Mario Party 5

Mario Party 5 is the fifth installment in the Mario Party series. The most notable change in this game is that the shopping system was replaced with the new Orb system.

In Story Mode, a playable character has to face Bowser and the Koopa Kids (known as Mini Bowser in PAL regions) throughout every stage. Eventually, the character will face Bowser one-on-one.

The game is notable for featuring places and characters that appeared in or resembled places and characters from Paper Mario. The most prominent of this is the Star Spirits.

Story
From the Mario Party 5 Instruction booklet: In the night sky, past the moon and beyond the stars, there's a dream world known as Dream Depot, where everyone's dreams come together. This is the real land of dreams... In this land, there are Star Guards who protect the dreams of everyone. One dreamy night, the Star Guards thought of something. "Many dreams arrive here at Dream Depot every day," they said, "so... why don't we offer those with the power of dreaming a chance to visit?" Eventually, they decided to invite Mario and his closest friends because, when it comes to dreamers, nobody dreams bigger than they do! The Star Guards prepared for their guests' arrival by creating many fun-filled games for them to play. And that is how this adventure for Mario and his friends both old and new began!

In Story Mode, Bowser and Koopa Kid are planning to ruin everyone's dreams, and players must stop Bowser from taking over said dreams. If players clears the five boards, they must face the Koopa Kids in Bowser Nightmare, and if they beat that board, they fight Bowser in Frightmare.

Playable Characters
Returning Playable Characters:
 * Mario – Red
 * Luigi – Blue
 * Peach – Pink
 * Yoshi – Green
 * Wario – Purple
 * Daisy – Yellow
 * Waluigi – Black

New Playable Characters:
 * Boo – Light Blue
 * Koopa Kid / Mini-Bowser – Orange
 * Toad – White

New Features
This new installment to the Mario Party series comes with new mini-games, characters, and maps. Toad, Boo, and Koopa Kid are now playable characters, as is Donkey Kong in Super Duel Mode once the player unlocks him. In Party Mode, he now shows up on Donkey Kong spaces and either gives the players coins, stars, or starts a Donkey Kong mini-game which involve collecting bananas for a predetermined amount of coins.

The game was also significant for being the second in the series to introduce 3D game boards. Previous titles, all except for Mario Party 4, utilized pre-rendered backgrounds, which were static and limited in their presentation. As a result, all subsequent Mario Party titles, with the exception of "Mario Party Advance" on the Game Boy Advance, have employed 3D backgrounds allowing for much more dynamic fields of play.

Mario Party 5 has a few new features. First off, in Story Mode, all the Koopa Kids move at the same time, quickening game play. The point of single player mode is to deplete all of the Koopa Kids' coins by beating them in mini-games.

It also features two whole new modes: Bonus Mode, and Super Duel Mode. In Bonus Mode, players could choose one of three bonus games: Beach Volleyball, Ice Hockey, and Card Party.

Super Duel Mode
In Super Duel Mode, one buys vehicle parts using points received by playing mini-games and build a battle vehicle to use in different tournaments or against friends. To unlock all the different parts, one must play all the tournaments and beat certain opponents. There are a total of 44 different parts that can be used to customize a vehicle. The last two, Bob-omb Wall and Bowser Punch, are unlocked after all other parts are purchased. There are five symbols that indicate different aspects of the vehicle's ability:
 * Red Heart: Health
 * Green Steering Wheel: Handling
 * White Boxing Glove: Power
 * Blue Vehicle Icon: Top Speed
 * Yellow Vehicle Icon: Acceleration

After the player has made his/her vehicle, there are various options they have in order to construct it better:

Vehicle Parts
The following is a list of all the parts the player can use:

Body Types
Free Body Types
 * Mushroom Body: This body type is standard and has a low defense.

Body Types Costing Five Coins
 * Heart Body: This body type is sturdy and adorable.
 * Choo-Choo Body: This body type is fast and strong.
 * Star Body: This body type is fast, but not very durable.

Body Types Costing Seven Coins
 * Spiny Body: This body type is strong, but slow; it has improved offensive abilities.
 * Egg Body: This body type is made of Yoshi eggs, and is able to increase defensive and offensive abilities.

Body Types Costing Ten Coins
 * Boo Body: This body type is very fast, but has low HP; it is visible only on radar most of the time.
 * Lakitu Cloud Body: This body type is made of clouds. It's fast and light, but it only has 1 heart.

Body Types Costing Fifteen Coins
 * DK Body: This body type has a higher offensive and defensive rating because it is made of barrels, but is is rather heavy, which makes the vehicle slower.
 * E. Gadd Body: This body type was designed by Professor E. Gadd. It's very advanced.

Body Types Costing Twenty Coins
 * Skolar Body: This body type has superior defense against vehicle and bomb attacks; all its other abilities are average.

