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[olimario]

I'm looking for the best Mario Party currently and what matters most to me right now is fast pacing. I can't stand a slow Mario Party.
Which has the best minigames and how much better are they than the other titles?
Which is the fastest paced?
Which has the most interesting boards?

I don't have an N64 currently, so please only recommend GameCube Mario Party titles.
Thanks so much.

And just out of curiosity... Which was the biggest bomb-omb?

 

[daemonic]

Avoid 4 then. It's probably the slowest paced out of the three, and the boards are huge and take forever to get through. 5 is slightly better, has better pacing, and the boards are more varied. Haven't tried 6, but it looks to be the best of the lot.

 

[SantaC]

I have only played Mario Party 6 on the GC library, and it was ok.

 

[TheDiave]

Dear lord, I forgot how fugly a lot of N64 games were! :lol

Anyway, I rented Mario Party 4 recently. The game's alright, although the AI drove me nuts; It's not uncommon for the CPU to magically get multiple stars in consecutive turns. It cheapens the whole experience, at least to me.

 

[Mr. Lemming]

4 has better minigames then 5, but the boardgame part of 5 is much much better. 6 is the most well rounded of the bunch.

 

[Memles]

I was close to picking up a copy of 5 for $30 CDN used the other day, but decided against it.

5 is definitely superior to 4, but I have heard good thing about 6...and who knows, there's still 7! Le sigh.

 

[olimario]

I can't believe we don't have a resident Mario Party whore here to comment.
It sounds like 5 over 4 for my needs, but I need a good opinion on 6 and how it stacks up to the others.

And is there really going to be a 7? I haven't heard a thing about it... or if I have I don't recall.

 

[bitwise]

4 has the most "press A as fast as you can" minigames, i could never win them against my roommate for that reason. He is just an A pressing machine. it was annoying cause it seemed like it was every other minigame..

I would say 5 is the best of em.

 

[mr_sockochris]

I have 4 and have played it about twice, it blows. To be honest, if they just released Bumper Balls from Mario Party 1 i'd rather buy that :lol

 

[Deg]

Mario Party 5 is easily the best.

4 is rubbish. 6 is ok with some rubbish thrown in like the voice crap.

 

[Unison]

I have them all for GC... 6 is easily the best. People talk smack about it because the mic implementation is half-assed, but it can be turned off, and even if you only try it once to say "wow, this sucks ass", at least it's there. I don't see how it detracts at all (and some of the multiplayer mic games ARE fun).

The boards are the most varied in 6... Each one of them plays differently than the others, with the requirements to get to the star space and the the types of orbs offered varying greatly from one board to the next.

The minigames are definitely at their best in 6. This time out, there is literally only 1 minigame out of the whole bunch that pisses me off (in it you and 1 CPU have to pick 1 of 3 ropes, and then you will either fall on a platform or fall in a pit, based on which rope you picked... it's totally random & it comes up at the most inopportune times, perhaps as a function of the CPUs rubberband AI & the game's balancing measures... i dunno).

Seriously, Get MP6.

 

[Zeo]

MP5 is much better than MP4 (proving all the EVERY MP IS THE SAME LOLOL people a little wrong). I haven't played MP6 yet, but I hear it's just as good/better than MP5.

But I'm gonna say MP5, just because I haven't played MP6.

 

[BobbyRobby]

I have 6, and have played 4. 6 is much better IMO. Very fast and fun.

Mario Party 7 was at E3. Its new gimmick seemed to be 8-player. (two people per controller)

 

[ChrisReid]

I have 4, 5 & 6. 4 is probably my favorite, but 6 is okay.

 

[TheTurtleTitan]

While 4 has the best mini-games (IMO), it has the worst boards and is too slow paced.

5 was the worst GC Mario Party, IMO. The single-player mode was pretty bad (you'll play Duel Games up the ass) and board movement was slow paced like 4.

6 is the fastest, has the best boards (with more variety than Star Space collecting), and is the most solid.

Mario Party 7 is coming November though, so maybe that'll be the best?

