Top 10 Worst Super Mario Party Boards

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 in that case, the second worst Mario Party board of all time. Big difference. It is atrocious, I remember when I first got the game and looked at the board collection and thought "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 since its conception. The problem with island hopping boards is that in order for them to work, they either have to be way too large, or way too luck-based. Megafruit Paradise is the worst kind of island hopper. The only way to move between islands is by landing exactly on a happening space, or by walking over this bridge, which will break after a certain amount of turns. That's it. You only have RNG to count on you. This board was clearly never meant to be used 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's 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 is non-existent. It's the shortest and most lame attempt at a static star board in top. All you have to do is pick a character with good dice and hope you get a high, there's no things that can ruin it for you on the way, like say 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 gives it a little more flair than the rest of the bunch. But it doesn't even matter gameplay-wise when the blue spaces give you twice as many coins as normally, completely breaking what was already a broken economy. Kamek's Tantalizing Tower is just an embarassment of a board.

Whomp's Domino Ruins is the most bare bones and essential board you can have in Mario Party. It's just like 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 and 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. Like the boulder and the moving whomps is the exact same. And it's basically that, a worse DK's Jungle Adventure. It's so small you could loop it in say 3-4 turns if 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, Gold Rush Mine. And as you can see, it's also the only Partner Party board that's below its Mario Party variant, surprisingly. Overall, Partner Party is far better than Mario Party in this game. A lot of gameplay features that don't make sense in the normal format like the flat terrain make more sense in Partner Party, and the boards were actually made to be playable in Partner Party..., well except for the 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 actually 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, ok.

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 you can have. With no major turn offs for newer players, while still having enough random *bleep* to *bleep* 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 automatically 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, and 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, sure, 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 a little less bloated. It's basically the opposite to Whomp's Domino Ruins, where the claustrophobia actually makes the board more interesting. The middle of the board is pretty tense as if it blows up, anyone standing there will lose half their coins, and this does help combat the overinflation of coins in this game. So 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 functioning 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 in order 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, so that you can get a free star and some red coins. Unlike Megafruit Paradise which relied on RNG for you to get anywhere, Watermelon Walkabout's grid-based layout makes it much more easy 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. Again, similarly to how Watermelon Walkabout improves on Megafruit Paradise, Tantalizing Tower Toys tremendously improves on Kamek's Tantalizing Tower. Well except for the name which is way too long and specific. Now the reason this one's even better than the previous board is because I feel like it does even more unique things that show that Partner Party is a teamwork mode. There you could get a silver pick to climb on the watermelon plateau, but here there are two things you can do. One is get this key in order to unlock this gate guarding dozens of red coins. The other is getting a capsule ticket, which you get by buying something in the shop, and then climbing to the top to use the ticket on the machine, and it can give you a whole array of rewards, from a free star, to a lot of coins, etc., it's things like this that makes Partner Party boards, and especially this one, much 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.