Mario Party 3

Mario Party 3[lower-alpha 1] is a party video game developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. The third installment in the Mario Party series, it was first released in Japan on December 7, 2000, in North America on May 7, 2001, in Australia on September 3, 2001, and in Europe on November 16, 2001. As with the previous installments, the player chooses between eight playable characters: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Wario, and Donkey Kong from the first two games, alongside newcomers Princess Daisy and Waluigi (in his second appearance in the Mario series). The game features duel maps, where two players try to lower each other's stamina to zero using non-player characters such as Chain Chomps.

Mario Party 3
North American box art
Developer(s)Hudson Soft
Publisher(s)Nintendo
Director(s)Kenji Kikuchi
Producer(s)Shinji Hatano
Shinichi Nakamoto
Designer(s)Fumihisa Sato
Programmer(s)Syunsuke Tanaka
Kazuhiro Matsushita
Masahide Tomita
Artist(s)Keisuke Kasahara
Kayo Fujimoto
Hitoshi Takiyama
Hisao Okada
Composer(s)Ichiro Shimakura
SeriesMario Party
Platform(s)Nintendo 64
Release
  • JP: December 7, 2000
  • NA: May 7, 2001
  • AU: September 3, 2001
  • EU: November 16, 2001
Genre(s)Party
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Mario Party 3 was the third and final Mario Party game for the Nintendo 64, and was followed by Mario Party 4 for the Nintendo GameCube in 2002.

Gameplay
Bounce 'n' Trounce, one of the 70 mini-games in Mario Party 3.

Mario Party 3 is a party video game featuring eight playable characters: Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Wario, Princess Peach, and Donkey Kong are available to play in all modes, while newcomers Princess Daisy and Waluigi are unavailable in the game's Story Mode. In the game's storyline, Mario and his friends witness the descent of the Millennium Star, a mystical star born once every thousand years that allows whoever possesses him to become the "Superstar of the universe". When the group begins to debate the Star's ownership, the Star transports the group into a large toy box and proclaims that the group members must prove their worthiness and earn the Millennium Star's acceptance by collecting the seven "Star Stamps" scattered across several lands.[1] The gameplay is presented in the form of a traditional board game, and includes five themed game board maps.[2] Mario Party 3 includes multiplayer compatibility; each game on a board map consists of four players, including at least one human player and up to four. Any character who is not controlled by a human will instead be controlled by the game as a computer-controlled character. The skill level of the computer-controlled characters can be individually adjusted between "Easy", "Medium", or "Hard". After the players and board map have been determined, the player chooses how long the board map game will last: "Lite Play" consists of 20 turns, "Standard Play" consists of 35, and "Full Play" consists of 50. The player can also set a "Custom Play" that consists of any number of turns between 10 and 50, but restricted to multiples of 5. Upon starting a board, players each hit a dice block to determine turn order, with the highest number going first on each turn and the lowest number going last.[3]

The goal of Mario Party 3 is to collect the most Stars within the allotted amount of turns. Stars must be purchased from the Millennium Star with coins, which can be earned through a selection from one of 70 mini-games that is played once at the end of each turn.[4] Each time a Star is purchased, the Millennium Star will move to a different location on the board. The first player initiates a turn by rolling a dice block that determines how many spaces they will advance on the board, ranging from one to ten spaces. Each board map has a variety of spaces. Plain blue and red spaces cause the player who lands on one to respectively gain or lose three coins;[3] the amount of coins is doubled to six during the final five turns.[5] Red spaces marked with an insignia of Bowser's head will cause Bowser to appear and hinder the player's progress. Green "!" spaces will initiate a single-player Chance Time mini-game, in which selected characters must give or exchange coins or stars; the player who landed on the space is given three blocks to hit, determining which characters and prize will be involved. Green spaces marked with a Goomba initiate a four-player Battle mini-game, in which coins are taken from the players and the winner receives the majority of the accumulated coins. Green "?" spaces result in an event occurring on the board map; each board features different events which can help or hinder certain players. When a player passes a green space marked with a bag of coins, they must deposit five coins into a "Koopa Bank"; players who land right on the space can withdraw all of the coins that have been deposited. Green spaces marked with a Shy Guy initiate a single-player Game Guy mini-game, in which the player may either win a multiplied amount of their coins or lose all of their coins.[3]

The players can obtain items for use on the board, and can each carry up to three at a time. If a player is carrying an item, they can use it before rolling the dice block. Items can aid the player in such ways as providing additional dice blocks or stealing another player's item. One item, the Skeleton Key, allows the player to use shortcuts located on each board map.[6] Items can be purchased from shops on the board or won from special single-player mini-games initiated by landing on green spaces marked with Toad's head. Boo appears in certain locations of the map, and can steal coins or a Star from another player on behalf of any player who passes him; stealing coins costs five coins, while stealing a Star costs 50 coins. If a player is targeted for their coins, they can limit the amount of coins that Boo steals by repeatedly tapping the A button.[3]

