Hello again G1's today Im going to be doing a review for Mario Party DS. Im going to start this off with a couple of my personal thought's and opinion's about the Mario Party series as a whole. Many people who grew up with any of the Mario Party's most likly hold it near and dear to their favorite classic party games. Personally I grew up playing the numbers 1, 2 and 3 but after that I stoped playing them so much more or less because alot of my gaming started to be done alone or online as opposed to with friends. I can't personally say to much about mario party 4 through 7 thoughs are the ones I've so far neglected and from what I hear are not as great as the old ones. If they are anything like number 8 I'de have to agree because in number 8 they really tryed to target the family more because of the nintdo era it was released in as opposed to teens and kids. I know that Mario Party dose target familys because it is a party game but for the original games it was marketed more towards younger people just take a look at this commercial. Is it just me or did these kids use to look alot older? ahahaha. Ok so lets start with the Mario Party DS Review. Mario Party DS US Date Released: Nov 19th, 2007 Developers/Publishers: Hudson Soft/Nintendo The Story The story in this mario party begins when mario leaves the mushroom kingdom and see's some crystals flying in the sky, the next day he gets a aplogy note and invatation to Bowers castle so he gathers up the gang and heads off(jeez you think he would be smarter then this by now.) Bowser shrinks him so Mario and the gang set off to find the sky crystals which will return them to normal size. so you go through the 5 levels. as we all know the mario party games always have a varity of maps, the maps on this as pretty much every map in any mario party can be sometimes awesome and sometimes they can suck. Its very random one minuet yo can be winning and the next at the bottom but if you think about it logically thats how virtually all board games are, snakes and laders being the prime example. These are the maps from Mario Party DS and how they play out. The Maps In The Game Are 1.Wiggler's Garden This is a more basic map with wiggler at the top and a bunch of man eating plants around the board, if you run in to him or any of them you usually just lose a amount of coins. Theres also some flowers with question mark spaces on them that will shoot you to a random spot on the map. 2.Toadette's Music Room In this map as you go around and collect stars the price increase's and drops,the spaces that are usually stars are also replaced with music notes. It gose from 5 coins to 30 and then back to 5 so people can collect mass amounts of stars fairly fast. There's grammaphone's that shoot you directly infront of the star and other instruments like the piano that will give you a amount of coins for compleating a task like repeating the same tones it plays for you. there's also another another instrument that moves the star from where it is to another random place and changes the price. 3.Dk's Stone Statue This map works a little diffrently then any of the others I've played. The star sits at the top of the map, you can buy as many as you have the coins for when you pass and it dosen't move when you buy any. Alot of the question marks on this map send a barrel down a one of two ally ways and everyone ends up losing alot of coins alot of the time. Its a fairly good map cause things can change fairly fast at the last moment on it. 4.Kamek's Libary In this map theres 3 jars that only cost 10 coins, only one of them contains the star, one of them has 5 coins and the third eats you and you lose 10 coins. Any time anyone gets one with the star in it they all reset move places. This makes the map fairly intresting because everyone dosen't know where to go as opposed to where usually everyones running for one place. Kamek sits at the top and when you land infront of you he replaces (or gives if you have nothing) 3 Half-way Dice Blocks, then he switchs you and one of the other plays posistions. theres also books that make you switch spots from the bottom to the top or side to side of the map. 5.Bowser's Pinball Machine Man, I have to say out of every map I've played on any mario party this one screws you around the most. It is constantly throwing you around from one end to the other and theres a spot you can get knocked to where it either gives you a free star or takes everything you have. I actually had a epic ending to a story mode the first time I played this map, me and one of the coms both had 5 stars on the last turn, I had 16 coins and he had 13 with one free for all mini-game left so whoever won that won the game, and it seemed the com knew it because the mini-game was as close as could be. Next up we have the items, Alot of them have been used in other mario partys and are just returning. I can't say for sure whats new and whats not new becauase as I previously said I haven't played 4 through 7. All of the items can be purchased