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| Mario Party 5 Reviewed by Pirate Yoshi Over-view: Yet another Mario Party, and the GameCube's second! Mario and company have become the standard by which arcade/party games are measured, and this series is making itself quite at home on the GCN! Graphics: 8/10 Does this look familiar? It should. This is the same score I gave the last Party, Mario Party 4, in Graphics. Nintendo isn't worrying about the animation, but, instead, focusing their power on gameplay! Sound: 7.8/10 This is unusually low for a Mario Party game! What went wrong? The sound effects and voice acting were about par, as far as the last Mario Party, but the music took a dive. I found this Party's music to be a bit lame, almost annoying at times, as opposed to the ever-present, always-fitting music from Mario Party 4. But sound is sound, and MP5 puts up a fair struggle in this catagory, beating average by a substantial margin. Controls: 10/10 Again, flawless controls that make for an easy playing experience! I wouldn't expect anything less from a Mario Party! The controls are shown before every minigame, as always, so you can keep up to snuff in every game despite rapidly-changing control set-ups. This catagory never hurts this series! Challenge: 5/10 Another disappointing selection of challenge, however, follows Mario Party 4's. MP5 boasts little challenge, in both gameboard set-up and minigames. I wonder when the series will revive its challenge again...? You should be capable of beating this game within a day on easy, and being able to save and restart as needed can change the results of your turn dramatically. I was hoping Nintendo would give some real challenge this time! Replay: 9.9/10 This Mario Party somehow managed to squeak past the last one in Replay, which still baffles me some. I'm not sure what the change was, but it somehow seems to be slightly more amusing to play, despite the lacking in the catagory below. I think the high mark in Replay is largely due to the extension of ways to play, including Super Duel Mode, which is astounding, Card Party, which is a simple, yet amusing diversion, and the different styles of facing off against others in minigames (such as an Othello-like tile game, a race to so many points, and a mini-game circuit!). As if you need any more reasons to keep playing Mario Party... Gameplay: 7.9/10 Now THIS catagory is very low for a Mario Party, and I believe it's mainly because of the new item system and the taking out of several old, familiar touches. Allow me to go further in depth (ha ha, you have to because I'M the one writing!). Gone are the days of stopping by the shop on the board and buying yourself a good old Mushroom; no longer will you battle your heart out for the coveted Magic Lamp that has cost so many players first place; no longer must you take that special path so you can meet up with the meddlesome Boo. Instead, you'll collected capsules in this Mario Party; these capsules can be used on any space up to ten spaces ahead of yourself, and cause an event to occur when someone lands there. For this reason, the items (capsules) are much riskier to use now, since if you aren't using it on someone particular, you never know who it might be hitting... While you need not pay for capsules, you DO need to pay some cash if you plan to use the capsule on yourself; if you set a capsule down on the space you are standing on, it'll dock your coin supply (the exact amount you lose depends on what the item is). Not having items, admittedly, stinks and makes the game feel slightly strange and aloof from the rest of the series, which is too bad. Also, the good old Battle Games we all love have been nearly taken out--instead, they come about randomly at the end of turns, like the Lucky games from MP4, but with a jackpot instead of doubling or tripling the coins for the turn. Also, no one player is in control anymore--each player gets to choose which game they wish to play, and the most popular pick will be the battle! I miss a lot of the old touches, like Battle games, stores, and ESPECIALLY having DK around to play as, but there's a few nice additions that keep this game on its feet. **Story: .1/1 I take back what I said about Mario Party 4's plotline--THIS is the cheesiest, worst story on the planet. This game has such little story, I'm tempted to give it a zero, but--regrettibly--it DOES have a plot, and it's a real doozy. Oh, and here's a few spoilers: 1) Bowser is involved (gasp!) and 2) This story stinks. It goes something along these lines: The STAR DEPOT (fancy name for the Star Road, which Nintendo tried to hide back with the end of Paper Mario), along with its STAR GUARDS (those annoying stars from Paper Mario that think they're SOOOOOO special...), feel that since so many dreams are sent up to Star Depot, some of the people making the dreams should be allowed to visit! Of course, since this is MARIO Party, and not something like ZELDA Party, they choose to bring Mario and co., because, "when it comes to dreamers, nobody dreams bigger than they do!" Of course, if it was as simple as that, there'd be no real reason to include playing a single player mode, so ENTER THE KOOPA! Bowser and his bratty kids (strange, they don't seem to be any friends of Mario's, yet they get in...fake identification, perhaps? Maybe Bower poses as Daisy for a cheap way in....) decide to trash the Dream Depot, since it doesn't grant their wishes, and it's up to whomever you choose to stop them! Red, Green, and Blue Koopas (no, not Bowser's OTHER kids: Lemmy, Larry, Iggy, Morton, Roy, Wendy, and Ludwig) do his dirty work every time, but you DO get to battle Bowser in a simple little challenge at the game's end (like MP4). This game gets every point it deserves in this catagory.... **Multiplayer: 1/1 And now that I've bashed on MP5, let's praise it's fine multiplayer! As with all the past Mario Parties, this one, too, comes out with a high score in this bonus catagory! Multiplayer is the real name of this game! Graphics: 8/10 Sound: 7.8/10 Controls: 10/10 Challenge: 5/10 Replay: 9.9/10 Gameplay: 7.9/10 **Story: .1/1 **Multiplayer: 1/1 Total Score: 8.4 Score Explanation: Not much to sum up here, and I'm afraid this is accurate. I found Mario Party 4 to be more enjoyable, actually, than 5, and I think Nintendo needs to straighten out some of these new touches before the next Mario Party, or it might drop even further. Here's hoping for the best! |