User:NeoNio99/Mario Party: To The Max

NeoNio99/Mario Party: To The Max
Developer(s)	NepetaLast
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Platform(s)	NX
Genre(s)	Party
Series	Mario Party
Predecessor	Mario Party 10
Release Date(s)	July 15th, 2016
Mode(s)	Party Mode Minigame Mode Rush Mode
Available Input	Wii Mote, NX Controller, Wii U GamePad
Cost	$50 US

Mario Party NX is a party and mini game compilation video game developed by NepetaLast ^(t∣b∣c) in conjunction with Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It is fifteenth mainseries installment in the Mario Party franchise, and the 11th in the home console series of games.

The game involves a large amount of changes from the other recent games in the series, as well as from the series as a whole. Unlike 9 and 10, NX returns to the standard style of each player moving on their own around spaces on a board, competing to get the most stars and coins. Unlike the other games, however, players are able to choose what amount of spaces they can move using Cards, which also act as items; however, they might not always be able to do this, in which the standard style of random movement is used. This adds a new layer of stategy never before seen in a Mario Party game, as does other new features like the Ultra meter which charges up and allows each character to use their signature Ultra Move.

Gameplay

During the main mode, gameplay takes place on one of many large boards. Each board is composed of numerous different spaces linked together, and as players move around, they follow and land on these spaces. Unlike previous games in the series, players can go either direction around the board, but can only change direction at a junction. Otherwise, they must continue moving through the row of spaces they are currently on in the same direction. When a character finished moving, they "land" on a space and recieve a specific effect, such losing or gaining coins or getting an additional card for their deck. Additionally, some spaces give an effect as a player passes by, which is usually different from the effect that a player gets from landing on said space.

The main objective of each game is to acquire the most stars. At the end of the match, the player with the most stars will be declared the victor; if two players have the same amount of stars, then the one with the most coins will instead be the winner. If both are the same, there is a draw. The main way of collecting stars is usually through passing by the Star Space and paying 20 coins in exchange for a star; other events, however, also give a star, like landing on Hidden Blocks or getting a rare Item Game. In addition to collecting stars on the board, three bonus stars are given out at the end of the game; there are actually 8 different possible bonus stars thar can be chosen from, but 3 are randomly selected to be distributed to the qualifying characters. If all 4 characters qualify, no one gets a star, as it would not affect the rankings. Here are the bonus stars:

Happening

Coin

Minigame

Red

Blue

Running

Card

Target

Each game consists of a set number of turns, determined when a match is set up. At the beginning of the match, turn order is decided upon randomly, or it can be chosen by the match leader. At the beginning of each turn, each player chooses their cards in the order decided upon at the beginning of the match. After this, the player who ended up with the least amount of spaces to move will move first, followed by the next smallest number. This gives players that chose smaller numbers the advantage, as they can go before their opponents and avoid certain tactics. Players can also chose larger numbers to move after the others, allowing them to avoid events that would've happened otherwise.

Cards

Fitting in with the general motif of the game, items in Mario Party NX have been replaced with Cards. Cards serve a variety of different functions when they are used by a character. Characters can only hold up to 6 of them, and they start with 3; in order to get more, they must pass by a Card Shop and exchange coins for cards, or land on a Card Space and get a random Card for free. At the beginning of every turn, characters have a choice of either using a card from their deck or drawing one randomly; every card has a value between 1 and 10 which determines how many spaces the character can move. While cards in the deck always have additional effects, cards that are drawn normally only determine the spaces moved. If a character draws a card, they have to use it that turn.

In addition to a numerical value, every card also has a color; red, blue, or green. This color is used to determine what color the portraits of the characters that use it are, which is in turn used to decide what minigame will be played and which characters will be on either team. As described above, green portraits are randomly flipped between red or blue before the descision of a minigame is made. The list of all cards is below:

Card Rarity Effect

Mushroom Common Draw two cards and move the sum of their values. Golden Mushroom Uncommon Draw three cards and move the sum of their values. Golden Pipe Rare Instantly move to the Star Space. Coin Collector Badge Common Collect 3 Coins for every space you move.

Bob-Omb Bag Uncommon Choose a person to attack, who loses 10 coins. Poison Mushroom Uncommon Choose a person, who has to draw a card the next turn. Twister Cookie Uncommon Any players who you pass by during your move have to return to start. Swooper Lamp Uncommon Steal a random amount of coins from every opponent.

Goomba Glove Uncommon Chose a person and duel them. Chain Chomp Chain Uncommon Steal a card from someone. Flutter Call Common Move to a random opponents space. Snifit Surprise Uncommon Snifit brings 3 random cards.

