Mario Party 9 is a fun, though slightly problematic, new take on this classic series.
Like with earlier games, the general premise is still the same; a group of up to four players travel around a board collecting stars. The one who has the most by the end of the game is the winner. While Mario Party 9 does retain this idea, it does it in a different way than before. Instead of the four players moving around the board separately, they all travel together now in a single vehicle and instead of going around in a loop, they travel across the board to its end point. You still take turns moving across the board and the player whose turn it is makes them the Captain up until their turn is done. The person who is Captain will make many decisions including choosing the paths the vehicle travels or the minigames that the group plays. Now, instead of collecting coins to buy stars, you simply collect the stars, which here are known as Mini Stars. Unlike before where you would normally get about 2 or 3 stars per game, you can get up to at least 100 Mini Stars here as they are much more common and easy to collect.
In regards to collecting these stars, there are various ways as to how that is done. The most common way to do this is by just simply passing by them on the board as many are scattered across it in groups of 3, 5, and even 10. All you have to do is roll the dice block and get a good enough number to go through them and they will be added to your total. A word of caution, however, as you can also come across Mini Ztars. These do the exact opposite of what the Mini Stars do and decrease the amount of Mini Stars that you have (don't worry though, as you will never have a negative amount of Mini Stars). You can also acquire Mini Stars by various events that you come across while traveling across the board, including minigames and certain board specific events. For example, in one level set on a beach, if you land on or reach a space with a star border around it, a Dolphin will give you Mini Stars if you're Captain. Consequently, it will then result in a shark (or 'Sushi', as the game puts it) chasing you and if he catches up to you, he will take Mini Stars from whoever is the Captain at that point.
The various spaces on the board are as follows; If you land on a plain green space, then nothing will happen for whoever is Captain. Landing on a plain blue space will earn you a special dice block which you can use instead of the standard 1-6 block that you normally use to travel across the board. These special dice blocks include a 1-3, 4-6, 10-sided dice block, and even a dice block that allows you to not even move at all. When used correctly, it can really help you in certain areas like perhaps if you are approaching a bunch of Mini Ztars. Landing on a space that has a musical note on it allows the Captain to gain some items and even Mini Stars. If you go down into a Warp Pipe, you will be transported to an area where you earn Mini Stars depending on how big of a number you roll. Some of these spaces even result in you losing Mini Stars. If you go into a Toad House, then you can possibly gain both items and Mini Stars by selecting two cards by a deck of four cards that are shuffled before you select them. Landing on a green space with a question mark on it will result in something happening on the board that could be either good or bad. If you land on a Mini-Game space, then you will do a Mini-Game. There are also some random spaces that will move the party forward some extra spaces, change the turn order, or even send the party backwards and of course, there are the Bowser spaces which start a Bowser event that could result in the players losing stars or some other thing that would be bad.
Finally, there are a few spaces where you have to stop to do an event. At two instances during the game, you will have to do battle against one of Bowser's minions; once at the halfway point and the other time when you reach the end of the board. These play out like the usual minigames but the goal in each of these boss minigames is to deplete the boss' HP by doing whatever the game tells you to do, whether it is launching Bullet Bills at Lakitu or throwing shells at a Cheep-Cheep. Like the minigames, you earn Mini Stars depending on how many points you score in these battles. The captain also gets a special bonus no matter how good they do. The other major spaces where the group takes a small detour are special Captain events. Basically these events revolve around the players attempting to collect more Mini-Stars. The captain who lands on this space is in charge of placing each player in a certain position in a way that could benefit the Captain by the end of it.