Engines
Free Engines
 * Mushroom Engine: This engine is good for learning.

Engines Costing Five Coins
 * Goomba Engine: This engine offers above-average acceleration and speed.
 * Star Engine: This engine is fast, but hard to handle.
 * Wiggler Engine: This engine is slow, but easy to control.

Engines Costing Seven Coins
 * Choo-Choo Engine: This engine is extremely fast, but extremely hard to control.
 * Ztar Engine: This engine doesn't have a high top speed, but it has great acceleration and it is easy to control.

Engines Costing Ten Coins
 * Goomba-Trio Engine: This engine is terrible to control, but it has good acceleration and power.
 * Super Wiggler Engine: This engine is great to handle, but doesn't have great speed.

Engines Costing Fifteen Coins
 * E. Gadd Engine: This engine has excellent speed and control.
 * DK Engine: This engine is shaped like a banana. Its abilities change from battle to battle.

Engines Costing Twenty Coins
 * Skolar Engine: This is a great engine that has good control and speed.

Tires
Free Tires
 * Mushroom Tires: These are basic tires.

Tires Costing Five Coins
 * Star Tires: These tires are fast, but tough to handle.
 * Goomba Tires: These tires are fairly fast and have good acceleration, but their other abilities are average.
 * Wiggler Tires: These tires are slow, but they handle very well. They can turn the vehicle around when standing still.

Tires Costing Seven Coins
 * Choo-Choo Tires: These are exceptionally fast tires, but are difficult to control.
 * Spiny Tires: These tires have great control and acceleration, but low top speed.

Tires Costing Ten Coins
 * Lakitu Cloud: These tires are hovering clouds. Ground conditions don't affect them.
 * Super Wiggler Tires: These tires are very slow, but have great traction. They turn the vehicle around sharply if the vehicle is still.

Tires Costing Fifteen Coins
 * E. Gadd Jet: Another advanced creation from Professor E. Gadd; it has exceptional control. It is a hovering tire, which means the vehicle won't be affected by ground conditions.
 * DK Tires: These tires are made of barrels; their control can be unpredictable.

Tires Costing Twenty Coins
 * Skolar Tires: These tires have great control over any kind of ground condition.

Weapons
Free Weapons
 * Mushroom Gun: This gun shoots mushrooms. The B button can be held down for a longer distance.

Weapons Costing Five Coins
 * Bob-omb Cannon: These Bob-ombs do major damage, but the fire is briefly delayed. The B button can be held down for a longer distance.
 * Seed Machine Gun: This gun shoots seeds rapidly, but they don't inflict much damage.

Weapons Costing Seven Coins
 * Pokey Tower Gun: This gun shoots two spikes that have average power and move diagonally.
 * Piranha Plant: The Piranha Plant spits out a nasty fluid that damages the opponents. The fluid is above average in terms of firepower and is great for long range combat. The B button can be held down for a longer distance.
 * Bullet Bill Gun: These Bullet Bills seek out opponents and do average damage.

Weapons Costing Ten Coins
 * Mr. I Laser: This lightweight weapon shoots a very fast laser with a good distance and decent firepower.
 * Bowser Breath: This weapon does a great deal of damage, but only at close range targets.

Weapons Costing Fifteen Coins
 * E. Gadd Cannon: This weapon shoots four blue homing missles at a time.Its fire power is decent.
 * DK Gun: This weapon shoots explosive bananas that take 2 full hearts. It is heavy, which makes the vehicle slower when equipped. The bullets are very slow and the lag between the bullets is very long.

Weapons Costing Twenty Coins
 * Skolar Gun: This unique gun shoots an explosive bomb. The B button must be held down when it is shot. The bomb explodes when it hits an opponent or when the player releases the B button. The bomb takes away 2 full hearts.

Weapons Costing Thirty Coins
 * Bob-omb Wall: This weapon drops bob-ombs behind the vehicle and increases the vehicle's speed.
 * Bowser Punch: This weapon gives very powerful punches at close range. It takes away two full hearts.

Super Duel Battles
The player can choose the battle from the garage menu, but only Battle Competition on easy and normal are available at the start. In order to unlock the rest, the player must complete each game as it opens on the normal or hard level. If the player loses any game, he/she has to start the tournament over.

In all competitions, there are obstacles such as bob-ombs that detonate within a certain amount of time or contact. The size of the bob-omb depends on the damage it can do. Spiny shells also lie the courses. It takes away a quarter of a heart when a vehicle collides with it. Warp pipes simply block vehicles. Mushrooms occasionally appear along the course and grant the vehicle better speed and control for a certain amount of time when collided with. Poison mushrooms also appear and they grant less speed and control when collided with for a certain amount of time.

