Mario Party 7

Mario Party 7
Mario Party 7 box art
Developer(s)	Hudson Soft
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Platform(s)	Nintendo GameCube
Release	November 7, 2005 November 10, 2005 February 10, 2006 June 2006
Genre(s)	Party
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer

Mario Party 7 is the seventh in a series of board game style video games for Nintendo platforms, featuring popular Nintendo characters. It was released on the Nintendo GameCube in North America on November 7, 2005 and was released on February 10, 2006 in Europe. It features 86 new minigames and allows up to eight players to play simultaneously. This game's host is Toadsworth, Princess Peach's longtime steward. It also makes use of the microphone peripheral introduced with Mario Party 6, which can be used in 10 minigames.

Story

Toadsworth has invited Mario and all his friends to go on a luxury cruise around the world. However, Bowser isn't on the list. Furious at being omitted, the Koopa King vows revenge! When the cruise ship arrives at its first destination, the passengers discover that Bowser has turned their vacation paradise into a stress-filled madhouse.

The goal is to gather stars, but each board requires one to do that in a different way. For instance, people must buy a star at Pagoda Peak - if they have enough coins. In Neon Heights, one must pay coins to open a treasure box. One might find a star - or something far less desirable. Also, in Bowser's Enchanted Inferno, players may be on their way to getting a star, but end up not getting it and losing half of their coins. In Solo Cruise, some boards do not involve purchasing stars, but stealing them.

Characters

Playable Characters

• Mario
• Luigi
• Peach
• Yoshi
• Wario
• Daisy
• Waluigi
• Toad
• Boo
• Toadette
• Birdo (New Character)
• Dry Bones (New Character)

Note: Koopa Kid, who was playable in both Mario Party 5 and Mario Party 6, and Donkey Kong who was playable in the first four games, are not playable in this game.

Non-Playable Characters

• Toadsworth (Hosts the game.)
• Bowser (Hosts his minigames and Bowser Time and the final boss.)
• Donkey Kong (Hosts his minigames.)
• Shy Guy (Hosts events on Grand Canal & Neon Heights.)
• Koopa Troopa (Hosts events on Pagoda Peak & Windmillville.)
• Goomba (Hosts events on Pyramid Park & Bowser's Enchanted Inferno.)
• Koopa Kid (Hosts Last 4 Turns on Party Cruise and events as a result of landing on his character space, and appears in various Bowser Time happenings and events on Bowser's Enchanted Inferno.)
• Chain Chomp/Red Chain Chomp (In Pyramid Park, you may ride him to steal stars.)
• Bandit (Challenger in the solo mode version of Pyramid Park.)

Spaces

Blue: Gives 3 coins.
Red: Takes away 3 Coins.
Happening: Triggers a board-specific event.
Character: Triggers a thrown Orb and/or gives 5 Coins to the owner of the space.
Koopa Kid: Triggers a random Koopa Kid event.
Bowser: Triggers a random Bowser event.
DK: Triggers a random DK event.
Duel: Triggers a Duel mini-game.
Mic: Triggers a special Mic mini-game. Only works if the Mic is turned on.

New features

8-player

For the first time since the series' initial release in 1999, 8 players may participate in either Party Cruise or Deluxe Cruise (the 8 player equivalent of the Mini-Game Cruise). Players are split up into teams of two and are required to share a controller, with the first player using the L Button and Control Stick in minigames and the second player using the R Button and C-Stick.

Solo cruise

While a mode for a solo player in itself isn't new to the Mario Party series, this game's take is very much different from any of the past 6 games. One player competes against another (either computer controlled or human played), trying to complete the set objective on the board map before the other can. Tasks range from collecting a set number of stars to having a set number of coins on a space. Up to 10 slots of different characters with different phrases may be saved. Once a player has completed all 6 boards, they are added to the rankings section, where it shows the players who took the least turns to complete them.

Bowser time

The premise of this game is not only based on a cruise, but Bowser's rage as well since he was not invited. This is where Bowser Time, only on Party Cruise, comes in. After every turn, a meter with Bowser's face on it rises. After 5 turns, the meter will fill completely, and Bowser Time commences. Bowser may take a picture of all the players and charge them coins, but not give them the picture, destroy a shop and build his own, selling items players don't need to one player before closing (Such as a Koopa Kid Orb for 10-20 coins), or do something else, which varies from board to board. In addition to Bowser Time, Bowser wrecks the party by adding three Koopa Kid spaces at the start of the game.

