Mario Party 10 Review

Overview:

Finally the Mario Party series steps into the HD age. After the lackluster reception of Mario Party 9 the next entry also sticks to the controversial new rule set. So, can Mario Party 10 succeed, where its predecessor failed? Or will the series stay in the mediocre terrain, where it has been a regular since the Gamecube days? With new Bowser Party mode, the transition to HD, Amiibo Party and over 70 new minigames the chances are good. If the game uses this chances you'll find out in this test.

Gameplay:

Gameplay wise Mario Party 10 is following in the footsteps of his predecessor. In the classic Mario Party Mode again all 4 players are sitting in the same vehicle, and take turns in steering it. To win the party you don't have to collect stars or coins, but instead only one resource in the form of ministars. This streamlines the experience, but many fans argued that it also took away the variety of the boards and the game itself. And they were and are still right about this. This change also affected the design of the boards, which there are only five off this time around. They are all beautifully designed and pretty vibrant, once again the HD-Threatment shows that it's a perfect fit for the Mario series, but also extremely linear. You mostly follow a set path. Sometimes a little branching path comes up, but mostly it's only for a couple of fields, before you return to the main one. This branches mostly serve the purpose to gain some extra ministars, or deny your enemies this chance. While some may argue that this serves as a small tactical component, during the game it mostly feels very luck driven. You have some degree of control over your own dice rolls, in the form of extra dices like the 1-3 dice or the slow dice, but you can't influence your opponents in the slightest. So this branches offer, in the best case, occasional opportunities for tactics. The only board which offers more in that regard would be Airship central where the ships change every turn from good to bad, so you can delay the advancement of your vehicle to let the other players board a bad ship.

Sadly this is the most interaction you get with the other players outside of minigames, because every event space only affects the player driving. The good old days of stealing stars and coins from the other players, or blowing the power star to another field, so that they may not get it, these days are over. This results in a pretty toned down experiences with a lot less swear words being thrown around while playing.

The boards, while offering great visual variety, all play exactly the same. You'll move the vehicle on a linear path. Halfway through the board you'll encounter a miniboss and at the end the big boss awaits. This boss battles are tied to their respective boards, so you'll only encounter King Boo on the Haunted Trail and nowhere else. This battles are very distinct and a lot of fun, and are probably the only thing people liked in Mario Party 9.
On your way through the boards you'll collect ministars from checkpoints (or lose them), event spaces and minigames. However minigames normally only offer 5 stars, where you can collect up to 12 stars through checkpoints, so the minigames don't have as much impact on the outcome of the game as in previous entries.

The party ends when the final boss of the board is defeated, which takes roughly between twenty and forty minutes. This would be acceptable for a portable entry of the series, but for a home console game it feels very short. Forget the days where you could spent an evening on a board, cursing or gloating at the other players next to you on the couch. During my plays of the game the atmosphere was strangely apathetic. Only on a few occasions the old Mario Party feel arose.

These occasions usually where during the minigames. Because even after 10 entries the Mario Party series still nails this part. The minigames are imaginative, varied and simply a lot of fun. The only negative point I have to make, is that they don't incorporate the gamepad in the slightest. Apart from Bowser Party everything can be played with Wii-Motes. This is good, because you don't have to buy any new peripherals, but at least during the 3vs1 games the gamepad could have been used. Also the minigames happen to rarely. You only trigger a game when finding a hidden one on a regular space or stepping on a minigame space. This can take several turns and we even managed one time to go five turns without a minigame. But when you finally play a minigame you'll forget all of your complaints, which should show how great the are in this entry.

Mario Party 10 puts more emphasis on the board aspect of the game, which simplifies everything without giving any advantage in return.

So the classic Mario Party mode hasn't changed in the slightest from Mario Party 9, but at least we have two brand new modes to look forward too.

Bowser Party was the most heavily advertised mode leading up to the games launch and with it we finally have another game which takes advantage of the great possibilities of the Wii-U gamepad. Asynchronous multiplayer is perfect fit for Party games. In this mode one player takes control over the gamepad and Bowser, while the others try to escape him. The goal of the players is it to reach the end of the selected board, while Bowser tries to deplete all of their hearts, which replace the ministars in this mode. After Bowser breaks out of his cage, he'll try to catch up to the other players through rolling multiple dice. If he manages to catch them a random Bowser minigame starts. During these the Bowser player will use the gamepad trying to deplete the hearts of his enemies. The minigames are a lot of fun, but there's only 10 of them, so after two to three Bowser parties you've seen them all. However they're greatly designed and take good advantage of the gamepad.

This mode surely is the strongest aspect of Mario Party 10, but it still feels a little bit uninspired. Only 10 minigames for Bowser and the fact that 9 out of 10 times Bowser won in our plays, dampen the longevity of this mode.

