Review by Gianluca “DottorKillex” Arena
Although the latest episode released on the handheld console did not thrill, mostly due to a number of limitations and compromises to be accepted to play on the go, the Mario Party series has long been a hallmark for those who love to share their passion with. friends, boyfriends, children and wives, fighting in the last round on different boards and entrusting the outcome of their evenings to a roll of the dice.
For this reason, the arrival of Mario Party Star Rush can be seen almost as a sort of compensation for 3DS users, with decisive steps forward from the point of view of gameplay and usability in the group.
Let's take a closer look at the work done by ND Cube (Nintendo's second party team) and one of Nintendo's internal teams.
To each his own Toad
To take the stage, emblem of the work of modernizing and lightening the game mechanics that had characterized the series so far, is the Fight of the Toads, a prince mode for the single player (which is still a secondary activity in a party game such as this) as for competitive multiplayer up to four players.
The latter is now also supported by a special download via eShop, free of charge, which allows three friends to participate in the party with fewer restrictions than the Download Play, however present, requires.
The fight of the Toads puts each player in the shoes of a mushroom of a different color, and this choice already marks a breaking point with the ten-year tradition of the brand, and eliminates the bottleneck represented by the fixed-movement scoreboard, replaced by a grid on whose movements, although still decided by the roll of the dice, are at the discretion of the player.
ND Cube has also got rid of shifts, allowing players to move at the same time, so as to reset, in one fell swoop, both the dead times that plagued the previous releases as well as the hidden strategies, now impossible to adopt because they are always exposed to the indiscreet gaze of the other participants.
The ultimate aim is to accumulate a greater number of stars than any other competitor, extricating yourself from unlikely challenges against the baddies typical of the Mariesque imaginary (from Bowser to his progeny, passing through the inevitable Goomba and Pippin Piranha) and the minigames represented by the balloons scattered around the maps, often appearing out of nowhere, always giving an unpredictable flavor to matches.
Another small but welcome trick consists in having made the explanatory phases of the individual minigames optional: if both competitors agree to skip the tutorial, this can be bypassed with the simple press of a button, enormously speeding up access to the funniest part.
Sparse modes
Toad Fight, by heart, is one of the best balanced and funniest main modes seen in a recent Mario Party, only slightly sacrificed by the structural limitations of the host console and its small screens, but Mario Party Star Rush offers more as well.
Blocks Boo represents the made in Mushroom Kingdom version of the match-three puzzle games that have depopulated for over thirty years, Balloon Race takes up the basic formula of Toad Fight but without boss fight, for even faster matches, while Concert Types is a very basic version of a rhythm game, which is based on the timing of the player and his knowledge of the classic tunes of the Mario franchises.
Not enough for you yet? Here, then, is Monetathlon, a race that takes place on two screens, where the collection of coins acts as fuel for the walkers, while Forward and Back is a one-on-one competition in which to gradually advance one's pawn, where luck with the dice matters more than ever.
The Lightning-Tower roundup closes, the only minigame exclusively single player in the package, which is Nintendo's reinterpretation of the minefield that everyone has tried, at least once, on Windows.
Quantity, which as you can see is abundant, does not always go hand in hand with quality, because, like all minigame collections, there are always at least a couple less inspired: in this case, and taking into account that the personal factor holds a considerable weight in this evaluation, the less interesting proposals are Monetathlon and Tipi da Concerto, one too slow in a game that goes to a thousand and the other really too basic to entertain the potential audience of products such as the next Rhythm Heaven .
In any case, with such a numerically rich package, it is easy for everyone to find their favorite activity, specifying themselves in that and paying duty, perhaps, in some of the other disciplines: the beauty of evenings with friends is also this balance, which generates competitions. ferocious and teased to no end.
Rich palette
It is useless to dwell too much on the technical side, very secondary in a product like Mario Party Star Rush: what, instead, we would like to emphasize, said of the possibility of downloading almost complete packages for all friends or family who want to have fun with the buyer of the cartridge, is the total compatibility with the vast majority of the amiibo that we have had the opportunity to test.
Each of them guaranteed particular bonuses or, in some cases, malus for our opponents, and contributed to creating that atmosphere of social interaction: during the game sessions we haggled and exchanged the statuettes, only to discover that their effect it varied according to the minigame in which they were used, with often unexpected and hilarious effects.
The graphic layout is quite poor, in itself, but guarantees a sea of colors and a clean and easy to navigate interface, two absolutely secondary elements in the economy of a game aimed at a very wide audience.
Final comment
Perfection (which in any case is not of this world) is still far away, if it is true that the single player mode continues to entertain much less, that some minigames are less inspired than others and that everything now seems more dedicated to users as much as never casual, yet Mario Party Star Rush takes, without too much effort, the throne of the best portable chapter of the series, thanks to substantial changes in the game structure and the successful and dynamic main mode.
If you have a couple of people with whom to share the product on an ongoing basis, please add half a vote to the evaluation, which also takes into account the objective difficulty of organizing special parties, unlike our Japanese colleagues.
