Mario Party 10

Mario Party 10
The first Mario Party in HD and Mario Party 9, but with less charm.
Genre(s): Party Rating(s): ESRB: E PEGI: 7 CERO: A ACB: G USK: 6 Platform(s): Wii U Release Date: JP: March 12, 2015 NA/EU: March 20, 2015 AU: March 21, 2015 Developer(s): NDcube Publisher(s): Nintendo Country: Japan Series: Mario Party Predecessor: Mario Party 9 Mario Party: Island Tour Successor: Mario Party: Star Rush Super Mario Party

Mario Party 10 is the tenth home console installment of the Mario Party series. It was developed by NDcube and published by Nintendo in March 2015 for the Wii U.

Bad Qualities

1. The game in general feels like a rehash of Mario Party 9, having similar issues, such as the infamous car mechanic and rather generic boards. However, most of the charm of 9 was removed, pretty much giving 10 less charm and charisma, more so than Island Tour. Not to mention, many things that made 9 at least more fun were removed in 10, pretty much making 10 feel like a watered down version of 9, but in HD.
   • The reason why 9 was well-made was because it was more accessible to newer players and changed certain things about the formula that made it fresh again, which was lessen in this title, since it's a lot more simplified and repetitive than 9.
2. While there is thankfully a mode that allows you to play traditional Mario Party, you need amiibos to do so, hence the name "Amiibo Mode". Without them, however, you're pretty much stuck with the car mechanic mode in the form of the Party or Bowser Modes.
3. Speaking of Bowser Mode, while not a bad mode, there are severe balance problems with it:
   • Bowser is extremely overpowered. He can use mutiple Dice Blocks, to make it easy to get to Team Mario. What makes this fact worse is that even if a player is eliminated (meaning that the maximum Team Mario can go with the dice blocks is 18), he always has 4 (meaning that the maximum is 24). In fact, if he rolls low enough, he gets to roll again (although luckily, if he rolls lower, he cant move the amount of spaces before he rerolled) , which is unfair, as there aren't any spaces for Team Mario to reroll.
   • Some of the Bowser Party minigames takes away more hearts than they should, especially Bowser's Clawful Climb.
   • Only 3 of the 5 boards are playable in Bowser Party, which is rather questionable since the other 2 boards available could've at least fit well with Bowser Party. All they needed to do was tweak them a bit, but they didn't, making the Bowser Party mode a wasted opportunity in general.
4. Some of the mini-games are complete rehashes of ones from older games, such as Steal the Beat, which is clearly a rip-off of the Mario Party 2 minigame Move to the Music, with the same rules and musical theme. The only exception is that you play drums in this one, whereas in the other aforementioned one, you just perform dance moves.
5. The game does not support the the Pro Controller. Without the GamePad, you're forced to use a Wiimote instead. This is especially bad because Wiimotes are not bundled with the Wii U, so you're pretty much screwed if you do not have the Wiimote to play the Mario Party part of the game.
6. The minigame results/tie themes are once again reused from 9; it's just that it's remixed. Even the N64 Mario Party titles had different minigame results/tie themes.
7. The Amiibo Party is rather mediocre; while it is the only way to play traditional Mario Party without the infamous car mechanic, the boards itself are just squares, just with differences to make them have the stuff that suits the board, but that's basically it.
8. There isn't a Story Mode nor any Rival or Adventure that serves as the main campaign for the game unlike in the Hudson Soft games and Mario Party 9 and Island Tour, as your only limited to either the Mario Party, Bowser Party or the Amiibo Party modes instead, which don't have a lot of content in them and can feel a bit stale at times.
9. While very great, the music isn't very memorable and can be easy to forget at times, which can be a bit of a surprise since the Mario games tend to have soundtracks that are easy to remember so that the player can still listen to them in their heads. Sadly, this isn't the case with 10.
10. A rather small amount of boards, having only 5 of them. By comparison, 9 had 6 by default, along with an unlockable 7th one.
11. Despite the character roster being very solid, quite a few of the characters from the last game were scrapped in this one, such as Birdo, Koopa Troopa and Shy Guy who were playable in 9 and 8 (for Birdo only) and were fan-favorite additions to the roster, as they're all replaced by newer additions and would only later be playable again in future instalments such as Super and Superstars respectively. In fact, the character roster for this game is the same number as the roster for the last game at a total of 12 playable characters in the roster with 4 of the characters from the last game being replaced by 2 new ones and 2 returning characters respectively, which made people disappointed at the exclusion of Birdo from the roster since she became a mainstay at that point since 7 and was quite beloved by many fan alike, and Koopa Troopa, Shy Guy and Kamek were also considered good additions to the roster as a whole and it was somewhat of a shame that 9 was their only playable appearance in the series for 6 years until both Koopa and Shy Guy were thankfully made playable again in Super but Kamek never made a playable appearance in the series after 9 and became a one-time inclusion in the series overall, which was disappointing. Thankfully, as said before, the excluded characters (expect for Kamek) returned in later entries and ND Cube did managed to listen to the criticism from fans about their exclusions, so they at least learned their mistakes and improved the roster of the entries from this game, which makes those games better in terms of their rosters and the amount of characters they have overall.
12. Mario Party 10 suffers from a major problem that ruins the whole game, as it's incredibly boring in terms of gameplay as many of the modes can become dull and uninteresting as an experience and aside from the minigames, there isn't much to do since the content is so lacking that most of the modes overstay their welcome as all three of the main modes (Party Mode, Bowser Party and Amiibo Party) suffer from bland gameplay that gets repetitive quickly with zero variety and a lack of replay value in general. In fact, there isn't much to do aside from the three main modes as there is a shop called Toad's Room where you can buy a few stuff (characters, cars, music, a new difficulty option and photos of certain characters) and has a few other options that don't do much to enhance the experience, overall making this game the most bland and forgettable title in the entire series and a disappointing way to end the numbered entries in the series (unless if you count Super Mario Party as the eleventh game in the series but it was marketed more as a reboot of the series so it doesn't count).

