Mario Party 6

Mario Party 6 is the sixth title in the popular Mario Party sub-series, developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo. The game was the first in the series that featured an installment of voice controlled mini-games using a packaged microphone, which makes an all new mode, Speak Up, that is microphone-oriented. The main focus of this game is collecting Stars to stop the conflict going on with the sun and the moon, filling the Star Bank.

Story
From the Mario Party 6 Instruction booklet: Brighton and Twila-the sun and the moon-watch over Mario Party World from the sky and host the best parties. The two celestial party animals have always been good friends. That is, until the day Brighton asked Twila, “Who's more impressive, you or me?”

Brighton and Twila argued furiously about who was more popular and impressive. The sky thundered with the fury of their cataclysmic squabble!

Mario and his party-hearted friends tried to get them to make up, but nothing they said could settle the spat in the sky. That's when Mario came up with a brilliant plan to harness the power of the Stars to end the feud!

They decided to throw a massive Mario Party to collect Stars and fill the great Star Bank! Determined to end Brighton and Twila's feud, they started partying right away.

...But will the power of the Stars be enough to end the furious feud?

Playable Characters

 * Mario -  Red 
 * Luigi -  Blue 
 * Peach -  Pink 
 * Yoshi -  Green 
 * Wario -  Purple 
 * Daisy -  Yellow 
 * Waluigi - Black
 * Toad -  Light Red 
 * Boo -  Light Blue 
 * Koopa Kid / Mini-Bowser -  Orange 
 * Toadette -  Magenta  (new) (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 mini-games to earn coins and stars. While the object of the game is to amass the most coins and 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 with coins. They can be used in many ways to give a player an advantage, such as stealing coins from rivals, hampering a rival's progress, or quickly obtaining stars.

Green Orbs
All of these orbs causes effect on the player who used 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 would have an effect on a player who landed on the space. If the owner landed on the space, he/she would receive 5 coins. On last 5 turn events, he/she may receive 15 coins if the coins x3 roulette was chosen. The orb will also stay on the board as long as no one else 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.

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, and changes to mini-games. This is reflected in two new characters, Brighton and Twila. This day and night system is 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 has the character playing Mini-games against the Koopa Kids.

There are three boards in Solo Mode:


 * Thirsty Gulch, a desert-themed board;
 * Astro Avenue, a space-themed board;
 * Infernal Tower, a Bowser-themed board.

The spaces on Solo Mode are different than 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 choosing), 1-vs-3 (the human is always the 1 player), Battle, and Duel Mini-games. 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; ? mark spaces, which cause an event to happen (for example, in Infernal Tower, the player may have to backtrack down the tower); and the aim of the game, Rare spaces.

Landing on one of these Rare spaces will conclude the game and grant the player one of the Rare Mini-games (Dunk Bros., Lab Brats, and Block Star, not Seer Terror which must be bought from the Star Bank.) However, the player must land on the Rare space to claim the game. If he/she go past the Rare space, then he/she lose everything you have 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 the player can easily hit the block on the number he/she want. The other is the Cursed Mushroom orb, which makes the dice block only roll one through three. This can be a good thing, as it can prevent the player from going off the board at the end.

At the end of the mode, players receive any Mini-games they played during the mode if they haven't unlocked them already. In addition, they receive Bonuses at the end of the game for meeting certain criteria (such as playing 10 Mini-games 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 then converted into Stars (1 Star for every 20 Coins), which are sent to the Star Bank.

Boards
There are 6 boards in Party Mode and 3 boards in Solo Mode. Some of the boards in Mario Party 6 have different objectives and goals to earn stars. The boards in Party Mode are:


 * Thirsty Gulch


 * Astro Avenue


 * Infernal Tower

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 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, and after buying all of them the epilogue is available.
 * Microphone: The microphone is used as a controller device to answer quiz questions in Speak Up and give orders to characters.

Trivia

 * Mario Party 6 was the last Mario Party game to feature Koopa Kid as a playable character. In Mario Party 7, he got his own space like Bowser and DK did. Later in Mario Party 8, Koopa Kid mysteriously disappeared from the Mario Party series.
 * For unknown reasons, Waluigi and the Lakitu were removed from the American Boxart of Mario Party 6 (see alternate boxart above). Their render was instead on the back of the box.

4-Player minigames

 * Catch You Letter is a pun on the phrase "Catch you later".
 * Mowtown is a pun on Motown.
 * Blooper Scooper is a pun on pooper scooper.
 * 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.
 * Circuit Maximus is a pun on a real place, Circus Maximus.

1 vs. 3 minigames

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

2 vs. 2 minigames

 * Pixel Perfect is a pun on the phrase "picture perfect".
 * Burnstile is a pun on turnstile.
 * Cashapult is a pun on catapult.
 * Mole-it! is a pun on mullet.

Battle minigames

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

Duel minigames

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

DK minigames

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

Rare Minigames

 * Seer Terror is a pun on the phrase "sheer terror".
 * Lab Brats is a pun on lab rats.

Mic Minigames

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

With Background
Note that the background itself in these batch of pictures mainly corresponds to the "day/night" gameplay, which as stated earlier is the primary feature of this installment.