Pandora's Box: The Ultimate GameCube Tier List

#24: Mario Party 7

Rating: E

Players: 1-4

Price Range: ~$52 USD

The seventh Mario Party game and the fourth and last on the GameCube.

Okay, right off of the bat, it is debatable if this should be the highest out of the three, but I'll be up and front, it is partially due to my nostalgia, as I find it highly memorable. However, I will of course talk about its issues.

While it doesn't have the day and night system from 6 or the chaos wrought with luck to the extent that it appeared in 4, I feel like the delicate balance was struck here.

It has the new and improved Capsule System from 6, so no complaints here.

There isn't much too outlandish about 7, but it doesn't have anything outright bad, which is really great.

First, the boards.

Now, this game has a boards based on cultures of the world, even if they are...kind of stereotypical.

Like Neon Heights for example. You see, this one is based on the States, and it is filled very...inoffensive references, with events like, a rocket launch, playing baseball, a shooting gallery meant to represent cinema I suppose. It's okay, but its gimmick is quite great, having three floating chest spaces spawn randomly on the board, with one having a Star, one with coins, and one with a Bom-omb to send you to the start. Now, you have to choose which one to spend coins on, as it isn't shown which has which, which is quite cool. Overall, a great board, with even the chest idea being used in Mario Party DS.

The next one is Grand Canal. This is based on Venice and is easily the most traditional board in the game besides Bowser's Enchanted Inferno, as it has the usual Star space that costs twenty coins and teleports somewhere else when a person buys it. Not much to say, but it gets the job done and is great for new players.

Pyramid Park is based on ancient Egypt. While I would usually discuss it in further detail, it literally has the Chain-Chomp mechanic from Snowflake Lake in 6 except without the day and night cycle, so there is unfortunately nothing very new here besides aesthetics unfortunately.

Pagoda Peak is an interesting one. Based on Asia, it tasks you to get to the top of the namesake place the board is named after to get a Star for a different amount of coins that changes every time somebody purchases one, with some events even causing the price to alter again. Because all players go along the same path, this becomes no-man's land with how many traps people can set up here. Pretty good.

And then there's Windmillville, based on the European countryside. What many people forget about this board is that it was actually the basis for Koopa's Tycoon Town from Mario Party 8, what many consider to be the best board in the series. Here, players can put coins into a windmill, which has a certain amount of Stars attached to it. However, if another player puts in more than you do, then they overtake it, steal the Stars with it. The closest thing Mario Party series to Monopoly besides the board from 8, it is a really good board.

There isn't a single bad board here, which is nice.

The Minigames are also really good.

Track and Yield, Snow Ride, Fun Run, Pokey Pummel, Think Tank, Pogo-a-Go-Go, Battery Ram, Spider Stomp, Monty's Revenge, The Final Countdown, pretty much most of the Duel ones, and, of course, A Ghost in the Hall, which may seem familiar as it is basically what I decided to be the name of my romance story between Sybus and Shelby.

Easily one of the most underrated Minigames in my opinion.

The single player mode is also no slough either. One could argue that it isn't as good as the one from 6, but it is still better than most of the other Mario Party games.

As for any issues?

Well, some of the 1-vs.-3 Minigames are very unbalanced, surprisingly so, and the new additions are a real mixed bag.

The best of these is Bowser Time, in which in the Party Mode, every five or so rounds, Bowser will appear and cause an event. These actually change the game a bit and adds some spice. Like in Neon Heights in which Koopa Kid, one of his minions, steals Star from the player in first place and adds it to a chest already with a Star, meaning whoever gets it gets two of them instead of one.

There is also this one in most of the boards in which Bowser forces everybody to take a photo in this cutout, bombs his own photo, charges you high raid robbery for the photo, only to, in the end, not give you the photo.

Truly despicable and vile.

But many of the others are much less welcome.

The game has a weird infatuation with the GameCube Mic, a forgotten accessory that was also use in exclusive Minigames in 6 too, but there was little reason to talk about, with a few...eh...Minigames. Besides Odama, a game I will not talk about, the Mic was almost never used elsewhere, at least to my knowledge.

Also, 8-Player Party is...weird. The concept is cool, with two players on each team sharing a controller, with one using the Control Stick and the other the C-Stick. What is quite unfortunate about this mode is that it is very gimmicky, with the exclusive Minigames feeling like they could exist just as good as with four players, except Shock Absorbers and Bob-ombic Plague, which are really good.

And, again, a multiplayer-centric game should be played with others, not by yourself, it's just a given.

Overall, Mario Party 7 is just solid. Nothing outlandish or anything too mind-blowing, but it has the least number of flaws while remaining familiar and having the refined systems from 6. A great multiplayer experience all around.