Mario Party 7

[Boo Destroyer]

dancesinunderwear said:

smashchu2 said:

admin said:

5)Even the Mario sports titles (unfavourably compared or grouped with Mario Party) have much more character.
Your point is? Anyway, there characters may not be original,but the characters arn't bad. MP is not a game to have Blood and gore so what dids you expect. The story could be better(like in MP3 hint hint) but it fits.

Say wha?

What has this got to do with blood and gore? Fryguy is complaining that the characters have no personality, which I completely agree with. They are completely wooden tokens used to move around the board, letting out the same phrase and pose every time they win in every single game in every single Mario Party. Thats over 1000 minigames that end with Wario going "I'm a gonna win" and putting his hands up into the air. Sure, get 4 equally skilled players and you might not have the problem, since you'll only be winning 1/4 of the time, but compete against people that aren't at the same skill level and you'll just see the same character saying the same thing over and over and over and over and over...

Meanwhile, every single sports game gives them personality, whether its through their special moves, their taunts, the in-game movies, and even the way they move and act. Mario Party doesn't. Sure, these games have problems with some of these some times, such as annoying voice samples ("Hi I'm Daisy!"), but at least you are doing something when it occurs. Sitting there watching 3 opponents which say the same thing a billion times while you do nothing isn't fun. Its really not.


The fact is that while its great fun playing the mini-games, you spend at least half the time on a board. And when you spend more than half the playing time doing notihng and the game makes you play a game like mathletes, the Cube better make sure it knows how to fly. And when you consider that you could do one or two Mario Kart races, or a few Smash bouts in the time you are sitting there doing nothing, I know what I'll choose.

The mini-game mode is fun, but it needs the ability to track scores. I love MP5's decathlon mode because not only does it track scores but it lets all 4 players finish - that needs to be implemented into the regular minigame mode.

Mini-Game Decathlon has been carried onto MP6-7 as well.

LMAO, yeah. Where the heck did the blood and gore bit come from, dude?

Like I said, Hudson really sucks at using Mario characters properly.

[Boo Destroyer]

But anyway...

Wait a minute....plastic?!?

[Saim]

I'm selling MP6. I didn't like it. It was boring. HELL boring.

[Xeno82]

smashchu2 said:

If it was just Minigames, it would just be WarioWare with multiplayer longer minigames.

Sounds good to me ;D

[Fryguy64]

Dances in Underwear pretty much summed up everything I was going to use in a retort to Smashchu. I never mentioned blood and guts...

And by plastic, I mean that the characters look like animated plastic dolls (with the equivalent personality). If you look at skin, clothes and most other things, they don't gleam in the light. The characters in Mario Party shine... at least in the Gamecube editions. ;D

I also agree with Xeno. Sounds good to me! ;D

[Smashchu]

I dont think you guys got what I meant.

I used blood and gore because MP is not a game that would be mature(being the opposite of Kiddy). So as was just using the extremes to convay the point.

Meanwhile, every single sports game gives them personality, whether its through their special moves, their taunts, the in-game movies, and even the way they move and act. Mario Party doesn't. Sure, these games have problems with some of these some times, such as annoying voice samples ("Hi I'm Daisy!"), but at least you are doing something when it occurs. Sitting there watching 3 opponents which say the same thing a billion times while you do nothing isn't fun. Its really not.

Also I think you guys have to much expectations for characters. Even in then sports games they say the same thing when they win, when they hit, ect. Its just here, there shorter wins. (dont belive me play the games, Mario baseball, they say the same thing for every homerun and hit, pitch what have you) and in MP7, they do have special abilitys. They each have there own orbs.

The fact is that while its great fun playing the mini-games, you spend at least half the time on a board. And when you spend more than half the playing time doing notihng and the game makes you play a game like mathletes, the Cube better make sure it knows how to fly. And when you consider that you could do one or two Mario Kart races, or a few Smash bouts in the time you are sitting there doing nothing, I know what I'll choose.

The other problom is u guys cant take long games. Just because you can race and smash in the time you play a board means nothing. Some ppl like long games. Some smash players enjoy 99 live matches.

The other thing. Why dont you guys just play the mini-games if you want. The later mario partys offer more Mini-game only modes. So have a ball

Finally, if you just played the mini-games over and over it would get boring, and the game would be over before you know it. MP not a fast game, get over it. Its a board game, so dont go changing the rules.

[Fryguy64]

You're missing the vital points of what we are saying:

It's not that I don't like long games. In fact I love long games. If Pokemon isn't a game of unending patience and planning then I don't know what is. But there's a BIG difference between a game that's slow because you have to work towards some target, and a game that's slow because most of the time you're unnecessarily watching stuff happen...

But don't you get the feeling that Mario Party isn't supposed to be a slow game? The hint is in the title. It's a party game. It's supposed to be a reason for everyone to sit around the TV and enjoy themselves. If people are left bored or waiting then it's a crappy party.

I would also like to point out that in NEARLY every MP game, you have to unlock the minigame mode by achieving some insane feat in the game - like beating 1P Story Mode or playing all the minigames... or (God forbid) buying each and every minigame from some store. So those who love the minigames but hate the board game are punished.

[Boo Destroyer]

The buying mini-games aspect only existed in the first two Mario Parties. They're immediately available onwards from the third.

[Dances in Undergarments]

I have 4 and 5 and to get the minigames I have to play them in party mode, which is the eaxct reason why I don't have half of the games in MP5 - I put up with playing party mode on MP4 enough to get all the minigames, but couldn't do it with 5. I did enough to get a decent selection, now I just hope my little cousins are patient enough to play the board mode and get some more.

