The Final Word game review

Mario Party 3 -- Nintendo

R.I.P.
Wow... This game sucked. While I can see the progression from Mario Party 1 to 2 and then to here. I am really not happy with the result. Apparently someone in the chain of command decided that the board game component of the series wasn't really an important part of the game's focus. So instead, Mario Party 3 is basically a lumped together collection of mini-games. Oh you can pick some boards to play on, but your playtime spent on those boards does nothing to the game. You don't gain any bonus. You don't unlock anything cool... There was no compelling reason to pick 50 rounds since it doesn't matter how much gold or stars you collect by the end of the game, none of it is accumulated for any kind of result.

Without the goal of something to achieve, I found we were picking the least amount of rounds possible to complete each board. We would plow through the board and that was that. There wasn't even as many boards as in the first two. So, needless to say we wrapped up playing the game and there it sits on the shelf. I just hope beyond hope that someone with a clue takes charge of Mario Party 4 and brings it back to the quality of number 2. As it stands though, unless you are just a mini-game nut, you should completely skip this game. To be honest, it was more of a downer to play because it was just so lacking in comparison to the first two that it was akin to a festering dead horse.

(10/2002)