While Mario Party 5 might be still the same as previous titles they are quite a few additions that keeps things solid.
The main game in Mario Party 5 is different from the other ones, instead of going against other Nintendo characters you will battle against the koopa kids. You will duel in minigames with the 3 koopa kids at the same time or separated. Then when one of the koopa kids drops all of his coins to 0 they will be eliminated it from the game. You will participate in duels, 1 vs.3 and 2 vs. 2. In the 2 vs.2 Toad will play as your teammate. You can also play the main game with nay character and difficulty you want. The game also brings the newest idea of capsules which replaces the items on the old games. In this one you don’t but them you simply go to a capsule machine and he gives it to you for free, but if you are going to use the capsule on yourself you will have to pay coins. The capsules are placed on the spaces of the board. They can be either helpful or bad for your opponents or even you. These capsules can give you coins, mushroom to hit more then just one dice, wiggler that takes you to the star, chain chomp that attacks opponents, etc. The minigames offer some fun gameplay like some of them will have you playing baseball, boat race, collecting the most flowers, punching the other character out of the arena, squishing your opponents, etc. The duels are also a return from the 3rd game which will have you battling, luck, searching, etc. Yet most of these minigames are not really original because they seem to deliver the same thing we have play in other minigames including button mashers. The boards have you sometimes with minigames to help you with coins but they are mostly about luck. The spaces only get interesting when a capsule is place on them but you will still get a bowser space to whip out your coins. This game also eliminates Donkey Kong this time DK has his own space with his minigames. The party mode also adds a playable koopa kid, Boo and Toad.
The minigame mode delivers a lot of fun of ways to play minigames in different types of modes. One of the modes is the Mini-Game tournament where you duel against an oponnent and the loser falls down from the boat to the water. There is also the decathlon were you play minigames where you can do high scores and this time all characters must finish the mini-game than depending on how much you did or take you will receive a certain amount of points. There is also the mini-game wars were you have a field of 29 hexagonal tiles, win a mini-game to capture a tile, the player with most tiles wins when all tiles have been taken. There is also the mini-game battle in which you have to win a number of times the player that reaches the score needed 1st wins. Last but not least is the Mini-Game circuit were you are simply in a racing board very Mario kart type, in order to move you must win a mini-game the 1st player that reaches the finish line wins.
Then there is the Super duel mode or maybe super boring mode. In this mode you create a machine to compete in different tournaments battle, destroy the rabbits and find the flags. You can put any parts to your machine which is good the thing here is how slow the machines are and is not really action just shooting in a slowly way. So this is got to be the worst addition to a Mario Party game yet. Finally there is the bonus mode were you play yet more minigames that are not totally short. You will have the card party in which you are basically walking around a small board and finding star cards some cars will be traps like pink boo’s stealing your cards. The player who get the most star cards wins, pretty much a small version of the party mode. There is also Beach volleyball, originally seen on Mario Party 4, which is playing volley with 2 characters on each side, just trying to hit the ball far so the player doesn’t reach it. If the ball touches the floor you win a point. You can also have a selection of balls one of them is the bomb when is hit more than 9 times it will explode and the team that did not got the explosion wins a point. Last is the Ice hockeyn mode in which you are basically playing hockey in a 2 vs. 2 style. Is just simply hitting the disc to your opponent’s net and when the time is over the winning team will be announced.
As you can see Hudson and Nintendo tried to bring a lot of new stuff into Mario Party, sadly stuff like the super duel mode and the bonus mode are not strong additions that can make Mario Party 5 different from it's prequels. The only aspect that changes things a bit are the capsules in the main mode.
The game still has the same character design that it had on Mario Party 4, which is not bad but there should be more improvements. More animations on the boards would've been nicer. On the other hand the boards are very simplistic. They don’t have vibrant colors instead soft ones that give a somewhat kiddy look to it. There is also the repetition of backgrounds in the duel minigames. On the other hand the backgrounds in the minigames are a bit more vibrant and dies have a good design. Yet why don’t these characters look like the way they did on Super Smash Brothers Melee. They had a more realistic look in that game. I was very disappointed by how they decided to take out vibrant colors and put more the simplistic and soft look and feel to the game.
The music of Mario party has always been soft sounding. Simple melodies, no electronica, no rock or pop. Obviously it will sound well with rock. But is totally missing style. None of the tunes are memorable, and 5 is the same thing. Another thing is no voiceovers. You will spend lots of time reading for each event that happens on the board. It makes the game feel more boring. They only talk when the win: they say stuff like "I'm a winner!", which can get really repetitive hearing the same words again and again. Sound effects sound just as simplistic as the music is. Yet the sound effects fit fairly enough with each minigames, which is a good thing. The music also fits pretty much with the game but more variety would've been nicer.
Whenever there is a Mario party game released, replayibility is bound to be there and this one does not disappoint. It is fun fooling around with your friends, stealing their stars and make Bowser do evil things on them. Yet what may make players sad are the boards. The boards do not offer that much to make it a very fun exciting party. Most minigames are very fun consisting of less games of luck, which is good. It's great to check out who has better skill on button smashing, puzzles or surviving against penguins. Also the different ways you can play these minigames on the mini-game mode make also this one a solid party game for the family. Also the special bonus minigames like volleyball and hockey might be of people’s interest, although I don’t think someone is going to play the super duel mode. The single player is good but not strong enough to keep you playing for long.
Despite the fact that the additions do not make it different enough from the other MP games it is still a solid experience that Mario Fans will still enjoy. Improvement is needed on the graphics, not a step backwards as well give us more variety in the audio department. This game is only for the fans that have enjoyed the earlier MP games.