After all four players have made a movement on the board, a mini-game is initiated. The type of mini-game that is played is determined based on the color of space that each player landed on. Players that have landed on a green space will be randomly assigned to "blue" or "red" status before the mini-game is selected. If all players have landed on the same color of space, a 4-player mini-game is played. Other color variations result in either a 1 vs. 3 or 2 vs. 2 mini-game. The specific mini-game is then selected via roulette. Before the mini-game's initiation, the human player(s) can review the rules and controls as well as practice the mini-game. Coins are rewarded based on the results of the mini-game, with the winner(s) receiving ten coins.[5] Another turn is initiated following the end of a mini-game, and the process is repeated until the allotted number of turns have been completed.[4]

During the final five turns of a game, a one-on-one Duel mini-game is initiated when a player lands on the same space as another.[5] Duels can be initiated prior to the final five turns if a player uses the Dueling Glove item.[6] After the end of the last turn, the winners of three awards are announced, with each winner receiving one additional Star; the first two awards are given to the player(s) who collected the most coins in mini-games and throughout the board map game, and the third is given to the player(s) who landed on the most "?" spaces. The winner of the game, the "Superstar", is then determined by the number of total coins and Stars collected by each player. If two or more characters have acquired the same amount of coins and Stars, the winner will be determined with a roll of the dice block.[5] If the player toggles the "No Bonus" setting prior to the start of a game, the extra awards will not be presented at the end of the game.[3]

Other modes

Mario Party 3 includes a Duel mode, in which two players use a selection of up to two partners to attack their opponent and deplete their health.[7] The partners can be positioned in front of or behind the player,[8] and must be paid a salary at the beginning of each turn; the partner will leave if their salary cannot be paid.[7] The mode can either be played in 20 turns or for an indefinite amount of turns until one of the players' health is depleted.[8]

The partners do the battling to reduce the opponent's health, and defend the player from incoming attack. Each partner has its own health, and if it reaches zero, they disappear, and if the attacking partner deals more damage than the defending partner can take, the player takes damage equal to the difference. If no partner is between the attacking partner and the opponent, they take all the damage directly. The characters cannot attack their opponent directly. Some of the partners' attacks cannot be protected against, and each partner costs a certain number of coins for the player to keep it, and if the player has two partners, their salary combines. Occasionally, if a partner is attacked by the opponent's partner, the attack will miss. When the turn count expires, the winner is decided, and it is whoever has more health left. The game will end before the turn count expires if either player's health hits 0. If the turn count expires and both players have the same amount of health, whoever has the most coins wins. If both their health and coins numbers are the same, which is rare, the game ends in a draw.

Duel mini-games and Game Guy mini-games are the only mini-games available to be played on a duel board. Unlike Battle Royale, they do not occur after every turn, but only if either player lands on a mini-game space. There is also a part of each map that makes the players play a duel mini game for 20, 30 or 40 coins after it is passed 5 times. Game Guy mini-games occur more often here than in Battle Royale. Items are not present in Duel mode.

In the Story Mode to the series, one player starts a campaign through every board, challenging computer controlled opponents at a shortened version of Party Mode. The player's objective is to defeat the other characters and earn stamps from the Millennium Star. After all seven stamps are acquired the player is challenged to a final duel with the Millennium Star, in which the player must hit the Millennium Star three times (six times on Normal difficulty and nine on Hard difficulty) with stars in order to defeat story mode. Each time the player completes an objective, they are given a rank of S to C depending on how well they completed that objective. When all the objectives have been completed, a title representing the player's overall progress in the game is awarded. This is determined by the ranks they earned for each objective. If enough "S" ranks are acquired, that character becomes a "Miracle Star" and the Game Guy Room in the Mini Game House is opened for use. Simply beating the Story Mode and not earning a high title will cause the character's face to be sculpted into the mountain.

Development

Like most games in the Mario Party franchise, Mario Party 3 was developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo. It is the first Mario Party game to have multiple save slots and the first to have Princess Daisy and Waluigi as playable characters. It is the final Mario Party game specifically to be released on the Nintendo 64. The following game in the series was released on the GameCube.

