Mario Party 5 (GC) - GameCube

Mario Party 5 is a Action, Strategy game developed by Hudson Soft Company, Ltd. and published by Nintendo of America Inc. in 2003 for the GameCube.

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Mario Party 5 Featured Review

Mario Party 5 Review by: sonicthehedgeho.. - 8/10

“A Board Game Full of Memories and Adventure”
I’m sure most of us as kids remember going into a closet in our house in order to grab a big board game that you’d play with the family or with a friend, and this may be just me but I always wished as a kid growing up that I’d be able to enjoy a board game style with a video game system so that way if you lost the instructions to a game you’d still be able to play (unlike a regular board game that you may not have played in years). Sure you may say: “well what’s so special about this game, I mean there were 4 Mario Party games that came before this one?” to which I may add that; yes you are correct about that although there is one major point that I must bring up, which is the fact that I didn’t know about this series until a long time after the initial release. Let me just cut the slack and say I didn’t play until 2005 when I received my Gamecube alongside this gem of a game. With the same fun filled action as Sorry or even Monopoly, tied in with crazed adventures mini-games throughout each round this game sure brought around a tidal wave of changes for myself and a few friends. So why are you standing there with a confused look on your face? It’s time for Me, You, and the review to get this party STARTED!

Graphics: 8 out of 10

Now while this may be a simple board game to others but there actually is quite a lot of detail with the background environments which I’ll explain into more depth. Basically on the Toy Kingdom level you if you land on a question mark spot you will stand their waiting as a clown face pops out of the present like one of those jack-in-the-box toys you saw as children, another example would be if you were to stand on a different question mark space from what I mentioned above you will have toy soldiers loading a cannon in order to shoot the wall you’re walking across making you fall down to the bottom via forcing you take a different route. Ok so what’s so special about that I mean the graphics themselves don’t look all that impressive? Well true for the entire system they don’t but the mini-games will surely impress you in one way or another, what do I mean you ask... basically if you take a look at some games like Leaf Leap you’ll notice that the higher you get more clouds will start to appear in the background moving on from clouds to a night time sky with a wave like pattern and sooner or later into the vacuum of space. Another example would be a game called Nightmare where you fight Bowser or stages made by Bowser and he’ll crack the monitor at the end of the 2 events he had planned in the first stage of this mini-game, during the final act he grows into a gargantuan (meaning giant for those who don’t know that word) and he starts throwing fireballs and breathes fire at you which looks very nice and appealing especially when victory tides like to shift into your favor and the evil monster is sucked into the black hole behind him. No matter which way I look at it, this would hurt to give it a lower than average score or amazingly high score either so I’m afraid I must settle with an 8 out of 10 for its scenery and graphics.

Sound: 8 out of 10

WHAT?! An 8 out of 10 for the sound in a BOARD GAME! Have you gone insane Sonic57? I must have but does that really matter because you should never judge a board without experiencing an adventure and see what’s in store, making sure you take every detail to heart and mind in order to gain the proper vote. I must admit this isn’t my favorite Mario party game for Sound but it’s still very nostalgic for me alongside many others since this was the first game in the series I ever played so the found melodies will always remain true to my gaming history but enough lollygagging as one may say since just talking about thoughts and reminiscing all day won’t give you all the idea of what to expect from listening to this games soundtrack. As funny as this may sound...one of my favorite themes has to be the character selection/map selection theme since it gives you a nice feeling of having a great trip ahead of you, as well as kind of saying “Just try your best and enjoy your time in this land alongside your friends!” Secondly if I must choose another soundtrack It’d have to be the Space Dream map’s music since it sounds like something you’d hear in a scientific movie like Apollo 13 wherein the rocket is just about to take off our has just reached orbit. The voices in the game I’d say are definitely fitting for each character especially Waluigi’s and Mario’s so I’d say that’s a well-deserved improvement so like I stated above an 8 out of 10 is again my rating for sound.

Addictiveness: 8 out of 10

Alright this section is what the majority of Mario Party Games are known for because it has so much to offer especially when you have friends or your brother/sister/parents to play with as between the music and just the fun gameplay mechanics you’re sure to have many a laughs from just one sitting when you experience this delightful game, whether you play as a team or every player for themselves you’ll be having thrills and fun as each passing turn with the dice blocks just roll on by. You may be saying “well we can only have 2 people on a team but; what if we have a 3rd friend who wants to play against the computer with us” I have a simple solution to that which is to do a free-for-all match however; all 3 of you will act as a team during the game preventing the computer from earning anything whenever possible, even if it means one of your friends decide to forfeit their mini-game in order to save the game for everyone. Sure you have mini-games and boards to play on “huge deal” right? Sorry but you’re a few pine cones short from the acorn tree as this game offers a Story Mode as well as extra games to play which I’ll described into more detail later on in the review. There's only one final thing I'd like to address and that's the Star Guides on the main game selection screen, do any of you recognize them? *Wolf Howls*.....guess not well basically these Stars are from a game on the N64 known as Paper Mario which is a pretty nice cameo by Nintendo if I may say so myself. Overall this may not be the most addictive games out there on the Gamecube but it’s well worth the money if you can find it so I’d say an 8 out of 10 seems fair enough for the addictiveness.

