Mario Party Advance

Mario Party Advance is the seventh game in the Mario Party series and the first handheld installment of the series, specifically for the Game Boy Advance. The game revolves around either Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, or Yoshi travelling across Shroom City to collect the minigames and Gaddgets that fell from Party World, an area dedicated to partying high above the sky. After Bowser and Koopa Kid attack Party World, Toad tasks them with collecting everything that fell down. This can only be accomplished by helping out the city's citizens and stopping Bowser from exerting his influence. Shroom City can only be accessed with a single player; barring a few minigames, Gaddgets, and a physical Bonus Board that is played alongside the video game, the game does not focus on multiplayer and is more single-player oriented.

Mario Party Advance was released in Japan on January 13, 2005, in Japan at March 23, 2005, in North America in March 28, 2005 and in Europe in June 10, 2005. Mario Party Advance was re-released on the Wii U's Virtual Console in North America and Europe on December 25, 2014, and in Australia on December 26, 2014.

Story
It is a normal day in Party World when the player first arrives there. Toad is telling Mario about the game, when Bowser drops in and scatters all of the minigames and Gaddgets throughout Shroom City. Now Mario must go and retrieve them all by traveling all over Shroom City and restoring peace to Party World.

Characters
There are four playable characters in Mario Party Advance, the least amount of any Mario Party game to date. It does, however, boast many more non-playable characters that the player helps out during the story mode, as well as other supporting characters than most other Mario Party games.

Shroom City
The main mode in the game, as well as the only one that is playable once the game is started. The player can take control of Mario, Luigi, Peach, or Yoshi and travel around Shroom City, beating the quests and collecting minigames and Gaddgets to play in the other modes.

Play Land
Play Land, hosted by Toad and E. Gadd, is a free play mode, in which the player can either play the minigames they have earned, give minigames to others, play with Gaddgets, or give away Gaddgets.

Party Land
Party Land, hosted by Toad and Toadette, is a mode in which multiple players can play duel minigames, a secret battle, a Koopa Kid battle, a 100-player battle, or a 100-player attack.

Challenge Land
Challenge Land, hosted by Toadette, is a mode in which players can play minigames to earn coins. In Challenge Land, there is a Mini-Game Attack, the Game Room, a Duel Dash, Bowser Land, and an option to trade coins for Gaddgets.

Mini-Game Attack
The player selects one of the four characters, and meets the host, Toad. Here, the player will play through fifteen mini-games in order to win coins. After Toad explains everything, a list of three minigames will appear, and the player can pick which one they think they can win. The minigames also appear as they would in Free Play, but with winning conditions. If a player loses a minigame, they will lose everything they accumulated up to this point. If they win five games, they can win 1,000 coins, ten games results in 10,000 coins, and 100,000 coins for all fifteen games. During the attack, they can either keep their total, or use their special items to help. There are three special items, Switch, Replay, and Practice. Replay allows the player to play the games that they completed again, Switch changes three current games with three new ones, and Practice allows the player to try a game before playing it for real.

Game Room
Here, the player selects a character and enters a casino-style room and plays gamble mini-games as much as they want to earn coins. If the player has no coins, Toad will give them ten coins.

Duel Dash
In Duel Dash, which is hosted by Toadette, the player will compete against a computer to win coins. There are three modes: easy to win 1,000 coins; normal to win 10,000 coins, and hard to win 100,000 coins. In easy, the players play three mini-games, in normal, five, and in hard, eight. The mini-games are decided at random.

Bowser Land
In Bowser Land, the player is trying to reach co-hosts Bowser and Koopa Kid to earn coins, while also playing Bowser mini-games. The game and number of Koopa Kids are chosen at random. To reach Bowser, the player rides on a roller coaster, the number of areas being picked randomly. Each stop at a checkpoint counts as one space, and stopping at one results in playing a Bowser mini-game. During the game, however, if Bowser feels the player is taking too long in reaching him, he will end the game himself. If the player arrives at the end of the track at a time Bowser considers too late or early, the amount of coins won will be low.

Quests
The following is a list of all forty-nine quests in Mario Party Advance. Quests are obtained by talking to NPCs around Shroom City. Nearly every NPC gives only one quest, although some of them may be tied to quests given by others. A few NPCs, such as Mrs. Shroomlock, are not tied to any quests at all. Bowser also gives out multiple quests, letting the player obtain them as they complete other quests. Once the player successfully completes a quest, they earn either a Gaddget or a minigame.

Bonus Board
The Bonus Board is an extra feature added to the main game. It is also the only way to play a multiplayer game without using a link cable. The Bonus Board is a board made of paper which comes packaged with the game. The Game Boy Advance acts as the dice and can be used to play multiplayer Gaddgets.

Staff
Mario Party Advance was developed by Hudson Soft in conjunction with Nintendo SPD Group No.4. It was directed by Shinichi Nakata, who had previously taken smaller roles in the other Mario Party games. Most of his roles involved serving as a planning advisor or planning director, although he notably served as the lead designer in Mario Party 5. Similarly, the game director, Yukinori Goto, served as a design director in the series' other games, and the lead designer, Fumihisa Sato, served as a planner for most of the other games, only taking a design role for Mario Party: Star Rush.

Reception
Mario Party Advance received mixed reviews. It was given a 6/10 rating from IGN, which states that the game "features a whole slew of different things to do and play, but it all seems just a bit uncreative for the first outing on the handheld system." It goes on to say that "there's so much text in the game because each task features a character with the gift of gab, and if you fail the task by running out of dice rolls, you have to sit through all that text again and again until you get it right." The review also complains how no mini-games "ever really reach that "wow, that was fun!" level" and how the concept of the mini-games is unoriginal. The reviewer praises "the game's not all that bad, with a nice assortment of basic one-off challenges that can be played at any time".

The game received a 6.5/10 rating from GameSpot. The review states that the game has "hundreds of minigames," "The story mode offers unique method of unlockables," and "[There are] hilarious integrations of Mario characters and settings". However, the game was criticized for having a lack of multiplayer modes and that multiplayer minigames required players to take turns. The reviewer also complains about how "graphics and audio are rather plain."

The game received a 1/10 rating from EuroGamer. The reviewer lambasted the game for being bland and uncreative.

The game was listed in the Guinness World Records 2014 Gamer's Edition as the worst-selling Mario game of all time.

Trivia

 * Most of the minigame themes in this game were from Mario Party 3 and Mario Party 4.
 * In addition, the passport theme from this game was a rearrangement of the main menu theme from Mario Party 4.
 * This is the only game in the entire Mario Party spin-off series not to feature Wario and the first Mario Party game not to feature Donkey Kong. It is also the only post-Mario Party 3 game not to feature Princess Daisy or Waluigi, as well as the only Mario Party game after Mario Party 4 not to feature Toad as a playable character.
 * This game is rated as Teenage Restricted by Korea Media Rating Board likely because of the gamble minigames.