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Mario Party 10 (also called MP10) is a game for the Wii U. It is the tenth home console installment in the Mario Party series and the twentieth installment overall, and features many reused gameplay elements from its predecessor. It was announced at E3 2014 The game features a standard Party Mode (similar in gameplay to the Party Mode from Mario Party 9), and a new mode called Bowser Party, in which one player controls Bowser using the GamePad, and exclusive minigames can be played. Mini Stars return in normal party, as well as vehicles in all modes. The game is also compatible with amiibo.

The game was followed up by Super Mario Party on the Nintendo Switch in 2018.

Gameplay[]

Mario Party 10 offers three basic modes of play: Mario Party, Bowser Party, and amiibo Party each with their own unique styles of play. Other modes include Minigames and Toad's Room - the former has players simply playing minigames while the latter is where players can access a shop, a photo booth, and other items.

Characters[]

Playable Characters[]

There are a total of thirteen playable characters in Mario Party 10. Of these characters, two (Rosalina and Spike) are playable for the first time in the series. Bowser is not playable in Mario Party mode, but is playable in other modes, and, despite previously being playable in Mario Party 4's Beach Volley Folly minigame, he is considered to be a new playable character[1]. Toadette and Spike are unlockable through the Shop in Toad's Room. Also, Donkey Kong makes his first full playable appearance in the series since Mario Party 4. In addition, Toadette returns after being the first, and currently only, character to be in one numbered Mario Party installment, removed from a future numbered installment, and then re-added in a later numbered installment.

Boards[]

Party Mode[]

Essentially, the game plays like Mario Party 9. The players ride in a car, trying to get to the end and collecting the most Mini Stars. Minigame frequency has increased but the Captain Events have been removed.

Bowser Party[]

Bowser Party functions similar to Classic Party but with the players trying to run from the GamePad player, who is Bowser. The goal is for the car to reach the end of the board while the GamePad player wants to deplete the car player's hearts. Each player rolls before Bowser's turn and Bowser gets to roll 4 dice plus some augmentations and a reroll if he rolls poorly enough. Once he catches the players, he initiates a Bowser minigame where the car players have to survive Bowser's onslaught.

Amiibo Party[]

This is a scaled down version of the traditional Mario Party (from the first 8 games, as there is no car). The players use certain amiibo as pawns to go around the board. Each amiibo unlocks a board and can be equipped with power-up tokens to use in a game. At the end of each turn, a minigame is played. The board can change mid-game with picking certain character tokens to replace one of the quadrants of the board.

The compatible amiibo are:

  • Mario
  • Luigi
  • Peach
  • Yoshi
  • Toad
  • Donkey Kong
  • Rosalina
  • Wario
  • Bowser

Additional modes[]

The game supports these following modes plus Free Play where players can play any minigame freely.

Coin Challenge[]

Coin Challenge is a bonus game mode for 2-4 players. Rather than being found in the "Bonus Games" section, it is instead found in the Mario Party mode, at the very end of the game selection screen. Player compete to earn coins based off their minigame results in 3, 5, or 7 rounds of competition. The game starts with the characters competing in a minigame to earn coins based on their position. Each round, a minigame is picked from the minigame wheel that contains six random minigames. The minigame is picked randomly for the first round and by the last place player for subsequent rounds. If the difference between first and last is 30 coins or more at the start of a round, the minigame wheel spins slower, making selecting a specific minigame easier. One minigame equals one round, and at the end of each round, players will be able to see how many coins they earned in that minigame and how much they possess after each round, with the exception of the final round, where all there is in each coin counter are three ? marks. When playing a 5 or 7 round game, the last two rounds have two Chance Minigames; if one of them is selected, the players earn double the amount of coins normally earned in that round. Once 3, 5, or 7 minigames have been completed, depending on how many rounds the player has decided to play for, the game ends.

The players enter their colored pipes and the camera rises in height to each pipe corresponding to the ranking. Rankings are revealed from last to first based off who had the most or least coins in the game. If there is a tie for a position, the position in which no one takes that spot is skipped, and the characters that tie will exit the pipe next to each other, doing their respective poses simultaneously based on if they placed first or not. The number of coins that will come out of a pipe is based on the number of coins the player in that place had, and after the last coin comes out, the character will jump out of the pipe and do a victory animation (if placed 1st) or a failure animation (if placed outside 1st). Once the camera reaches the gold pipe and the character jumps out, the words "Congratulations!" appear on the screen; the music used for the result screen is shared with Minigame Tournament.

The Ranking screen in this mode is displayed the same way as the Mario Party mode in a board and in amiibo Party mode, except that they lack Coin, Star, or Mini Star symbols altogether and that the player labels that say P1, P2, etc. are merged closer to the character icon. The "View Details" button replaces the "View Graph" button from the other modes, and pressing that button changes the screen to another page that displays how many coins each player won in a specific round; if the respective minigame was a Chance Minigame, the values shown here will be twice as normal for that round.

