time.
So the 5th game made use of the story mode from before and new features such as Bonus Mode, Super Duel Mode, and many others...but what does that mean for the 6th game? Well normally when you bought the 6th game you'd get a free Nintendo GCN Mic (not 100% sure but I know they game with it if you bought a gamecube system and it was included). This became a feature in the Mario Party 6 & 7 games as they had a few special Mic-Mini Games which I'll go into greater detail later, all in all the addictiveness in my opinion is at the very least worthy of a 7 out of 10!
More developed story, but still lackluster...
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As we've all seen in the older edition to this series we saw that there was a dramatic drop in the story addition to the games, not saying that Mario Party has always had a good story anyway but at least they gave you a story. So when the 6th iteration to these fun filled board parties came along, most of us didn't expect a real story anymore however; we were proved incorrect....sort of. What do I mean by this you ask? Basically that we were proven wrong because they did bring the story element back into this addition, but; we were also proven correct as it wasn't that huge of a leap into a story much like how the original Mario Party, its sequel, or heck even the 4th iteration's story of this franchise was. Enough categorizing though let's get into the deck just waiting around for us to spread its cards of information around.
The story of this game goes somewhat like this: One day in Mario Party land, Mario and his gang were sitting around talking with each other when all of the sudden a fierce feud broke out between the Sun and Moon that watch over this peaceful place & all of this happened due to a simple question when the Sun named Brighton asked Twila between the two of them which one was more dazzling/impressive? To which Twila furiously replied with lines like "I'm more dazzling, you're not as great as I am!" and they went back and forth at each other like little children fighting (Kid 1: no I'm great, Kid 2: No I'm greater). Everything seemed like it would end up in turmoil until our hero Mario came up with a plan to end this ridiculous fight once and for all which was to throw a board party and earn stars in order to share their true power which would apparently end this fight, but could that really be a true possibility?
Seems like a pretty weak idea if you ask me because I don't see how the stars could end a fight, maybe if it was about which ever side you get more stars on means that the specific side would be considered better would've made at least a little bit more sense. Sadly it doesn't so to be fair since this included more so of an intro story I'll rate this one a "little" higher in rating, now notice I said LITTLE in quotations...that's because I won't rate it like how I normally do which is around 2+. So if I were to look back *looks at dice block* that would be a 5 out of 10 score!
Another drop in quality, from its long
selection...
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Oh poison mushrooms, another segment that just punches me in my capsule...the depth of this game compared to MP5. As in the addictiveness segment I said that the 5th game included new modes such as: Bonus Mode, Story Mode, & Super Duel Mode which caused the game's addictiveness and depth to be raised higher in my opinion. Although, when this party came out they cut back on alot of modes and focused more on the Star Bank in the game and the Mic features which are fun don't get me wrong but I wish they had more features like the prequel did. Anyway like I said this game included a new MIC which allowed you to play new games such as:
Speak Up: Basically a gaming-talk show wherein the hosters ask you questions and you earn points based off correct question and how hard they are, this game is sort of similar to shows like "Who wants to be a millionaire" or even
"Family Feud". In this game you can also earn power-ups which can either give you a point multiplier or make questions easier (there are also power-downs if Bowser shows up). Pretty fun game but you need to have 2 people in order to play it as it doesn't accept computer players.
Star Sprint: You can probably tell from the second part of the title that this will be a running type game, which it is and inside
you have to carry a Star to the finish line and the faster you get their while collecting up and extras will gain you more stars into the star bank.
Mic-Mini Games: These are just about the same as normal mini-games you would find in Party Mode the only difference is that you use the Mic to give out commands instead of using the GCN controllers (you can still use the controllers if you wish by changing the settings in option mode but that also gets rid of secret options you can only use with the Mic).
The final things I want to say is how many boards there are in the game and what things are going to be left only in this game and not in the later ones, in MP6 there are 6 boards to choose from 5 of which are free and 1 you must unlock from the bank. Lastly if you enjoyed playing as Koopa Kid in this game then I'm sorry but he'll no longer be playable in any games from this point on. So to end it off on that note let's give the score for depth which is a 7 out of 10!
Non-existent difficulty, with any board games luck
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Mario Party for the most part hasn't really ever had a set difficulty and is more so minuscule compared to other games on their respective systems but it is similar to games like Super Smash Bros as in both adventures you can set the difficulty level on your opponents (if you're playing with computers instead of human players) so really you can either make your foes be really easy for yourself making it an easy victory or make them really challenging if you want things to be interesting and well difficult at times. One thing that can be a pain is that there are quite a few "luck" based mini games where there is no skill/technique involved in winning and is more so either a guessing game or just comes down to pure guessing, which is something I personally am not a fan of because I want to make sure that there is a sure way of winning but that it's fair for both players (which is why I quit the series after 7 as after that it mostly because a four leaf clover type series from then on).
The boards themselves are actually really leveled with difficulty and don't have any issues that I'm aware of, as there are plenty of fair tricks to use to either help you escape someone's attack or use an attack on someone for example: On Towering Treetop you can use the flower shop which will take you to a spot on the board randomly which can usually 60-70% of the time help you out by randomly placing you somewhere on the board when you are trying to run away from someone. The opposition also holds true though as on the stage Snowflake Lake wherein you can wait and instead buy a chain chomp that can use 3 dices blocks instead of the normal 1 dice block. Which does add a nice level of challenge and difficulty to this game. So all in all I'd say with this strange difficulty
selection a 5 out of 10 would be fine here!
Well it seems like the final turn has passed and the last mini-game has been played so it's time to return the cards back to the deck & review how everyone did. The board has been completed and our players seem to be at a rest due to their hard work, the only question is was this feud really put out or was this really just a scheme made for everyone to have a good time? Eh, doesn't really matter as long as we enjoyed ourselves right? Who knows maybe we'll come back to think about it some other time just like how I'll go back to another game later in the future but for now let's just sit and enjoy the end of
this party....this MARIO PARTY!
Sonic57tm (Erick Davis 2014)
Graphics
8 Sound
7 Addictive
7 Depth
7 Story
5 Difficulty
5
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