Other features

• There is a Single-Player Mic Minigame, which requires the player to name the fruit behind each card selected. The player may wager up to 99 coins, if they have that many, which allows them to double their coins if they win. It is only available on Board Maps; the sequence begins when a player (or team) lands on a Mic Space.
• There is a "duty-free shop", where new characters, sounds, and other unlockables can be bought. It is similar to Mario Party 6''s "star bank".
• DK and Bowser now have Single-Player Minigames to attempt to help/hinder one player's progress. DK requires the player to defeat DK in a minigame to win coins and even a star. Bowser requires the player to find a key before time runs out, or he'll steal coins or a star.
• Duel Minigames are no longer wagers for coins/stars as they were in the past. Instead, the winner of the Duel Minigame will get the chance to spin the Slot of Stupendousness, where they will get 10 coins, half the coins, all the coins, a star, a double star or nothing from the losing player.

Boards

Since, in Mario Party 7, Mario and his friends are travelling the world they go to different countries and have parties there.

• Grand Canal (Italy)
• Pagoda Peak (China)
• Pyramid Park (Egypt)
• Neon Heights (United States)
• Windmillville (Netherlands)
• Bowser's Enchanted Inferno (Bowser's Castle)

Orbs

There are many new orbs in Mario Party 7, and new ways to acquire and use them. Some can be used beneficially, such as increasing the amount of dice blocks used, while others can be set to damage opponents, by placing them on certain game board spaces. Certain orbs have defensive uses, for instance warding off a chain chomp's attack. Orbs are obtained by passing Orb Spaces or by purchasing them from Orb Shops. Orbs can be thrown up to five spaces behind or ahead of the player, but they cannot placed on special spaces.

Minigames

4-player

• Big Dripper: Stand on the puddles under each beehive when a shadow appears to catch the dripping honey. Duck when the bees swarm in so as to avoid being stunned.
• Bubble Brawl: Punch and kick opponents out of the bubble. Be the last player remaining to win.
• Catchy Tunes: Move and jump around to acquire the five different kinds of music notes first.
• Cointagious: Jump to hit a dice block as many times as possible within a time limit to accumulate coins. Coins rewarded are equal to each roll on the dice block.
• Fun Run: Get to the finish line first while avoiding obstacles such as spiny shells, trap doors, and mechanical punching hands.
• Ghost in the Hall: Maneuver through a haunted house and be the first to find the exit.
• Kart Wheeled: Race Mario Kart-style to complete five laps around the track.
• Picture This: Search through a flip-book to find the exact picture displayed.
• Pokey Pummel: Mash the A button to punch every segment of a Pokey fastest.
• Snow Ride: Snowboard through the gates and avoid obstacles to cross the finish line first.
• Take Me Ohm: Thwomps will generate strips of electricity that travel across the playing field. Jump over them to avoid being electrocuted. Be the last player remaining to win.
• Target Tag: Crash through targets in the air with point totals on them (5, 10, 30, and 50). Accumulate the most points to win. A player's score will be reset to zero if they hit a Bowser target.
• Track & Yield: Run on a conveyor belt and jump over the hurdles. Don't fall off the end of the belt or get zapped by the electric hurdles. The last player remaining wins.

4-Player Mic

• Balloon Busters: Say "bigger" up to five times into the mic to inflate the balloon. The winner is the player before the person who pops the balloon.
• Clock Watchers: Players must stop the clock closest to their target time by saying "stop".
• Dart Attack: Say "fire" into the mic to shoot up to five darts within the time limit. There are four targets scoring 10, 20, 30, and 50. The player with the greatest amount of points at the end of the game wins.
• Mathemortician: Say numbers into the mic that correspond to those on the board behind the Pink Boos to hit them. Regular Boos are worth one point, and the ones with crowns are worth three. The player with the most points wins.
• Oil Crisis: To win, one must make it closest to the finish line by saying "left" and "right" to pick up fuel and avoid oil spills.

