4/5 ★ – TNGLiam's review of Mario Party 3.

Platform: Switch (via Switch Online) Time Played: 9 hours Status: Beaten ⟳ When I first played through Mario Party 3 for the first time two years ago, playing Story Mode and then playing all of the Battle Royale boards with friends, I ended the experience rating it as the worst Hudson Soft developed game on the N64, and after playing through the rest of their entries, I also kept it rated as the lowest ranked out of their entries into the series. In the two years since, I’ve kept wanting to go back to Mario Party 3 to give it another fair shake, especially now that it's on Switch Online and therefore much more accessible to play with friends than loading a shotty homebrew N64 emulator on my Wii. And well, I’ve finally played through it once again, just the Story Mode this time though, but I tried my best to view everything through the lens of playing the game with others, and even then, I found myself having a fairly good time playing through the Story Mode, trying to outcompete three CPUs to advance to the next Battle Royale board. But even then, I know now that this game is definitely a top-tier entry in the Mario Party series, and while not one of my absolute favorites, it is still a phenomenal entry to throw on to have some fun with your friends. Firstly I want to talk about the presentation. This game’s story is (by Mario Party standards) the most fleshed out yet. A newborn star born only once a millennium named the Millennium Star is born in the sky and falls down right in front of Peach’s Castle, where the six characters from the first two games just so happen to be relaxing. The Millennium Star announces that whoever can prove themselves as the greatest Superstar in the universe shall claim ownership over him, transforming the surrounding area into a “toy box” of sorts as one was nearby, but the surrounding area is also inside the toy box now? And thus the game’s “story” is kicked off. This setup introduces a sort of toy box aesthetic to the overall game, with multiple cartoonish set pieces with black borders being seen throughout the game’s boards and minigames. When going in to write this review, I was going to mention how I didn’t really like this overall aesthetic, as it’s more of a 50/50 mix of the aesthetic from the last game with this pop-up book kind of aesthetic that they have going on otherwise, but honestly, looking back on the visual details of the minigames and boards, I kind of dig this unique art style. Sure there are a few instances where these toy box textures don’t look the best, but most of the time they look great and work really well with the more ‘real’ looking parts of the visual design. Now I will say that there are some minigames that feel like they totally abandon the toy box aesthetic (like Baby Bowser Broadside and Aces High) or only really have one thing in them that matches it (like Picking Panic or Spotlight Swim), but honestly, they’re more outliers and don’t represent the whole. One thing I wish they did delve into more with this aesthetic though is that I wished they played around with the characters actually being in a toy box. Like, there are multiple minigames featuring the characters in areas that they’d have to be much smaller to fit in. Like Tick Tock Hop having the characters stand on top of clock hands, Crowd Cover having the characters smaller than paintbrushes, Eatsa Pizza having you be as big as the pepperonis on a pizza, and Crazy Cogs having you be about the size of a nail. It wouldn’t be until Mario Party DS where Hudson went all in on this kind of gimmick, and a lot of the minigames here feel like they’d fit in any other Mario Party (and Superstars proves that). Now I’m not saying that all of the minigames should’ve been like this, making you all tiny and shit, because the minigame selection here is pretty damn good, but I just wish that the toy box thing was a lot more prevalent when it came to the size of the characters and their surroundings. In terms of innovation to the main board gameplay, Mario Party 3 doesn’t change as much as Mario Party 2 did after the first game. This time around, each board has an Action Time moment that is typically triggered by landing on specific Happening Spaces, where the players caught in it must react accordingly to avoid obstacles, like mashing the A button as fast as possible so as to not be sent back to the start, or timing jumps over obstacles correctly to not be moved to an undesired location. Another change is the addition of Game Guy spaces which appear twice on every board, and when landed on, Game Guy takes away all of your coins as you’re then forced to gamble for it back but multiplied by a significant amount, but if you lose, its bye bye to all of your hard-earned coins. These Game Guy spaces can either be incredibly punishing or incredibly rewarding depending on where you’re at in the game, a space that could literally boost you into an insane lead or knock your lead down by several places. Honestly pretty fun (but grueling in Duel Mode, which we’ll get to later). The amount of items you can carry has increased from one in the last game to now being able to carry three items at once, which is a huge game changer, especially considering the items