Mario Party 2

Voices of: Charles Martinet, Asako Haruhana, Eriko Ibe, Julien Bardakoff, Thomas Spindler
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Nintendo
Directed by: Kenji Kikuchi
Rating: E
Genre: Party
System: Nintendo 64
1999

Times Completed:
Tim: 1

Summary: Mario and friends return to engage in party games with new boards, challenges, and mini-games.

Review:
Tim: After loving the original game as a way to spend time as a whole family, we embarked upon more mini-game fun with Mario Party 2. This game came out a year later from the original, and it stays close to the original formula. It does bring in a host of new mini-games and a series of other new things, but overall, it feels very close to what you'd expect from an immediate sequel. That's not a bad thing- the first game was so much fun, why not do it all again?

My kids are still pretty young (9 and 6), so I make us play this game more collaborative than competitive. Oh sure, we still compete (sometimes fiercely) on the mini-games. However, we're not really focusing on who is the Super Star. Now, I say that, but I can only influence them so much- they were losing their minds when I inadvertently won 3 games in a row. The last one I was actively trying to lose, too. Instead, I try and focus us on having fun and collecting coins so we can unlock everything in the game. It leads to less fights and crying sessions. Our first order of business was to play each game board, so we could unlock Bowser Land. We did that- in total, we played Pirate Land , Western Land, and Space Land twice, and Mystery Land, Horror Land, and then Bowser Land once. 9 total games, experiencing all the boards. Along the way, we tried to hit all the mini-games and then make enough coins to buy them all from the tree creature.

One note on this- sometimes, these old games kill me. We played 43 out of the 44 regular mini-games. It's all random, but we could never land on Magnet Carta. I read online and a lot of people had similar frustrations. In 9 games, it didn't show up once. I was ready to move on, so I put four computer players and let the game run, hoping they would get lucky (I didn't count this in my play totals). Shockingly, it only took 2 games for the computer to finally hit that game. That might not be the "right" way to do it, but I wasn't going to play this game endlessly hoping to get lucky. Once we got that game, we were able to purchase it. When you buy all the games, it unlocks the Mini-Game Coaster. We finished this on Easy, and then on Normal, so we could unlock the 6 Item Mini-games. The game then wanted you to do the whole coaster on Hard, which includes a third replaying of all the levels you'd beaten in the first two, just to unlock the last batch of mini-games. This is where I stopped. The Mini-Coaster is a bit grueling and I just had zero interest in continuing. I felt like we'd done enough.

The real fun of the game isn't necessarily unlocking everything, but just having virtual game board fun. That's what I loved- hearing my family laughing hysterically at the intense battles we engaged in. Now, truth be told, I spent a lot of this game losing on purpose. Not all the time- oftentimes, my family would best me when I was trying my hardest. However, my daughter eventually grew to dislike losing, so I'd often throw games so she could be the victor. I did that a few times for my son, and even on occasion for my wife. Their experience was more important than winning. Although, to be fair, losing is a part of life and I won a lot of the mini-games against them. Lessons aren't always easy. The first game board we played, my daughter actually won, which was really exciting. I rattled off three wins in a row. Then, my son won two in a row. I tried to help my wife win a game, but I accidentally won, and then she won the next one. So, we did have every character in the game win a game (my wife played as Donkey Kong, my son Yoshi, my daughter Peach, and then I rotated between Mario, Luigi, and Wario). I found it interesting that they always chose the same characters, except for a few games where my daughter wanted to be Luigi.

Mario Party 2 is definitely another success for Nintendo. It takes the iconic, intrepid plumber and his wonderful supporting cast and it throws them into a frenetic, action-packed party game. The Nintendo 64 benefited greatly from these two entertaining games. Even decades later, they're great fun to play. Yes, some of the mini-games are a bit broken (I don't think we ever finished a single skateboarding session), but others are an absolute blast. The Bumper Balls one remained our absolute favorite. Shell Shocked was fun, and the ones like Bombs Away, Hexagon Heat, and Lava Tile Isle were always competitive and fun. Some of the most fun mini-games rarely showed up- I would have loved to play Magnet Carta more. Deep Sea Salvage and Quicksand Cache were great, too- but you just rarely got to play those "everyone wins" coin games. Bowl Over and Crazy Crane elicited so much laughter and entertainment from our family. Bobsledding was great, Speed Hockey was amazing. There's just so many different games to play.

As you might expect, I'm a big fan of Mario Party 2. I only played these games for short periods in my youth, so I loved getting to experience them fully as an adult. Especially, being able to play with the whole family- you can't buy wonderful family experiences like that.



Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: N/A



If You Enjoyed This Game, We Recommend: Super Mario RPG, Mario Party, Mario Party 3