Season 2: Review #19: “Mario Party 10”

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING YOU’RE ABOUT TO SEE MAY– Oh, forget it! I’m gonna go ahead and get another job! That’s much better than warning the audience/readers about spoilers!

-We Now Join Our Regularly Scheduled Review Already in Progress-

*Phew* Finally, after a long hiatus (Okay not entirely that long), WE’RE BACK TO REVIEW MAKING ON “THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN”!!!

AUDIENCE: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for the hiatus, I’ve been working on a fan-fiction of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” and been focusing on school finals and other crap, but, it’s good to be back after weeks! Well, school’s out for the summer, good for us! That means we can spend time doing more posts/reviews. How about a game that I enjoyed and would be perfect to play over the summer? Well, you’ve come to the right place; today, we’re going to talk about the latest installment of what we humans used to call, “Mario Party”.

It all started back in 1998, when Nintendo first released the first game of one of one the spin-offs of one of the most popular video game series of all time, “Mario”/”Super Mario Bros.” It was titled “Mario Party” and was released for the Nintendo 64, before being released in America in early 1999. Because it has become a major hit, Nintendo also made more sequels to the game, the last two were for the Nintendo 64 as well, while 4 to 7 were for the Nintendo Gamecube, 8 to 9 being for the Nintendo Wii, etc… The latest installment was released nearly three months ago and was the first “Mario Party” installment for the latest Nintendo home console, the “Wii U”. It was titled “Mario Party 10”, first released in Japan on March 12, 2015, before being released in the US a week later on March 20, 2015. Please note that this game was one of my birthday presents of this year, but I digress, let’s see how much better this game is than the previous main game. Let’s waste no time whatsoever, let’s take a look at “Mario Party 10.”

The story of the game is that–

SCRIPT PERSON: Detective.

THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: What?

SCRIPT PERSON: *Whispering*

THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: What? Are you saying that this game has no plot, unlike the other “Mario Party” games?

SCRIPT PERSON: Yes.

THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: Oh, well. I guess the writers were too lazy or rushed through production to get an actual story. That’s a first.

Anyways, the game features a ton of new things. That includes Bowser, the main antagonist of the “Mario” franchise, being a playable character in a new feature called “Bowser Party”. The way it’s set up is that you play as Bowser by using the Wii U gamepad, while the other playable characters either are COM’s or (if you have other players playing) are using the Wii remote(s). The four players’ goal is that they have get to the goal and be the superstar, before the player playing as Bowser catches up to them and eliminates their hearts. If the players make it to the goal before Bowser catches up to them, they win the game. However, if Bowser gets rid of the players, Bowser wins the game.

Every time Bowser catches up to the other players, they do a mini-game to see how many hearts from the other players can be destroyed by you-know-who. Since this is a new feature, that means we get a lot of boards, right? WRONG, there are only three boards, in fact, it’s just a short feature, sadly. Honestly, I would’ve PREFERRED “Bowser Party” having more than three boards and it would’ve been interesting. Don’t worry, every peoples, we still get our normal “Mario Party” that we see in every “Mario Party” game.

The “Mario Party” in this game consists of five boards. Here’s a list of what they’re called:

1.) Mushroom Park: An amusement park with various rides/attractions of all the various characters

2.) Haunted Trail: A haunted boards with creepy ghouls and goblins, like Boos, and features all sorts of spooky surprises

3.) Whimsical Waters: A board that takes place under water

4.) Airship Central: A board high-in-the-sky with an armada of Bowser’s fleet of flying ships

5.) Chaos Castle: The last board that takes place in Bowser’s castle

The boards in this game are pretty cool and fun and my favorite in this game is probably Mushroom Park and Chaos Castle because the atmosphere in those boards are cool to see and fun to do. Just like “Mario Party 9”, the boards have a mini-boss and a main boss. The bosses are a lot of fun to do, and King Boo and Bowser/Dry Bowser’s bosses are probably my favorites. Most likely due to the gameplay and how it’s set up. Overall, the boards are okay and they could’ve been better. Now, moving on to the characters.

We get our usual main characters as the playable characters, but two characters return as playable characters, while one is a newcomer. The two returnees are Donkey Kong and Toadette, while the newcomer is Spike (not the dragon from “MLP: FIM”). Having Donkey Kong and Toadette return is a nice idea, since we haven’t seen them as playable characters in a long time, and Spike, not too sure about him, he’s just another minion of Bowser. Is it just me or is Nintendo starting to run out of ideas for playable characters in the “Mario Party” franchise? Never mind, let’s just continue on with the game. The mini-games are fun to play and they were really good. Well, I can honestly say that my favorite’s probably the one mini-game, where you have to figure out which Shy Guy is carrying the plate with the most donuts.

It’s like a game of shells or shuffling cards, except that it’s about who can collect the most donuts, which would be awesome in real life, since donuts are delicious. Overall, the mini-games are not bad and are still fun to play. Oh, I forgot to mention this earlier: just like “Mario Party 9”, we have to collect the most mini-stars in order to win AKA become the superstar. I would’ve preferred the old gameplay, back when we had to choose how many turns we want and collect the most coins and stars, until the very end and figure out who the winner/superstar is. But (again) I digress, we also get “Free Play” for replaying the mini-games and bosses all over again, and other games that we don’t need to mention.

However, there’s this new feature called “amiibo Party”, where you have to place you amiibo figures that you’ve collected from your various Nintendo games with amiibo figures. Please note that I didn’t play amiibo party, mainly because I never bothered to get any amiibo figure, since I probably don’t need them right now or anyway, so no thoughts on it whatsoever. Now that we pretty much covered (almost) all of what this game has in store for us, it’s time to hear my final thoughts on it.

Overall, I’d say this game is a mixture of fun and a hit or miss. The playable characters were good and the newcomer and returnees were not that exciting, sadly, the boards were a lot of fun along with the mini-games, the graphics were good, and Bowser Party was a nice addition to add, but it would’ve been better if they added more boards. All I gotta say Nintendo is that I really miss the old gameplay, but I understand you want make “Mario Party” more fun to play, but it’s something we’re gonna have to get used to. All in all, I give this game a 6.5/10. I’m The Detective Librarian and yep, it’s good to be back! See you all for my 60th review, folks! Stay tuned and look forward to that!

-THE END-