available, which I’ll also get to later. Lastly, Chance Time has been drastically changed for the worse, with it no longer feeling like the player has much input or decision in what happens to everyone with everything feeling like a roulette. They should've just brought back Chance Time from Mario Party 1 and 2 again and all would've been fine. Moving onto the boards themselves, Chilly Waters is a really fun ice/snowy-themed board (the first in the series) that I genuinely love playing on. I like all of the Mario 64 penguins hanging around along with the many snowmen (who I can presume are supposed to be Mr. Blizzards) hanging with them. I think the Action Time here where you have to jump over the giant snowball is honestly awesome, as it's up to your skill if you’re able to time your jump right to stay in the position you want to stay in, or if it the snowball where take you where you want to go, just get caught up in its path. I also think the icy lake in the middle that goes in multiple directions is super neat, and the ice chattering if more than two players are standing on it by the end of the turn really makes you strategize to make sure you don’t fall in. One thing that kind of stinks about this though is the ice slopes in that lake, leaving it entirely up to chance if you’re actually able to get off the ice, which is certainly overkill. Either way, this board is great and definitely one of my favorites in this game. Deep Bloober Sea is another great board, but not as great as Chilly Waters in my eyes. The series’ first underwater board sees many a Cheep Cheeps, Bloopers, and other marine life hanging about, with a giant Baby Blooper in the middle, where if you land on the Happening Spaces surrounding him, his gigantic mama will move you to the other side of the trench. There’s also an Action Time involving a giant ass fish who will spit you in the direction he indicates if you don’t mash the A button fast enough, and a little mandatory event with Sushi the shark where you have to press one of his four buttons and hope that one of them doesn’t activate the shark torpedo, sending you to the opposite side of the trench than you intended, with the Baby Blooper being your only hope back to the track you wanted to go on. This board is overall super fun and yet another of my favorites from this game and the N64 era in general. Spiny Desert brings back similar vibes to Western Land from the previous game, but only really because they both take place in deserts, duh. I like the Action Time here where you have to jump over the prickly cacti, but the quicksand pits change things up, sucking players from one to the other if they happen to land on a Happening Space. One thing that sets this board apart is the mirage Stars; when the Star changes its position on the board, two will appear, but one of them is fake and will disappear when you walk up to it, meaning that until that mirage star is gone, the players have to hope and pray that the star closest to them is the real one, if not their strategies were for not. I like this board; while not one of my favorites, it's still a really fun one nonetheless. Woody Woods is yet another fun one, with its main gimmick being Monty Moles that flip signs at the end of each turn, forcing players to go either left or right down a given path depending on which way the sign is facing, causing players to have to strategize and hope their dice rolls luck out so that they can go in their desired direction, although you can pay the Monty Moles to flip the sign for you, typically making it so that the direction you want will be active next turn. Otherwise, Woody from Mini-Game Land in Mario Party 2 makes his return here, landing in front of him has him drop either a coin fruit or a dice fruit, one that’ll give you coins and the other an additional dice roll for that turn. His evil counterpart, Evil Woody, on the other hand, will either take away some of your coins or make you roll backward depending on what fruit you get (which could be a good thing if the star’s behind you). Yet another great board. Creepy Cavern is the only board in the game that I actively dislike, hell its the only board in this game that isn’t good whatsoever in my eyes. You’ve got two main gimmicks. One being that King Whomp is resting in the middle of the board, blocking one of the two paths near him, and can only be flipped over if offered an item or you land on a Happening Space, and the other being the rails that will have Thwomps in minecarts in them that will chase you to the other side of a Happening Space manages to get you caught in their way. This setup can have players circling around specific areas on the board for an extremely long period of time, which is just never fun in any Mario Party game. No amount of cute little Swoopers, Podoboos, Dorries, or ghost-shaped rock formations can save this board. And lastly is Waluigi’s Island, the board unlocked by beating the Story Mode. I absolutely dig the aesthetic of this board; a private island owned by Luigi that has been fully taken over by Waluigi? Sign my ass up. This board, like Waluigi, is full of mischievous hijinks that will have players constantly facing utter chaos. Firstly you have a giant mound of dynamite at the bottom of the