A Brief Soiree

Well, I played a Mario Party game for the first time recently.

It definitely had the same feel as a Smash Brothers game in that anything could happen. DK was the PC character in a 3/1 game, and he definitely seemed to be cheating in some way or other.

Anyway, though there were moments as madcap as any round of Smash Brothers (among them DK, already way ahead in coin count, getting another coin for placing fourth in a minigame where before that honour had been mine as the true third placer), it was a much more organized mini game experience.

Also, finally having played one of the many Mario Party games, I can see why the franchise has been successful throughout all of its iterations. The game has all of the strange humourousness of a modern Mario title, combined with a set of easy to learn, difficult to master mini games.

Plus framing the game experience with a bunch of game boards lends itself well to propagating sequels, as more and more boards can be introduced. I haven't kept up with the franchise, but it would not surprise me if Mario Party 9 has some sort of character customization/levelling system in place, maybe to help shake things up in the minigames requiring movement, or in dice rolls or some other lately added aspect of the games.

All in all, it's pretty ingenious, and makes for a grandly fun multiplayer experience. But, I don't think it'd be that great as a single-player endeavour, something that I don't expect myself to get into any time soon.