 

[Mega Man's Electric Sheep]

4 has the fewest minigames of the bunch. You'll end up playing the same game 3 times in a 20 turn match since there's only like 40 different games spanning 4vs., 2vs2, 3vs1, duel, etc.

5 introduced board customization and has significantly more minigames than the lame 4.

6 has much improved game speed, the customization of 5, more board variety, unlockables, and a fun, silly mic quiz show that's good for a laugh. 6 is probably the best value.

 

[Nick]

Curious - has anyone ever actually had a Mario "Party" playing these games? I think I did once when the original came out. =o

 

[TheDiave]

Curious - has anyone ever actually had a Mario "Party" playing these games? I think I did once when the original came out. =o

No... That's what I use Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Monkey Ball 2 and Donkey Konga 1+2 for.

 

[Lambtron]

I think MP6 is the best one since the original Mario Party. I actually went out of my way to play it more than once.

 

[Oblivion]

Why the heck would you want a Mario Party game in the first place?

I only rented 4, it was fairly decent, but nothing really 'wowing'.

5 has a really horrendous kiddy style (like they made the game specifically to target no one over 6 year olds) The mini games are okay, but I felt it was pretty dull.

Haven't played 6 but I hear it's the best one so far.

 

[talking head]

i wish they'd bring back the hand blistering analog stick spinning mini games from the first game.

 

[Deg]

6 has the most but the mini games are much worse than MP5. MP5 wins for quality fun.

2 weeks after part 6 you will go back.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

i wish they'd bring back the hand blistering analog stick spinning mini games from the first game.

Don't forget controller destroying. Those games owned.

 

[cvxfreak]

Own 4 and 5, and I liked 5's story mode a lot.

 

[Attack You]

I've played them all except the original. Stay the hell away from 4. That mini-mega mushroom shit breaks the boardgame something fierce by often having players stuck in loops. Seeing as how Party never fucking drops in price, there's no reason I'd recommend 4 over 5 or 6.

 

[Azure Dream]

Yeah, are you getting this for single or multi? For single player, 5's Story Mode is tops, and not only does it have a better boss fight than Super Mario Sunshine (I'm not kidding, it's multi-staged and very classic in concept, but quite fun and totally platformer-y), but even the ending was amusing. Bowser doesn't totally lose, so to speak.

6 isn't as good for single player, but unlocking stuff in it is streamlined (but you can get tired of the same three boards designed for single-player unlockables, and the punishment for miscalculating the final space), and while the multiplayer boards have some neat concepts and gimmicks, each board is tied to said gimmick, so that can affect your choice of boards past just theme. Several of the minigames are excellent and retro-themed, though, I dug the more platformer-y ones, like the note bubble bopping, running through the maze, the LONG platforming minigame, and especially the boulder escape one. Maybe I just wanted a new Mario platformer while I was playing it, but eh, it was still fun.

Steer clear of 4. It's... god, the CPU takes forever with those Micro/Mega Mushrooms. 5 and 6 have streamlining to keep things from taking forever, but 4... no.

 

[Mofo]

Go for 6. It really is an excellent rendition of the Mario Party formula and even has some good single player aspects. 5 sped up the franchise, but it's single player, as mentioned above, is WAY to duel heavy. We still play all 3 versions regiously in our household and 6 by far is my fave.

4 may be the stinker of the trio, but after trying EA's Disney Party game, it proves even at it's worse, Nintendo still knows how to do things right.

 

[Zeo]

Yeah, are you getting this for single or multi? For single player, 5's Story Mode is tops, and not only does it have a better boss fight than Super Mario Sunshine (I'm not kidding, it's multi-staged and very classic in concept, but quite fun and totally platformer-y), but even the ending was amusing. Bowser doesn't totally lose, so to speak.

Whoa whoa. I never finished MP5's Story Mode.

.. It has a friggin' final boss?

 

[Warm Machine]

4 has the most "press A as fast as you can" minigames, i could never win them against my roommate for that reason. He is just an A pressing machine. it was annoying cause it seemed like it was every other minigame..

