Pandora's Box: The Ultimate GameCube Tier List

#26: Mario Party 4

Rating: E

Players: 1-4

Price Range: ~$60 USD

The fourth game in the Mario Party spinoff series and the first on the GameCube.

Okay, first of all, I'll going to have the other two Mario Party games ranked by this one.

Why?

Well, because while in terms of quality, they are a bit different, they each have their own flavor within the Party Mode that make them stand out amongst other feature.

And the lowest of these three placements is Mario Party 4.

Now, this game has a lot of issues.

For one, the visuals of the boards themselves and the items are...not very good.

The boards adopt this sort of bridge-like look that doesn't look very interesting or appealing, and this makes them look kind of homogenous, even if there is a specific theme in each.

It just looks like railroaded paths in the sky.

The items are also atrocious. They are so unbelievably situational, that you never use them at all whatsoever minus the Magic Lamp to instantly get to the Star. The Mega Mushroom increases your size and lets you stomp on other players you pass and take ten coins while also being able to hit two dice blocks, but you bypass all board events, including Star Spaces, which is just not very good, even if I do see they intended it to be a sort of risk vs. reward system. Mini Mushrooms are also bad, as they only let you go through orange pipes, which is rare, and force you to hit a dice block that only goes to 1 to 5. Why?

The other ones besides the Magic Lamp, are also underwhelming as well.

Even the boards themselves are also a mixed bag. Sure, Toad's Midway Madness as an introductory board is okay, even if a player or two gets stuck at the start due to these tea-cup things due to luck, Koopa's Seaside Soiree is...decent with his sort of Koopa Bank-like mechanic in the form of the cabana at the center of the board, and Goomba's Greedy Gala definitely takes luck to the extreme, but in a good way, the others are underwhelming at best, and kind of terrible at worst.

Shy Guy's Jungle Jam is just plain boring and bland, while Boo's Haunted Bash is a contender for one of the worst boards in the series. It is literally a rectangle, with the only gimmick being that the paths sometimes disappear, forcing you on other ones. Not only does it look empty visually, but the layout is atrocious due to how little it offers. It also has one of the worst Happening Spaces in the series behind one of these disappearing and reappearing bridges that a person must land on three times for it to get activated and interact with Big Boo, which never happens except in the longest and luckiest of games. Very bad.

And, besides the Single Player Minigames and unlocking Bowser's board, there isn't much reason to go solo with this one, although a virtual room with souvenirs for each character is cool and beating the game with eight characters...doesn't seem the most terrible.

However, some of the Minigames are really good. Booksquirm, Dungeon Duos, Domination, Bom-omb Breakers, Revers-a-Bomb, and Trace Race are all good highlights, although some other ones are...underwhelming.

So, given all of these issues, why is this up here? Well, you see, while it is easily the most rugged out of the four games except maybe Mario Party 5, it is the closest to a classic Mario Party experience, one based more on luck and lets you really mess around with your opponents or just get bad based on forces out of your control.

It is basically chaos, which is something that is somewhat lost on 6 and 7, which are more refined.

Because of this, if you are looking for a more flawed, but equally unhinged experience, then this is the game for you.

Well, if you have others to play with that is.

Still, this is a Mario Party at the end of the day, and despite the modest price and its issues, it is still a multiplayer favorite with the other games in the series at the end of the day.