Mario Party 5

Mario Party 5
The North American cover of Mario Party 5 pictures much of the characters featured in the game
Developer(s)	Hudson Soft
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Series	Mario Party series
Platform(s)	Nintendo GameCube, Arcade
Release date	NA November 10, 2003 JPN November 28, 2003 EU December 5, 2003
Genre(s)	Party
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: E OFLC: G8+
Media	1 × Nintendo GameCube Game Disc

Mario Party 5 (マリオパーティ 5, Mario Pāti Faibu^?) is a party video game published by Nintendo and developed by Hudson Soft for the Nintendo GameCube. It was released in North America on November 10, 2003 and in Japan on November 23, 2003.

Mario Party 5 is the fifth installment in the Mario Party video game series, which began with Mario Party in 1998. The game's story concerns Mario and his friends trying to restore peace to the Dream World, which is being invaded by Bowser.

Gameplay

In single player mode, all the Koopa Kids move at the same time, quickening game play. The point of single player mode is to deplete all of the Koopa Kids' coins by beating them in mini-games. It also features a whole new mode, Super Duel Mode. In this mode, one buys vehicle parts using points received by playing mini-games and building a battle vehicle to use in different tournaments or against friends. To unlock all the different parts, one must play all the tournaments and beat certain opponents.

As usual, this new installment to the Mario Party series comes with new mini-games, characters, and maps. Toad, Boo, and even Koopa Kid are the new playable characters. In this game, Donkey Kong is only a playable character in Super Duel Mode once one unlocks him. In party mode, he now shows up on new Donkey Kong spaces and either gives the players coins/stars or starts a Donkey Kong mini-game which involve collecting bananas for a predetermined amount of coins.

Minigames

Each minigame in Mario Party 5 is new, and has never before been seen in past versions of Mario Party. They vary from racing to boxing to challenging one's reflexes. A minigame is played at the end of every round. If all 4 players are on the same color space, a 4 player game occurs (though there is a 20% chance that a Battle game will occur). If 2 players are each on the different colors, a 2 vs. 2 game begins, and if one player is on the different colour than the rest, a 1 vs 3 game will start. The winner of the minigame usually gets 10 coins, but in some cases everyone collects the number of coins that they have earned. Some examples of mini-game controls are pressing A repeatedly and using the Control Stick to move, A to jump and B to punch/kick.

Plot

Setting

The setting of Mario Party 5 is a collection of seven game boards centered around a common dream theme. The "Toy Dream" is a gigantic toy box in which a train and toy soldiers run rampant. The "Rainbow Dream" is split up into four weather-orientated areas connected by rainbows. The "Pirate Dream" is an exotic locale featuring a large cavern and buried treasure. The "Undersea Dream" is a board in which colorful coral reefs, a sunken ship, Cheep Cheeps, and a friendly whale live underwater. In the "Future Dream", players must use teleporters to gather stars in outer space. The "Sweet Dream" is a sweet, sugary, and delightful cake world featuring a giant birthday present. Finally, the "Bowser Nightmare" is a lava-filled board created by Bowser's own twisted mind.

Characters

In this game, there are ten characters. Donkey Kong was removed from the character roster, but became something of a foil to Bowser, as he earned his own space on boards which reward players for landing on them. Toad, Boo, and Koopa Kid were added to the playable character roster, but are unavailable for use in certain areas of the game.

Story

Somewhere beyond human stars lies a dream world known as the Dream Depot, where all of the dreams made on Earth merge into one. On one particular night, the guardians of this world, the Star Spirits (who last appeared in Paper Mario), decided to allow certain particularly powerful dreamers into the Dream Depot for a chance to visit. In the end, they invite Mario and his closest allies into their world, as they are the biggest dreamers on Earth. However, Bowser, Mario's arch-nemesis, has somehow snuck his way into the Dream Depot, and is now threatening to replace everyone's dreams with his own megalomaniacal delusions. The Star Spirits now look to their guests to play their minigames and stop Bowser's evil plot.

Reception

It won the Console Children's Award at the 2004 Interactive Achievement Awards.

While it received mixed reviews, most positive, it received harsh criticism from GameInformer, who gave it a 2.25 and 2, criticising the overusage of save screens, and that it is full of "slow, tedious, painful board game elements", and that "the only laughs come from knowing your friends are suffering the same punishment as you are."

Despite that, the game still has a total of 69% at Metacritic, 85% at Pokemon World and a 70.8% at Gamerankings.

Arcade version

Super Mario Fushigi no Korokoro Party (literally, Super Mario: The Mysterious Rolling Party) is an arcade version of Mario Party 5 released exclusively in Japan in 2004. It was developed by Capcom instead of Hudson Soft.

Up to six players could play, unlike Mario Party 5 which only allowed four players that can battle each other.

References

External links

• Mario Party 5 at MobyGames
• Mario Party 5 at GameFAQs