Mario Party

Mario Party is a video game based on a board game for the Nintendo 64, and the first game of the Mario Party series. Players choose one of six characters and move around the board. As they go around, they collect coins and various other items that can help them or hinder others in their quest to collect Stars.

Following each turn, players participate in mini-games where they each compete for extra coins; in addition to free-for-alls, they can be grouped together in pairs or in a three-against-one style. The mini-games vary widely and test the players' reflexes, puzzle solving skills, or plain luck. In certain mini-games, players can attempt to steal as many coins as they can from each other; some other mini-games also give the winner five coins each from the losing players. Later installments would introduce dueling mini-games that served a similar purpose. The game is known for pioneering an iconic and renowned sub-series of the Mario franchise that has stayed to this day, and has become one of the most well-known series in gaming.

Story
One day, Mario and his friends are sitting around arguing over who is the Super Star. Wario states that a Super Star must be strong, to which Donkey Kong suggests that he is also strong himself. Both get into an argument over who is stronger. The narrator says that maybe Mario would make a good superstar, or Princess Peach, or even the energetic Yoshi. The gang starts to close in on Toad, who shouts out that he has an idea of what they should do. He suggests that the crew take the Warp Pipe in Mushroom Village, and find out who is the Super Star of their adventures. He warns that the road will be dangerous and that being the Super Star requires not only strength, but courage, wisdom and kindness. Luigi (who had been pushed around by Wario and DK, being in the middle of their argument) bravely agrees first to this plan and sets off to find the warp pipe. Wario and the rest of the group agree and race him to find the warp pipe and become the next Super Star.

Game modes
Game modes are selected from a "Map" screen, Mushroom Village, that the player is led to once starting the game. Each building or feature represents a mode, and the player can select one to play a certain mode.

Listed below are the available areas for the player to access in Mario Party:

Party mode
Party mode is the heart of Mario Party. Four players will play on a board game, each getting a turn to roll the 1-10 Dice Blocks, which will determine how many spaces they will move across. After everyone rolls, a roulette will appear which will randomly select a minigame to play. This process will repeat itself until the set amount of turns is up.

Spaces
There is also a Star Space. When a player passes here, they can obtain a Star only if they have at least 20 Coins. The Star Space won't count towards the player's movements, unlike other spaces.

Mini-Game House
The Mini-Game House is located to the right side of the river, and resembles a mushroom with a large, red cap.

Free Play
The Free Play wall allows the player to access all mini-games they have unlocked so far and can play them as many times as they like for free.

Toad
The resident Toad of the Mini-Game house is an elderly-looking one named Puff who has a large red cap on its head, similarly shaped to the Mini-Game House itself. By speaking to her, the player is given a list of mini-games that have been played in the game so far. There are various price ranges of mini-games. Once one is bought, it can always be played for free via the orb on the table.

Pot o' Skills
The Pot o' Skills leads to the Mini-Game Stadium. The Mini-Game Stadium has its own board shaped in the form of a star, and only has 24 total spaces. Each turn, players roll the dice and advance the number of spaces, like in Party Mode. However, blue spaces do not add coins and red spaces do not subtract coins. All coins are gained or lost from mini-games which are played at the end of each turn. There is a One-Player mini-game space as well. Passing Koopa will result in 10 coins for the player. At the end of the game, the player with the most coins wins.

Mushroom Shop
The Mushroom Shop is run by the Mushroom Shop Clerk and is located on the left side of the river on the map, it resembles a brown mushroom on its side. In the shop, various items can be bought with Coins earned from mini-games and Party games. Here is a listing of every item, along with its price and in-game description.

Mushroom Bank
The Mushroom Bank is where players can store their coins as well as Stars and items. The bank is run by two portly Toads who are similar in every way except that one has yellow stars on his head in place of the usual dots, while the other has orange stars within yellow circles.

The Left Toad
The Toad behind the left counter, whose name is Porto, is in charge of storing the items the player buys at the Mushroom Shop until they are used during a game. Here is also where the player can choose how they want to save their coins, whether with the Coin Box, Lucky Box, or Casino Box.

