Mario Party 8 is a 2007 party video game developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo for the Wii. It is the eight main installment in the Mario Party series, as well as the first title in the series to be released for the Wii.
Like previous Mario Party titles, Mario Party 8 features up to four characters from the Mario franchise, controlled by either human players or artificial intelligence, competing in a board game interspersed with minigames. The game features a single-player story mode as well as several other game modes.
Mario Party 8 received mixed reviews, with critics praising the inclusion of motion controls but voicing disapproval of its outdated visuals and single-player gameplay. The game has sold over 8 million copies, making it the twelfth best-selling game for the Wii. Mario Party 8 was succeeded by Mario Party DS, a handheld title for the Nintendo DS, the same year of its release.
Gameplay
Mario Party 8 is hosted by two new original characters, MC Ballyhoo and his talking top hat Big Top. During the standard game, four different characters compete on one of six themed boards. When playing with fewer than four people, players select which characters the computer will control, as well as their difficulty level and handicap. Players can also select from five different areas to play on from the Play Choices screen by selecting the Select File screen in the beginning. Here, the player is given the choices of five different areas to play on: Party Tent, Star Battle Arena, Minigame Tent, Extras Zone, and the Fun Bazaar. The Party Tent allows for characters to compete on boards in three kinds of battles: Battle Royale (four-player competition; one to four players), Tag Battle (two-vs. two; one to four players), or Duel Battle (one-on-one; one to two players). In the Star Battle Arena mode, one player faces off against one opponent on each board in which when he/she gets to the last board, Bowser will take the star from the player and he/she will face against Hammer Bro or Blooper (which once defeated are included as playable characters) in Bowser's Warped Orbit, then once he/she defeat the character, Bowser will give back the Star Rod and the player will face in a final mini-game called Superstar Showdown. When he/she wins the battle the player wins the game. In the Minigame Tent, players can play several non-board challenges from the minigames. The extras zone has the eight extra minigames that do not appear in board-play. These could be played with Miis saved in the Mii Channel in addition to Mario franchise characters. Finally, the Fun Bazaar has the player use their carnival cards to unlock minigames and other surprises. In the Fun Bazaar, there is a place where if you buy it with your carnival cards, the player may listen to music and character voices. Minigame records can also be viewed here. For general board-play modes, players take turns (10 to 50 turns) rolling a dice block and moving across the game board, with the goal being to getting as many stars as possible within the allotted turn limit.
Toward the end of the game, during the last five turns, gameplay is altered slightly. This can include events such as candy or coins being awarded to the player in last place, as well as additional coins being placed on each space. After the game has ended, three Bonus Stars (which can be enabled or disabled as a game option) may be awarded to players for various feats during play. Finally, the player with the most stars is declared the winner, with the number of coins possessed used as a tiebreaker.
Additional game modes allow players to directly compete in minigames without making use of the game board. Several of these modes tie a number of minigames together, with each minigame won moving the winning player closer to victory.
Boards
While some of the game boards are classic Mario Party in nature, with players attempting to reach locations where they can buy a star for 20 coins (10 coins in King Boo's Haunted Hideaway and free in Goomba's Booty Boardwalk due to the distance required to reach the star), others are more varied. For example, "Koopa's Tycoon Town" involves players investing coins into hotels (as in Monopoly) in order to earn stars, with each hotel only providing stars to the player with the highest current investment.
As always, all boards include a number of elements which can greatly influence the course of the game. Notable for this is "Shy Guy's Perplex Express", where the train cars which make up the game board can be re-ordered as the result of landing on a certain space, potentially changing the relative positions of all players.