The Wii is well known as king of the party-game revolution and has done an excellent job of attracting the casual gaming audience. While the Wii shines when entertaining your friends and family it isn’t Nintendo’s first rodeo with party games – something that the title of Mario Party 9 should tell you.
If you’ve played Mario Party 8 you’ll be pleased to know that one of the greatest improvements is one of the most visible – Mario Party 9 (finally) supports widescreen displays and features significantly updated graphics. Luckily that’s not the only aspect that received some tweaks.
Mario Party 9, like all of its successors, is essentially a spruced up digital board game. Players take turns rolling a dice to see how far they’ll progress along the board. Unlike previous versions of Mario Party all players travel together in one vehicle and alternate who’s driving the vehicle with each turn. This new method of grouping players together is a nice little twist to the traditional Mario Party formula and ensures that nobody gets left behind.
The goal in Mario Party 9 is to reach the end of the board while collecting as many mini-stars as possible. This is a significantly more streamlined system than previous Mario Party games which allowed free roam of the board until a set number of rounds had been played. I’m not entirely against the linearity of the game – it defines a clear goal and makes it easier for players who’re unfamiliar with the board layout to make informed decisions.
Players will earn stars by passing through specific sections on the board, and will also lose stars if they land on ‘zstar’ spots that are scattered around. Players can also win stars through the mini-games; one of the strong draw points of Mario Party.
Mini-games take place at seemingly random times and are often triggered by landing on ‘surprise’ spots. There are 80 mini-games in total and most of them are pleasant and very enjoyable. Unlike previous titles in the series, the games in Mario Party 9 have a clear Mario theme and contain enemies, scenery and other elements from various Mario games.
The controls in the mini-games are much simpler and intuitive than those used in Mario Party 8 (when motion controlled gaming was new and everything had to be done by waving or shaking the remote like a lunatic). In most of the games you turn the remote sideways and use it like a traditional controller with the D-pad, 1 and 2 buttons.
There’s still a fair amount of motion controlled madness but it’s usually well executed and responsive. Nintendo has had some time to learn and experiment with motion gaming and it shows. Some of the games are also cursor based and require you to point the remote at the screen.
Nintendo has implemented boss fights in Mario Party 9, in which players stand-off against Bowser’s minions. All players participate in these boss fights and each player will earn points based on the amount of hits or attacks done to the boss.
It’s really nice to see all of these ‘Mario’ elements back in Mario Party 9; it started feeling like previous Mario Party titles only grabbed the characters from the franchise and forgot about everything else that usually accompanies the adventures of the Mario brothers.
One of the particularly pleasing improvements in Mario Party 9 is the dynamic scaling of gameplay based on the number of participating players. If, like me, you don’t have loads of friends who’re willing to spend an afternoon playing Mario Party 9 you’re not at a loss anymore.
You no longer need to fill up the remaining spots with annoying CPU players if you’re playing alone or with only one other friend. All of the mini-games will automatically adjust to allow single, double, triple or quadruple players – a really nifty feature of the game. You’ll still be able to add CPU players to make up a total of 4 players if you desire.
There’s also a dedicated Solo section specifically aimed at the friendless. This features a campaign that requires you to play through all of the boards without losing. There’s some nice cinematic content but it can be a rather tiring experience.
The single player mode also offers a few separate games like a spin-off of the classic Dr. Mario game.
Mario Party 9 stays familiar with the series while also presenting some new, charming and innovative features. The game’s visual overhaul looks fantastic and creates a colourful and inviting Mario-themed environment. Like all games in the franchise a lot revolves around luck and random outcome; this could sour the mood if you take winning too seriously.
Most of the 80 mini-games are fun and intuitive and the revised controls cause a less frustrating experience than Mario Party 8. While this game isn’t everyone’s cup of tea it remains a great family game that parents and children can enjoy.
Loading ...
Why does Wario have a ballsack attached to his chin