The Right Toad
The Toad behind the right counter, whose name is Bello, will tell the player how many total coins and stars the player has saved up. He will also say how many more stars need to be collected, out of 100, in order to unlock the Eternal Star map.

Option House
The Option House is a mushroom-resembling blue-topped toward the top of the map across the river. As the name suggests, it is used to adjust the multiple options for the game. There are other features such as the Talking Parrot and Juke Box as well.

Toad
The resident Toad of the Option House, whose name is Fun Gus, can delete all saved data. Once spoken to and asked to delete all data, he takes out a remote and opens an electrical box on the other side of the house. The cover will open revealing a large red switch, and the player is asked if they are sure about deleting their data. Once the player accepts deleting the data, they should either press to press the switch and erase all data, or press  to cancel the process.

Talking Parrot
The Talking Parrot is an item that can be bought from the Mushroom Shop, and once bought, will appear on a perch in the Option House. By pressing the button, the parrot speaks various voices from various characters in the game randomly. Two lines of dialogue were edited from the Japanese version to remove religious references, which were Luigi and Wario exclaiming "Oh my God!" after losing mini-games. These voices include:
 * Boo
 * Bowser
 * Donkey Kong
 * Koopa Troopa
 * Luigi
 * Mario
 * Princess Peach
 * Toad
 * Yoshi
 * Wario
 * The "narrator" voice that announces events in mini-games such as "Time Up!", "Game Over!", "Draw!", etc.

Sound Lever
The Sound Lever is a lever that changes the sound from Mono to Stereo or vice versa. There are two speakers at the bottom with pipes leading up the lever. By pulling the lever down, one of the speakers are deactivated and the sound is changed to Mono. There is no surround sound.

Juke Box
The Juke Box allows the player to listen to any song from the game. The only prerequisite is that the player must have heard the song in the game itself before it becomes available on the Juke Box. The Juke Box becomes available for use after the player buys the Record from the Mushroom Shop for 50 Coins. For PAL and Japanese players, an extra song is available entitled "Move to the Mambo!", which is unavailable in the American version. No official explanation has ever been released as to why it was removed.

Mini-Game Island
Mini-Game Island is a special challenge in which the goal is to travel all around the island and beat every mini-game one by one. After beating every mini-game and reaching the end, Toad will challenge the player once more to a race against him and two other CPUs in Slot Car Derby. This mode is for one player only. Completing the mode will reward the player with the Bumper Ball Maze minigame, which can be accessed in the Minigame House.

Reception and legacy
Mario Party received mostly positive reviews from critics. The most frequent criticism Mario Party received was the lack of enjoyment without multiplayer. GameSpot explains "The games that are enjoyable to play in multiplayer are nowhere near as good in single player mode. Really it's that multiplayer competitive spark of screaming at and/or cheering for your friends that injects life into those often-simple little games and without it, they're just simple little games." IGN took a similar line, saying that it was the interaction between players rather than the interaction between the game that made Mario Party fun. Another common criticism was the game's dependence on luck rather than skill, though it this was seen by many to add to the game's board game atmosphere, as players who were comfortably in the lead one turn could be losing the next.

Nintendo of America sent the gaming magazine Game Informer a sarcastic certificate over the publication's negative review of Mario Party and its sequel. From then on, Game Informer became infamous for their constantly bad reviews of the Mario Party games, which usually get positive reception from critics such as IGN and GameSpot, and their picky reputation has stuck since.

Sales
Mario Party is the 17th best-selling game for the Nintendo 64, selling approximately 2.7 million copies: 1.23 million copies in North America, 870,000 copies in Japan, and 580,000 copies elsewhere.

