Nintendo is currently developing a new Mario Party for the Nintendo 3DS and it’s already bringing some interesting innovations. The biggest complaints about the Mario Party franchise are the waiting times, well those are gone forever in Star Rush. This Mario Party is all about collecting stars and having fun together.
Pick your Toad
We haven’t seen or heard a lot of the game but the four-player multiplayer mode ‘Toad Scramble’ was demonstrated to us during the Nintendo Preview Event. What we saw back there was surprisingly fun.First things first, this Mario Party isn’t like anything you’ve played before. The boards made place for smaller maps that are divided into smaller parts.
You don’t need to advance like you did in other Mario Party games; instead, you can select the squares you want to move on your grid. Rolled six, than you’re able to move six squares in any direction. This is a new feeling of freedom and it’s something the franchise will benefit from without a doubt. The goal of the game was to collect as many stars as possible at the end of the session. Those stars can be gathered by defeating bosses on the map.
Keep in mind that you’re not playing as Mario or one of his friends; you’re playing as four, differently colored Toads. Beating up bosses as the small but brave Toad is something we enjoyed seeing. Star Rush is open for innovations and that’s exactly what this kind of game needs, but more about those evil bosses first!
Defeat the boss
As you might have guessed from a Mario Party title, the boss fight is actually a new way of creating mini-games on the map. During the boss fights, the four players will all have to participate in an event. The player that managed to grab the highest score will go home with the star. The best part about this is that you can make it harder for the other players to succeed in their goal. This isn’t a game about teamwork but about trying the gain the highest score. We couldn’t test it for ourselves but the four players on stage sure looked like they were having fun.
It’s always your turn
So are boss fights the only mini-games on the map? Of course not, there aren’t as many as before at first sight but now and then, a balloon will appear on the map. The player that crosses this balloon will trigger a mini-game. We witnessed a mini-game where the four players needed to get across a road filled with obstacles and enemies while holding acorns their head. The player with most acorns remaining at the end won the game. As we’re already used of, the mini-game is a true friendship killer since you can bump each other into obstacles if you’re into that.
Collect the idols
Playing as Toads is fun but we can imagine not everybody will like that change and will start to wonder where Mario and his crew are. During certain moments in the game, they’ll appear on the map, the player that can get there first, will collect the iconic character. These idol characters are fully playable so you can switch to another Super Mario character if you collected him or her during your run. Each character has its strengths and weaknesses. There are characters for example that will throw a six more often but are a little slower during the mini-games. It’s an interesting new mechanism that open ups the path of new strategies to win the round. Besides winning mini-games, it’s also smart to collect coins since these will be transformed into stars at the end of each round. The idols offer some familiar faces and new strategies to the game and it’s something we’re excited for to discover even more in the final product.
No more waiting in line
The biggest innovation, however, comes from the lack of waiting time. Where you had to wait for the others to throw the dice in other Mario Party games, everybody throws the dice at the same time here. Each player will afterwards pick the path they want to move on their personal 3DS system. After everybody decided where they wanted to go, you’ll see a short animation of all four players running to their location while collecting more coins or Idol characters.
It’s definitely a welcome change and it brings some pace to the otherwise rather slow gameplay. This Mario Party might be the first to truly offer this kind of speed and we’re glad the developers finally succeeded in finding a solution for the waiting time. This way, it’s always your turn to throw the dice.
Early conclusion:
The Mario Party franchise is loved by many thanks to its great multiplayer but hated by more due to the slow gameplay. Mario Party: Star Rush seems to solve this pacing problem and creates the feeling that it’s always your turn. The new mini-games look promising and the maps you play on look interesting enough to justify this sequel. It’s a bit early to say but what we’ve seen so farn got us by surprise, we can’t wait to see more!
