3.5/5 ★ – TNGLiam's review of Mario Party 7.

Platform: GameCube (Played on Wii) Time Played: ~13 hours Status: Beaten Mario Party 7 is the last of the series to release on the GameCube, and from what I understand it is the most underrated entry on the platform. With Mario Party 6 being the best in the series since Mario Party 2, this game had a lot to compete with, and while it doesn't fully meet it in terms of quality, it is still a fun game to play with others, but not by yourself. This game in my opinion is tied in terms of quality with Mario Party 5, but it has different faults than that entry. The boards in this game for instance are much better and more creative, with them being more so in line with the gimmicks that were seen in some of the boards from the previous game. Both Grand Canal and Bowser's Enchanted Inferno! play like normal boards with players running around the board to collect the most amount of stars, with the latter having the unique gimmick of having the island area where the star is located being sunk and made inaccessible by Bowser once his timer is full. I also really liked the river + town aesthetic of Grand Canal. Otherwise, all of the other boards have their own gimmicks that change up the pace really well in my opinion. Pagoda Peak is one long board with the star always being at the end of the path, but the price changes after someone purchases one. I really liked the traditional Japanese aesthetic and theming that this board carried. Pyramid Park is similar to Snowflake Lake from the previous title, as they both have rideable Chain Chomps that take away stars from other players once met on the board while riding them, with each player being given five stars at the start of the game. The music for Pyramid Park also slaps, and the desert theme while being seen before was made unique via the use of sphinxes, and other architecture. Neon Heights was probably the best board, as it was mainly based on Hollywood stereotypes, genres, and general themes. There are a lot of fun mini games that are specific to this board that are encountered by passing certain spaces, whereas most other boards if they have something similar, you’d need to land on a Happening Space. The ones in Neon Heights, all of the board mini games require good skill to perfect. And I certainly appreciate that. Otherwise, the stars are hidden in three treasure chests spread across the board, where only one has the star, while the others have Bob-Ombs that send you back to the start of the board. This gimmick clearly inspired Kamek’s Library in Mario Party DS, which was a board I really liked from that game. Its entirely original aesthetic was one the series has yet to see up to this point, and I just loved the neon/city design. Windmillville was a very unique board that I really liked the gimmick for. Instead of collecting stars, the players travel around the board and deposit coins into the collective fund to own a windmill. There are windmills that are worth one, two, or three stars, and by owning these windmills, your collective amount of stars increases, but if someone else buys out your windmill, they take your star. This board had a similar cozy feeling to Towering Treetop, and I just generally really liked it. There are few decisions that this game made that I feel take away from its quality in obvious ways. The big kicker is the decision they made to change how resources are taken away during duels. Beforehand, the player who starts the duel gets to pick who they wish to face off against, and what they want to take from them if they win. But in this game, you get to pick who you wish to duel, then you play the minigame, and then what you take from the other player is decided. Sometimes it can be ten coins, half the other’s coins, or all of their coins, or nothing at all. This just takes a lot of excitement away from duels as it’s entirely random what is going to be taken away from you if you lose. Also, if one player has zero coins, the duel still proceeds, but if they end up losing, nothing happens to them, which defeats the entire purpose of the duel. The minigames featured in this game are fairly good, with this entry having the most minigames in all of the numbered games in the series. My favorite minigames were: Bubble Brawl, Fun Run, Picture This, Pokey Pummel, Target Tag, Dart Attack, Buzzstormer, Wingin’ It, Herbicidal Maniac, World Piece, Monty’s Revenge, Apes of Wrath, Camp Ukiki, and Vine Country. Not as many favorites as previous games. But I feel like having so many minigames (88 in this one to be exact) kind of causes the overall quality of the minigames to lessen in comparison to when there are less. Besides that, the Solo Mode in this game was very tedious and was quite the hassle to complete in order to unlock the last board. The player is required to complete certain tasks on each board while a single CPU is playing against you to complete the same goal. I felt like I was back to the unfair Computer Players from the N64 games when playing this mode, as the CPUs would always get the absolute best items for their scenario, allowing them to absolutely wreck me, while I get none of the items that I would need at that moment in time. And the CPUs when playing can vastly differ in terms of their difficulty level, as they can go from being as dumb as baby, to an absolute pro player that is impossible to compete against. Their luck was always absolutely insane, always getting the maximum twenty coins from the coin dice block, while I always got five. I would always land on the sand pit in Pyramid Park every single time I passed it. Just a horrible time with this mode and it almost ruined my experience but I had to shove it out of my head as playing the game by myself has always been less entertaining than playing it with others. Another review on this website for Mario Party 7 had them saying how his experience with Bowser and the mechanics surrounding him in this game ruined a lot of his experience with the game. And I have to say that I have yet to find the same experience. Sure, landing on a Bowser space causes the player who landed on it, or all four players to enter a Bowser minigame in which losing would cost the player half of their coins (or in some cases half of their stars, but that was something I didn’t experience). When this happened with my friends and I, it wasn’t much of a big deal. Sure, losing half of your coins sucks (especially if it's your stars), but the minigames were so fun and tense that it didn’t really matter in our opinions. But I can see how someone can utterly dislike these minigames for taking away all of their resources. There is also an eight player mode in this game that I have yet to try out, but I will definitely update this review once I do so! Overall, Mario Party 7 was a good entry in the series, but it failed to meet the quality that MP6 had finally reestablished. It was still a fun and entertaining experience, and I’m confident that I will revisit it at some point in the future when playing the games with my friends.