board with a counter-counting down from five if a plater lands on Happening. Then you have an Action Time where arrows on a jump pad in the middle of the board will light up with players needing good timing to land in the direction they wish to go in. Then there are several pipes that if taken will take players over to another pipe elsewhere on the board. Then there’s a pitfall section where it's entirely up to chance whether or not the player makes it across or falls into a pitfall that’ll send you back to the start. And lastly, there’s a small island filled entirely with a single kind of space that changes every turn, and it could be any kind of space; Bowser Space, Battle Minigame space, Item Minigame space, Chance Time space, Game Guy space, normal coin space, etc. And to get to this island you have to pass by one of two metal bridges to cross with it, but only one is up at a time, being able to be swapped by landing on a Happening Space. There is so much going on with this board, and honestly, I love it. The sheer chaos here makes for so much hectic fun. Yet another great board to round out the lineup. So yeah, Mario Party 3’s board lineup is absolutely fantastic, honestly better than Mario Party 2’s on average with Creepy Cavern being the only board that I would actively choose to avoid when playing this again with friends in the future. But there’s another kind of board that’s only in Mario Party 3 that absolutely sucks, and it's a main component of the Story Mode campaign, and that’s Duel Mode. Duel Mode, in my opinion, sucks. Even though I only played it against CPUs, there is absolutely no way that anyone could get enjoyment out of this with their friends. You and another player, walk around one of six incredibly boring and barren boards with the stupidest names (named after the weird ‘sentient’ signs, pipes, or machinery) collecting partners (one of which is automatically assigned to you at the start of the match depending on what character you picked, therefore meaning that some characters are literally better than others) that either attack for you or defend you when you and the other player meet on the board. You cannot directly attack your opponent, but your partners can, with the overall goal being to take away your opponent’s five points of health. Each partner has their own unique abilities that you’ll have to pause in the middle of the game to figure out, each partner will have different attack stats, and health points of their own, and will charge you at the start of each turn towards their salary, so that’s where wanting to collect as many coins as possible comes in. You can power up your partners to double their stats, but it also doubles their salary, that is until you get back to the start of the side of the board you started on, where the Millennium Star will give you ten coins, take away your power-ups, and give you the option of getting a new partner. Oh, and then there’s Belltop, this cross between a Toad and sentient machinery that once he’s passed by five times a minigame for even more coins will start. If both players are still alive by the end of the set amount of turns, then the one with the least amount of health loses, and if both players have the same amount of health, then the one with the most coins wins. Not to mention that minigames only show up if you land on a minigame space, where you HAVE to play Duel minigames, which there are only a small amount of, meaning you’ll be replaying the same minigames a LOT. Speaking of replaying the same minigames a LOT, Game Guy spaces seem to be everywhere on these boards, meaning you’ll constantly be losing all of your coins due to sheer luck and gambling, meaning you’ll lose your partners because you can’t pay their salaries, meaning you have no protective from your opponent because you have no more partners. Does all that shit sound incredibly complicated? Because no amount of being falsely fleshed out will make this mode any better than the uninteresting and boring mess that it is. This mode sucks, and it sucks that you have to play it so damn much in Story Mode just to get through the damn campaign. Speaking of Story Mode, I want to talk about that a little more. One obviously shouldn’t expect much from a Story Mode in a Mario Party game, but I just find the one in this game so silly. You play as one of six characters (you can’t pick Daisy or Waluigi, this game’s new additions, as they are set as the seventh and eighth characters you fight no matter what) and go through each of the Battle Royale boards with the character of your choice, and for winning that board, the Millennium Star grants you a Star Stamp for a stamp card, that once filled out will ‘prove’ that you are the best Superstar in the universe. But after each board, a character fitting that attribute will challenge you to a Duel Board match over the Star Stamp. You know, Mario fights for the courage one, Peach for love, Yoshi for kindness, Donkey Kong for strength, Daisy for beauty, Waluigi for mischief, and Wario for… wit? Alright. All of that tracks, but what about Luigi? Well he’ll fill in for whatever attribute your character was supposed to exhibit. Stretching that logic must mean that Luigi technically is the greatest Superstar in the universe as