And last, but not least, we have Amiibo Party. This mode can be unlocked through your Super Mario Amiibos, which basically makes it on-disc DLC. As someone who isn't made out of money and chose to get the Samus and Shiek Amiibo this bothers me, but I can't deny that this mode makes a lot of fun, which makes the aspect that it is locked behind a paywall of 15 bucks even worse.

Putting one of the nine supported Amiibos on the gamepad unlocks this characters board for Amiibo party. These boards are much smaller than the regular ones and have a stronger board game atmosphere. Instead of animated ones, you'll move figurine versions of your chosen character around. The gameplay however is classic Mario Party. Collect coins. Buy Power Star for 20 coins. Make your fellow players swear at you. It is a lot of fun, but with the small boards and having to pay at least 135 bucks for all nine boards, this mode also doesn't offer much longevity. Oh and good luck with finding a Rosalina Amiibo for under 30 bucks.

Apart from this three main modes, you'll also have smaller ones.

Minigame tournament: A tournament by rounds where eight characters participate. Each round is a minigame, and characters who remain 1^st and 2^nd in the minigames make it to the next round.

Bowser Challenge: The player, as Bowser, has to play all the 10 Bowser minigames, trying to take the highest quantity of hearts. After ending the minigames Bowser Jr. qualifies Bowser.

Toads Room: Toads Room is an extra mode, featuring a shop, a photo booth and a challenge mode.

Also once again a Nintendo Game doesn't offer online multyplayer. While Mario Party is best together with friends on one couch, it would have been a nice way for people, whose friends live far away, to enjoy Mario Party. It is, however, no reason to downrate the game, but it would have been a nice extra.

Presentation:

Presentation wise the game does everything right. Mario Party in HD looks great. Once again it shows that the colorful Mario style and HD belong together. The game may not reach Captain Toad or Mario Kart 8 levels of graphics, but it looks absolutely beautiful in motion. Once again Nintendo doesn't offer Anti-aliasing, but we get a rock solid framerate and vibrant graphics.

The Boards are really well designed and offer a great deal of variation, even within themselves. Haunted Trail starts in a graveyard area, before passing through spooky woods and finally the well known purple swamp. Whimsical Waters lets you dive deeper into the sea from a bright an colorful coral reef into the deep sea. And Airship central has taken inspiration from Cloudtop Cruise, because you also enter into a raging stormcloud after leaving the airships. It's a shame that there are only five boards to play on, because apart from the minigames the design of the boards is Mario Party 10s strongest aspect.

The Characters are all smoothly animated, but I have to single out Bowser here. Playing him in Bowser Party is a blast. He storms through the boards like freaking Godzilla wreaking havoc in his path and only leaving destruction behind.

The music is typical for the series happy and light hearted. It fulfills it's job, but won't get you to buy the soundtrack CD. (which doesn't exist by the way)

The Presentation in general is a strong point of Mario Party 10. Everything looks great, vibrant and alive.

Bonusround:

Spoiler Warning:

There are quite a few things to unlock in Mario Party 10. First there are two ''secret'' characters, which you can buy in Toads Room for Mario Party points. These characters are Toadette and Spike and I don't blame you if you don't know who Spike is. But these two are not all Toad has to offer. Players can also buy master difficulty for the COM, vehicles for the boards, music, and models of characters and backgrounds to use them in the Photo Booth. There is also a challenge list on which players can check different challenges, which they can complete. These challenges range from minigame specific, like scoring over 50 points during pipe sniper, to rolling four times the same number with Bowser during Bowser party. Finishing all 49 challenges isn't an easy task (some of them require up to five players), and you'll get nothing for managing this feat, except for some bragging rights.

Conclusion:

Mario Party 10 continues the path Nd Cube chose with Mario Party 9. This streamlines the experience, but in process costs more than it adds. The Parties feel rushed and not as engaging as in previous entries. The mayhem people enjoyed is gone. The boards are brilliantly designed, but the one Path to the finish aspect, cripples their potential. Minigames are great. Probably the best since Mario Party 5. They are a lot of fun. Sadly they aren't as important as in earlier entries.

Bowser Party and Amiibo Party are two interesting additions, but don't offer any longevity. Bowser Party is hindered through an overpowered Bowser and a lack of Bowser minigames and Amiibo Party is on disc DLC, locked behind a paywall of 15 bucks. Nonetheless we had a lot of fun with this game. The earlier entries are better, but in this one you can play Rosalina.

All of this may sound pretty negative, but the game is far from bad. It simply could have been a lot better. All in all Mario Party 10 is as mediocre as it gets. And at least Nintendo doesn't demand full price for it.

- Vehicle gamplay oversimplifies Mario Party mode
- Only five boards
- On disc DLC
- Lacking ambition


+ Great minigames
+ Wonderfully designed boards with lots of variety

+ Looks great

5/10

Source of all Pictures: Nintendo