Played for the Tarvould's Quest Mario Party League, viewable here.
DIY Mario Party, basically. Hudson went all-in on the Capsule system, and the consequence is that the boards themselves end up feeling pretty dry. Few central gimmicks, little personality inherent to the boards, no major NPCs, nothing like that. Heck, even the unifying theming is pretty lackluster, with everything just being a generic "dream" of a given thing, not a dream ascribed to anyone in particular. The Star Spirits are really cool to see here, one of the few times Mario RPG characters were allowed to exist outside the RPG subseries, but Eldstar can only do so much to elevate the experience.
But the boards themselves are so bland to facilitate the Capsule system - a complete overhaul of the traditional Item system that lets players remodel board experience on the fly. It's certainly an intriguing idea, but it's definitely a rough first draft here. Not all of these should be functions accessible to the player at any given time (goodness sakes, making a Chance Time Item just lends itself to certain abuses), and not all of these are compelling outside of the fact that the player can throw them wherever (you probably should never use Hammer Bro Capsule on yourself). Also, the fact that the player has no agency in which Capsules they receive... kinda sucks?
Also booooooo this is the game that removed playable DK as well as Boo as a board function. I guess having a nice equivalent to Bowser is interesting, but it's a big bummer that it comes at the cost of one of the main series regulars!
I honestly have to say that the writing is pretty noticeably devoid of personality, too. Usually I don't think a ton about Mario Party's writing, but a lot of it reads like placeholder dialogue, so generic and unremarkable a lot of it is. There's even a bit where the narration for DK quickly switches tense to the first person! Has to be stock.
Having said all this - because Mario Party 5 places so much of its design into the players' hands, games become as interesting as the people playing the game. This is true of Mario Party in general; if there's one thing I've learned from Mario Party League, it's that Mario Party is at its most engaging once politics filter into the standard gameplay loop. But this is at its most apparent when it comes to Mario Party 5. This is probably why 5's singleplayer experience is as lopsided, as my friends have observed (me, I've never played this with fewer than two other players) - hard to create compelling politics and intrigue with CPU opponents. But when you have a full crew, and ESPECIALLY when you have the Miracle Capsules in play? Now you're on to something.
DIY Mario Party, basically. Hudson went all-in on the Capsule system, and the consequence is that the boards themselves end up feeling pretty dry. Few central gimmicks, little personality inherent to the boards, no major NPCs, nothing like that. Heck, even the unifying theming is pretty lackluster, with everything just being a generic "dream" of a given thing, not a dream ascribed to anyone in particular. The Star Spirits are really cool to see here, one of the few times Mario RPG characters were allowed to exist outside the RPG subseries, but Eldstar can only do so much to elevate the experience.
But the boards themselves are so bland to facilitate the Capsule system - a complete overhaul of the traditional Item system that lets players remodel board experience on the fly. It's certainly an intriguing idea, but it's definitely a rough first draft here. Not all of these should be functions accessible to the player at any given time (goodness sakes, making a Chance Time Item just lends itself to certain abuses), and not all of these are compelling outside of the fact that the player can throw them wherever (you probably should never use Hammer Bro Capsule on yourself). Also, the fact that the player has no agency in which Capsules they receive... kinda sucks?
Also booooooo this is the game that removed playable DK as well as Boo as a board function. I guess having a nice equivalent to Bowser is interesting, but it's a big bummer that it comes at the cost of one of the main series regulars!
I honestly have to say that the writing is pretty noticeably devoid of personality, too. Usually I don't think a ton about Mario Party's writing, but a lot of it reads like placeholder dialogue, so generic and unremarkable a lot of it is. There's even a bit where the narration for DK quickly switches tense to the first person! Has to be stock.
Having said all this - because Mario Party 5 places so much of its design into the players' hands, games become as interesting as the people playing the game. This is true of Mario Party in general; if there's one thing I've learned from Mario Party League, it's that Mario Party is at its most engaging once politics filter into the standard gameplay loop. But this is at its most apparent when it comes to Mario Party 5. This is probably why 5's singleplayer experience is as lopsided, as my friends have observed (me, I've never played this with fewer than two other players) - hard to create compelling politics and intrigue with CPU opponents. But when you have a full crew, and ESPECIALLY when you have the Miracle Capsules in play? Now you're on to something.