Mario Party 6

Mario Party 6 is the sixth title in the Mario Party sub-series made for the Nintendo GameCube and the third installment for that console. This game is developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo. The game is the first in the series that features an installment of voice controlled minigames using a packaged microphone, which makes an all new mode, Speak Up, which is microphone-oriented. The main focus of this game is collecting Stars to stop the conflict going on with the sun and the moon to fill the Star Bank.

Story
Brighton and Twila, the hosts of Mario Party 6, watched over the Mario Party world from the sky. They had always been good friends until one day, when Brighton asked Twila who was better, him or her. This resulted in Twila retorting back saying that she was the most impressive, and they both got into a feud that made the sky frantically changing. This bothered Mario and his friends, so they tried saying anything they could to stop the quarrel, but nothing seemed to work.

Mario then came up with an idea. He suggested that he and his friends should collect Stars and make a Star Bank to end the fight. As they collected more stars by partying, they could get more pages of the Miracle Book. Once the pages were completed, the Stars flew up making a beautiful night sky. This made Brighton and Twila realize how hard Mario and friends worked and how pretty the sky was. This made the feud subside and Brighton and Twila became great friends again.

Returning Characters

 * Mario -  Red 
 * Luigi -  Blue 
 * Peach -  Pink 
 * Daisy -  Yellow 
 * Toad -  Light Red 
 * Yoshi -  Green 
 * Wario -  Purple 
 * Waluigi - Black
 * Boo -  Light Blue 
 * Koopa Kid* -  Orange 

 * Note: Koopa Kid is called Mini Bowser in European and Australian versions of the game.

Unlockable Character

 * Toadette -  Magenta  (Unlocked after purchasing her for 30 Stars in the Star Bank)

Gameplay
In Mario Party 6, up to four players take turns moving on board game-style stages, often playing multiplayer minigames to earn coins and stars. While the object of the game is to amass the most Stars before completing a set number of turns, the focus is on the competition itself more than the outcome.

Orbs
Orbs are special items players can either collect on the board or buy. They can be used in many ways to give a player an advantage, such as setting traps on spaces to steal coins from rivals, to hamper a rival's progress, or to quickly obtain stars.

Green Orbs
All of these orbs affect the player or the dice the player is using when the player uses them.

Red Orbs
These Orbs will take effect when either the opponent passes or lands on it. The player who lands on it will still have the effects of a Blue or Red space. The orb will also disappear once it has been activated.

Yellow Orbs
These orbs have an effect on a player who lands on the space. If the owner lands on the space, they will receive five coins. During the last five turn events, they may receive 15 coins if the coin's ×3 roulette was chosen. The orb will also stay on the board as long as no one replaces the orb.

Blue Orbs
These orbs protect the player from attacks such as Boo and Chain Chomp. They can only be found in specific boards such as Snowflake Lake. They cannot be thrown on a space or used. Instead, they are used automatically. They can be disposed at any time if the players chooses to, though.

Day & Night
On multiplayer boards, the sun will periodically set or rise (every three turns), producing different effects. Changes include spaces moving, different characters appearing, DK spaces transforming to Bowser spaces, and changes to minigames. This is reflected in two new characters, Brighton and Twila. This day and night system is a reminiscent of Horror Land from Mario Party 2.

Solo Mode
In Mario Party 6, Solo Mode is a game mode hosted by Brighton. It is for one player only, and it has the character playing minigames against the Koopa Kids.

There are three boards in Solo Mode:
 * Astro Avenue, a space-themed board;
 * Infernal Tower, a Bowser-themed board.
 * Thirsty Gulch, a desert-themed board;

The spaces on Solo Mode are different than those in normal modes of play. There are spaces for 4-player, 2-vs-2 (these are played teamed up with a CPU partner of the player's choice), 1-vs-3 (the human is always the 1 player against 3), Battle, and Duel Minigames. There are also Bowser spaces, which feature (normally 1-vs-3) games played against the Koopa Kids where all the player's coins are lost if they lose; ? spaces, which cause an event to happen; and the goals which are Rare spaces.

Landing on one of these Rare spaces concludes the game and grant the player one of the Rare Minigames: (Dunk Bros., Lab Brats, or Block Star. Seer Terror must be bought from the Star Bank. If the player goes past the Rare space, then he or she loses everything collected, and the game ends. Players can avert this by selecting to "Call it Quits" and keep everything they have earned so far; however, this ends the mode.

Only two of the game's Orbs appear in this mode. One is the Sluggish Shroom orb, which slows down the dice block so players can easily hit the number they want. The other is the Cursed Mushroom orb, which makes the dice block only roll one through three. This can prevent players from walking past the Rare space.