Terrain can vary when battling a CPU or a human player in a arena called Random Ruckus. Dirt and grass are present and do no special effects. Metal and ice makes the vehicles harder to control. Lava damages and pushes away the vehicle. However, if a vehicle is equipped with Lakitu Cloud or E. Gadd Jet tires, it will not get affected by any sort of terrain.

Battle Competition
The goal of this 90 second game is to eliminate the opponent. If nobody wins, the battle starts over. The player must fire his/her weapon at the other player and keep moving to avoid opposing attacks and obstacles.

Flag Competition
In this game, the object is to collect three flags before the opposing player does. This is also a 90 second game; the game restarts if nobody collects three flags. Although hitting the opposing player will slow him/her down, attacking the opposing member is not the goal of the game.

Robot-Rabbit Competition
This time the goal is to wipe out three Robot-Rabbits before the opposing player does within the time limit of one minute and thirty seconds. Again, the player can shoot and slow down the opposing member. The Robot-Rabbits are very fast and can tunnel underground.

Boards

 * Toy Dream
 * Sweet Dream
 * Future Dream
 * Rainbow Dream
 * Undersea Dream
 * Pirate Dream
 * Bowser Nightmare (unlockable)

Capsules
Below is a list of the 28 capsules in Mario Party 5.
 * Bubble Capsule
 * Cursed Mushroom Capsule
 * Klepto Capsule
 * Mushroom Capsule
 * Super Mushroom Capsule
 * Warp Pipe Capsule
 * Wiggler Capsule
 * Bob-omb Capsule
 * Bullet Bill Capsule
 * Coin Block Capsule
 * Goomba Capsule
 * Hammer Bro. Capsule
 * Koopa Bank Capsule
 * Paratroopa Capsule
 * Piranha Plant Capsule
 * Spiny Capsule
 * Kamek Capsule
 * Lakitu Capsule
 * Magikoopa Capsule
 * Mr. Blizzard Capsule
 * Ukiki Capsule
 * Bone Capsule
 * Chain Chomp Capsule
 * Chance Capsule
 * Duel Capsule
 * Miracle Capsule
 * Tweester Capsule
 * Bowser Capsule

Music
The music in Mario Party 5 was composed by Aya Tanaka. It is somewhat significantly different from the other Mario Party games--including its sequels--in that the music sounds sophisticated and (despite being synthesized as in all Mario Party games) has the illusion of being played by a professional symphony orchestra. This may be caused by the use of sounds that sound like true instruments, especially the harpsichord. This apparently didn't catch on, however, as Aya Tanaka has not composed any other Mario Party game, and Mario Party 6 and Mario Party 7 returned to the style of Mario Party 4.

General

 * The capsule depicting a Toady is incorrectly labeled as "Magikoopa Capsule". Later Mario Party games correctly labeled it as "Toady Orb". This may have inspired the Mario Party Advance Broom Zoom caption to state that Toadies possess brooms, while they, in actuality, do not (although Magikoopas do).

Puns

 * The plot is a reference to Kirby's Adventure from the Kirby series, where a villain is trying to steal the dreams of all the inhabitants of where the main character lives.

4-player minigames

 * Mazed & Confused is a pun on "Dazed and Confused", a song by Led Zeppelin as well as an expression.
 * Fish Upon a Star comes from the saying "Wish Upon a Star".
 * Flower Shower is a pun on Flower Power, a slogan for hippies.
 * Hotel Goomba is based off of Hotel Mario.
 * Night Light Fright is a pun on Bright Light Fright, a song by Aerosmith.
 * Coney Island is named after an amusement park of the same name.
 * Will Flower is a pun on Self Control, also called Willpower.
 * Dodge Bomb is based off of dodge ball, a recreational activity.

1 vs. 3 Minigames

 * Flatiator is a pun on Gladiators, fierce warriors.
 * Mathletes is a pun on a term "athlete".
 * Quilt for Speed is a pun on a term "built for speed".
 * Tube It or Lose It is a pun on a phrase, "Move it or lose it!"

2 vs. 2 Minigames

 * Submarathon is a combination of "submarine" and "marathon".

Duel Minigames

 * Merry Poppings is a pun on Mary Poppins, a fictional character.
 * Piece Out is a pun on the phrase "Peace out".
 * Bound of Music is a pun on The Sound of Music, a 1965 film.

Battle Minigames

 * Tug-o-Dorrie is a pun on Tug of War, a recreational activity.
 * Astro-Logical is a pun on Astrology, the idea that the relative position of the planets at one's birth influences personality traits.

Bowser Minigames

 * Rain of Fire is a pun on either the phrase "reign of fire", or Ring of Fire, a song by Johnny Cash.

DK Minigames

 * Mass A-Peel is a pun on a term "mass appeal."

Story Minigame

 * Frightmare is a combination of "fright" and "nightmare".