You're right. Mario Party 5 is a tier below. I think we only played Toy Land lol. Like 95% of the time. But iirc the sea level as well as Pirate Adventure Land I think it was were decent in their own right. What were the other ones? Sweet Treat Cake Land? I thought that one was kind dull. But MP5 minigames are on a different level. Truly top tier mingames; it is worthy in that regard. But you're right, it needs to be a tier below the best now that I think of it
The maps were okay and the minigames were good in 5 its just that the item mechanics were a complete dumpster fire. The whole idea was to allow players to kind of make their own maps in that game but ended up being extremely unbalanced and makes the boards being okay a moot point.
Just a small rant on it, the entire system is rng, which wouldn't be so bad if the items and the system were balanced in some way but you can have games where first place gets chain chomps galore to steal stars and a bone to prevent them from getting stars stolen from them, while last place gets pathetic Goomba's. You can't choose the items that you get the game just gives them out. Theirs no incentive to throw any good items on the board because they can benefit opponents just as much as the player that threw it and items meant to screw over others aren't really viable either because they also can screw over the player that threw it as much as it can screw over anyone.
The boards might not be bad but the mechanics definitely are and if the system is broken it doesn't matter how good the boards are. MP5 is definitively one of the worst of the original 8 at least in my opinion.
MP4 also suffers from a very bad system that devolves everything down to rng but in a different way. The thing is though, I do think that MP4 has some of the best minigames in the series. to make up for it, MP5 not so much, theirs quite a few duds in that one.
Personally, I had a lot of fun with Mario Party 8. I loved the simplicity of Goomba's Boardwalk and it was relaxing and funny and fun. Funny when the pirate goombas would kick you all the way back if you happened to land on the happening space. Shy Guy Express was pretty fun. Koopa's Tycoon Town a very good level. Not great but it was very good. DK Tree Tops was so-so, not all the good really. Kind of lackluster but with MP8 I was at least able to play several dozen games I'd say. It was the last decently entertaining one in the series imo
Mario Party 8 had pretty good boards (except for the boo mansion, which was an entirely randomized board) the issue with that one is the minigames which are probably the worst in series ( if Mario Party 1 gets somewhat of a pass in that department). Most of them are plagued with Wii Remote controls where its not necessary, Mario Party 9 actually fixed this issue and had a balanced set of motion control mingames that felt good. The issue wasn't just motion controls though, some of the minigames felt like they didn't play test them either, like the point and click 1 v 3 and especially the jump rope game where if the single player just swings their wiimote in a circle at a moderately fast pace its literally impossible for the 3 to jump in time and not get eliminated.
Also the items were bland and boring.
Obviously though, you are free to enjoy and like whatever Mario Party you please, personally I love Mario Party 1 and 9 on the same level as titles like MP 6 or 3 despite MP 1 and 9 being pretty bad compared to most titles. I suppose I just mostly found it odd given some of the things you've said previously about some Mario Party's.
Sorry Shaq, but this is going to be a harsh criticism of Super Mario Party as I am tremendously disappointed with it in many areas. It's so bare bones. There's four maps? All of them are small and forgettable so far. You get coins for, and are even forced to do mandatory high-fives. So corny and unnecessary. Maybe if they did it once after coin mini-games involving two on two teams, it MIGHT be advisable. But besides that, it's so annoying. The minigames are fun. The maps are just so blatantly plain. It's like boiling chicken, is what Super Mario Party is to me. Why even do it if it's bot going to be worth it and is so plain and dull of an end product. I used to be so excited when my friends came over and we'd play all the Mario Parties. Except MP9 was a let down. MP10 I missed. And I like Super Mario Party because it gets people together for some fun moments. But I am extremely disappointed with the product as a whole. The maps are the foundation. There is little strategy really if the maps and items are going to be so minimal. And that's another thing: the items. Look at Mario Party 3 and its items. There's like what 10-12 of them? There's like four in this game and you just pick randomly to attack for 3-7 coins or something. Lacking strategy to the max and that kills the excitement. There's nothing competitive about this game hardly compared to the really good installments in the series. There's only 2 bonus stars at the end? Why did we cut back? And there's even a bonus star for the one who traveled the least?
You may have a very fond love for the game, but I am a HARDCORE and long time Mario Party fan. You wouldn't believe the times me and my homies played MP games. If I had to guess, in all, I've played with other 20-25 different friends in my life in MP games and over 400 games, maybe even 500 games in all with the series. One summer, me and my bro and his homies played so much Mario Party that I started tracking the games on a sheet of Paper. This was 2012 or so. We would play Mario Party 3 two days, sometimes 3 days a week. It was SO competitive it was just unbelievable times. I'll never forget that summer. We played over 50 games together that summer. Drove to each others houses at night just to get a game in. One time or two we even drove a few cities over to visit our friend at UC Irvine to play a game of Mario Party 3 lol. I have so many great stories. But that is the standard I hold these games to. I want strategy, I want an incredible time filled with many choices and options and possibilities. Super Mario Party doesn't feel remotely close to any of that
Super Mario Party was gifted to me by a friend. I wish so badly that I could speak high of it. It means a lot because my friend gave it to me as a gift, just so we could play together as friends he bought it for. It holds up for a play through some days. But it's not even close to like, "hey inv ____ over lets play some MP" or anything like that. It should be a lot better man, if you like Super Mario Party then you are lucky. It's not enough for me. I want more and as a fan, I sort of expect more since we've been given much better in the past
You cant even use any other controller besides a single faulty joycon to play this game. I hate that m. I almost forgot to mention that. The best part about this game is literally that you and your friends and family are together. The game does that, and you can joke around and have fun and pole fun at the game. The game itself is not so intriguing and having me excited at any point in the 10 turns we do. We don't even want to do more than 10 turns. I even asked them if they wanted to do 15 and both were like nope lol
Sorry Shaq bro, no hate, I just want to play better games. Btw, it should be 100% online as well. Board game plus mini games. It's inexcusable; pure laziness on Nintendo's part
Fair enough, it's not like I also don't have the same complaints when it comes to board count, online and items. I don't think the boards are bland and forgettable though. MP5s boards are forgettable, Super's are just interesting enough to stick in your head (that and theirs only 4 of them...). The dice mechanic adds strategy and depth, picking a character actually sort of matters and you get tons of options on how you want to approach things, the only thing that kind of ruins that is that you can get more partners which can screw up a roll but thats only a minor issue.
The 2 bonus star thing is kind of messed up but it's 3 bonus stars if you play 20 turns iirc. Also I believe the slow star was a thing since MP8.
Your criticisms are fair, but I don't think Super Mario Party is bad, it does lack content but overall I think it's a good entry.
