Mario Party comes to the Wii U with the 10th title in the series. With 3 modes and more than 70 mini games, you can expect the party to keep going for a while.If you are unfamiliar with Mario Party, this is not a single player game but one to play with friends, like you would any card or board game. We were lucky enough to try the game in advance during a special event at the Cosmodome.
The Mario Party 10 game modes. Photo © Catherine Smith-Desbiens / Girls on Games
Here’s the quick lowdown on the game’s 3 modes:
Classic
– What we’ve come to know and love from Mario Party.
Bowser Party – a competitive mode where up to four player take on one.
– Up to 5 player (4vs1).
– Players collect and lose hearts.
– Players must get to the end of the board to find the star to win the game while whomever is playing Bowser wins by defeating all the players (stealing all their hearts) before they reach their goal.
– Outrun Bowser. If he catches up to you, you must play a mini-game where Bowser tries to steal your hearts.
Amiibo Party – up to 4 players go head to head on a board.
– Themed board game: tap an amiibo to use that character’s theme for the board. Each theme come with different challenges.
– Each round starts with the players going head to head in a mini-game. Then, each player takes their turn rolling the dice and going against the board.
– Collect coins to buy stars. Use power ups to gain advantage.
– Tap the amiibos for each action on the board (die roll, using power ups, collecting items) and use the wiimotes for minigames.
– Can collect coin to change a part of the board to another character’s as demonstrated in these videos:
– Only the figurines of the characters available in the game are compatible. Check out the Nintendo site for the full list.
Bowser, Yoshi, Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, Luigi and Mario are some of the amiibo figures compatible with Mario Party 10. Photo © Catherine Smith-Desbiens / Girls on Games
Amiibo figures game compatibility list along side the Bowser, Yoshi, Princess Peach, Luigi, Donkey Kong and Mario figures. Photo © Catherine Smith-Desbiens / Girls on Games
First impressions
Mario Party 10 is basically a digital interactive board game. The mini games are actually quite challenging, especially the Bowser Party ones; he’s hard to beat. The sheer variety of mini-games guarantees a great replay value. The Amiibo Party mode does require as many compatible figurines that there are players. Most Nintendo fans will have them on hand already but at $15 a pop and some being damn near impossible to find, this may be a deal breaker for some. Although, just the classic and bowser mode alone will keep you busy for a great number of hours.