Mario Party is the first in a series of board game-style video games for Nintendo platforms, featuring popular Nintendo characters. It was released on the Nintendo 64 in North America on February 8, 1999 following a Japanese release on December 18, 1998. It was released in Europe much later on September 3, 1999.
The game contains six characters: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Wario and Donkey Kong. After finishing a party, both of these games would have an ending celebration in which the winner would fix a trouble that was happening on the board. There is a one-player mode in which the player had to clear all of the minigames, one at a time, by defeating computer controlled opponents.
The game contains a standard party mode in which up to four players play through a board, trying to collect as many stars as possible. The star space would appear randomly on the board, and players would have to reach it before anyone else. However, the stars carry a price tag of 20 coins, and player has to earn those coins by wining minigames, which take place at the end of each turn (after all the players have rolled the dice block, which will always roll a number from one to ten).
Every Mario Party contains sixty to eighty minigames of a few different types. Four-player games were a free-for-all in which all players competed against each other. 2-on-2 and 1-on-3 minigames would put players in groups, so they would have to cooperate in the minigame to win, even though they are against each other in the main game. In most situations, winners of these games would make ten coins each.
List of Boards[ | ]
Mario Party contains the most amount of boards in the series (discounting duel boards in Mario Party 3).
- Mario's Rainbow Castle
- Luigi's Engine Room
- Peach's Birthday Cake
- Yoshi's Tropical Island
- DK's Jungle Adventure
- Wario's Battle Canyon
- Bowser's Magma Mountain (Buy at the shop)
- Eternal Star (Collect 100 stars)
- For minigames check the Walkthrough.
Stick Rotation Controversy[ | ]
After the release of the game, it was investigated by the Office of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, over claims that the minigames that involved analog stick rotation caused blisters and other hand injuries. In March 2000, Nintendo reached an agreement wherein it would provide up to four padded gloves to each owner.
Subsequent versions of the Mario Party series did not include the stick rotation games.