Top Ten Mario Party Games of the 2000s

The Top Ten
1 Mario Party 6

THIS is how you make classic Mario Party amazing! Mario Party 6 and 7 are the gold standard for Classic Mario Party as it has about everything that would make for an amazing board game with amazing gimmicks and unique traits. Up until 6, Mario Party was just like any other generic board game with the only unique substance being minigames. Like, there's barely anything to brag about between 1-5, but 6 throws boredom out of the window and welcomed unique board rules and gimmicks. To start off, there is the day/night cycle on boards, which means that every third round, it becomes day or night, which opens up new pathways and changes up some gimmicks. This is excellent because it makes it more strategic than the rest of the series. Moreover, there are six boards, all unique from one another. Two of them use the classic star hunting mechanic, whereas two others are modified star hunts, and two other boards use completely new rules, like the star stealing mechanic. I love this! Overall, ...more

2 Mario Party 3

This Mario Party game was innovative in so many ways. Being the last Mario Party on the N64, and the third game in the series, the developers really started to understand at this point what features were good and which were bad. It introduced so many new things that are staples to this franchise to this day. For example, it's the first game with more than just six characters, as it introduced Daisy and our boy Waluigi. On top of that, we can hold more than one item now, which was much needed. The most notable new features though has got to be the addition of save files, and a legitimate story mode with a final boss. This..., is what we needed for Mario Party to become the great series it is and I'm surprised it took until the third game to get that going. The boards are also more interesting in this game than in the first two. In comparison, their boards had mostly random concepts that didn't feel Mario-esque at all. In Party 3, every board is based on a specific Mario theme, like ...more

3 Mario Party 7

Overall, Mario Party 7 is quite amazing, although in many ways it's a watered down version of Mario Party 6, in that while it continues on the path of being innovative, the gimmicks aren't as good in this game as in 6, and the ones that are ported over aren't as greatly executed. Not to mention day/night was replaced by the dreaded Bowser Time, which meant every 5th turn, Bowser would come and ruin everything. Putting the flaws aside, it's still an amazing game! The game's theme is around the world, seeing as each board is based on a real world location. For example, Padoga Peak = China, Pyramid Park = Egypt, Windmillville = Netherlands, etc. A lot of the board gimmicks from 6 is brought over as well, such as star stealing, but new to the game is investing money in windmills to get stars (something that was brought over to 8 and further improved). On top of that, there's 8 player mode, which is cool for a few seconds. Overall, 7 is one of the better classic entries.

8/10

4 Mario Party 2

Mario Party 2 is pretty good. Definitely overrated to the extreme, as it's nowhere near the best in the series, heck it didn't even make it into my top five. But it's still pretty good. It took the terrible first game, and improved on it. Two less boards, but at least all of them are at least decent, albeit with no huge stand-outs. I especially enjoyed Mystery and Horror Land for their unique and interesting presentations. Unfortunately, the half of all the minigames are ripped off from the first game, and worse yet, the minigames are some of my least favourite in the series. Iconic =/= good. Most of them are too simplistic or have horrific controlling. The side-content is pretty lacking as well, only having two small minigame modes. But overall, I think the game's good.

7/10

5 Mario Party 8

This was my first classic Mario Party game, having gotten it roughly around the same time as 9, so if you call me a biased Car fanboy who only grew up with 9, know that you're dead wrong. Anyways, Mario Party 8 was clearly the game when the Mario Party series was starting to run out of ideas, evidently by the boards being weaker versions of stuff we've already seen before, and the overexposure of motion controls. However, the good stuff was freakin' amazing here. The minigames are my favourite in the entire series, the good boards are really fun, and the music is so too. The roster is the best the series has seen, only beaten by Super. Other than that, there's not much to say about the game though, other than I have huge nostalgia for it.

7/10

6 Mario Party DS

The only Mario Party game with the classic formula on a handheld and for this reason this game gets a lot of love, and it happens to be the childhood favourite of many people. I got it a lot later ironically, in my early teens just last year, and my opinion on it has been pretty consistent in that I like the game, but not too much. The game itself is focused on one theme: big house, and this is obvious when you look at the boards and minigames. But while the boards are pretty interesting and of good size, the minigames are where it gets underwhelming. While there are a crazy lot of them, most of them are seriously just stuff we've seen before but with BIG HOUSE plastered onto it, or it's too simple. Chips and Dips is Deck Hands from 7, Pedal Pushers is Slot Car Derby from 1/2, All Geared Up is Gun the Runner from 8 but without the gun, and Hot Skotch is Lob to Rob from 8 (as well), Soap Surfers is Bumper Balls from 1/2, etc. The big house theme just gets old after a while in my ...more

7 Mario Party 5

I remember only buying this game for a single minigame's sake, and boy was it a freakin' regret. To make matters worse, THAT is the one minigame I still haven't unlocked yet. It was the first Mario Party game to have 3D boards, and while that is an accomplishment that should've been reached with the first game, it's not celebrated well as the boards are absolutely crap. They all feel uninspired and empty without any atmosphere, and they all have the same rules, same atmosphere, same everything. Everything is made out of dreams in this game, but I dare to say it's more of a nightmare how lazily bland everything feels. And don't even get me started on the horrific minigames. There are some decent ones, like Defuse or Lose, Frozen Frenzy, Hotel Goomba and Frightmare!, but they're a minority. Pretty much half of the minigames are all button-mashing, the single-handedly worst type of minigame since rotating your control stick. Overall..., yeah.

5/10

This mario party is good

8 Mario Party 4

After the huge step Mario Party 3 took, Mario Party 4 took two huge steps back. I honestly don't understand what people see in this game. The only legitimate good part of this game was the minigames, which were some of the greatest in the entire series, such as Booksquirm, Paths of Peril and Dungeon Duos. These are why the game isn't dead last. Everything else was such an embarrassment. Despite being on a more powerful console than the N64 games, the developers seemed to try much less when it came to board design, because all you do is walk on a metallic plate soaring in the sky above some picture. It removes nearly all atmosphere and it makes the game feel bland. Oh but I'm just getting started. Next we get to the item system, which is worse than anything else in the game, and potentially the series. After the innovation of Mario Party 3's item system, now all we got is Mega and Mini Mushroom. The former lets you steal coins from those you pass but you can't get the star, and the ...more

9 Mario Party Advance

This game is pretty meh. As far as "real" Mario Party games go, this is by far the most obscure. It introduced the car long before and Cube revamped it in 9, and honestly, I'm not too keen on this one. The fact that Mario Party Advance has nothing to offer in the multiplayer department is pretty disappointing, and the fetch quest that is the main mode, called Shroom City is pretty forgettable. Not terrible, but nothing I'd ever wanna go back to.

4/10

10 Mario Party-e

More like Mario Party EA. You need to pay for cards just to play a few bad minigames. No thank you..., definitely the weakest of all time.

1/10

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