Top 10 Worst Super Mario Party Boards
As most of us are already aware, the 12th mainline Mario Party game, Mario Party Superstars is set to release on October 29th of 2021. If you're a Mario Party fan, you should be excited. It looks like what Super Mario Party, and Mario Party: The Top 100 attempted to do, but failed. Super Mario Party in particular failed. I already made a list about the worst aspects in this rushed game, but I didn't really scratch the surface on the boards, which I will be going over today. I'll be ranking all of the boards in Super Mario Party, which not only includes the classic playstyled boards, but also the Partner Party boards, as I feel like a lot of people don't give this game mode enough credit. So what are we waiting for? With that being said, let's get started.Megafruit Paradise is the worst Mario Party board of all time. Ok, maybe not as bad as Kamek's Library from Mario Party DS, but it's the second worst.
It is atrocious. I remember when I first got the game and looked at the board collection, thinking, "Hmm, this board looks nice. I'm gonna try it." Little did I know how trash it was. Island hopping has always been a bad idea in Mario Party. The problem with island hopping boards is that they either have to be way too large or way too luck-based.
Megafruit Paradise is the worst kind of island hopper. The only ways to move between islands are by landing exactly on a happening space or by walking over a bridge that breaks after a certain number of turns. That's it. You only have RNG to rely on.
This board was clearly never meant for normal Mario Party because it just doesn't work. When the only thing you can count on is RNG, it's not fun. Either you're stuck forever on an island, or you're helplessly teleporting between islands when you don't need to. Megafruit Paradise can just go screw itself.
From a board that has too much RNG, we now go to a board that has too little RNG: Kamek's Tantalizing Tower. This board tries to take what worked in static star boards like DK's Stone Statue but dumbs it down to a monkey's level.
Strategy and tension are nonexistent. It's the shortest and most lame attempt at a static star board. All you have to do is pick a character with good dice and hope you get a high roll. There's nothing that can ruin it for you on the way, unlike DK's Stone Statue.
There are aspects I like about the board. The fact that you can buy more than just one star at once and the fact that the price changes after every order give it a little more flair than the rest of the bunch. But it doesn't matter gameplay-wise when the blue spaces give you twice as many coins as normal, completely breaking what was already a broken economy.
Kamek's Tantalizing Tower is just an embarrassment of a board.
Whomp's Domino Ruins is the most bare-bones and essential board you can have in Mario Party. It's just what you expect it to be: a normal star-hunting Mario Party board with paths here and there and a few obstacles.
When I think about it, this is just the Cube's way of cashing in on nostalgia, as it plays and looks almost exactly the same as DK's Jungle Adventure in Mario Party 1. The boulder and the moving Whomps are the exact same. It's basically a worse version of DK's Jungle Adventure. It's so small you could loop it in 3-4 turns if you're lucky.
There's nothing else to really say about this board. It's just another Mario Party board that fails to keep me interested long enough.
Our first Partner Party board on the ranking is Gold Rush Mine, and it's the only Partner Party board below its Mario Party variant, surprisingly.
Overall, Partner Party is far better than Mario Party in this game. Many gameplay features that don't make sense in the normal format, like the flat terrain, make more sense in Partner Party. The boards were actually made to be playable in Partner Party, except for Powderkeg Mine.
When you look at Gold Rush Mine from a distance, it looks eerily similar to World 4-3 in Mario Party: Star Rush, but that's off-topic. What you probably notice is that it's literally just a square, and it's kind of boring because there's so much wasted space.
While the three boards we just talked about suffer from being too small, Gold Rush Mine is the opposite. It's too bloated and big. There's not a lot of strategy, just make sure you stay on the higher levels.
It's better than the other three we just talked about because at least it's not a total snorefest without any flair, but I still think it could've been less bloated. Gold Rush Mine is simply okay.
Similarly to how Whomp's Domino Ruins is the most basic and essential standard Mario Party board, Domino Ruins Treasure Hunt is the most basic and essential Partner Party board.
It has no major turn-offs for newer players while still having enough random elements to mess you up if unlucky. And it's good because, unlike the snorefest that is Whomp's Domino Ruins, this board isn't too small.
Unlike there, where you're restricted to linear pathways, this board is filled with grids, which means more space to cover. It doesn't take a genius to realize it. And that makes Domino Ruins Treasure Hunt kind of fun. Not to mention the domino board actually has tension as RNG decides whether or not a boulder rolls down, not some easily avoidable space.
Domino Ruins Treasure Hunt is a solid beginner board.
King Bob-omb's Powderkeg Mine is the only board in the standard format of Super Mario Party that's actually good, and it's because it actually works. Gold Rush Mine was fine, but there was so much empty space that just wasn't used for anything creative.
With King Bob-omb's Powderkeg Mine, however, you're restricted to linear pathways that go a little here and there, which makes the map less bloated. It's the opposite of Whomp's Domino Ruins, where the claustrophobia actually makes the board more interesting. The middle of the board is pretty tense because if it blows up, anyone standing there will lose half their coins, which helps combat the overinflation of coins in this game.
Overall, Powderkeg Mine is a good board, and the best one of the classic-styled ones.
You might have noticed in this ranking that the worse a board is in the standard format, the more functional it is in Partner Party, and vice versa. That couldn't be truer for Watermelon Walkabout, Megafruit Paradise's disciplined sister.
The core of Partner Party is teamwork. You work with your teammate to get the best results, and Watermelon Walkabout perfectly encapsulates that. You really need to explore the different islands by yourself to get the best of everything. One player might go to the Pineapple to find a Silver Pick, while the other player goes to the Watermelon plateau to lift the ground and get a free star and some red coins.
Unlike Megafruit Paradise, which relied on RNG to get anywhere, Watermelon Walkabout's grid-based layout makes it much easier to transport yourself between islands. It makes Blooper destroying the bridge actually forgiving.
I think I've made my point clear enough. Watermelon Walkabout is a tremendous improvement over Megafruit Paradise.
The best board in Super Mario Party is none other than Tantalizing Tower Toys. Similarly to how Watermelon Walkabout improves on Megafruit Paradise, Tantalizing Tower Toys tremendously improves on Kamek's Tantalizing Tower, except for the name, which is way too long and specific.
This board is even better because it does more unique things that showcase that Partner Party is a teamwork mode. On the previous board, you could get a silver pick to climb on the watermelon plateau. Here, you can either get a key to unlock a gate guarding dozens of red coins or get a capsule ticket. You obtain the ticket by buying something in the shop and then climbing to the top to use it on the machine. This can give you various rewards, from a free star to many coins.
These elements make Partner Party boards, especially this one, more interesting than the classic-styled boards in the same game. There's more to do than just hunting for the star, and that's why Tantalizing Tower Toys is the best board in all of Super Mario Party.