What is the best Mario Party game?

[Razzmatazz]

I've only played 1, 4 and 5 but I seem to remember 1 having Bumper Balls, and spending all nighters with friends JUST on that mini-game. They should release a game itself based around that mini-game.

[gtmtnbiker]

One reason why I like Mario Party 7 is that there are a bunch of mini games suitable for 8 players. It's kind of cool that when my girls were younger, we would have the gamecube on for 45 minutes at a birthday party so they could all play together against each other. The games were simple enough for someone who never played a video game before to jump in and have fun.

[Nintendork666]

I've only played the first 3. Part 2 is easily my favorite. I really dig the board specific costumes, and lack of Waluigi.

[sonic2041]

I never understood the palm thing. We played a lot of Mario Party, the first two games, and none of us ever used our palm.

Me and my friends never used our palms for the minigames either, but there was a wind up shy guy thing in one of the menus where you had to rotate the joystick as fast as you could for a certain amount of time and see how far it flew. We used our palms for this and got some decent burn marks from it.

[01toubib]

I have only the N64 versions (1-3)

One was great when it was first released, and was a ton of fun with friends. Big drawback was the mini-games KILLED Joysticks like no other. I mean I probably went through 3-4 with that game alone.

Two was a a revised version of 1 really, and is my personal favorite. Not because of the games or anything, but because of all the little details. (As someone else has said the costumes differ per map, and other stuff like that) IMO it was still raw too, none of the toned down stuff. Like it required no skill to do the game and was really mostly luck. So anyone could hop in and join. I also liked how you could do evil in the game, Boo could literally make best friends fist fight each other.

I never really got into 3, the games got too complex for me after 2.

[Gooseberrysoda]

DS was pretty neat, but I think 2 or 3 have to be the best.

[irixith]

Mario Party is my favourite Nintendo franchise that isn't rooted in the 8 or 16-bit eras. Unfortunately, they aren't all great games.

I'd vote for 3 (N64) as my personal favourite. The boards were great, the mini games were great, the secret board rocks -- I have consistently had the most fun with and without friends playing this one.

After 3, the series fell apart for a bit -- it came back into its own with 6, and it's a toss-up for me between 6 and 7 as to which one was better on the GC. 4 relied too much on the mega/mini element to the detriment of the game. 5 is basically the Wrath of Khan to the Motion Picture if you get what I mean. Just pretend 4 doesn't exist. 1 is for controller destroying masochists, and it lacks the polish that was perfected in 2 and 3.

8 is clusterfuck of everything that was wrong with gimmicky Wii mini games and technology support at the time it was released. A lot of the mini games had the literal "tacked on motion controls" that so many Wii games were slammed for, and the game didn't even support widescreen presentation -- it has static borders. This hinders the game in a lot of ways, because it's difficult to see what's going on in a 4 player game the way they set up the camera, and the addition of motion controls with poor tracking just ruins it.

9 is better than 8 in the sense that the motion control mini games don't ruin the experience, but they managed to suck nearly everything out of the franchise that made it fun in the first place. I feel as if I could put two Wii remotes on the floor, and the game would play itself. What a shame, especially when the Wii was really knocking it out of the park during the end of its life cycle.

IMO if you've never played any Mario Party game before, try 2 or 3 ideally. If the N64 is out of reach, 6, 7 or 5 on the Wii/GC (in that order). Forget about 4, 8 or 9. If consoles aren't an option and you really want to try the series, get Mario Party DS. The GBA version is an abortion. (The Mario Party-e card game that uses the GBA for certain cards with mini games was a great idea, but it's not robust enough to hold anyone's attention for long, and I'm not sure it really counts amongst the series proper.)

If you like any of the versions I don't, bully for you. Mario Party 3 rocks them all, end of.

[floattube]

It's been forever since I played, but I really loved the GBA version...

[retrosportsgamer]

So the WiiU discussion thread has spawned some good conversation around this topic.

I've played the Wii version and the non mini game stuff was drawn out and pretty boring (personally) BUT I feel like this series will be one my daughter could really enjoy even at a young age. So maybe without having a history of playing the N64 games the newest WiiU title really is the best jumping in point? Let's discuss.

[Exhuminator]

Mario Party 3 was the apex. It's been a downhill slide since. The 'Cube and Wii stuff just wasn't up to snuff.