Finally, a first-attempt victory. On what looked to be a very annoying board to boot.
It’s kinda hard to give Mario Party a good story mode. Having to come first place on every board otherwise you have to do it again is kinda the worst, though changing stuff around to suit specifically a single player is usually not as fun as just playing the game normally. So I dunno, maybe they could have had the cutscenes be more Paper Mario-esque in their writing. There’s been a few kinda funny lines, but otherwise they’ve just been a way to glue the various boards together.
Also for future reference, I go by she/they.
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Noted. Sorry if we were using the wrong pronouns.
I think the story mode definitely needs something more to it then just a way to piece all the boards together. It also needs to have a little more humor to it. Getting used to playing it I found it easier to get the boards in one go. Playing the mini games over and over really helps to be able to get the bonus stars easily.
A better story would definitely help tie it all together. So far we’re trying to win to be the super star, but we don’t really know why that’s a good thing. And the characters being able to come in and make claim to the stamps doesn’t fit the little narrative there already is. Also, the computers still seem to difficult for easy.Even this board was a nail bitter and we didn’t have to redo it.
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Spiny Desert is probably my third favorite board in this Mario Party. I kinda like it’s gimmick of there being a fake mirage of the Millenium Star, though not everyone might like it of course. I also generally find it easier to travel on this board compared to Deep Blooper Sea.
DK of course won’t appear on this board in Story Mode because he’s the designated Duelist for the Strength Star Stamp. I think he’s one of the easier opponents in Duel Mode due to his starting partner, but the board’s gimmick is one of the weirder ones.
Wario, Yoshi, DK, that’s three of the playable Story Mode characters so far in terms of “bosses”.
Oh, and if there’s one thing about this Mario Party that stresses me out, it’s the Game Guy minigames, where you usually lose due to the pure luck of his minigames (mostly, the Lucky 7 one I believe can be somewhat manipulated) and end up losing all your hard-earned cash. Or the computer wins and due to the coins at the time, now has almost undisputed claim to the Coin Star (thank God the Minigame Star does not count coins won in Game Guy minigames towards it). I think Game Guy’s games are better when you can play them outside of the board games since the stress of potentially losing all your money on a board is gone…
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Don’t get me started on it. I hate it so much I refuse to acknowledge its existence.
Game Guy is your own personal chance time hell.
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First of all, congratulations on winning the board on your first try!
As for actually fixing story mode… I agree that fleshing out the writing would go a long way. I also like the idea of not having to win first place every single time with the computer players being what they are. Maybe it would be better if you had a cumulative score based on your coins and stars that carries over from board to board? And you would just need to beat some minimum score that goes up every board. That way, you could have a really good board early on and just ride the momentum through bullshit luck later on.
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That could definitely work. Because thus far getting some stars and coins hasn’t been the problem. It’s felt like the last 2 turns just wrecked us and then the CPU gets a bunch of bonus stars and wins.I know later story modes changed things up but I can’t remember if they were successful.
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What if the story took place on an overworld that was its own board game? And, like, you had to roll your way around the board, completing minigames periodically, meeting Mario characters, and, say, getting quests from them? With Bowser causing trouble along the way? That seems like it’d be a fun story mode.
Okay, my actual thoughts on a story mode for Mario Party 3.
A good idea: characters burst in to demand a duel before you can lay claim to a prize.
A good idea: ranking a player’s performance in a game of Mario Party.
A good idea: characters being given some kind of central attribute or theme, the same way they have preferred items.
A good idea: story and regular gameplay being combined instead of separate modes, working towards an eventual goal over many plays of the game.
A good idea: the main menu being structured like a small town.
A good idea: stars and coins being used as currency for a top-level menu item shoppe.
So here’s what you do: make the overarching story like its own mega board game, in a way; I really wasn’t kidding. Not quite like Mario Party Advance, though.
Every character has an inventory that persists between boards; on top of maybe one prize that each character begins with, there are a set number of prizes (stamps, stickers, trophies, whatever) that originally are won from the party boards by one character, then they can be put up for grabs in duel boards. After all, duel minigames in the party boards are played with coins on the line, so the duel boards should be played with prizes on the line. Even playing minigames would earn prizes in some way, I’m sure.
