Wii games have always had a reputation as looking rather rough around the edges. Mario Party 9 also makes big improvements to the overall aesthetic from the previous game in the series. The board game format has always been this games core gimmick and to toss it aside was a bold move to say the least. The developers have managed to take away all the nuance and strategy from past iterations, essentially making this a series of mini-games and little else.

This was a welcome change, whereas the linear map progression was perhaps a misstep. Then to mix things up, the game also adds cooperative boss stages where you will have to work together with your competitors to succeed. These games live and die by their mini games and gameplay value, so this was a triumph for the developer and a return to form for the series. Thankfully though, the developer manages to master the Wii Remotes idiosyncrasies and delivers a set of mini-games that are mechanically sound and genuinely very fun. So obviously, fans feared the worse for the next instalment.

The hardware basically rendered that game frustratingly unplayable at times. If you aware of the shortcomings of Mario Party 8, you’ll know how big a role the Wii remote played in its demise.

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