Mario Party 9 is a great party game to play with friends, even if there was a five year hiatus gap.
Presentation - You have your basic menus from party mode, mini-games, solo, museum, and extras mode. The three file selections and playable Miis are absent. Party mode is where you can play with three other friends, and select from a small variety of boards. This time the boards are Toad Road, Bob-omb Factory, Boo's Horror Castle, Blooper Beach, Magma Mine, Bowser Station (unlockable), and Donkey Kong's Jungle Ruins. The character selection has been slightly thinned out from Mario Party 8. Boo, Dry Bones, Blooper, and Hammer Bro. are no longer playable characters. The lists of playable characters are Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Wario, Waluigi, Yoshi, Birdo, Toad, Koopa (turtle guy), and there are two other unlockable characters. The last host in Mario Party 8 was MC Ballyhoo, but the host for Mario Party 9 is yellow Toad.
Another neat feature is that you can also go up against two and one computer players to speed up the game play. All players ride in a small vehicle and travel around the board at the same time. Instead of purchasing stars and coins, each player collects Mini-Stars from clearing mini-games. The winners earn more Mini-Stars than the other players. At the end of each game, there is a mini-boss battle to complete. They are generally easy to complete, and the bosses are from previous Mario games. Each board takes around forty five minutes to complete, and you cannot save while you decide to exit out. Unfortunately, there are no options to select how many turns you want to have in party mode.
Solo mode is a story mode that allows you to clear six stages to retrieve Mini-Stars, but it's only a single player mode. Mini-game mode is where you can select from a variety of mini-games to play. You can play Free Play, Step It Up, Garden Battle, Choice Challenge, High Rollers, Time Attack, and Boss Rush (unlockable) modes. Museum mode is where you can view your stars, stages, vehicles, records, sound test, and staff credits. After you play the game modes, you can unlock Mario Party Points from Mini- Star currency that allows you to purchase all of those features. Extras mode is where you can play Castle Clearout, Shell Soccer, Gooma Bowling, and Perspective Mode (single player only).
Graphics - The graphics still haven't improved much from Mario Party 8, but it runs in full wide screen mode which Mario Party 8 had slight problems with. There are no signs of any slowdowns, runs in a smooth frame rate, the overall design is bright, colorful, very detailed, and has smooth animation, but not quite realistic looking. The water effects still bring in the nice touch.
Sound - The music is still slightly uninspired because it's all relaxing and soothing party theme music. There are still some familiar Mario tunes from the previous games. I'm not saying that the music is terrible, but it doesn't sound as great as Mario Party 8. The character voices are still a bit repetitive, but it doesn't bother me that much.
Gameplay - The formula still hasn't changed much from previous Mario Parties, but the game play is solid, controls are accurate, and responsive. Having four players ride around in a vehicle sounds strange, but the formula still works well, and speeds up game play.
Lasting appeal - The real lasting value is playing this game with friends and family. All the extra modes are a nice addition to give some variety, but the biggest letdown to Mario Party 9 is having no online play. The experience is still greater than most mini-game compilations on the Wii, and I would recommend Mario fans to buy this game.
The good - wide variety of mini-games game modes, graphics are well designed and game play is solid and easy to pick up and play with up to four players
The Bad - no online mode, music is somewhat uninspired, can't save progress in the middle of party mode, no player files
Presentation- 8
Graphics- 8
Sound- 7
Game play- 10
Lasting appeal- 8
8.2 out of 10 Game spot Score 8 out of 10