Top Ten Things that Make Mario Party 6 Better Than Mario Party 7
Mario Party 6 and 7 are by far the greatest Mario Party games of the classic era (1-8+DS). This was when the franchise was at its peak, coming up with insane and unique concepts. Of the two however, I must say 6 is the overall better game, and that's by a long shot. Why do I think so? Let's find out. With that being said here is the list.
This is what decided for me that 6 is a better game than 7, which is the main universal gimmick that appears on all boards. Basically, in Mario Party 6, it would go from day to night every third turn, and that would change up the gameplay slightly, such as opening up new pathways, changing the price, or in the case of Clockwork Castle, reversing its gimmick. It was such a neat idea and worked really well without being too excessive.
Mario Party 7 abolished day and night, however, and replaced it with Bowser Time. Now, every fifth turn, Bowser would come up and ruin something, like stealing a star from first place or cutting off pathways. Unlike day and night, this feels so much more forced, as it's all just negative stuff happening, compared to 6 where day and night brought both positives and negatives.
It's especially annoying when your star is stolen just because you were in first place. Bowser Time kind of ruins the entire game as a result of this, and there's no way to turn it off. The game would've been perfectly fine without Bowser Time, so it just feels like something the developers came up with at the last second.

As I said above, the board gimmicks were far better executed in Mario Party 6 than in 7, and that made Mario Party 6's boards far better. I actually thought all the boards were at least good in that game, with four of them even reaching the "perfect" category (Clockwork Castle, Castaway Bay, Faire Square, and Snowflake Lake). The other two are also pretty good.
Mario Party 7 has a good board collection as well, but it pales in comparison to 6. It did make a unique move to base each of its boards on a respective country, like Grand Canal obviously being based on Italy, which was a really nice touch. However, they were still significantly worse than those in 6 due to poorer board gimmicks and just not being as interesting. Grand Canal and Neon Heights are great, I'll admit, and I love Pyramid Park and Windmillville, but even then their gimmicks could've been better.
Then you've got two real mediocrities, namely Pagoda Peak and Bowser's Enchanted Inferno. Pagoda Peak has a perfect atmosphere, but the execution is all over the place. Imagine a static star board with no alternate pathways, which also has a price-changing gimmick. It takes away all strategy from the board! Bowser's Enchanted Inferno is just another basic lava level, and not to mention it's island-hopping.
So, 6 has all great boards, and 7 has four great but two bad ones. An easy win for 6.
Mario Party 6 was the game that introduced the day/night cycle, different rules for each board, a GameCube Mic, a unique take on Solo Mode, etc. Mario Party 7 just took the already existing concepts introduced in Mario Party 6 and worsened them. Pyramid Park is a weaker Snowflake Lake, Pagoda Peak is Castaway Bay gone wrong, Bowser's Enchanted Inferno is everything you don't want Clockwork Castle to be, the Mic isn't used as greatly, and the Solo Mode is pretty basic.
The only original part of this game I'd say would have to be the whole traveling plot and Windmillville, as it introduced a new gameplay gimmick. Thus, it's my favorite board in the game. Neon Heights is an improved version of 3's Spiny Desert too, but the mirage star isn't a very unique concept.

Between Clockwork Castle and Bowser's Enchanted Inferno, I think the winner is obvious. One is the most unique and interesting board ever made in Mario Party, and the other is about as basic as it can get.
What I especially don't understand is why Bowser's board in 7 is as basic as it is! It's literally just inside of Corona Mountain from Super Mario Sunshine when the theme of 7 itself is around the world. Couldn't they have made a Japanese-themed Bowser board, kind of like in Super Mario Odyssey? Or anything more unique at least? This entire board pales in comparison to my favorite board of all time, Clockwork Castle.
Mario Party 6 was unique in that it was the first Mario Party game to have individual rules on how to get a star on each board. You had two basic star-hunting boards (Towering Treetop and E. Gadd's Garage), two slightly modified star-hunting boards (Faire Square and Clockwork Castle), and two boards with completely different rules (Snowflake Lake and Castaway Bay). All of the gimmicks are executed fairly well because the boards are built around those gimmicks, so it all feels natural.
Mario Party 7 reuses a lot of these board ideas, but they aren't executed nearly as well. Pyramid Park, for example, is another star-stealing board like Snowflake Lake, but the board layout makes no sense for being a star-stealing board. It would've been better off as a basic star-hunting board.
Pagoda Peak is a straight-line board with no alternate pathways, and every time someone buys a star, the price goes up. Who thought that was a good idea? It's random if you get a star or not. So, yeah, 6 did a lot better in this category.
Toadsworth is my least favorite host in the Mario Party series. It's not that I don't like the character itself. It's just his voice! It's so irritating and gets on my nerves every time I play the game.
I know people don't like McBalliho from Mario Party 8 either, but at least he's kind of charming. Just like Toadsworth is my least favorite host, my favorite hosts are Brighton and Twila in 6. The fact that two spirits based on the sun and moon are our hosts is, in my opinion, a really neat concept, and not to mention, they look cool.
Speaking of which, the hub world! Mario Party 7 had a decent but kind of bland main menu. You were just looking at a board with all of the different modes nailed into it.
Mario Party 6, on the other hand, has you looking down onto a world map, with the western side belonging to Brighton and the right half to Twila. Each of the modes was found in one of these locations, and Brighton was the host of the west side, etc., with the exception of Party Mode and Star Bank, which were located in the middle. Both Brighton and Twila were the hosts of these modes. This hub world just has so much more atmosphere than the board in 7.
The Newcomers
Despite the really awesome "around the world" theme of Mario Party 7, I felt like the game itself remained kind of bland. It might be something about the colors being too bright and too monotonous. The only really vibrant board was Pagoda Peak, which was also the most insufferable one.
Meanwhile, in Mario Party 6, all boards are really alive and colorful, even the Solo Mode boards like Astro Avenue and Thirsty Gulch! Not to mention, it has a better hub!
Mario Party 7's soundtrack seems to fall into the same category as Mario Party 8, in that the songs have a lot of iconic melodies, but they really aren't that great. Mario Party 6's music isn't as memorable overall, but the songs that are good are really amazing! Clockwork Castle is the finest example!