Mario Party 10

North American box art.
Developer(s)	Nd Cube
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Release Date(s)
Wii U	NA: March 20, 2015 JP: March 12, 2015 EU: March 20, 2015 AU: March 21, 2015
Wii U	NA: March 20, 2015 JP: March 12, 2015 EU: March 20, 2015 AU: March 21, 2015
Platform(s)
Classification(s)	This game uses the Nintendo Network This game is a Nintendo Selects game
Accessory(ies)	This game is compatible with certain amiibo figures
Genre(s)	Party
Rating(s)
ESRB	03
PEGI	02
CERO	01
USK	02
ACB	01

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.

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.

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. 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.

• Mario
• Luigi
• Peach
• Wario
• Waluigi
• Yoshi
• Toad
• Toadette
• Daisy
• Donkey Kong
• Rosalina
• Spike
• Bowser (only in Bowser Party and Amiibo Party mode)

Boards

• Mushroom Park
• Haunted Trail
• Whimsical Waters
• Airship Central
• Chaos Castle

Classic Party

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. 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, 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 wiimote 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 the wiimote 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. In it, 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 is 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, and a score of 66 on Metacritic based on 66 reviews.Also, whatoplay.com gives an aggregate score (playscore) of 7.32 based on 49 critics and 201,000+ gamer ratings.

Samuel Claiborn of IGN gave the game a 6.5/10, criticizing the return of the concepts from Mario Party 9, the board layouts in amiibo Party mode, and the game playing its target audience too safe, but was otherwise praising of the minigames and the Bowser Party mode, the latter of which he called "a blast", claiming "Whether you are Bowser or not, this five-person modification of Mario Party is [Mario Party] 10s greatest achievement – and one of the best uses of the Wii U GamePad yet." 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." 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".

Sales

Mario Party 10 is the tenth best selling game for the Wii U with 1.94 million copies sold worldwide as of September 30, 2016.

Pre-release and unused content

During the Nintendo Treehouse Event at E3 2014, it was claimed that Nabbit would appear to give Bowser extra dice blocks during Bowser Party. However, this was likely an early idea, as only Bowser Jr. gives Bowser extra dice, and Nabbit appears to take Dice Blocks away from Bowser. Also in the E3 demo of Mario Party 10, the characters used Mario Party 9 winning and losing animations.

The fireballs in Bowser's Bad Breath had a different appearance. Additionally, the controls for Bowser in Bowser's High Dive were originally made to have the GamePad tilt left and right, though the final game instead uses the touch screen. Additionally, in an early gameplay of Bowser Party, the meter that showed the amount of spaces Bowser was from catching up with the Mario Team, and the bar that showed Team Mario's health both had a different appearance.

References to other games

• Donkey Kong - Donkey Kong's sprite form from this game appears on his amiibo board.
• Super Mario Bros. - In the Mushroom Park board, sprites of Goombas and Koopa Troopas from this game appear as merry-go-round carriages. Additionally, Mario's amiibo Party theme is an arrangement of the Super Mario Bros. ground theme and Peach's sprite from this game appears in her amiibo board. The third theme for Chaos Castle contains an arrangement of the castle theme from this game.
• Super Mario Bros. 3 - Toad's amiibo Party theme is an arrangement of the Toad House music from this game. After a Bowser Party is finished, the results music is the lullaby that makes the Hammer, Boomerang, Fire, and Sledge Bros. fall asleep.
• Wario Land series - The right half of the Wario amiibo board displays many elements from the Wario Land series, such as Wario's hard hat and the Wario Car. Also, Wario's amiibo Party theme is an arrangement of the Stonecarving City music from Wario Land: Shake It!.
• Donkey Kong Country series - Various elements from the series appear on Donkey Kong's amiibo board, including a Barrel Cannon, bananas, and a Mine Cart and rails. Also, Donkey Kong's amiibo Party theme is an arrangement of the Jungle Hijinxs music from Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Country Returns. The sprite form of Donkey Kong is based on its cameo in Donkey Kong Country Returns, though it now lacks the Wii Remote it held in that game.
• Super Mario 64 - Peach's amiibo Party theme is an arrangement of the Peach's Castle music from this game, and Bowser's amiibo Party theme is an arrangement of the "Bowser's Road" music from this game.
• Yoshi's Story - Yoshi's amiibo Party theme is an arrangement of music originating from this game.
• Donkey Kong 64 - A verse from the DK Rap, originating from the said game, is used for Donkey Kong's description on the Mario Party 10 official website (see the description above, in the "Playable characters" section).
• WarioWare series - The left half of the Wario amiibo board features many elements from the WarioWare series, such as Wario's biker helmet and the Wario Bike.
• Luigi's Mansion - Luigi's amiibo Party theme is an arrangement of this game's main theme.
• New Super Mario Bros. series - The fortresses and castles on the boards are based on their appearance in the games from this series. Stone-Eyes and Nabbit return from New Super Mario Bros. U, the former in the minigame Fruit Scoot Scurry and the latter as an ally to Team Mario in Bowser Party. The airship design from this game also appears in the sky board. In the minigame Bowser's Tank Terror, Bowser falls in the lava which makes him reduced into Dry Bowser, resembles how he fell in the lava and reduced into his skeletal version in World 1-Castle of the first game of New Super Mario Bros. series. A few of the minigames take place in the worlds from New Super Mario Bros. U.
• Mario Party 8 - Donkey Kong's artwork is taken from this game.
• Super Mario Galaxy/Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Rosalina's amiibo board features several elements from this game and its sequel, including a Launch Star, Lumas, the red Starshroom, Star Bits, and several planetoids. Mario's voice when he falls off the stage is recycled from this game. Also, the entrance portals to any boss resemble black holes from this game. Additionally, Rosalina's amiibo Party theme is an arrangement of the Comet Observatory theme.
• Mario Kart 7 - Daisy's artwork is taken from this game.
• Mario Party 9 - The core gameplay mechanics in this game: Mini Stars and Mini Ztars, travelling around in a car, and fighting minibosses and bosses at the middle and end of the board return. Several animations and voice clips are reused, while others are new.
• Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon - The Luigi amiibo board appears based on this game, having a model of the Gloomy Manor and a sign with a Greenie on it on the board.
• Mario Party: Island Tour - After a battle minigame or a boss battle in the event of a tie the player fights for the position with a Dice Block. Also, in Bowser Party the player has to roll a Dice to defeat the Whomp blocking the path.
• Super Mario 3D World - Many of the Bowser minigames are placed in World Bowser. Clear Pipes appear in the Minigame Tournament mode.

References in later games

• Mario Party: Star Rush - Artwork and character animations are reused in this game.
• Mario Party: The Top 100 - Several minigames from Mario Party 10 return in this game.
• Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle - Some of Luigi's animations are reused in this game.
• Super Mario Party - The majority of the returning characters' victory and losing animations are reused in this game.

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.

External links

• Official North American website
• Official Japanese website
• Official European website