Mario Party has always been a game I have always enjoyed I owned most of them growing up and even though they got worst as they went on I still enjoyed playing them with and even without friends. Their our in total(correct me if i'm wrong) eleven Mario Party games, nine on Nintendo consoles and two on their handhelds. Ive played pretty much every Mario Party on their consoles and Ive only played one on their handheld, which is obviously this one. First let me just say I give the developers credit to continue a series that has lasted for over ten years and continually make it an enjoyment for players to compete and make it enjoyable is a hard thing to do, sure Mario Party has overstayed it's welcome and sure the past installments have been less then stellar but take them for what they our, a game that is just fun to play with friends nothing more.
Presentation: Mario Party Island Tour dosen't have much of a stand out presentation, but it looks good, the musics not bad, the level designs our a nice touch, but all in all their really isn't a whole lot to say, even when 3d comes into play it still dosen't look as great as many other games that our on the 3ds.
Gameplay: So this is where I felt Mario Party Island Tour isn't that great. First off the way you win in this installment of Mario party, is by reaching the goal first, this is idiotic because this is completely by luck, you can get a better roll by winning mini games, and you can also win items for a better roll in mini games also, but it's not fair due to an unfair mechanic they have used since Mario Party 9, everyone wins something, if you get second place you get a dice that's not as good as first place if you get third place you get a dice that is not as good as second place and so on and so forth, in the Mario Party 9 this was still a bit unfair, but at least in that one as long as you kept winning the mini games you would be ok, so that would be considered skill, but in this one since rolling the dice is made up of luck anyone can win this, and that's what makes this game so unfair! and they weren't done with that, now their our certain paths you must take if you get stuck with the wrong path guess what you got a lot of catching up to do! These our the main mechanics of the game and most people will say but it's fun having other people who aren't that great at video games to have a chance to win, and I honestly agree with that but you got to make it fair, at least make it like Mario Party 9 where at least its not all completely done by luck. I know that you have to realize that Mario Party in general has always been a lucky game to win(for the most part) but at least make the player feel like he could of done better when someone wins by luck, not make him feel like it's impossible to win. A lot of the mini games in this game are oversimplified also they either feel all to similar or take no thought and are just simple button presses at the right time, look I understand that they have been doing this series for a longtime and I'm sure they our scraping the bottom of the barrel for idea's but come on some of these are a little too simplistic and I know they can do better.
The gameplay needs some work if it wasn't so luck based it would be a lot better.
Overall Mario Party Island Tour is honestly hard to recommend to anyone, the only people I could see that would get any joy out of this game is someone of a really young age or people who are looking to have more fun then a competition when playing multiplayer.