he already can have all of the attributes besides beauty and mischief. Speaking of Daisy and Waluigi, I find it a little weird but slightly amusing that Millennium Star fawns over Daisy due to her “beauty.” I mean she is fighting for the beauty Star Stamp after all, but at this point in the story you’re led to believe that this Millennium Star is a newborn, so it's just weird to think about for more than a few seconds. Bowser and the Koopa Kids follow you around for most of the story, trying to get your Star Stamps but he’s always too stupid or too late to get them, that is until the end where he finally challenges, but Waluigi kicks the shit out of him anyway and thus you have to play against him on his island. Ugh, I love you Waluigi. Once you get all of the stamps you have to fight a boss battle against the Millennium Star itself only for it to be revealed that this Millennium Star is a fake and that the real one was inside the head of Tumble (this game’s host, a living dice from inside the toy box brought to life by the Millennium Star’s magic), and you, having proven yourself, are given the Millennium Star, granted title of greatest Superstar in the universe, and get your head sculpted into a mountain behind Peach’s Castle. Honestly, it’s the most in-depth story mode in this series besides Mario Party DS, and thus I commend them for trying at least a little to craft some sort of, something here that resembles a narrative; something the GameCube games couldn’t seem to do whatsoever. In terms of minigames, I honestly think that Mario Party 3 has a pretty good selection of minigames. Personal highlights include: Messy Memory, Curtain Call, Cheep Cheep Chase, Snowball Summit (one of my top favorites), Bounce ‘n’ Trounce, Mario’s Puzzle Party, The Beat Goes On (a really tense memory game), Water Whirled (fantastic controls once you figure it out and can lead to fun hijinks when people don’t understand them), Awful Tower, Pipe Cleaners, Rockin’ Raceway, Crazy Cogs, Ridiculous Relay, Thwomp Pull, Eatsa Pizza, Log Jam, Pump, Pump and Away; Picking Panic, Slap Down (super tense), Locked Out, Storm Chasers, Eye Sore, Vine With Me, Popgun Pick-Off (so fun to just fire endless balls at the targets), End of the Line, Silly Screws, Crowd Cover, Tick Tock Hop, and Motor Rooter. Just so many great minigames to play here, making for a great combination of board gameplay and minigames to play in between turns. In my eyes almost as good as Mario Party 2’s minigame selection, just like this game overall is almost equal to Mario Party 2. Finally, I just want to loop back around to board gameplay by bringing back up the topic of items. Mario Party 3 has potentially one of the best item systems in the series. Like I said earlier, instead of being able to only carry one item like in Mario Party 2, here in Mario Party 3 you can now carry three items, which is a significant improvement, especially considering how you couldn’t throw away Skeleton Keys in that game, but you can here. There are two different item shops on the board, Toad’s item shop and Koopa Kid’s item shop, both with different inventories with tons of great items to get an edge over your opponents. Mushrooms, Golden Mushrooms, Boo Bells, Magic Lamps, and others return among other great items that I wish returned more often. We got the Lucky Lamp, calling an evil genie to change the star's position (changed to the Chomp Call in later entries), the Reverse Mushroom that lets you roll a die to move backward, Boo Repellant that makes it so that an opponent can’t use Boo to steal something from you, the Cellular Shopper to order items from either of the two shops from anywhere on the board, the Bowser Phone to call Bowser and pretend you’re another player so that a Bowser space event is forced upon them, and the Item Bag which pulls out three random items, some of which could be super rare items like the Koopa Kard that allows you to take all of the coins out of the Koopa Bank by just passing it instead of having to land on the space, the Lucky Charm which summons Game Guy and you get to pick who gets to play one of his gambling minigames including other players, the Barter Box swaps item with the user and the chosen player, and the absolutely insane Wacky Watch which, no matter what turn it is, brings the game to the last five turns, so you can either shorten the game’s length by a crazy amount if you’re in an astronomical lead, or extend the game’s length in a last ditch attempt to get to first place. Either way, all of the items at your disposal here can provide for so much chaos, strategy, and overall fun. Such a good setup here. To conclude, I have fully switched up on Mario Party 3. This is ALMOST as good as Mario Party 2 in my eyes, with that game just having a little more charm, and a slightly greater quality when it comes to its minigames and boards; but nonetheless, Mario Party 3 is a phenomenal party game to flick on and enjoy with your friends. I can’t believe that I used to dislike this game the way I did. Sure Duel Mode sucks balls, and that definitely drags this game several points compared to its direct predecessor, but still, this is definitely one of the few Mario Party games that I’ll suggest to throw on with friends for years to come.