Not really. The dice block in Mario Party's 1-3 isn't random, it's timing based. If you're good enough, you can consistently roll high numbers in those games (generally anything above 5). Also, 'planning' isn't just about the route you're taking but also about the
turns in the future. You're not just planning for the current turn but also the next turn and in 10 you can't really do that because you're all stuck in a car that anyone can change to go x amount of spaces and influence what happens to you.
And, you can't even plan out on getting any bonus stars for at the end of the game because they're random (random as in what ones are given out at the end -- at least, that's how I recall bonus stars working since 8 if it's not the same then forgive me) and for the most part you can't cover every single option.
Them also taking away things like chance time, happening spaces, duels, and items
besides dice blocks
lessens the amount of options you have. Meaning there's less strategy overall, less planning and less thinking. I mean, the linearity of the boards speaks for Mario Party 10's problems.
They might have started to drift away from being good at making Mario Party in the classic formula by 7 or 8 (or even by 4 for some people) but those core elements stayed part of the games despite their (the game itself) 'lower quality' and you could easily forgive the bad/flaws about those Mario Party's because what you (not you specifically, you meaning people in general) like is still there (the stuff I mentioned before). But the car
takes away all those core elements that were well liked and never hated in exchange for doing something "different" when the series didn't need to take a different direction -- it needed to go back and observe
why 2 and 3 were so well liked and are perceived as the best Mario Party's by most people. And then lift those elements from those games and improve upon them instead of doing something new that's worse.
What Mario Party 4 should have been is take what 3 did and improve on its systems. Instead, it threw in gimmicky items (different Mushrooms) with bland boards and tried to have some semblance of a story mode for some reason and kinda-okay-but-not-memorable-mini-games. And then the downward trend continued from there (well, some of the later ones are arguably good in comparison to 4).
Ultimately, what it comes down to is that 1-3 follow the basic sequel formula: take the previous and add to it. 4-8 instead went and said: "Do something new every time as we need to release these yearly" so every MP had a different item system (this is debatable on whether it was a good idea to mess with the item system in every iteration), new mini-games (which is fine), try new board types (not generally well received), new event spaces (DK Space...), etc. And that's why things kept getting worse and worse, shoehorning in new stuff (the way Mario Party 5's capsule system works is evidence enough of new being shoehorned in without proper testing lol) and losing the plot on what people liked about Mario Party.
And no it has nothing to do with nostalgia goggles for Mario Party 2 and 3. For the record, I also like 5 and 6 but they don't come close to the highs that 2 and 3 do for me.
