Decided to give Mario Party a random play recently, I think it does a fine job of establishing a series of Party games.

Mario and friends walking across a board is almost natural, just like in Super Mario Bros. 3

The Mini-games are fairly fun, it’s obvious Hudson are still finding their groove. Along with the good are some absolute stinkers, any game requiring rotating joysticks is an absolute pain - I was one of this kids who gave themselves stigmata spinning the joystick with the palm of my hands.

I played with a few friends who had no clue, I thought some mini-games weren’t really well explained to players new to the game. Later versions have a practice mode which is absolutely fine.

The stages have alright gimmicks but they’re sorta frustrating, it makes collecting stars rewarding when it occurs. But yeah, it can be disheartening seeing your hard earned coins disappear because someone hit a ? Space rotating Toad to Bowser, then taking a turn and immediately losing 30 coins in one hit.

I should probably say it has a killer soundtrack and I adore the CG title screen artworks.