Mario Party 10

Mario Party 10 has reminded me of the purpose and importance of gaming with friends. These are the games that stand out in a field full of tortured heroes, fallen worlds, and apocalyptic destruction, and it is these games people are in desperate need of to get back to basics of gaming – having fun.

Mario Party 10 stands out from the roster of great Wii U party games. [07/2015, p.71]

Played with friends or family, Mario Party always guarantees a good time. True, some mini games are better than others, and there are no great revolutions to be found, but throw in a couple of new game modes, and Mario Party 10 is the funniest title for your Wii U.

The core gameplay remains excellent and accessible, two keys for the target audience. But the newest additions to the franchise fall a bit flat.

Lack of online aside, the game is a worthy addition to the Wii U line-up and a game-night roster.

Mario Party 10 isn't a classic game, and it certainly does have any meat or lasting value to it beyond being the most casual of party games that you pop out for a quick bash once in a while. But that Amiibo integration is pure gold, and short of Square Enix following up on the Wii's Fortune Street (or Boom Street, depending on where you live), this will be the best digital board game released on the Wii U during its life.

A funny, cheap party game and a valid alternative to games like Nintendo Land, Game & Wario and Wii Party U. But for the party to explode you will need some friends. And some Amiibo figurines too.

Mario Party 10 is definitely the best episode of the series and an instant buy if you have a Wii and some friends to play with.

Mario Party's arrival to the Wii U is carried out in the best of ways. Its fun and original minigames will keep groups of players entertained for many hours and the prospect of playing as Bowser opens new possibilities for those who want to follow the villain's role.

If you enjoy playing with friends and family and having some laughs, Mario Party 10 is one of the best options on the Wii U.

Play it with a few good friends or family members and it can be the video game equivalent of a bowl of soup for your soul, leaving you smiling, content, and just generally feeling pretty good.

Mario Party 10 still offers the same fun and random time that the series is known for. However, it isn't looking to fix any of the previous flaws of the series. If you want more of the same, with a cool new mode thrown in then definitely check this out.

This is just a fun game with family and friends. It's a board game that comes alive and it's really nice to play. Not only for now, but also for the coming months.

Mario Party 10 on the Wii U adds HD graphics, Bowser and the use of the GamePad for some classic Nintendo fun!

Whether you're hunting down four of your friends as an embodiment of King Koopa himself in Bowser Party mode, fighting over the steering wheel in Mario Party mode or tapping your amiibo to the GamePad again and again and again in amiibo Party mode, you'll have a blast if you're in the company of good friends. [Issue #14: Old vs. New – March/April 2015, p.67]

I was pleasantly surprised by Mario Party 10. I expected another disaster after learning of its similarities to 9, however they have added enough to make 10 rather enjoyable even through the Bowser love.

Even if you have been growing tired of the games, Mario Party 10 offers a really entertaining experience that can be enjoyed by many, even moreso when playing with others. Not to mention that this is the first game that uses the Amiibo more often than many other titles… in some way.

More a board game than a true videogame, it can still turn at-home evenings with friends and amiibos in a lot of fun.

Not the best party ever made, but it's still one of the best parties you can enjoy in this new-gen of consoles.

Mario Party 10 is pretty to look at and it has some interesting modes (like the Bowser mode) to play, but the overall amount of content is a tad bit on the shallow side. The way that player management and competition is handled falls short of Mario Party expectations.

It aims to be a chaotic, haphazard mess targeted toward kids, and it succeeds on that front in large part because Bowser Mode rewards them for being a complete jerk to everyone else.

Mario Party 10 introduces some great new uses for the Wii U GamePad and makes smart use of the Amiibo figurines, but unfortunately its main mode is still bogged down with bad ideas from Mario Party 9. If you ignore the main mode and explore everything else the game has to offer there is definitely fun to be had here, but it doesn’t live up to the series’ colorful, deceptively deep gameplay history.

As a total package, Mario Party 10 is still good—very good, even. But it’s easy to see where development took a wrong turn, where resources were allocated to the wrong areas, and why the game’s stronger points aren’t as fully fleshed out as they could have been.

Visually speaking the game is not very impressive either.

Mario Party 10 is meant to be for every player, and therefore it has lost some of its evil ways. That does make it more accessible for new gamers. The Amiibo mode is more classic, but unfortunately you need the figurines for that.

It still is a great choice to play with friends, no matter if they're into video games or not, but Nintendo needs to breathe some fresh air into the series.

Anyone that has a previous installment of the game (including any of the ones currently available on the Wii Virtual Console) may find it tough to make the case for an upgrade. Bowser Party is worth a look, though, and is great for playing with kids or adults alike.

Inviting amiibo figures already marks a welcome return to board games, both traditional and virtual, but Bowser's nomination as the master of asymmetrical ceremonies terrifically heats the party up.

In Mario Party 10, quantity and quality don't always go hand in hand. Funny moments are always behind the corner, but apart from some cool ideas, what really stands out is the budget price chosen by Nintendo.

Bringing the game to Wii U has meant a facelift and some nice new bells and whistles to fiddle around with. However, Mario Party 10 is much like the latest iteration of an established board game: although it may look different, love them or hate them, the rules are still very much the same.

It's a great starting place if you've never played a game in the series before - if you want a light-hearted game to enjoy with a group of friends, regardless of their skill level, you could do a lot worse than this.

It’ll leave you in hysterics, for better or worse.

Nintendo, instead of developing an experience specifically created for Nintendo Wii U, decided to show in Mario Party 10 the same formulas of the previous titles, finishing inexorably to offer something already seen.

