Mario Party: The Top 100

Genre: Party Game / Minigame Collection

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Wireless, Download Play Supported)

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Review:

Mario Party: The Top 100 is the third and final Mario Party game to be released on the Nintendo 3DS, coming to that platform in 2017. Like other games in the series, this is a Party Game featuring a wide variety of minigames. And because multiplayer is such a central part of the Mario Party experience, I should note that this game unfortunately lacks online play, but thankfully does support download play, meaning that all you need is one copy of the game no matter how many players want to play it (though each player will of course need to bring their own Nintendo 3DS).

As the name indicates, Mario Party: The Top 100 is something of a “best of” for the Mario Party series, containing 100 minigames from the numbered installments in the Mario Party series up through the tenth game in the series. I’m not sure what exactly the criteria was to determine the “top 100” here, and I’m kinda’ suspicious about that, because somehow I doubt that simple button-mashing minigames like Mecha Marathon would make it into a true ranking by fans.

However, while there are definitely some stinkers that made it into this supposed “top” listing of minigames, most of the minigames that made the cut are indeed at least good. Unfortunately, because these are all games created for console Mario Party titles, they are all pretty boring as the series goes. While some of the minigames from the Wii and Wii U games retained their gyroscopic motion controls here, as far as I can tell there’s nothing here that makes use of the Nintendo 3DS’s touchscreen or making especially good use of its dual-screen format.

The various fun game modes from Mario Party: Star Rush are largely gone now too, and while this game does offer a few different ways to play it, this seems like a clear step down from what was offered just the year prior.

What’s more, even though the various minigames here have had updated visuals, the presentation here is nowhere near as good as the previous two Mario Party games on the Nintendo 3DS, and in fact any of the fun little unique elements or eccentricities of the individual games these many minigames were drawn from seems to have been washed away, resulting in a boring cookie-cutter Mario Party game bereft of its own personality.

If you’re a long-time Mario Party fan, The Top 100 may offer you some nice nostalgia to revisit some of the minigames you loved from previous installments in the series. However, for pretty much everyone else, you’re much better off going with Mario Party: Star Rush – the games in that title are more creative, make better use of the Nintendo 3DS hardware, look better, have more personality, and are presented in game formats that are fun and offer a fair amount of variety. By comparison, this trudge through the past feels more like a cheap rehash than a celebration of the series’ history.

tl;dr – Mario Party: The Top 100 is the third and final Mario Party game to release on Nintendo 3DS. It lacks online play but supports download play. The Top 100 revisits 100 of what are supposedly the “top” (whatever that means) minigames from the first ten numbered installments in the Mario Party series. Unfortunately, even beyond this dubious claim, the minigames here are all from console entries in the series and lack the creativity and good use of the Nintendo 3DS’s features that prior installments had, and the presentation here is bland, especially compared to Star Rush. As a result, this is only a game for die-hard fans of the series looking for a nostalgia trip.

Grade: C

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