I can’t remember if we’ve made a blog discussing Mario Party 8 for the Wii, but if we have… great. It’s a little after 8 in the morning and frankly I can’t be bothered to search through the archives 🙂
Chris and I have owned Mario Party 8 since February, and last night was the 2nd time we’ve played it. It’s a great game with a lot of mini-games so our lack of playing it has nothing to do with the game itself. One huge downside is that in order to play a 15 round game, you better be ready to sit there for a couple of hours. It’s seriously that long.
First time Chris and I played it we were on a team versus two other random characters. We played on Goomba’s Booty Boardwalk which was a lot of fun. If you are new to the Mario Party series, I would suggest starting with either that board or the DK’s Treetop Temple board. Both are beginner friendly and a lot of fun.
Last night we were joined by Lianne, Chris’ cousins wife, and we all played against each other. This time we picked a new board, King Boo’s Haunted Hideaway. Unlike the other boards we were familiar with, you couldn’t view the entire map and the location of King Boo would change after you found him. With the DK and Goomba levels, you could scroll throughout the board and see where you’d want to go and where the star location was. King Boo’s board was totally different.
There wasn’t only one way you could go. Sometimes the board would be a simple shape that would branch off in a couple of areas, and sometimes the board would have many turns to choose from. Out of all the possible end points on the board, only one lead to King Boo. All others took you straight to a pitfall. If you were lucky enough to activate the DK spot, Donkey Kong would be waiting for you in the pitfall with a star. The downside to that is that the remaining DK spots on the board were then changed to Bowser.
If you land on the Bowser spot DK is replaced by Bowser. With Bowser, there is no consistency. Sometimes he can take a star or coins away from you, sometimes he will make you duel another player, sometimes he will give coins to all of the other players, and sometimes he will give you coins. There is honestly no way in telling what he will do. I will say that if you are the leader, you better watch out for Bowser.
The mini games last night were all new to us. We surprisingly got a lot of 3 vs 1 mini games, with Chris mostly being the 1. There was one where Chris was in a hovercraft and the rest of us were on a board that was just a regular square, but there were parts that were cut out. Chris in his hovercraft was able to go over those spots without any problems. We couldn’t. His goal was to bump us all off in a certain amount of time so that he could be the winner and get 10 extra coins. He did win that one, and I will be honest…. I really sucked at that mini game. The Princess failed me.
We didn’t finish all 15 rounds last night since it was getting late, but we had a lot of fun. Whenever I play that game, I am always blown away at how much thought went into the game. I also love how they take full advantage of the Wii-mote and all of it’s capabilities.
If you own a Wii and want a fun party game for up to 4 players and are a fan of the Mario series, I highly suggest picking up a copy of Mario Party 8. You won’t be disappointed…. and if you are, **jedi mind trick** this is not the blog you are looking for **/end jedi mind trick**
– She Who Has The Last Word
