Re: Kiir's Gaming Topic (Reply #91 on: July 05, 2016, 01:55:27 am)

So I played a bit of Mario Party 3 because I felt like suffering, and after being unable to find a way to delete story mode progress, I basically jumped into what I had going. Here are the results:

• Won the Battle Royal in Spiny Desert by winning all the minigames and screwing everyone else over because I found myself unable to reach a single star myself (this was after two CPUs moved the stars themselves across the map so I feel no remorse). One CPU managed to get a star early on, and another found a star in a hidden block. I won a Boo Bell from a minigame and stole one (something I rarely do, but I had 160 coins at that point and I knew not having a star threatened my S rank so whatev), then won the match with about 200 coins and two bonus stars. There was also a bizarre moment where Wario used a Skeleton Key to get on the path with the star, but then... turned down a different path and bought a magic lamp at the store? Okay then. My favourite was when me and all three CPUs were stuck in this sand pit and kept landing on happening spaces to warp us to the opposite sand pit. This probably happened for like three or five turns.


• Duel Mode on the Pipesqueak map: I lost my first match because I kept getting 2-4s and getting caught in miserable loops where I'd land on a reverse space, go back, then next turn hit the EXACT same space. DK kept hitting 10s and clocked me twice in a row with a Toad while I was trapped in the loop. Baby Bowser did not want to play ball either and never landed an attack the three times I got the opportunity - I even tried to replace him but the roulette gave me him AGAIN. Second match though, I destroyed DK with a powered up Boo despite still getting trapped in a loop. yay!


• Bowser walked on screen, demanded all my stamps, did a dance, and then Yoshi (my player character) and friends ignored him and walked off screen. Nice.


• There's a minigame (the only one I don't have) that can only be unlocked by winning at least 1000 coins from a series of luck-based minigames and it's AWFUL. I'm so glad Game Guy isn't in any other Mario Party game. This is worse than Chance Time (which i actually enjoy honestly) or literally any 2+ player luck-based minigame. Because if you land on these spaces in the main game, you're forced to go all in with your coins no matter what awful minigame you're thrown up against. It took me over an hour to finally unlock the last minigame, "Tetris But For Babies". that's the real name i swear

Anyways, the Duel Mode sucks because it's somehow even more random than the normal game. You're judged solely on how many stamina points you and the opponent have left and nothing to do with partners or coins. I honestly think there should have been some kind of end bonus like the regular game - I had 200 coins at the end of the first match but of course it didn't mean anything since I lost a single stamina point. Pipesqueak is also an awful map because the pipe system is totally random and there's a great chance you and the opponent just flat out won't cross paths because the CPU keeps slipping into pipes for no reason.

Basically just based on Duel Mode, I'd say MP3 is the weakest of the N64 Mario Party games. The minigame island/roller coaster made for better story modes IMO, which I firmly believe is the best single player campaign in the whole franchise. In my opinion, going through every map in the game doesn't make for a fun story / single player campaign. It also feels like there is just less to do via the menu in general? I dunno. I miss the shop from MP1.