I would say 5 is the best of em.

Thats interesting as I found 5 to have way too many bash "A" button games as well as run around and avoid something games. 4 was the best in terms of strategy on the board game portion but 6 is probably the most varied plus it comes with the microphone and that is a lot of fun!

 

[Azure Dream]

Whoa whoa. I never finished MP5's Story Mode.

.. It has a friggin' final boss?

Yup. It's very SMB3-ish in terms of looks and style.

Spoiler

At first you drop into an arena, with a bunch of Mecha-Koopas walking around, and Bowser watching on a TV, you have to hop and bop them all within a time limit.

He gets mad and smashes the TV, and then jumps in. You've got to dodge him as he charges and wrecks up the floor, until at one point he falls through. I think you go after him.

You meet up with him on a lower floor, where he takes a potion and becomes huge. But the floor buckles, and he finds himself partway stuck. Still, though, he's able to breathe fire and take swats at you, and I remember something involving potions that he chucks, it's been a while. You have to carry something over (fireball? potion?) and throw it at him a few times, minding his attacks.

I really need to find that game for cheap and pick up my own copy. When I played it, it was an extended rental.

 

[mr_sockochris]

 

[Khalid-S]

6 has much improved game speed, the customization of 5, more board variety, unlockables, and a fun, silly mic quiz show that's good for a laugh. 6 is probably the best value

Thats right,, 6 has the best board (DK-Bowser board)
buy 6 Oli,, or wait for 7.

 

[aceface]

I've played both 4 and 5 and I hate the item system (capsules) they have in 5 on the party mode. It's totally random in what you get, unlike before when you could buy items and plan ahead to screw people. With 5 you can't even put negative items directly on another player, you have to put them on the board and hope that your opponents land on them...it's just stupid.

However, 5 has the most varied single player game and lots of extra stuff to do over and beyond the Party mode, so I would still probably go with that one. I still think the party mode in 4 is better to play if you have four people though.

 

[Tonche]

I loved 4, there were some great mini games in there (Like the swimming one).

5 is ok but sometimes in the last 5 turns, Bowser turns all normal spaces into capsules and just destroys the game. Each turn takes 15 minutes and any skill involved in winning almost gets thrown out the door. I was playing against my nephew yesterday and well in front when in the space of a turns, he'd stolen all my stars, I'd lost half my coins to a computer player and had my capsules taken by another computer. It was an absolute joke.

6 isn'y out in Australia yet so can't comment.

 

[Deg]

I loved 4, there were some great mini games in there (Like the swimming one).

5 is ok but sometimes in the last 5 turns, Bowser turns all normal spaces into capsules and just destroys the game. Each turn takes 15 minutes and any skill involved in winning almost gets thrown out the door. I was playing against my nephew yesterday and well in front when in the space of a turns, he'd stolen all my stars, I'd lost half my coins to a computer player and had my capsules taken by another computer. It was an absolute joke.

6 isn'y out in Australia yet so can't comment.

you can turn Bowser off.

 

[snaildog]

Yeah, the capsule system in 5 IS dumb. Like if you get a coin block one, most people just use them on themselves which costs 5 coins, they get 10 coins out of it, and everyone has to sit there watching the pointless animation for a miniscule change. 4's shops were good, except for the random magic lamps.

 

[Hero]

I hated the mega/micro mushrooms in 4. It's also the slowest in terms of speed. But it has one of the best minigames ever. Booksquirm.

5 was really good though, despite the capsule system. Some of the capsules were just retarded. I think this one had the best minigames overall.

6 is the fastest paced, and has the best boards, IMO. The voice recognition isn't too bad, and you can always turn those minigames off.

 

[Warm Machine]

In 5 the team play was severly cripped by having the two people on a team share a coin bank account. There was more strategy when each player had their own cash to spend even though they were working together as in 4. 6 unfortunately shares the system 5 does.

I liked the mega and micro mushrooms in 4 as it added to the board strategy quite a bit.