Mario Party 4 Review by N-Cubed
Nintendo 64 Reviews
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Mario Party 4 Review

Mario Party is back on the Nintendo Gamecube! It is the first of the series to be released on the game cube. People moaned about the Mario Party's getting a bit to repetitive and this was the one Nintendo wanted to stop that, and rise to the greatness of Mario Party 2, where many people think the series should of stopped.

So what's the idea of the game? The simple answer is to collect as many stars as possible! Well how do i get them? The game is like a giant game board, you just have to get to the place where the star is and pay your 20 coins, and if you don't have 20....Tough luck. You get coins like this. When everyone has had there turn you play a mini game.

If you win you get coins. You can also collect coins if you land on a certain space but beware because you could also lose them! But this is not the only way to get stars. At the end of the game awards are given, and the winner of each will receive one star. So if you play well collect lots of coins but just can't seem to get to the star don't worry! That's the basic idea of the game and you can do it with 8 different characters and on 5 boards.

Mario Party 4 title screen


When I first popped the game disk and my 'Cube and powered up the first thing that struck me was the graphics. To be honest they were not at all what I was expecting. They are only just better than the N64 versions. Mark my words Sunshine has far better graphics. At this point I was thinking. "What are you up to Nintendo?".

Things just continued to get worse. Sound. Nothing much wrong with it but certainly no where near as good as the classic music in other Mario games. But I shouldn't go to nuts as there are games with worse sounds.

Now for the game play, and this is my main problem with the game. The only thing Nintendo have even attempted to do to make this different from the N64 ones is add more mini games. The game itself plays ok, but you can really go wrong when all you have to do is stop the dice. I was just very disappointed. I thought Nintendo would of tried something new here but they didn't. Anyway some of the games are quite fun and I enjoyed them for a while.

The playable characters are: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Daisy, Donkey Kong, Wario and Waluigi just incase you wanted to know that. Nintendo tried to make the game have more one player appeal by adding one player modes, but be warned they suck. This is a multi-player game and don't you forget it. This game is as fun as a dead fish lying on the road when your on your own but with a few friends over you can have a right laugh.

Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Mario and Luigi skiing


In terms of lifespan it's not to good aswell. As have have said before it can be a laugh with some friends over. But I only played it for two weeks and then even with friends over I would just play a different party game (ie Monkey Ball 2).Waluigi statue

So overall I was very disappointed. I was expecting lots of great improvements and changes but what I got was something that is pretty much the same as the N64 versions. If you say, "I might find it fun as I don't have the N64 versions", you are wrong. It will still only last you about a week and if you are that desperate to want to play it you could most probably go and find a second hand N64 with Mario Party 2 for cheaper and it will still be more fun. I think if this is the way the series is going they may as well stop it now!

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