I was concerned when developer NDCube took over from series originator Hudson Soft. And that makes Island Tour’s subpar quality all the more painful. Yes, Mario Party is effectively a board game made digital, but I love it.
Nintendo devotees are likely to enjoy the package more than most, but even then, most probably through gritted teeth.Mario Party has always been a series that divides me from my peers, as for all its dodgy design choices and repetitive sequels, it’s a series I can’t get enough of.It’s all about those clutch plays, the local multiplayer banter, and that moment when you rob a star from an old friend at the last moment, creating a rift in your friendship like only the best board games can. Controls are near-uniformly frustrating, while the titular remix levels (placing Zelda's Link in Donkey Kong levels, for instance) erroneously confuse controller-smashing difficulty with tests of skill. The reward is the buzz of a three-star-rainbow score ranking and virtual stamps for online bragging.īut then the crash hits, as you realise that many of the "classics" included are no such thing – Tennis, Urban Champion and Ice Climber being just some of the guilty parties – and that even the better examples haven't aged well. Then comes the addiction, as you compulsively repeat seemingly simple tasks such as running Mario through a string of Goombas or sending enemies crashing out of the sky in a flash of Balloon Fight. The first hit gives older players a wave of nostalgia by repackaging Nintendo's 1980s hits – Mario Bros, Excitebike, Donkey Kong and more – into seconds-long micro-games.
To encourage this form of play, a single copy allows three friends to download it and join in, – great for younger gamers and families Andy Robertson Island Tour resolves this in its local multiplayer mode, where human competition refocuses all those involved on the outcome.
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