Good Qualities

1. As expected from a HD Mario game for the Wii U, the graphics are awesome and beautiful.
2. Improved character roster, which pleased many fans of the series. Rosalina and Spike make their Mario Party debuts as playable characters, Donkey Kong makes his return since Mario Party 4, while Toadette makes her return since Mario Party 8 despite some divisive removals from the roster such as Birdo and Koopa Troopa (mentioned in BQ#11).
3. The Amiibo Party mode is still a pretty good attempt at bringing back the traditional Mario Party gameplay, since there's a minigame at the end of each round, even though the execution could be better by making the boards look the way how they looked in the N64 and GameCube games (including the handhelds and Mario Party 8 for the Wii).
4. The general idea for Bowser Party is very interesting, and it would be obviously better if the mode was more balanced.
5. The mini-games are fun and most of them are already unlocked at the start.
6. It brought back 2-vs-2 minigames, something which 9 lacked. (Shell Soccer doesn't count as it was put under "Extra" and not 2-v-2)
7. While the music is generally forgettable, it's still very great, as expected from a Mario game.
8. The minigame selection is pretty good.
9. The bosses in the Mario Party mode are very decent.

Reception

The game received mixed reception from critics and from the fans, on Metacritic, it has a rating of 66/100 from critics and 6.4/10 from gamers, as the most criticism was directed towards the Mario Party mode as being too luck-based and the amiibo Party mode as being too bare-bones, though praise was directed towards the minigame varieties and the Bowser Party mode. While not overwhelmingly negative, it was considered by many as the worst main entry in the Mario Party series, surpassing Mario Party Advance and prior to Mario Party: The Top 100.

Despite the mixed reception, it was reported to have sold better than Mario Party 9, which only sold 230,000 in around three weeks, making it one of the best-selling titles on the Wii U.

Videos

Load video

YouTube

YouTube might collect personal data. Privacy Policy

ContinueDismiss

Trivia

• This is the only main entry in the Mario Party series to not have a successor being released on the same console, being the Wii U.

Comments

Loading comments...