Mario Party DS - 9/10
Story
It all begins with Mario and his friends playing when suddenly Bowser uses a devise to shrink them down. They must defeat Bowser to grow back to their normal sizes. The story is interesting with some killer graphics and sounds. There are also more stories in the game like when a boss challenges you or you start a new board in story mode. To wrap it up, the stories are good, with great graphics and sound. And the best Mario I've seen on a portable device so far.
Characters
Mario Party DS offers a wide variety of characters. The main characters that you can play as are Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Peach, Daisy, Yoshi and Toad. The other characters are either Bosses or people that will help you on the way. The characters that will help you include Toadette and Donkey Kong. The bosses include Wriggler, Hammer Bro, Dry Bones, Kamek and Bowser. That’s about all. The selection of characters is good but I probably would like a bit more. But it still is a great selection of characters.
Gameplay
The way Mario Party DS plays is just like every Mario Party game. Although for a handheld it was amazing to see some good game play. Fans of the old Mario party games will love how this is set out, even new players will like it. The boards are good but a bit too short. The way that the touch screen was used was great, for example touch the screen to roll the dice and if you land on a question mark you use the touch screen to avoid fireballs or to help people out. So yeah the touch screen was used wisely. Now finally on to the number of turns. The number of turns in previous Mario games could go up to 50 turns. Now you can only go up to 25 turns, so hardcore Mario party players will find it a bit disappointing. Ok that’s about it, as always the game play is great.
Graphics
Ok, the graphics for Mario Party DS are good, it’s just I thought Nintendo could do a little better. I mean I’ve seen was better graphics on a handheld game. But the graphics aren't totally rubbish. I think they are okay. It’s just that there is so much stuff in the game that i guess they couldn't get crisp graphics. But don't be turned off by this because in some minigames the graphics look outstanding and make up for the things I said before. So to finalize this, I think the graphics were good especially for a handheld
Sound
Now, the sounds for this game are pretty good. There are a lot of new tunes that we never heard. And some old tunes in the minigames. Now the sound makes the game more interesting. Especially in minigames. Nintendo have gone for making more new tunes for Mario games now. Which isn't a bad thing, but the old tunes are better. Now onto the menu and boards music. The menu music is pretty basic, nothing too big. The boards have interesting ones though; like a relaxed stage has relaxing music and an evil stage has evil music. So this makes the boards sounds much better than the menu sounds. Now finally the sound effects. The sound effects are all original ones like the sound when you get coins or grabbing a mushroom. The sound effects are great. Ok the music in this game is good but the sound effects are better.
Minigames
Ok, now onto the minigames. What would Mario party be without minigames. The minigames are all new ones, they are fun to play and especially with friends. The minigames now use the touch screen and the mic. The games that use the touch screen will make control or drag something to a finish line or to complete a puzzle, which makes the touch screen games very fun. Now the mic games. There are only a couple of games that use the mic. But all of those games are blowing. Like blowing a whomp over or freezing your opponent. They sound interesting, well they are. But sadly Nintendo didn't give us many mic games. But in the end the mic games are fun. Now last of all, the button minigames. These games are not new because were used in almost every Mario party yet. But still the button minigames are very fun. Ok to wrap this up, the minigames are very fun, and very unique. So the minigames are great.
Puzzle Mode
Ok, this feature is a new one. As you can guess you do puzzles in puzzle mode. They have a lot of puzzle games, but most of them are Tetris. They just use different things instead of blocks. But the Tetris games are still fun, and the other puzzle games that are not Tetris are good too. It was nice to see Nintendo put in a new mode for Mario party, and the good thing is that it doesn't suck. The puzzle games are addictive and fun, and will challenge you. So the puzzle mode was a good addition to Mario party and makes Mario party a little bit better.
Value
Mario Party DS is a great game to play whether you’re playing it by yourself, or with a friend. And this games is a must have for all DS owners.
Story - 9/10
Characters - 8.5/10
Gameplay - 9.5/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 8.5/10
Minigames - 10/10
Puzzle Mode - 8.5/10
Value - 9/10
Overall - 9/10
Submitted by KieranT878
15/10/2009
706
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