Mario Party

This is a gaming article by Kitsune. Thanks for supporting me.

Mario Party One is the first game in the Mario Party series. Each course is set out as a board game with interesting scenery. Each player rolls the dice and moves as many paces as they rolled just like in a normal board game but at the end of every turn, one everyone has rolled, all the players have to battle each other in a mini-game.

Mario Party One is the only game in the series that is good to play by yourself as it has a one-player adventure game called Mini-game Island. It was also more interesting at the time because it was the first one in the series. The other games only had mini-games and were only really fun when battling your friends or other real people.

Game-play

The goal of the game is to collect more stars than any other player. Stars will appear at random spots on the board and the players will have to find their way to the star. The player with the most stars at the end of the game will win.

Along the way the players have to collect coins by winning mini-games. They then use these coins to buy a star off toad when they reach the star spot on the board. At the end of the game three bonus stars are given out. One is for the player who landed on the most happening spaces, one is for the player who collected the most coins and the other is for the player who won the most mini-games.

Characters

The very first playable characters were Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Wario and Donkey Kong and these characters were used until Mario Party 3 came out and added Daisy and Waluigi.

The other main characters were Toad and Bowser but neither of them were playable.

4 Player Mini-games

The four player mini-games occurred when all characters ended up on the same coloured spot on the board. In Four player mini-games the characters would either have to vs. each other in a free for all mini-game or have to work together in a team game.

The four- Player mini-games in alphabetical order are:

Balloon Burst – Free for All – Players had to alternate between two buttons to pump the balloon and pop it before anyone else.

Bombs Away – Free for All – Players had to dodge bombs whilst stuck on a small island.

Box Mountain Mayhem – Free for All – Players have to grab boxes and smash them open, collecting the contents before everyone else.

Bumper Balls – Free for All – Players had do knock each other off the island and into the sea whilst on balls.

Buried Treasure – Free for All – Players had to dig to find treasure before anyone else did.

Cast A way’s – Free for All

Coin Block Blitz – Free for All – Players had to knock the contents out of mystery boxes and collect it before anyone else.

Crazy Cutter – Free for All – Players had to cut out the shape of a monster from the game, such as boo, bob-omb or goomba.

Face Lift – Free for All – A face would be distorted automatically. The players would then have to stretch a copy of that face and try to make it look the same.

Grab Bag – Free for All – Players would get their coins strapped to a bag on their backs and would then have to try to steal from the others, trying to stop the others stealing from them at the same time.

Hot Bob-omb – Free for All – Players would have to throw a bob-omb to some one else before it exploded. The last one standing won.

Hot Rope Jump – Team – Players would have to work together to jump a flaming rope. If one person failed everyone failed.

Key-Pa-Way – Team – I THINK players had to work together to get the key to the other side of the room without being attacked by something or rather…

Mario Band Stand – Free for All – Players had to play their instrument when they were instructed. The player who made the least amount of mistakes won.

Musical Mushroom – Free for All – Music would play and the characters would go round and round the mushroom. When the music stopped players would have to race to the centre of the mushroom.

Platform Peril – Free for All – Players had to jump from platform to platform and race to the finish line. As they ran the platforms fell.

Running of the Bulb – Team – Players had to race a light bulb to the end of the course and plug it in to get rid of the boos, avoiding the boos along the way.

Shy Guy Says – Free for All – Shy guy holds up flags. The players have to press a button according to the colour of the flag. If they press the wrong button shy guy cuts the rope attaching their ship to the dock and sends them out to sea.

Slot Car Derby – Free for All – Players races in cars. If they went to fast they would get a burn out and have to stop for a few seconds. The first player to do 3 laps I think it is wins.

Treasure Divers – Free for all – Players dive for treasures then swim to the surface with the treasure. This is a freebie game where players collect coins.

I think I left out a lot but there was too many to remember. It has been a while since I have played the game, too.

Team mini-games

Team mini-games occur when two players are on one colour and 2 players are on the other colour. Obviously they are when the players are on two separate teams. They must work together with their teammate to win.

Here is a list of the Team games:

Bobsled Run – Players work in teams riding on bobsleds. It is a race.

Bombsket Ball – Similar to basket ball but played with a bomb. Very simple.

Deep Sea Divers – One player dives for treasure then the other reels them back up to the surface. If they leave them down for too long the player will run out of air and drop the treasure.

I think there is also a game called Desert Dash but I can’t remember the rules.

One vs. Three mini-games

1 VS 3 mini-games occur when everyone is on the same colour except for one person. The person on a different colour will either get weaker than the other players or get an advantage over them.

The One vs. Three games are:

Bash “n” Cash – Player wears a bowser suit and walks around slowly while the others beat them with hammers and get their coins.

Bowl Over – Player gets a bowling ball and is gets to bowl over the other players who are in the form of pins.

Coin Block Bash – Player gets a hammer and can smash open boxes in one hit, others have to head smash them until they crack open to get the contents.

Coin Shower Flower – Player has to stay on a flower in the middle of a lake collecting the coins that drop on it. Any coins they miss will go into the lake for the others, who are in boats, to collect.

Pipe Maze – Player has to guess which pipe will lead the treasure chest to them.

Piranha’s Pursuit – Player has to run from a Piranha Plant while the others ground pound a rain cloud that is about it to make it bigger and faster.

Tug “o” war – Player gets to wear a bowser suit and becomes stronger than the others. The others stay the same and have to try to pull the player in the bowser suit towards them while the player in the bowser suit does the same.

One Player Mini-games

One Player games occur when a player lands on a game spot on the board. The games are played by that person only.

The 1-player games are:

Ghost Guess – The player has to guess which boo is different from the others before they attack him/her.

Limbo Dance – Player has to limbo underneath poles to reach the finish. If they get too low they will fail.

Memory Match – Player has to ground pound tiles. When tiles flip they will picture something. The player must match all tiles except for the bowser tile before the time runs out.

Pedal Power – Player has to rotate control stick in order to pedal and light up the room before big boo attacks.

Teetering Towers – Player has to stand on a certain spot on a tile to make it fall towards the next tile. They need to do this until they reach the end of the course. If they miss the next tile they will fall and fail.

Wack-a-Plant – Players have to jump on the heads of Piranha Plants to collect coins. This is a bonus game.

There is also a game called Chance Time in which the player has to hit blocks. One block picks the first character the next block decides whether they will get or lose coins and the last block chooses the player who the first player will get or give coins from/to. This does not occur by landing on the game spot, it occurs when a player lands on the chance spot.

Extra Features

When players play in adventure mode they will get to keep the coins and stars they collected during the game and spend them at the store. The store will add items like chance blocks, doubles rolls, triple rolls and other things to the game if you pay coins for them. The items will then be stored in the bank so you can turn them on and off.

There is also a Mini-Game house where you can buy mini-games you have played so far and play them whenever you want. The option house is also a lot more exciting as it has a juke box where you can play official Mario music or music from the Mario Party game and a parrot that says random catch phrases from the characters like “Mama Mia!” etc.

More effort was put into this game than on the second game of the Mario Party series. Although in the second game the graphics were improved a lot.