Infact, I remember numerous occasions when trying to unlock some of MP5's minigames that I turned the TV onto a movie / tv show, hit the A button a few times and then switched to the Cube every ad break and played a minigame. And when you consider that I'm perfectly happy to spend 2 hours picking fruit in Animal Crossing, the fact that I can't put up with this really prooves, for me at least, how boring they are.

And good to see Decathlon mode returns for MP6 and 7.



I was thinking about this, and you know what I'd like to see? Something like this, which would keep some of the board elements (star collecting, items) but eliminate the actual board portions. Here we go....

- You play minigames, and, just like in decathlon mode, you earn points (which are coins now) based one where you finished, how well you did, etc, etc.
- Occasionally you may encounter some variance on that, though, such as a 'Double or Nothing' round, where play two minigames in a row and if you win both you get double the amount of coins of what you would have got if playing them individually, but if you don't win both you get bupkis. Another type of round that may occur is a wager round, (much like the battle mode in current Mario Parties) where you must put in a certain amount. However this time if you can't put in you don't participate, simple as that.
- Between each minigame, there is a menu that lasts no longer than 30 seconds, where if you choose to do so, you can spend these coins.
- There are three types of things you can buy a star chance or two different types of items. - A star chance (name stolen from Mario Baseball, couldn't think of anything better) is the ability to go for a star. The player with the most stars wins, so this is the most important thing, obviously. Here, you must play a minigame against all of the opponents as you attempt to get a star. These mingames are longer than usual, and, if you win this, you get a star. If you lose, you get nothing.
- The second thing you can buy are items. There are two main types of these. The first set are items that allow you to steal coins / stars / items from other players, similar to the items you'd get in Mario Party now.
- The second set, however, are much more interesting, as the actually affect characters in the minigames. They might make a character quicker, slower, stronger, weaker, etc, or they might do something such as inversing the controls. These items can be used on anyone - yourself, your opponents, etc, and can be used at any time in the menu after they have been bought. They typically only last for one minigame, but you can buy ones that last for longer (though of course they cost more coins).
- Whats important to note is that you wont know the item has taken affect, or if your opponent has decided to use his star chance, until the minigame name shows up (at which point it would say 'faster', 'weaker', etc near the character for items), and, if you buy certain items (lets call them 'Shadow items') you wont know until you play and realise something is up.

Thats the basic gist of how it works, but as you'd expect there could be some real strategy in that simple set up. For example, obviously using items to affect your opponent would work best when they are on a star chance, but since you don't know if they are using their star chance you don't know if you're wasting the item on just a regular game, and vice versa if you have the star chance. Similarly, making a character walk slower isn't going to make any difference in a game where the characters don't move, but of course you don't know what minigame is coming up.

So basically, its all about risk vs. reward. But, more importantly, its all about actually playing minigames in Mario Party. Which makes sense to me.

...So, what do we think? Good? Bad? Suggestions?

[Fryguy64]

I like the gist of that. I especially like the idea of a Star Chance minigame (presumably a 1 vs 3). Perhaps even the winning players get the Coins that were spent on the star divided up between them to prevent the player from simply trying again next round. Stars would have to be much more highly valued, but I think that should be the case in MP anyway.

I think the idea of items that allow you to steal (or otherwise affect the owning of) Stars should be kicked out altogether - stealing other items and coins changes the means to get more Stars, but will not necessarily result in a random victory, unlike stealing Stars (one of my least favourite aspects of MP games).

As the two main issues I have with Mario Party are:
1. The speed of the board game sections and
2. The ultimately random outcomes despite the initial pretence of skill/reward
I think DiU's solution solves them both. Hell, if I got to sit there playing the minigames I would even be able to put up with the plastic characters and repetitive soundbytes!

[Dances in Undergarments]

admin said:

I think the idea of items that allow you to steal (or otherwise affect the owning of) Stars should be kicked out altogether - stealing other items and coins changes the means to get more Stars, but will not necessarily result in a random victory, unlike stealing Stars (one of my least favourite aspects of MP games).

Yeah, good point.

Good idea on dividing up the star chance coins, too. And yes, Stars would be worth alot more than the current system (where they are worth only 2 wins).

[Smashchu]

^ the only problem. Little Transition. That what the boards add. Space between the Mini-games. Its ok in WW because there 5 seconds, and fits in a theme(so its more like a Smash game).
However, that would be a good idea for a Mini-game mode. Just dont expect Hudson to take the boards out all together.

[Boo Destroyer]

smashchu2 said:

Also I think you guys have to much expectations for characters. Even in then sports games they say the same thing when they win, when they hit, ect. Its just here, there shorter wins. (dont belive me play the games, Mario baseball, they say the same thing for every homerun and hit, pitch what have you) and in MP7, they do have special abilitys. They each have there own orbs.

Yeah, that's right~!

[Fryguy64]

I'm not debating that the boards add space between the minigames. What I'm debating is that the boards are horrendously boring and destroy any chance I have of ever enjoying a Mario Party game.

Minigames don't have to be relentless, as they are in WarioWare. It's just the whole boardgame aspect is so random and time consuming they might as well just skip the whole thing and stick in a roulette wheel followed by the usual minigame menu so people can read the rules, practice or play for coins - just as they do now, but without the painful experience of the rest of it.

MP7 isn't out in England yet, so I haven't seen any orb powers. Besides... the lack of special powers is only part of what gives Mario and friends their character. Speech, animation, texturing... they're all flawed.

[Boo Destroyer]

admin said:

MP7 isn't out in England yet, so I haven't seen any orb powers. Besides... the lack of special powers is only part of what gives Mario and friends their character. Speech, animation, texturing... they're all flawed.

Oh, just you wait! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D