At the end of the mode, players receives any minigames that are played during the mode if they are not unlocked previously. In addition, they receive bonuses at the end of the game for meeting certain criteria, such as playing ten minigames during the game, rolling only even Dice Block numbers, or landing on every space on the board, which are paid out in Coins. The Coins are converted into Stars (one Star for every 20 Coins), which are transferred to the Star Bank.

Party Mode Boards
There are 6 boards in Party Mode. Some of the boards in Mario Party 6 have different objectives and goals to earn stars.

Solo Mode Boards
These are the three Solo Mode boards. They differ mostly in length, but they all have the same objective, which is to land on the Rare space located at the end of the board.

Other Features

 * Star Bank: The Star Bank allows players to trade their stars to unlock special in-game bonuses, including unlockable characters, game tips, and Miracle Book pages.
 * Harder Difficulty: 30 Stars
 * Brutal Difficulty: 30 Stars
 * Toadette as a playable character: 30 Stars
 * Clockwork Castle Stage: 100 Stars
 * Credit Roll: 100 Stars
 * Character Taunts: 10 Stars Each
 * Mic Secrets: 10 Stars Each
 * Mini Game Secrets: 10 Stars Each
 * Mushroom Bus: 30 Stars
 * Miracle Book (Includes Page 1): 10 Stars
 * Page 2-6: 10 Stars Each
 * Page 7-13: 20 Stars Each
 * Page 14-20: 30 Stars Each
 * Miracle Book Secret: 10 Stars
 * Miracle Book: The Miracle Book is an in-game pop-up book functioning as a reward for players. Pages in the book are interactive. Buying all of them unlocks the epilogue.
 * Microphone: The microphone is used as a controller device to answer quiz questions in Speak Up and give orders to characters in Mic-specific games
 * Minigame Mode: This mode allows the player to play any minigames that are unlocked or play a set of minigames using a set of rules.
 * Option Mode: In this mode, the player can adjust sound settings, view minigame records and history for previous parties, listen to the sound test (some of the sounds and music must be bought at the Star Bank before available use), adjust Microphone settings, and also view the bonuses earned from the solo mode.

4-Player minigames

 * Blooper Scooper is a pun on pooper scooper.
 * Catch You Letter is a pun on the phrase Catch you later.
 * Circuit Maximus is a pun on a real place, Circus Maximus.
 * Mowtown is a pun on Motown.
 * Smashdance is a pun on a flash dance, which is a surprise dance from a mob of people.
 * Snow Whirled is a pun on snow world.
 * Trap Ease Artist is a pun on trapeze artist.
 * What Goes Up... is a reference to the phrase What goes up must come down. This is reflected in the game because, during the day, the objective is to reach the highest altitude, and at night, the player must descend the fastest.

1 vs. 3 minigames

 * Ball Dozers is a pun on bulldozer.
 * Conveyor Bolt is a pun on conveyor belt.
 * Dust 'til Dawn is a pun on the phrase From dusk 'til dawn.
 * Ray of Fright is a pun on ray of light.
 * Snow Brawl is a pun on snowball.
 * Surge and Destroy is a pun on the phrase search and destroy.

2 vs. 2 minigames

 * Burnstile is a pun on turnstile.
 * Cashapult is a pun on catapult.
 * Jump the Gun means that a player started too quickly.
 * Mole-it! is a pun on mullet.
 * Pixel Perfect is a pun on the phrase picture perfect.
 * Slot Trot is a pun on "Fox Trot", a dance from the 1920s.

Battle minigames

 * Control Schtick is a pun on control stick.
 * Insectiride is a pun on insecticide.
 * Stamp by Me is a pun on the song and movie Stand By Me.
 * Strawberry Shortfuse is a pun on strawberry shortcake.

Duel minigames

 * Asteroad Rage is a combination of asteroid and road rage.
 * Boonanza is a pun on the term bonanza.
 * Light Up My Night is a pun on the song "Light Up My Room".
 * Lunar-tics is a pun on lunatic.
 * O-Zone is a pun on ozone.
 * Pitifall is a pun on the words pitiful and Pitfall!, the vine-swinging arcade game.
 * Trick or Tree is a pun on the phrase trick-or-treat.

DK minigames

 * Pier Factor is a pun on the term fear factor.

Rare Minigames

 * Block Star is a combination of rock star and blocks.
 * Lab Brats is a pun on lab rats.
 * Seer Terror is a pun on the phrase sheer terror.

Mic Minigames

 * Fruit Talktail is a pun on fruit cocktail.
 * Talkie Walkie is walkie talkie backwards.

Trivia

 * Mario Party 6 is the last Mario Party game to feature Koopa Kid as a playable character.
 * The Snow Bunnies from Paper Mario series make a minor appearance on this game. They appear on the Board Snowflake Lake at day and night.
 * This is the first Mario Party Game to include a microphone.
 * Mario Party 6 is the only video game so far in which Toadette is playable and Birdo is not.