It's been a long time since I've put my thoughts to words, but here we are again. A surprise game, Mario Party 10. This won't be a formal review, as it won't really have a traditional review structure of mine, but it will hopefully give an impression of what I think of the game.
Mario Party 10 has 3 main modes. Bowser Party, the big draw of the game I suppose; 'traditional' Mario Party in the sense that this is the Mario Party Nintendo's adopted since the last one; and amiibo Party, the third main mode that requires you to unlock it each and every time you play, despite having already played it before.
Bowser Party is a bit unfair towards the Bowser Player I think, and while you can re-roll with a chance to get better rolls to catch players, forcing them into Bowser mini-games, it's still not an ideal situation. Against the AI, it's not unexpected for the AI to roll 20 total across 4 players multiple times in a row. Not only that, expect the AI to cheat to magically get knocked-out players back in before a single turn ends. It's frustrating to work so hard in too fast mini-games to KO a player only to have them re-appear no problem a single roll later. And yeah, the Bowser Mini-games are about 10-seconds long, while a couple don't even seem to work properly. It's like 'why bother?'
Mario Party is something that I first enjoyed immensely, but over multiple runs I found myself less satisfied with. I hated that I never had full control of what I was doing, movement wise. I know it's a race-to-the-finish sorta thing now, and it was designed to be faster, but it feels too much like Wii Party/Wii Party U, which I want to say I prefer. At least there you knew what you were up against and it didn't try to fool you into thinking you were in a better position than you actually were. Also, getting rid of Coins for Mini-Game Stars is just the dumbest thing, especially when once all 4 players take a turn, a mini-game doesn't automatically happen. You have to now land on a mini-game space to take part in one. I know this is how Mario Party 9 did this, but it's still not good because now instead of mini-games being the best part of the series, they now feel like chores. I can see why Nintendo changed the formula after Mario Party 8 sucking so bad, but it's not something that needed changing, only refined out of the melting sludge it had become.
Amiibo Party is supposed to be a callback to the original Mario Party formula but it's A LOT more convoluted. You need a Gamepad, 4 Wii Remotes and 4 Amiibo to play. That doesn't sound so bad you say? Well, Wii Remotes are only used for Mini-Games and pointing, while players move around the board by touching their amiibo to the Gamepad. This is also how you pickup and use tokens that are attached to your amiibo. See how complicated that sounds? In Mario Party 8 (and I imagine 9 as well) it's 'here's a Wii Remote, go!' I feel like Nintendo had to make amiibo more of an integral design choice here to justify them making them as opposed to how they work in Smash Bros., but ultimately those were a better solution than what is here. Players are essentially chained to the Gamepad for this mode, and it's tiring. I do like that you can have multiple board pieces make up a board the more you play, as well as being able to change it during the middle of a game, but that still requires constant use.
Another thing I find annoying about this Mario Party is the distinct lack of options. You can't make a board longer. You can't make mini-games longer. You can't even make Amiibo Party games longer. When I imagine Mario Party, I imagine 4-6 friends gathered around a TV with controllers, food and beverages having a night of playtime. With Mario Party 10, I feel like Nintendo has gotten away from that 'players will play endless nights' with a game, but I feel like that's more of a condition of how Nintendo's made games for the past decade than anything.
I don't despise this game or anything. I just feel like the people making it are missing out on why people loved Mario Party to begin with. The lack of online play doesn't help matters any, either.
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