The way Mini-Games are handled in this game is different compared to before. The most notable change is that you don't play a mini-game after each player takes a turn. Instead, you have to either land on a Mini-Game space, partake in one of the boss battles, or even hope that you land on a Dice Block space where sometimes a Mini-Game is played after the Captain collects a dice block. The players earn Mini Stars depending on how well they did in the mini-game and sometimes a player might even lose Mini-Stars if they come in last place. The types of Mini-Games are as follows; there are the traditional 'Free for All' Mini-Games. There are the 1-vs.-3 Mini-Games, which are referred to here as 1-vs.-Rivals games. If you land on a Bowser Jr. space, then the Captain and another player have to work together in a Mini-Game which usually involves you trying to catch Bowser Jr. Finally, aside from the Boss Mini-Games, there are the Battle Mini-Games where players compete for a small collection of Mini-Stars that were taken from their respective totals. There are no 2-vs.-2 mini-games in this entry, mainly due in part to this new concept.
If Party Mode isn't your thing, then you can try the Single Player mode. The story here is that Bowser and Bowser Jr. have stolen all of the Mini-Stars and it is up to Mario and his friends to stop him. The goal in Single-Player mode has the player going through each of the boards like they would normally do in Party Mode. However, you don't actually have to finish in first place to move to the next board. On each board, Bowser will send a minion of his to be one of the players and all you have to do is to make sure that they do not finish first. Completing this mode will unlock the final board and two additional characters. The mini-game mode allows you to play through all of the mini-games and unlike before, you don't even need to unlock them as all of the mini-games are unlocked for you to play.
Now it is nice to see the creators do something new for a franchise that has mainly gone on doing the same old thing with every game. I'm totally fine with the traditional Mario Party formula, but this new game does something that is refreshingly different. That doesn't mean though that there are some problems with this new concept. The main issue is the fact that you don't play as much Mini-Games as before. Sure, there is absolute certainty that you will play at least one Mini-Game while going through Party Mode, but that means that this new idea nearly eliminates the one thing that made this series great in the first place; the mini-games. Because of this, this new Party Mode will probably get boring after a while. If you really want to play Mini-Games, then you're better off with Mini-Game mode.
The rest of the problems in this game are minor at best. While the Single-Player Mode isn't that bad and I do like how they at least made it easier to beat, I don't really see why a game like this needs a Single-Player Mode where you just go through Party Mode by yourself. The Single-Player Modes in Mario Party 1 and 2 did it great by having you go through just the mini-games. When you complete a game in Party Mode or one of the Mini-Games, you earn Party Points, which are used to unlock items in the Museum and while you can earn new vehicles to use on the boards, an extra stage, and a few other extras, the only other collectible you can use these points on are constellations. That alone is nothing worth spending hours of obtaining enough points for. It would've been better if they had added perhaps some other characters to unlock (or just have the two hidden characters be unlocked through this) or some mini-games.
But even with all of those problems, that doesn't mean that I hate this game. In fact, that's not even the case here with this game. It's Mario Party, and even with this new style of gameplay that isn't as entertaining as before, it is still really fun to play, especially with friends. The mini-games are well-done and the controls work great. There are also a few things done here that I really like, one of which being that before each Mini-Game, they have you make sure you are holding your Wii Remote the right way before starting the Mini-Game because it does allow you to be ready for whatever mini-game comes at you. I also really like one of the new modes in this game called Perspective Mode. Basically this has you going through 10 mini-games but at a different camera angle which is focused solely on your character. This is a very creative idea and does offer a nice challenge seeing how in some of the mini-games, you can't see what is coming at you now until it's right in front of you.
All in all, Mario Party 9 is still a really fun game. I really can't say anything bad about a game that is part of one of my favorite video game franchises of all time. The fact that the developers did do something new with the pre-existing formula is a welcome change of pace. Granted, it isn't exactly perfect but at least they tried something different. If they make Mario Party 10 and still use this formula, I would suggest one primary change; do mini-games after each player takes one turn just like before. That is always fun, no matter how many times the old formula was used in every game. Obviously, if you're a fan of Mario Party, then this game is perfect for you. If you're not a fan of the series or you're one of those people who have gotten tired of the same old formula used before, then I would still recommend trying this game out. As always, make sure you have friends around to join you, because if there's one thing these games do best, it's their multiplayer.