1-vs.-3

• Balloonatic: One player drifts in the air, being held up by three balloons. The others try to knock him or her into the water by shooting the balloons.
• Spray Anything: Three players try to hit the single player with a bubble of water.
• Flashfright: One player tries to catch three opponents in the light of a flashlight in a darkened room.
• La Bomba: One player ground-pounds panels in order to release bombs that will eliminate the other three players. The three-player team must also watch out for spiky obstacles.
• Pogo-a-Go-Go: One player spins a panel with many holes to make the three players on pogo sticks fall through.
• Spinner Cell: One player controls two rotating obstacles to hit the other players. The small one only stuns the players, while the larger one knocks them out.
• Coin-Op Bop: One player presses sequences of buttons to gain three coins at a time. The other three work together to press one button each round, also gaining three coins at a time.
• Easy Pickings: Players try to break rocks to find hidden gems. The red/pink gems are worth one point and the clear crystal- or diamond-colored ones are worth three. The single player uses a large pick-axe that breaks a rock with one swing, while the three-player team has smaller ones that break rocks with three swings.
• Think Tank: One player, with ten lives in a large tank, tries to shoot the three other players in smaller tanks with three lives each who are trying to shoot back. Each hit counts as one life. The game ends when either all three team players are eliminated or when the single player's tank is destroyed.

1-vs.-3 Mic

• Be My Chum!: One player summons enemies with the mic to eliminate the other three underwater players.
• Boxing Day: One player attacks the three players with boxing gloves controlled by the mic in an attempt to eliminate them. The team is ground-pounding panels to expose a large picture of a Bob-omb. The game ends when either all three players are eliminated or when the team has uncovered the entire picture, in which case Bob-ombs will come raining down on the single player.
• Number Crunchers: The playing field is several platforms shaped like either squares or circles over with the numbers one to three on them, over a pit of lava. The single player calls out numbers or shapes, and Thwomps will descend upon the corresponding platforms, squishing any players standing on them. Team players can be eliminated by either getting crushed by Thwomps or falling into the lava.
• StratosFEAR!: One player controls a platform with the three players on it by saying either "Move up" or "Move down," and the team must avoid Bullet Bills that come shooting at them.
• Wheel of Woe: One player tries to eliminate three players standing on a circular panel with holes on it by making them fall through or get hit by Chain Chomps or Bullet Bills whose attacks he or she controls with the mic.

2-vs.-2

• Battery Ram: Two teams make their way through a maze to carry a battery to the finish line (a battery-operated rocketship that they will blast off in).
• Hop-O-Matic 4000: Two teams alternate pressing buttons to control a machine that will hop them to the finish line.
• Sphere Factor: Two teams must compete to roll a ball to the finish line first.
• Bumper Crop: Two teams pick vegetables. Each team must get two of each kind.
• Buzzstormer: Guide a mechanical bee around flowers to the finish line.
• Cardinal Rule: Work with a teammate to ground-pound two cards with the same picture as the one displayed.
• Herbicidal Maniac: Work together to shoot all the Piranha Plants. Don't shoot the bombs or more plants will appear.
• Pyramid Scheme: Collect coins and money bags that shoot out of a golden pot and rain down on the playing field.
• Spider Stomp: Defeat the spiders to rescue Flutter.
• Tile and Error: Ground-pound panels to change their color. The team with the most panels of their color wins.
• Wingin’ It: Mash the A button to make the team's aircraft rise the furthest into the sky.
• World Piece: Put two pieces together to create the shape displayed.

Battle

• The Final Countdown: Knock opponents off the playing field. Panels that reach zero open up, eliminating anyone standing on it.
• Helipopper: Guide a helicopter across the playing field to pop balloons.
• Air Farce: Dive the furthest into the water.
• Deck Hands: Draw three cards from a deck with the numbers one to thirteen on them. Finish the game with the highest total hand to win.
• Monty’s Revenge: Pop out of holes while avoiding getting hit by Monty Mole. (This is a reverse of Whack-a-mole.) The player with the most time spent out of a hole wins.

