Mario Party 10 wants four people in one room, shouting at a television. That is the whole pitch, and it is a good one. Nintendo shipped the tenth home-console entry in the Mario Party series in March 2015 for the Wii U, built by NDcube, the studio behind Mario Party 9. It adds two modes and a stack of minigames. It also carries a 6.6/10 critical average across 14 outlets, and that number is about right.
Trailer, via Nintendo of America.
The Vehicle Rolls for Everyone
The base Mario Party mode puts four players — human or computer-controlled — inside a single vehicle on a game board. They move together. Whoever holds the most mini-stars at the end of the board wins. Turns rotate the operator, who rolls the die and decides what happens on the space landed on, including which path to take when the board splits.
Mushroom Park to Chaos Castle
Five boards are included: Mushroom Park, Haunted Trail, Whimsical Waters, Airship Central, and Chaos Castle. Each holds two boss battles, and all four players cooperate to beat them. A round runs roughly 30 minutes.
Bowser on the GamePad
The best idea here is Bowser Party. Four players form Team Mario against a fifth who controls Bowser on the Wii U GamePad, and that fifth player’s job is to ruin everyone else’s evening. It is the rare addition that gives a couch full of people a reason to hand one person real power.
Amiibo Party Costs Extra
Amiibo Party, the second new mode, uses the figures. It is thinner. It assumes you bought the toys.
Seventy Minigames, Three Shapes
Minigame spaces trigger one of over 70 minigames. They come in three types:
- Free-for-alls, where all four compete against each other.
- Two-versus-twos, with players split randomly into teams.
- Three-versus-ones, where three players take on one with an advantage.
The games lean on memory, puzzle and platform play, and some use Wii Remote controls. Bowser sits imprisoned on the GamePad screen. Roll all six sides of the die across a game and he breaks out, adding hindrances — like forcing you to finish last in a minigame to win it.
What NDcube Was Aiming For
NDcube said one goal was to focus on features the earlier games did not have. That meant the GamePad, Amiibo, and making Bowser playable. The game was announced at E3 2014, detailed in a January 2015 Nintendo Direct alongside the Amiibo figures, and released in Japan, North America, Europe and Australia that March.
Where It Holds Up
The vehicle is the problem. Mario Party 9 introduced it and Mario Party 10 keeps it, and it costs every player the thing the series was built on: your own piece, your own route, your own bad luck. Rolling as a group turns most turns into waiting.
Key facts
- Release: March 2015
- Platform: Wii U
- Developer: NDcube
- Publisher: Nintendo
- Boards: 5
- Minigames: over 70
- Round length: roughly 30 minutes
- Critical average: 6.6/10 (14 outlets)
Bowser Party is the reason to play this one. It is the only mode where the GamePad does something a controller cannot, and it gives a group a villain instead of a scoreboard. The rest is competent and familiar.
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