The sign of a successful board game is balance, because that balance is what lets you play a good board game forever. Mario Party 10, for all of its interesting experimentation, takes equal steps forward to and backward from that ideal. It can be fun — it can be uproarious, even — but it can also be downright insufferable.

Mario Party 10 is the purest embodiment of an actual board game yet seen in the series.

Mario Party 10 fulfills the purpose of entertaining the whole family and brings some interesting innovations to the table thanks to the Game Pad ―like the Bowser Party mode. Having said that, it is very clear to us that at some point, development took a wrong turn and some segments received more attention than others.

It looks decent, it manages to entertain for a little while, but I expected more from the series’ premiere on Wii U than just a colorful snack.

In my experience, two types of people get the most enjoyment out of Mario Party: Small children and inebriated adults. Nintendo's intended audience in Mario Party 10, as with its predecessors, is clearly kids (they will probably love the amiibo tapping).

Mario Party 10 has a big number of simple and accessible mini-games. The game tries to be different with asymmetric gameplay, but has an irregular final result. Too passive in some moments, but with four or five players it's still a fun option.

The mini-games in this entry aren’t marginally better or worse than recent games, though there is a good balance of motion-controlled and traditional-controlled mini-games present in the title.

Mario Party 10 is a packed game. With three main game modes, tons of mini-games, and Amiibo support there’s lots to do. Unfortunately Nintendo chose to continue to dumb the game down to an uninteresting board-fest broken up by only a couple of mini-games.

All three groups will merely be content, not delighted. [Issue#160, p.96]

Mario Party 10 holds few surprises, but still offers great moments if you spread them out enough.

It contains the charm and strong mix of minigames that fans have come to expect, but much of the game seems stripped down in order to facilitate ease of play. As a result, it feels like Mario Party 10 loses part of the strategy that helped to tie the board game aesthetic together.

While Mario Party 10 is still a great party game and fun to play with friends,the fun is short lived due to small boards and a lack of any customization.

Mario Party 10 is a fun but very safe installment in the long running Mario Party series. Most of the minigames will entertain, but it is a missed opportunity and plain lazy to not use the Wii U gamepad in a more meaningful way.

Mario Party 10 takes tantalizing strides towards the innovation players have been calling out for, but its lack of commitment to any of its modes ultimately sees it fall flat.

Mario Party 10 is fun at times, but the experience is often dampened by its reliance on luck. The game may have a few redeeming qualities, but its strong random element and lack of compelling minigames makes this installment feel like a step back rather than the gameplay revamp that the series needs.

Like the dusty old Monopoly board buried in the back of your closet, Mario Party 10 offers familiar, predictable enjoyment, although the fun factor really boils down to who you’re playing with more than the game itself.

A missed opportunity to revitalize Mario Party and almost seems designed as a showcase to sell figurines.

At times, it almost feels like the game was originally designed for the Wii with all the WiiMote use in the game, especially when at times it feels very unnecessary. The local multiplayer is still solid, but even then, questionable design choices in controllers you can use hinder the experience.

There is simply not enough meat on the core game modes, seemingly in favor of adding in a hodgepodge of concepts that are isolated from one another. It's time to give up the vehicle concept, Nd Cube, as it inherently limits the sprawling nature of the maps we once played for years on end.

Amiibo Party is a welcome step back towards the franchise’s more enjoyable past, but the main modes aren’t proper board games – they’re just plain boring.

All of this doesn’t alleviate the standard overarching Mario Party complaints: You won’t have fun without friends, and you’re going to get screwed no matter what at some point and you can’t do anything about it.

Nintendo has forced itself to find ways to change this series over its many sequels, but it’s actually at a worst place than it started off. The Bowser Party mode at least does some interesting things with the Wii U GamePad, but it still isn’t as fun as a regular 20-turn game on the original Mario Party.

Despite the Amiibo additions and gamepad Bowser games, as well as a delightfully bright and colourful aesthetic, it's hard to ignore just how similar this game is to its predecessors. But even if you could overlook it, the fact remains that even with some fun minigames in tow and a good group of friends to enjoy it with, Mario Party 10 just doesn't have the depth or the challenge to hold your attention for long.

Too skill-less for adults, too random for kids, Mario Party hangs on its largely uninspired minigames. [May 2015, p.79]

Mario Party 10 strips so much of what I loved about past games and fills those voids with hoops to jump through to get that same satisfaction.

Predominantly uneventful dice-rolling sessions, uninspired Amiibo support, and an unforgivable absence of online functionality render this mostly shoddy shindig one you can comfortably skip out on.

A lack of content and a failure to properly execute on some of the new ideas had me longing for the days when Mario Party games would result in brawls in my living room.

If you appreciated the streamlined vehicle approach introduced in Mario Party 9, and have yet to bored silly by mini-games you’ll probably enjoy the vast amount of content that on offer here. It’s hard, however, to shake the feeling that we’ve seen, and played this all too many times before.

ND Cube repeats some of Mario Party 9's winning formula, but loses focus in trying to incorporate the GamePad and amiibo figures. Ultimately, it's more snake than ladder.

Mario Party 10 feels a lot more like a lazily produced cash cow than a game that was made with pride and consumer respect. Don't give it any money.

Mario Party 10 feels like waiting in a line that never moves forward. It’s completely possible to go through an entire match as a passive observer and still win first place. Occasional mini-games spice things up but their appearance is far too rare. Don’t RSVP to this party.