Fun party game. Boss battles are where it's at though.
The levels are all pretty different and are as follows:
1. Wiggler's Garden
2. Toadette's Music Room
3. DK's Stone Statue
4. Kamek's Library
5. Bowser's Pinball Machine
The bosses are:
1. Pirahna Plant (catch bombs and wait until they light, and then throw them back into his mouth)
2. Hammer Bro (follow his musical patterns, repeat them and return his musical notes before they hit you)
3. Dry Bones (push buttons to make magic hit Dry Bones)
4. Kamek the sorcerer (fly past books and bookcases, get to his lair and spout ink at him until he gets fuming mad. Something happens after he gets mad, but I forget. Maybe ink does beat him ultimately. I don't recall.)
5. Boswer (hit the golden block of each of his various forms, while avoiding being smashed and spat fire at. Can be very testing so don't give up!)
The graphics are good, and the screens right before the boss battles are excellent and only prove what the DS can do graphically. Really, it reminds me of Super Mario Galaxy, but not as graphically impressive when looking at those shots. I also like the art of the characters when tallying up the coins after each mini game. I play close attention to details so I appreciated that too.
The music is plain Mario Party affair BUT when you enter world 4, Kamek's Library then you get a taste of greatness. Not only was this level the most fun to play, as well as the boss battle the most entertaining but the music was very fitting and perfect. I could listen to it for a long time.
I have yet to play with others but you can also play with up to three people, locally, using just one game card (provided they all have DSes of course).
The controls are pretty good for this game, although I still don't understand the game where you carve out shapes. I can't carve out one single shape and I trace rather well. I lost that game multiple times, even practicing more than once beforehand.
Some of my all-time favorites are Star Catcher, Soccer Survival and the one where you have to blow out candles before you step on them. I also love the one where you blow on the mic to freeze your enemies in the snowman. That one is E-A-S-Y.
All in all, a good game. I may be forgetting stuff but I wanna submit now. Hope I helped you in deciding on whether if you want to rent, buy or skip this title.