Mario Party first released in 1998 for the Nintendo 64. It is the longest standing mini-game series and has been on the home console platform as well as the handheld platform. In the beginning the series had Party Mode: In which up to four players go around about collecting as many stars as possible. After each players turn a mini game is held, the winner gets the most coins. Each new edition to the game, added new mechanics, new, and new mini games. In Mario Party 9 instead of traveling around the board individually they players travel together in a cart. Now in Mario Party 10 the cart is back, but now so is Bowser mode.
Now up to five players can play. Four people on Wii motes and one on the gamepad. In Bowser mode, a player on the gamepad attempts to take out the players before the reach the end of the map. Each players gets a chance to roll the dice and then it’s Bowser’s turn, he gets four dice and two tries to catch up to the players. If he does, than a mini game goes off, where Bowser tried to damage the players until their hearts are gone. If he miss rolls than the players have a chance to get even father away. Each time Bowser misses though, Bowser Jr, comes and tries to give his father and edge up on his opponents.
There’s also an amiibo, a mode where after you tap your amiibo figure on the gamepad, you get to play a board in similar gameplay to the original Mario Party games, in which you go around collecting stars again.
With the added Bowser mode, the game is a huge improvement from Mario Party 9, which is considered a huge flop compared to the others in the series, but the game still lacks the content to make this game worth while. The game online has three maps and there’s not as many mini-games as one would hope for the 8th gen console game.
Overall the game just doesn’t live up to it’s name. It had to potential to be something great, but fell short for gimmicky reasons. While it can probably fun at parties, it’s not something that is the headliner at a party. I would give Mario Party 10 a 7/10.