No matter how many rounds are set, 20 Mario Party Points are always awarded at the end of each Coin Challenge game.

Minigame Tournament[]

Minigame Tournament is a bonus minigame in Mario Party 10 for up to eight players, and the only mode in the game to allow that many players. Because only four Wii Remotes can be connected to the Wii U at once, pass and play is enforced when playing with five or more human players. The game starts with eight players divided into two groups of four. The first group consists of odd player numbers, and the second group consists of even player numbers. This is decided based on the order the characters are picked. The players in each respective group face off in a minigame, with first and second advancing to the next round and third and fourth being eliminated. If a minigame is only between CPU contestants, the minigame will be skipped and results will be simulated. Ties are always decided by dice rolls. Before a minigame begins, each player must grab the Wii Remote for their character and press the A button to confirm. When playing with five or more human players, after the first group plays, the players who played that minigame must hand over their Wii Remote to the other players.

After both groups have finished their minigames, the game moves on to the second round, and another minigame is played. Like with the first round, the top two players advance to the final round and the bottom two are eliminated. In the final round, the top two competitors must play one last minigame; the victor player then wins the tournament.

Bowser Challenge[]

Bowser Challenge is a Bonus Minigame hosted by Bowser Jr. In this game, the player plays as 10 Bowser Battles to see how many hearts they can get, They get a bonus of 3 hearts whenever they knock someone out.

Toad's Room[]

Toad's Room is an extra mode, featuring a shop, a photo booth and a challenges mode.

  • Shop: Players can buy unlockable characters, CPU Master Difficulty, vehicles for the boards, and music. Models of characters and backgrounds can be bought to be used in the Photo Booth.
  • Challenge List - Players can see the challenges they completed and challenges yet to be completed. There are 49 challenges in all.
  • Photo Studio - Players can take photos with the models of characters and backgrounds bought on the shop. One can also send their photos to Miiverse.
  • Music: Players can listen to the songs bought on the shop.
  • Staff credits - Players can view the Staff Credits here.
  • Miiverse - This setting can only determine if Miiverse posts should be shown before starting a board game. When on, three posts will be shown on the loading screen.

Minigames[]

There are a total of 75 minigames in Mario Party 10. 31 of them are Free-for-all minigames, 10 are 2 vs 2 minigames, 10 are 1 vs. 3 minigames, 10 are Boss Battles, 10 are Bowser minigames and 4 are additional bonus games.

Critical reception[]

Mario Party 10 received largely mixed reviews. Most criticism was directed towards the Mario Party mode as being too luck-based and the amiibo Party mode as being too bare-bones, though praise was directed towards the minigame varieties and the Bowser Party mode. It currently holds a score of 64.49% on GameRankings based on 47 reviews,[2] and a score of 66 on Metacritic based on 66 reviews.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag In a similar review, Mark Walton of GameSpot gave the game a 6/10, praising the visuals and the minigames, but criticized the amiibo Party boards, the overreliance on luck, and a poor implementation of the GamePad, stating "Ah, Mario Party, the game that, on paper at least, should be a rollicking good time filled with joyful minigames and all your favourite Nintendo characters. It's hard not be suckered in by that classic Nintendo charm, the bright colours, the jangly music, Mario yelling "it's-a-me!" If games were fun based on nostalgia value alone, then Mario Party 10 would be a wonderful creation. But they're not, and once you're over the sight of Mario and friends riding along in a Boo-inspired ghost train, the game's mildly amusing take on a family board game wears thin."[3] Kirk McKeand of the Digital Spy was even more critical and gave it two out of five stars, praising only the concept of the Bowser Party mode and being critical of practically everything else, including the Mario Party and amiibo Party modes and some minigames he deemed "want[ing] to see what your wrist action is like".[4]

Credits[]

Gallery[]

  Main article: Mario Party 10/gallery

Videos[]

Main article: Mario Party 10/videos

Trivia[]

  • Some of the playable characters' voice clips were recycled from Mario Kart 8.
  • This is the first instance of Spike being playable in any game.
  • This is also the first playable appearance of Donkey Kong in the Mario Party series since Mario Party 4, as well as Rosalina's first appearance in the series.
  • A Mario amiibo figure was bundled with copies of the game upon release. For a while, it was the only way to retrieve the Mario figure.
  • It is the only Mario Party game to be released on the Wii U console, and consequently the only home console game in the series to have only one game released in a console.
  • Mario Party 10 is the first game in the Mario Party series to be given a 7+ age rating by PEGI as opposed to a 3+ rating, although this game was provisionally rated 3+ when announced at E3 2014.
  • During Bowser's turn in a Bowser Party, while he is moving toward the other players, pressing the A button causes him to roar.

References[]

External links[]

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