On top of that, each character is retaining stars and/or coins from the party boards. Extend the happening star concept and give characters bonus coins, or maybe even extra prizes, for landing on the most of the different types of spaces. In the menu there is a shoppe that occasionally stocks itself with extra prizes, maybe, so even characters who lose all their prizes in duels and can’t win the board game can still get some prizes and potentially win more through duel boards.
CPU characters are selected randomly instead of by the human players; CPUs can have a chance to pick a human player as a Rival and challenge them to a duel (on their preferred board, naturally) after the party board, either to win back the prize they just missed their chance on, or to defend the prize they just claimed from the party board. This would lock up duel mode until you fight the CPU, and would also be the only time you can fight CPUs on duel boards, to stop you from draining another character/player’s stash without them being there (unless you wanted to just be a big ol’ cheater and press the buttons to lose for them…).
When the game has been played enough — total prize count, or count the stars the human players have collected in party boards so the story can’t be as easily gamed by one person on their own — the Millennium Star cuts in and calls for one final party on a special party board with the four characters in the lead; handicaps awarded based on prize count, possibly even collecting prizes themselves around the board instead of just stars. At the end, the character with the most prizes, theoretically the character and player who is the best at Mario Party, wins the Millennium Star and probably some other cool stuff gets to happen for that character at the end there.
I’ve tried to think of a way to incorporate the letter grading the game gives you for your performance in the boards already, but nothing’s come to mind. Other than that, I feel like that would be a cool way to implement a bunch of the best parts about the N64 parties and Advance in one mega story mode that doesn’t have to be separate from the regular game that you play with your friends and actively encourages multiple human players playing all of the different modes together. Might sound a little complex, but I think it can all be pretty easily explained to the player as different events pop up.
Now watch as they continue to do story modes that are “play Mario Party single-player until you win everything” for a couple of games and then just kind of phase out the idea of a story being that important beyond a premise and explanation for the unique mechanic of the specific game. And then they even drop that when they get to Mario Party 9 and 10, possibly even 8, if I recall correctly.
EDIT: Oh and also Bowser would show up at some point in this big story mode, I’m sure. Figure that out later. Nobody steal my design document before I get a chance to write it up.
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I think you just created an entirely new game that sounds like a lot of fun. Really, that’s kind of what the story mode needs to be. Something that isn’t just the normal game.
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Time to get in on like Donkey Kong! Please disregard this bad joke, it’s really early.
I can’t say I like this board. I’m not sure if the pipes are actually random, or if I just couldn’t keep track of them all.
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The pipes will take you to any pipe that isn’t the pipe you jumped into, so yeah, it’s random. I consider DK’s Story Mode duel one of the harder ones for this reason because either the pipes screw you over or the pipes help DK get a partner who can attack earlier than expected.
Otherwise, I don’t consider DK to be an extremely hard opponent, mainly because he starts with a partner who can’t attack (but can soak up damage like a sponge) which is somewhat of a disadvantage. It’s really the stage that’s the problem here.
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DK may not seam really hard, but so far in this LP he has been the driving force of our downfall. I’m also happy to find out that the pipes are random and it’s not me being bad.
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I’m sure he’ll feel really bad about it in future games and do his best to make up for it.
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Oh for sure. Donkey Kong is never one to cause trouble and then just leave suddenly.
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And in comes the next multiplayer update! The interesting part of this board is that if you try hard enough, you can traverse the whole board without really going anywhere. Also, as a side note. We have actually finished recording the entire game, which may be a new record for how soon we finished a game versus the release schedule.
Also time for voting everyone!
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Hoo boy, this one’s close. I wanna say Calli because of that sudden lead. Even if she flubs this next roll I still think she has a chance.
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Can I get a percentage guess on me flubbing it?
Honestly, gotta go with Calli on this one. I mean, anything can happen, but you can’t ignore winning that many coins in one turn.
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Going with Calli because Michael is an evil cheating Teddy hitter.
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