Story: 4 out of 10

Sadly…every game/place that has shining sunlight's of happiness or enjoyment, there will always remain a shadow of unrefined work. Mario Party 5’s case falling into its Story shadow since unlike previous games there isn’t much of a story behind it (excluding the story mode feature which still isn't breathtaking enough) Basically this game doesn’t give you an opening sequence much like the 2nd & 3rd games did on the N64 but gives you and additional mode where our shell-shocking koopa is up to his usual dirty schemes and is trying to ruin all the dreams in the world in order to fulfill his one and only wish, what could that possibly be though? Money….Peach….The Mushroom Kingdom? GRAH! *points claw* well you’ll find that out in the game board if you play it that is. But will he be able to stop us by himself, not exactly since he uses his son Koopa Kid to help him out by forming into three different color clones of himself (Red, Blue, and Green) and you have to defeat them in each board in order to progress. Once you reach the final dream and hop onto the pedestal above you’ll come face to face with the evil spewing monster King Koopa and defeat him in a final confrontation, like I said above it’s not as detailed as the previous entries stories into the series nor is it a huge story for a Gamecube game especially so even though it pains me to do this I must give the 5th entry into the Mario Party Saga only a 4 out of 10 for the story.

Depth: 9 out of 10

I guess since the story didn’t work out so well that the scoring is going to just keep falling lower and lower correct, the best way to answer that is by using the same words Mario & Luigi use when they “ohhh I lost!” This is where the game really starts cooking up with its creativity since there are many different boards (7 in total) and games to play from with usually many different features. There’s one thing I’d like to bring up about 3 boards in the game and I’m not 100% sure if this is just my own speculation or what not but I believe these 3 boards: “Rainbow Dream, Future Dream, and Undersea Dream” are actually throwbacks to the original trilogy released on the N64…of course Rainbow Dream = Rainbow Castle (Mario Party 1), Undersea Dream = Deep Bloober Sea (Mario Party 3) and Future Dream = Space Land (Mario Party 2) like I said this may just be speculation but they seem a lot alike so I’m not sure exactly. Either way I don’t want this to drag on too long so I should address the other bonus games on this disc, those being: Card Party, Ice Hockey, and Beach Volleyball = The last two are pretty self-explanatory however you can change which ball to use in the game (Regular, Dice, or Bomb) now the first game is basically like Monopoly where you usually try to get as many estates as possible except you’re trying to get as many Star Cards and the size of the board you pick determines how many cards you have a shot at getting. Finally one thing I must address since it may confuse people is that DK is no longer a playable character in the series from here on out although you can play him in the Super Duel Mode if you beat him on hard difficulty, so that’s a plus for some fans…overall I’d say this makes up for the lack of it’s story leaning me towards giving it a 9 out of 10!

Difficulty: 6 out of 10?

Like a few games I’ve mentioned before and may continue to mention later on, there is mostly always a difficulty setting when you go to play a mini-game or board (via computer difficulty that is) so there’s no precise way to tell how hard this game may be for some but; there are still some points which I can bring up that justify at least a 6 or higher in rating. My first card I’ll lay down as a statement is the mini-games themselves since a few of them can be difficult to win regardless of computer settings or experience such as: Leaf Leap since you have no idea what side the leaf will sprout out of and if you jump on the wrong side you could end up falling quite a ways, secondly you have games like Button Mashers which is in all honesty the perfect name since you have to continually press the button shown on the block your character is holding and you could end up having to press 3 or 4 buttons at once not knowing whether they could be spread apart or close together so this isn’t exactly an easy game nor that much fun which is why I rated it a 6 because button mashing can get tiresome therefore becoming harder later on so it’s a unnecessary rise in difficulty but that’s my own opinion though. All in all I’d say a 6 out of 10 for difficulty might be fair for this game? Not sure since we’ll there is no real set difficulty either way moving on.

We’ve just reached our last turn and are about to finish the final mini-game with our ending results, bringing more excitement and happiness to us even to the end. This surely shows us much this party can really bring out the best in us and our friends, both good and bad haha…either way I guess since this board review is over it’s time to say goodbye. The only question that remains is….will you become the superstar?

*Puts Mario Party Board back into closet*

Erick Davis (Sonic57Tm)
Graphics 8 Sound 8 Addictive 8 Depth 9 Story 4 Difficulty 6

Mario Party 5 Reviews

Overall 8.8 Graphics 8.5 Sound 8 Addictive 9 Story 6 Depth 8 Difficulty 6

8

“A Board Game Full of Memories and Adventure” sonicthehedgeho..
I’m sure most of us as kids remember going into a closet in our house in order to grab a big b...
Graphics 8 Sound 8 Addictive 8 Story 4 Depth 9 Difficulty 6
Review Rating: 5/5 Submitted: 02-09-14 Review Replies: 9

9.6

Mario Party 5 Review Jamityjamlol
My review on Mario Party 5 Mario Party 5 was an all time favorite for me when i was younger out of ...
Graphics 9 Sound 8 Addictive 10 Story 8 Depth 7 Difficulty 6
Review Rating: 2.5/5 Submitted: 02-20-14 Review Replies: 1