Duel

• Camp Ukiki: Race to the end of an obstacle course.
• Hip Hop Drop: Press buttons to hop past panels leading to the finish line..
• Mad Props: Control the left and right propellers of a boat and avoid obstacles like rocks to reach the finish line first.
• Spin Doctor: Get to the finish line using spinning panels that may lead to a correct path or a dead end.
• Warp Pipe Dreams: Jump into various warp pipes to reach the middle. Jump into the final middle warp pipe first to win.
• Apes of Wrath: Players must avoid Ukikis chasing after them.
• Bridge Work: Players must avoid the Cheep-Cheeps jumping on the bridge.
• Fish & Cheeps: Players must swim while avoiding Cheep-Cheeps.
• Gimme a Sign: Shy Guy will hold up one or two signs at a time with symbols on them matching the four panels on the playing field over water. The panels with the symbols he holds up will sink, so don't get caught on one.
• Light Speed: Players must zoom over panels to change them to their color.
• Royal Rumpus: Squish the most Goombas to win. Regular ones are worth one, and the golden one is worth three.
• Weight For It: Hit as many weights as you can to your opponent's half of the playing field. If the weight directly hits a player, he or she will be stunned. The player with the most weights on his or her side at the end of the game loses.

8-player

• Bob-ombic Plague: Pass around the Bob-omb in a game like hot potato. The player holding the bomb when it explodes, as well as the two surrounding players, is blown away. Be the last player remaining to win.
• Bumper to Bumper: Knock opponents in hoverkarts off the edge of the platform.
• Gimme a Brake: Slide down a course in a random weather condition. Stop the scooter closest to the end without falling off to win.
• Grin and Bar It: Jump rope with a metal bar. Stay in the longest to win.
• Hammer Spammer: Survive the longest without getting hit by the Hammer Brothers' attacks.
• Shock Absorbers: Hit the lights that start glowing. If all the lights are lit up, duck.
• Duct & Cover: Fix the leaky pipes by mashing the button that appears over it.
• Real Smoothie: One partner presses the L button to grab oranges and the other pressed R to get strawberries. Whichever team gets the most fruit wins.
• Rope a Dope: Players tethered together must cooperate to reach the finish.
• Spin Off: Create three different characters by putting the two halves together.
• Synch-row-nicity: Players must row in sync to the finish line.
• Unhappy Trails: This is a partner relay race to find a gem and bring it back to the starting point.

DK

• Bananas Faster: Jump in and out of the spinning roulette to grab bananas, which will be converted into coins by DK.
• Peel Out: Pick a path at each fork as you slide down a chute. The bananas in each path vary.
• Stump Change: Roll around a tree stump in a mechanical device to collect the most bananas.
• A Bridge Too Short: Race DK past bridges to the finish line. Some bridges are faulty and have holes in the middle.
• Jump, Man: Race DK to the goal by jumping over barrels.
• Vine Country: Mash the A button to climb up the vine, moving left and right to avoid falling objects to beat DK to the top.

Bowser

• Funstacle Course!: Reach the finish line by avoiding obstacles created by the Koopa Kids. The losers of all Bowser games must suffer Bowser's wrath and lose coins or stars.
• Funderwall!: Climb up the tall wall while avoiding Koopa Kids' attacks.
• Magmagical Journey!: Jump across a path of rocks, avoiding Koopa Kids' attacks and not falling into the magma below.
• Tunnel of Lava!: One player must find the key hidden inside one of the many wind-up Koopa Kids.
• Treasure Dome!: Find the keys that lead to the next within 30 seconds.
• Slot-O-Whirl!: One player must spin a slot as many times as necessary to get three key symbols in order to obtain the real key before time runs out.
• Bowser's Lovely Lift!: Hit the four dice blocks on the corners of the playing field to lift the elevator to the hundredth floor, avoiding Bowser's, and later, Koopa Kid's, attacks.

Rare

• Ice Moves: Play a virtual air hockey game against a friend(s), either one-on-one or in teams of two.
• Stick and Spin: Connect at least five balls of the same color to make them disappear.

Trivia

• This is the last Mario Party game to be released on Nintendo Gamecube. The next installment, Mario Party 8 will be released on the Wii.
• Some minigames, boards, and music are similar to the minigames and boards found in Mario Party 6.
• Character SFX are the same as the ones in Mario Party 6, except Birdo and Dry Bones.
• In the intro sequence, when the message says, "They're kings of the world", there is a moving camera angle that acts as a homage to the movie Titanic.
• The DK minigame Jump, Man is based on the original Donkey Kong game, which featured Mario, previously known as "Jumpman".
• The 4 player minigame Bubble Brawl the floating bubble of water in an arena resembles the Blitzball Stadium from Final Fantasy X.

External links

• North American official site
• Template:Ja icon Japanese official site
• Mario Party 7's Page at Nintendo.com
• Mario Party 7 Review
• Mario Party 7 at MobyGames