The last time that Mario Party was on a hand held, let's be honest, it wasn't that great. It was graphically bland, and it didn't really have that appeal that the Mario Party's for the consoles had. But, this isn't a review of Mario Party Advanced, this is a review of Mario Party DS!!!!
Let's start out with the good. Well first off, graphically Mario Party DS looks good. It's no Costello, but it's still a solid uhh person not as great as Costello! The game uses the processor of the DS well, but not fully. Luckily however, it's a GREAT improvement over the GBA version. Also, there is a total of 73 mini games to keep you occupied, using the stylus, mic, and button pads. Not only that but, each of the boards played on have their own specialty in effect, etc. Finally, the multi player. This is perhaps the best part of Mario Party DS in my opinion. If you grab a group of friends, three for the most fun, and hook up using the DS download play, you can have hours and hours of fun.
Unfortunately, all games have their flaws, and Mario Party DS isn't any exception. The main flaw being single player. It's great that single player is included, but it lacks the fun factor that multi player has. It also gets rather annoying when your paired with a cpu who seems to have delayed reaction. Lucky for you the other two cpu's also have delayed reactions, so you can still win easily, but seriously, it gets boring quickly winning with no challenge. Also, something that was finally needed for a Mario Party was again NOT included. You know what I'm talking about, Wi-Fi. So far no Mario Party game has included Wi-Fi, not even the most recent console edition. Most people would think that it wouldn't be fun if every time you started gaining the lead in a Wi-Fi game, the players would just disconnect, but even so, Nintendo could have at least added a system like that of Mario Kart, where all users pick one mini game of theirs, and it randomly selects which one, and you do this X amount of times. This would have been quicker, and it would have been great finally being able to challenge other people in mini games around the world. This was an obvious swing and miss for Nintendo. Also, as usual the plot is lacking, bowser does something evil, Mario tries to rescue his sorry ass as well as everyone else's.
Graphics- Greatly superior to that of the GBA counterpart, executed well. (7.5/10)
Mini games- The main part of Mario Party DS are the mini games. Without mini games, there is no Mario Party, only another board game like sorry or monopoly. Some of the mini games seem very similar to others so you get an odd sense of deja vu an odd sense of deja vu (see what I did there?) While some games are ones that you continuously come back to, others are those that when played make you go, ugh. (8.5/10)
Multi player- While most people automatically assumed that no Wi-Fi= no fun this isn't necessarily true. Multi player can still be fun with the DS wireless communications. For example, when I was playing multi player download play at a friends house, we played for over an hour promising to stop at the next mini game, but we didn't. Why? Because it was fun. While today many people want games to be all flashy and appealing, the main part is that the game is fun. And simply stating, multi player is great fun with friends because of how everyone has their strong points in the games. Single player on the other hand isn't so great. (9/10)
Single player- When playing 2vs2 games, it gets very frustrating because the computer acts as if it had mental disabilities, which causes the mini game to drag on and on and on. And many times, you may lose interest quickly because of how the cpu acts. Easy can be beat with no struggle while expert is nearly impossible making it feel as if the cpu's are on steroids. I smell another scandal... Boss battles can be frustrating at times, but each boss battle is unique in it's own way. (5.5/10)
Wi-Fi- There is none (0/10)
Replayability- It depends on how you look at it. There is either a great amount of replayability, or none at all. Some may look at it as "Oh I've beaten the single player and gotten all the mini games. I won't be playing for awhile until the next time my friends come." Others may go "Let me go back and play all of the mini games I'm really good at and are fun. Also, I should play single player because of whatever reason I like it." But overall with 73 mini games, there is still replayability because you can always improve on a specific mini game. (6.5/10)
Bottom line: If you have some money to spend, or memory left in your Micro SD card
Overall: 7.5/10