Modes

Just like past Mario Party games, there are a wide variety of extra Modes that add more meat to the game. Many of the modes in the game are similar to past installments, but there are a few new ones that have never been seen before.

Party Mode The main mode where players individiually trek around the board and collect Stars and Coins, hoping to have the most at the end of the game. At the end of each round, a minigame is played to give extra coins.		Story Mode Where the Story of the game takes place. Some boards and characters can only be unlocked by playing through the story, although there may be other ways to unlock them by playing a lot of Party Mode. Plays like Party Mode but with atleast 2 CPUs.
Minigame Mode Players can take on all of the minigames that have been played through Party or Story mode. In addition to choosing the games, players can also take part in special matches when minigames are randomly selected and played.		Tower Mode One player uses the Wii U GamePad or a 3DS to keep other players away from their tower. Plays similarly to Party Mode with spaces on the map.  For more info, see here.
amiibo Mode A successor to the Duel Mode from Mario Party 5, where each player pilots a special Mech made of parts unlocked by scanning amiibo. For more info, see here.		Bonus Mode The player is able to see special goodies, like Story Mode cutscenes, the credits, options, and expanded versions of the normal minigames with extra rules, stages, and unlockables.. Most of the content here has to be unlocked before it can be accessed.

Story

The Master Ztar himself

The story in Mario Party NX is similar to other Mario Party games. Mario and his pals are hanging out near Peach's Castle one sunny afternoon playing cards when the ground begins to shake. Suddenly, Ukiki and the other hosts of Story Mode appear and steal the cards off of the table and run away. Mario, furious, leads the rest of the cast towards where the villains are heading. From then, the goal is for all of the characters to get back their cards from the bad guys. Story Mode plays similarly to Party Mode, with the main difference being that each character has 3 HP; instead of Star Spaces, there are Bob-Omb spaces, where characters can pay 20 coins to remove 1HP from an opponent. The players goal is to reduce the board hoast's HP down to 0. Unlike previous games, two players can play at once.

After completing the first board, Ukiki becomes playable, and the characters move on. At each board, Mario and his group defeat the host and they become unlockable. Eventually, they make it to Bowser's Terrible Tower, where Dark Bowser is. The gang battles until they defeat Dark Bowser. When they do, it is revealed that Bowser was being controlled by the Master Ztar, who wanted to take the power of the cards for himself. They battle in a minigame until the Master Ztar is defeated and disappears. With their cards back, Mario and friends can safely return back to the castle and continue the card game, having unlocked Bowser as a main character, as well as Bowser's Terrible Tower as a board.

Not all is right, however. One day, the gang is once again playing cards, when one card flies up. It turns out to be the Metal Card, a magical card that can turn any character to metal. It runs away, turning the landscape to metal, and Mario and gang follow. They have to fight Metal and Gold Mario at their own game, lowering their HP down in the board Metal Mania, and finally defeating them. As the metal characters disappear, the Metal Card turns back into a normal playing card, and everything is once again as it should be.

Minigames

An icon for the 1vs3 games.

Just as in past games, minigames occur often through the game, where players compete against one another or try to reach a goal. By winning these games, the player is given a bonus, which varies depending on the minigame. Some minigames occur at the end of each round after all of the players have moved, while others only happen when landing on specific spaces. New to the game are Finale minigames, which occur after the last turn ends, and rewards the winning player with an extra star, allowing for great comebacks or mightier wins. Additionally, every non-Finale minigame has a color: red, green, or blue, and a player may choose to sacrifice a card of the matching color in order to get an advantage during the minigame.

The type of minigame played at the end of the round is decided by the color of each players portrait, whether it be blue, red, or green. Unlike previous entries, the color of the portrait is determined by the card used, not the space landed upon. If everyone has a blue portrait, it is a Free For All game. If all players have red portraits, it is a Battle game. If there are two Blue portraits and two Red portraits, it is a 2v2. Lastly, if it is one blue and three reds to vice versa, it is a 1v3 game. Any players with green portraits have their colors randomly decided between blue and red before the game is selected. The types of minigames are described below:

Free-for-All	Games where all four players compete against each other for 10 coins.
2v2 Minigames	Games where two pairs of players battle for 10 coins.
1v3 Minigames	Games where one player battles a group of 3 for 10 coins.
Battle Minigames	Everyone puts money into a pot; winner gets 70% and second place gets 30%.
Coin Minigames	Variation of other types of games, where everyone wins varying amounts.
Duel Minigames	Two players square off for a bet amount.
Bowser Minigames	Four players try to survive Bowser; loser is deducted coins.
Finale Minigames	All players compete for a final star.

Roster

Sixteen characters are avaliable by default when the game is first booted. By completing Story Mode, however, the player can unlock six additional characters.