at the store, only 3 items show up at a time when yo go buy and usually at the start its just basic items. To my knowledge the hex's that are in the game are new and havn't appeared in any other mario party but I do know a bit about the hex's. A hex is a item you can get when you pass by a space on the map, you lay the hex on a space and its sort of a trap. If anyone lands on it they have to give you whatever the hex is for, it may be for 10-20 coins or 1-2 stars or even to swap coin amounts which can also backfire. The Normal Items In The Game Are 1.Double Dice Set This is a pretty basic item, use it and you can roll 2 dice in 1 turn. 2.Tripple Dice Set This also is a pretty basic item, if you use it you get to roll 3 dice. Usually I grab as many as I can of these or the double dice sets, the faster you go the more stars you get so its just logical. 3.Half-Way Dice Block This can be very usefull, some people neglect it and act as if its a **** item, but if you got a star 3 spaces infront of you then it helps alot. 4.Warp Dice Block This is also a underestimated item. Usually at the begening of the game Ill pick one up because their only 2 coins, if you get stuck across the map from the star and everyone else is far aswell, then this can win it for you. 5.Snag Bag For some reason the computer seems to LOVE the snag bag. They buy them constantly and use them in a retarded way, for example I have a star pipe a snag bag and a 2 star hex, a computer will use his snag bag on another computer with a 10 coin hex and a double dice set. 6.Block Sensor I've personally only seen this come up in the store a few times, Im pretty sure it only comes up with you play games with 20 or more turns because as the game gose on better items will show up for you to purchase. What it dose is detects a block on the next space that you move to that can either give you a bunch of coins or a star. The item is 15 coins im pretty sure but always worth it. 7.Star Pipe Oh how I love the star pipe, its definitly won the game for me more then once. When you use it it brings you directly to the star and you can buy it right away then roll your dice and it only cost 15 coins. In my opinion sort of a over powered item if someone has enough coins. 8.Grab Bag One of the most kick ass items in the game, the grab bag. When you use it, it gives you 3 random items usually things like star pipes and tripple dice sets. Its a pretty crazy item and you should prettymuch always grab this item when you get the chance, it also only pops up later in games. This Mario Party has all the basic characters Luigi,Mario,Peach,Daisy,Wario,Waluigi,Toad and everyones favorite Yoshi. When you beat the game with diffrent characters you get little unlockables, just pointless things like badges and trophies sort of like SSBB. The Mini-Games All the mini-games are pretty good and make innovative use of the stylus without pushing it on you like most DS games do. Sometimes playing with the computers it some games can be downright retarded though, thats the one downside to the game. If you playing with friends its alot better obviously but sometimes when yor playing with the computer and for example Get The Lead Out comes out as a game. This is one of the hardest button mashers when playing expert com's I think I've ever came up against.In it you have to tap the A button to push lead out of a mechanical pencil. Ive beat things like the soda chugging comp in Chrono Trigger or plenty of button mashing parts in games but this is just REDONKULOUS. Most of the time I cant even get more then a bit over half of what the com dose. this isen't the only ridiclous mini-game when going agains't the com's theres a few more. On the other hand some mini-games are to easy. You go in to them with almost 100% chance to win against the com's if you know what your doing, theres alot more of these then the ones that are ridiculously hard. But as everyone I think knows mario party is a game best played with friends. Bosses The bossed in this game arn't to hard, there isn't much to say about them they don't take a whole lot of skill its usually just do the same thing like smack him with something 3 times. The one boss at the end is sort of unique though. Bowser transforms in a a bunch of stacked crates that look like a dradle and then starts to spin at you, then a cube then some weird shape but as I said all in all the boss fights are fairly simple. Settings The setting in this game are fairly good for a DS game, it has a couple diffrent options such as tag battles (1v1) or team battles (2v2) or the standard free for all's (1v1v1v1.) Conclusion So all in all this is a fairly good game, Im not going to give it a rating because that dosen't mean to much in my opinion. A good game is a good game a bad game is a bad game. If you haven't I would highly suggest going and picking this up and giving it a try, play a couple games with friends first before you go through story because in My opinion the game is alot better with friends, Thanks for reading.