On August 9, 2000, while Nintendo was about to release Mario Tennis in the United States, Nintendo Power Source updated its website with details on Mario Party 3 to be featured at the firm's Space World show, which happened on August 24 at a pre-event press briefing. Nintendo Power Source posted only one screenshot of the game on their site at the time.[9] Later that month, Nintendo released 12 more screenshots of the game's adventure boards. The game was about 70% completed during the time being.[10]

Reception

Mario Party 3 received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.[11] In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 31 out of 40.[14] Some reviewers were critical of Mario Party 3 for largely using the same gameplay as the previous installments, with only minimal changes.[17][19][20] Critics stated that the game was best when played with friends.[12][17][18][19][20] N64 Magazine (later NGC Magazine) wrote, "Playing against the CPU is one of the most frustrating exercises known to man."[20] GameRevolution wrote that playing with less than two other people "totally sucks," and complained about the inability to fast-forward through mini-games played solely by computer-controlled opponents.[17]

Gavin Frankle of AllGame wrote that Mario Party 3 "provides enough to entice new fans and satisfy existing ones, but does little to further the genre or remedy the problems that have been around since the first game." Frankle called it "probably the most enjoyable title yet" in the series.[12] Joe Fielder of GameSpot wrote that it "has some of the best minigames that have appeared in the series yet, although it does have a few stinkers."[18] GameRevolution, which criticized the previous games, praised the duel mode and wrote that the mini-games make up for some of the game's faults. However, the website was critical of the same random luck involved in the game.[17] Nintendo Power said that "the real life of the party is the batch of 71 new minigames."[21] One negative comment among the staff review was that "it seems like many of the challenges are based on overcoming unresponsive controls."[21]

Fielder considered the graphics similar to the previous games and wrote that they "look as good as they need to for this kind of game, but are certainly not going to win it any awards."[18] Fran Mirabella III of IGN stated that the game "uses the same bright colors, low-resolution textures, and choppy animation that the rest have."[19] Fielder considered the soundtrack to be a slight improvement over the previous games.[18] Mirabella considered the music "just as outdated as the graphics," but also called it "very cute" and wrote that it "does the job of keeping your ears occupied in the cheesiest of ways."[19]

In 2015, IGN listed the game at number one on its list of "Best Mario Party Games," writing, "The best Mario Party games know the balance between luck and skill, and Mario Party 3 best exemplifies this rule. Just about everything that made Mario Party 2 so great was pushed further as Mario Party 3 introduced even more strategic items, creative new boards, and some truly fun minigames."[22]

Awards

The game won the Console Family Award from Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences for 2002.[23] The game sold over 1,000,000 units worldwide.

Notes
  1. Japanese: マリオパーティ3, Hepburn: Mario Pāti Surī

References
  1. Mario Party 3 (Nintendo 64) instruction booklet, pp. 4–8
  2. Mario Party 3 (Nintendo 64) instruction booklet, p. 26
  3. Mario Party 3 (Nintendo 64) instruction booklet, pp. 18–21
  4. Mario Party 3 (Nintendo 64) instruction booklet, p. 17
  5. Mario Party 3 (Nintendo 64) instruction booklet, pp. 24–25
  6. Mario Party 3 (Nintendo 64) instruction booklet, pp. 22–23
  7. Mario Party 3 (Nintendo 64) instruction booklet, p. 27
  8. Mario Party 3 (Nintendo 64) instruction booklet, pp. 28−29
  9. IGN staff (August 9, 2000). "Mario Party 3 Details". IGN. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  10. IGN staff (January 11, 2001). "Mario Party 3 (Preview)". IGN. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  11. "Mario Party 3 for Nintendo 64 Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  12. Frankle, Gavin. "Mario Party 3 – Review". AllGame. Archived from the original on November 14, 2014. Retrieved May 11, 2015.
  13. EGM staff (2001). "Mario Party 3". Electronic Gaming Monthly.
  14. "ニンテンドウ64 – マリオパーティ3". Famitsu. 915: 33. June 30, 2006.
  15. "Mario Party 3". Game Informer (97). May 2001.
  16. Four-Eyed Dragon (May 7, 2001). "Mario Party 3 Review for N64 on GamePro.com". GamePro. Archived from the original on February 9, 2005. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  17. Dr. Moo (May 2001). "Mario Party 3 Review". Game Revolution. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  18. Fielder, Joe (May 14, 2001). "Mario Party 3 Review". GameSpot. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  19. Mirabella III, Fran (May 10, 2001). "Mario Party 3". IGN. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  20. NGC Magazine staff (2002). "Mario Party 3". NGC Magazine. Archived from the original on April 18, 2002. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  21. "Mario Party 3". Nintendo Power. Nintendo of America Inc. 144: 116. May 2001.
  22. Koczwara, Michael (March 23, 2015). "The Best Mario Party Games". IGN. Retrieved May 17, 2016.
  23. "2002 Awards Category Details: Console Family". Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.
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