Mario Party 7

Mario Party 7
Party 'round the World!
Protagonist(s): Depends on which character the player selected in Story Mode Genre(s): Party game Platform(s): Nintendo GameCube Release Date: NA: November 7, 2005 JP: November 10, 2005 CAN: January 27, 2006 EU: February 10, 2006 AU: June 8, 2006 Developer(s): Hudson Soft Publisher(s): Nintendo Series: Mario Party Predecessor: Mario Party 6 Successor: Mario Party 8

Mario Party 7 is the seventh installment of the Mario Party series; it was developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo in November 2005. It was also the fourth and last Mario Party game for the GameCube.

Good Qualities

1. Great graphics, even for GameCube standards.
2. The soundtrack is impressive and somewhat memorable.
3. Despite the short number of 4-player minigames, it is an excellent selection.
4. This game introduces the concept of random bonus stars. There are six bonus stars, and the game randomly selects 3. They are the Red Star, Shopping Star, Minigame Star, Running Star, Action Star, and Orb Star. This entices players to compete for the highest requirements to potentially gain these stars at the end of the game, much more competitively than in the previous games.
5. Has one of the series's best board selections, each being highly unique and fun. Each board is based on a real-life location. For example, Pagoda Peak is based in both China and Japan.
6. The Story Mode is interesting, as it involves traveling around the world on a cruise ship.
7. Birdo and Dry Bones make their debut as playable characters.
8. The orb system from Mario Party 6 returns in this game, and it's just as fun to use as ever, with new blue orbs called character orbs, and they are helpful in their ways.
   • The Triple Shroom and Magic orbs are excellent and can be used anytime; both orbs double the dice blocks, and with the latter, you can avoid being harmed by traps (Roadblock Orbs). Even though they both stop you from using green self orbs for 1/2 turns (the former stops you for two turns, and the latter is for one turn), it isn't as problematic as the fireball orb because their effects/positive aspects are more valuable than the fireball orb.
9. The 8-Player mechanic is very creative and unique. In a 4-Team Battle, four teams of two players compete against each other on a board. There's also Deluxe Cruise, where players can try out the 8-Player minigames anytime in 8-Player Free Play and 8-Player Ice Battle.

Bad Qualities

1. Koopa Kid is no longer a playable character. On top of that, this is his last appearance in the series.
2. Over emphasis on the microphone. The worst offender is the overpowered mic space on the boards; its minigame can double a player's coins, and it is straightforward to win the game.
3. The Player Color Codes are used instead of the Character Color Code.
4. The small number of regular four-player minigames can be a turn-off, with only thirteen of them, while most can be interesting. If you exclude the mic games, this is the least amount of 4-player minigames in the entire series.
5. The Bowser Time mechanic can get annoying, especially when he charges everyone 10 to 20 coins after he makes them take a picture (which he does not do on Bowser's Enchanted Inferno!).
   • Speaking of that board, the only thing he does when it's Bowser Time is sink an island with a star on it, and that's it; anyone caught on the island while it sinks will lose half of their coins.
   • On Pyramid Park and Neon Heights, he steals a star from the player in 1st place, which sucks on the latter because, with the former, you can at least tell where your stolen star is (via Koopa Kid's location), but there, you cannot tell where your stolen star is because it could be in any of the three chests without any way of speaking; in addition, whoever gets your star, will also get the regular star as well.
   • Speaking of Bowser, his scene in the opening cutscene may scare some people.
   • Also, the Bowser Spaces are unpleasant; whenever you land on those spaces, you always have to play a Bowser minigame, and those minigames drag on for so long, and they're incredibly annoying to play; to make this even more insulting, if you don't win the Bowser minigames, then you'll either lose half/all of your coins, or even a star, which makes it even more annoying to land on. The only board that does not have these spaces is Bowser's Enchanted Inferno! (which, ironically, is a Bowser board, yet it doesn't have his spaces like what Mario Party 2, 4, 5 or even its next title, 8 (if the DK space was landed on) would have).
6. The character orbs are imbalanced, even though they're helpful in their ways.
   • The Fireball (Mario and Luigi's) or Egg (Yoshi and Birdo's) orbs are situational; they can only be good when the opportunity presents itself; however, when they do hit, they are worth it.
     • The former is even more situational because it stops you from using green orbs for three turns. You're only stealing ten coins with it, which is what a downgraded Bowser Suit (from 2, 3, and 4) would be like; in 2 and 3, it would steal 20 coins, while 4, even though it's rare (you have to land on a Bowser Space to get it, and even if you do, the chances are still low), it was upgraded to steal 30 coins. At least with the Triple Shroom Orb, although it locked you out from using green orbs for three turns, it's more practical because two dice blocks for three turns are nice.
   • The Vacuum Orb (Wario and Waluigi's character orb) is just accurate but painfully bad; when you use it, you spin a wheel and take away whatever number you end up with: 1, 3, 5, and 10 (in Party Cruise), and 3, 5, 10, and 20 (in Solo Cruise).
     • The issue is the wheel is entirely random, and it doesn't matter if you time it to get the number you want or not; again, it is random; you have low chances of getting said numbers you end up with; this means that you are not getting any value from using it, then what you've spent on it. These factors make getting coins with it harder/worse than the Fireball's chances.
     • At least with the Fireball Orb, even though it stopped you from using green orbs for three turns, you can still get a decent play with it when the time comes. But with the Vacuum Orb, the only thing you can ever hope for is to steal 5/10 coins (Party Cruise; this gets you a total of 15/30), or 10/20 (in Solo Cruise), or you'll get almost nothing, which is just pathetic.

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