Legal issues
Nintendo gave away a free Mario Party glove for a time after the game's release, the reason being that many players got blisters and other ailments on the palms of their hands due to the mini-games that involve spinning the around as fast as possible, which are Tug o' War, Paddle Battle, and Pedal Power (this is also commonly thought to be the reason Mario Party wasn't released on the Virtual Console, but Mario Party 2 was). Nintendo suggested that the players should use the thumb to spin the Control Stick, but this method is a lot slower than rotating with the palm of the hand, and the thumb can slip off the joystick. Receiving the glove required proof of purchase of the first game of the series. The glove giveaway did not surface until after the release of Mario Party 2. This was because Nintendo lost a class action lawsuit that was filed by several families of the injured players and had to pay several thousands of dollars in damage reparations as a result. As a consequence of unbalanced difficulty and self-injury, as well as the Control Stick's high potential for decalibration through this method, there were no more mini-games after Mario Party that involved spinning the Stick as fast as possible until Mario Party: Island Tour was released since the analog stick on the 3DS made it safe to spin quickly without injuries.

Differences exclusive to the Japanese version
In the Japanese version, Wario and Luigi say "Oh my God!" when they lose. This was changed in the Western versions to remove religious references; Luigi wails in pain instead, and Wario says "So ein Mist!" (the voice clip for which was taken from Mario Kart 64), which is a German expression of showing disgust like "Oh, shoot!" or "No way!" and the like.

Differences exclusive to the European version
Exclusive to the European release is a language select, which allows the game to be played in English, German, or European French. The screen first appears when turning on the game for the first time and will only be forced to appear again if is held down before turning on the console.

References to other games

 * Super Mario Bros.: A segment of the overworld theme was remixed and incorporated into the music for the board Peach's Birthday Cake. A remix of the overworld theme also plays during the tutorial for minigames.
 * Super Mario Bros. 3: Some songs are rearrangements of some world map themes from the game. For example, "Let's Go Lightly" is based on World 4 Giant Land, "Slowly, Slowly" is based on World 6 Iced Land, and "Dodging Danger" is based on World 8 Castle of Koopa, but with some additional rhythm.
 * Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars: The opening theme sounds similar to the Mario's Pad theme. Part of the music of Bowser's Magma Mountain is a rearrangement of the first Bowser's Keep theme.
 * Super Mario 64: Peach's Birthday Cake is based on Princess Peach's letter that she baked a cake for Mario, and the layout of the board and background surrounding it are based from the photograph after the credits. Also, Mario's Rainbow Castle board is based on the secret course Tower of the Wing Cap, and the Wing Cap is used as a prop on his board map, and finally the board game's ending cutscene is based on another secret course Wing Mario Over the Rainbow. The ending cutscene for Luigi's Engine Room has the board reveal itself to take place inside a flying ship much like the Rainbow Cruiser from the course Rainbow Ride, though however with a completely different design. The Cheep Cheep in Yoshi's Tropical Island takes its English name from Bubba from Tiny-Huge Island. Mario's title screen (if he wins the board game under the title of being a Superstar) depicts him with the Wing Cap flying with the other playable characters. Mario's scream from this game is also reused. In the minigame Face Lift, the logo in the background reads "Super Bowser 64".
 * Mario Kart 64: Most of Luigi, Peach, Wario and Toad's voice clips from the Japanese version were reused in this game. On the other hand, some of their phrases were re-recorded (e.g. "Yeah! Peach's got it!").

References in later games

 * Mario Party 2: Twenty-one minigames from Mario Party were remade in this game. Some of the returning 4-Player minigames were reworked into 2 vs. 2 and Battle minigames.
 * Mario Party: The Top 100: Bombs Away, Face Lift, Shy Guy Says, Piranha's Pursuit, Tug o' War, and Desert Dash all return as playable minigames. Additionally, just like in this game, the player faces Toad in a round of Slot Car Derby in Minigame Island mode.

Trivia

 * This is the only Mario Party game to have a title screen that changes depending on which character wins a board, except for Mini-Game Stadium.
 * If more than one character wins a mini-game, it will be shown with a grammatical error, with the singular "wins" being used instead of the plural "win" or the past tense "won". This was fixed in subsequent games.