Story Mode Only

These characters can only appear in Story Mode as computer controlled characters. They all use the same mesh as another character (Toad, Bowser, and Mario, respectively), but their textures are different.

Toadsworth, who appears on any board in Story Mode after it has been cleared

Dark Bowser, who appears on Bowser's Terrible Tower the first time it is played

Gold Mario, who appears on the board Metal Mania

Metal Mario, who appears on the board Metal Mania

Ultra Moves

This table lists all of the Ultra Moves that the characters can perform.

Character		Effect
	Mario	Mario unleashes a fireball that causes all opponents up to 15 spaces in front of him to lose 25% of their coins and half of their cards.
	Luigi	Luigi unleashes a fireball that causes all opponents up to 7 spaces in front of him to lose 50% of their coins and all of their cards.
	Peach	Peach uses her flower power to draw 6 random Uncommon cards.
	Toad	Toad is able to chose any of the 15 spaces in front of him to instantly land on, avoiding any negative obstacles in the way.
	DK	Donkey Kong plays a short rhythm mini game to put all opponents within a 10 space radius to sleep.
	Yoshi	Yoshi lays 2 Eggs, each with a Rare card in them.
	Wario	Wario spins a wheel to either gain 20 coins, lose 5 coins, or double his coin amount. Afterwards he can do double or nothing.
	Waluigi	Waluigi chooses a single opponent within 10 spaces to hit with a bomb, destroying all of their cards and 25% of their coins.
	Daisy	Daisy uses her Flower Power to fill her card deck with Common or Uncommon cards.
	Rosalina	Rosalina sends Lumas to pester all of her opponents. The next turn, they can only draw a card, and the card can only be between one and five.
	Diddy	Diddy Kong places a banana peel which slips any opponent which passes by the space, stopping their progression and causing them to drop a card.
	E. Gadd	E. Gadd uses the Poltergust 5k to draw all opponents to the same space as him. Does not activate a Duel if occupying the same space would otherwise cause one.
	Toadette	Toadette chooses a space within the next 10 to go to, hitting all opponents on the way and stealing one of their cards.
	Birdo	Birdo shoots the next closest person, or a random opponent if there is none nearby. This steals half of their coins.
	Lubba	Lubba dances and finds 10 coins.
	Pianta	Pianta finds a random fruit which contains either a card or a certain amount of coins, depending on the fruit. See here for details.
Unlockables
	Ukiki¹	Ukiki pulls out a hat relating to a random character and uses their Ultra ability.
	Shy Guy	Automatically activates if a Battle game is triggered. making it so that Shy Guy does not have to pay into the pot.
	Dry Bones	Automatically activates if Dry Bones is attacked, preventing him from being affected by any attacking events.
	Kamek	Kamek casts a spell on an opponent, with a 75% chance of reducing their next move by half and a 25% chance of doubling it.
	Bowser Jr.	Bowser Jr. gets in his Koopa Clown Car and is able to use three cards on his turn.
	Bowser	Bowser chomps a Mega Mushroom to grow extra large and move forward with two card draws. Any opponents in the way lose 30 coins.

¹Ukiki is referred to as Grinder in PAL versions of the game

Tower Mode

Tower Mode is a new and unique mode that serves as a successor to the Bowser Mode from Mario Party 10. It combines tower defense and Mario Party like never before. One player plays on the GamePad as Toadsworth, while the other players choose their characters and use Wiimotes. Toadsworth must keep the other players from reaching the middle of the board; to do so; he must place down Improvements that hinder the other players' movements. Each improvement costs some amount of Coins that are earned from minigames each round.

Every turn starts with a minigame, which can be either a free-for-all, a 2v2, or a 1v3. WiiMote players are given additional card slots to used based on how well they performed, whereas the GamePad player earns more Coins with which to buy Improvements. Coin Minigames are not present as they would not work with the setup without modification.

amiibo

This game only supports the Super Mario series line; however, corresponding amiibo from other series work as well.

amiibo	Description
	Creates a ring of fire around the user that causes fire damage to opponents.
	Shoots a ball of electricity at the opponent, stunning them and dealing electric damage.
	Heals an ally greatly.
	The user breathes fire at an opponent, stunning them and dealing fire damage.
	Hurts enemy.

Game Changers

Returning from Mario Party 1 are new settings that can be unlocked through playing the game. After every board, all of the stars that the human players collected are put into the Star Bank. Afterwards, the player can go to the Star Shop and purchase new Game Changer settings with the stars. Buying every setting costs 100 Stars, which takes an average of 20 games to obtain.

Gallery

The Logo of the game in NTCS and PAL regoins

Trivia

• This is the first Mario Party to feature an orchestrated soundtrack, online play, downloadable content, or to be released on the Switch.