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Mario Party 7
GameCube (2005)
Boards: 6
Minigames 88 (3 are bonus games)
You can’t lose your party spirit yet! Mario Party 7 has the absolute MOST minigames in the entire series. It’s the capstone of the Mario Party GameCube experience, so this is your last chance to party before switching over to the Wii. Like 6, there isn’t too much variety in the modes, but there are some new features to be had.
For one, you can now play minigames designed for up to eight players! And the microphone gets a bit more use this time. These options can run thin pretty quickly, though. As usual, you’ll find the meat of the content in the party and solo modes. This time, solo mode introduces objective-based gameplay. It’s not as unique as the story mode in the sixth game, but it’s interesting to race across the boards in new ways. Plus, you can challenge another human in these maps, somewhat rekindling the long lost flame of the duel maps from the third game. The boards again feature many different ways of obtaining stars.
In the end, it’s all about the minigames here. 7 has more minigames than you can deal with. You could do nothing but play the games and have fun forever if you so desired. However, by this point, many minigames are repeats of past ideas– still, you have to love the sheer variety. One thing that has suffered with the minigames is that there are fewer games in each category.
You can live it up with the final ‘Cube party with a disc for around $20. Microphone or not, one last blowout on the old lunchbox is in order.
The Good:
- The most minigames of the series, period.
- Varied ways in obtaining stars on the boards
The Bad:
- 8-player game mode is pretty thin
- So many minigames means less of each category
Stand-out Minigames: Fun Run, Spinner Cell, Battery Ram
Wow, excellent job stepping through the whole (console) history of the series! I remember hearing you mention you would be working on this feature when I listened to a recent episode (10, I think) of the podcast (oops, I’ve missed some of the newer episodes). My experience with the Mario Party series is rather limited, so I found it interesting to read about the changes made along the way.
So DK is not a playable character starting with Mario Party 5? I was wondering why he showed up on the box covers in some of the later games. Looking it up online now, I see he becomes a non-playable character you interact with on certain boards. I wonder why they did that? Even Mario Kart 7 still has features the burly ape as a playable character.
Removing DK as a playable character always bummed me out, too. Especially when they go to great lengths to make you hate the guy, like when he gives a free star to someone who doesn’t need it. I know when I was playing the GameCube Mario Party titles, I viewed him on-par with Bowser in terms of annoyance.
Truth be told, there’s not much that could get me to buy a new Mario Party nowadays. I’m just not in the position to play with many people for local multiplayer, and online would have to be done really well for me to consider it.
Glad you guys liked the feature! I was never a huge DK fan in Mario Party, but it was odd that he became an event guy from 5 onwards. His minigames were always tough to unlock if you wanted 100% as well.
80% of the fun in Mario Party does come from being with your friends. I can’t see that level of energy being replicated through online play any time soon. The fact that I can still play Mario Party 15 years later and have fun with it now that I’m older really speaks to that.