A sequel to the hot-selling Mario Party, this multiplayer party game contains new tactics and battles, more mini-games, and exciting new levels -- which all translates to FUN.
Mario Party 2 plays like a board game. Choose your adventure destination, a combination of human players and computer opponents to total 4, skill levels for computer opponents, and the total number of "turns" to define the length of the game (Lite Play, for example, means each character takes 20 turns). Play as either Mario, Princess Peach, Wario, Yoshi, Luigi, or Donkey Kong. Each player "rolls" the dice and moves along the game board, earning coins, playing mini-games, and more. The object of the game is to earn the most coins and stars.
There are 6 adventure boards altogether (one of which needs to be opened up):
- Pirate Land (difficulty 1 star) is a game board set on a tropical island where a treasure is hidden.
- Western Land (difficulty 1 star) has players donning cowboy hats as they become deputies in a small town in the old west.
- Space Land(difficulty 2 stars) is set in outer space and players become members of the Space Patrol.
- In Mystery Land (difficulty 2 stars), players become archaeologists searching for answers to mysterious artifacts.
- In Horror Land (difficulty 3 stars), players venture through a haunted forest as wizards.
- Bowser Land (difficulty 3 stars) is opened up only once the other 5 Lands have been played. Bowser is the game's "bad guy", and this Land is his very own theme park.
Different events occur during board games depending on where a player lands. For example, landing on a blue space gets a player 3 coins, while a red space means losing 3 coins. Landing on a ! space takes a player on a Chance Time Mini-Game. Players collect items like mushrooms, a skeleton key that opens up Keyed Gates, and a dueling glove which allows a player to duel an opponent of his/her choice in a Duel Mini-Game.
Mario Party 2 contains a whole slew of mini-games that truly form the backbone of the game. They can be 4-player, 1 vs. 3, or 2 vs. 2 mini-games. They are played throughout the game, but players can also go to Mini-Game Land (mini-games need to be purchased) and play away! Though not every single one of them is above-average, most are quite fun. While some are based purely on luck, the majority require varying combinations of skill and luck. In Platform Peril, players run across conveyor belts and platforms collecting coins and jumping at just the right times to avoid falling off. Bombs Away has players dodging cannon balls on a tilting island and vying to be the last one standing. Sometimes players team up in the mini-games as in Speed Hockey and Cake Factory.
Beginners can go to Rules Land to learn about the game. There is an Option Laboratory where you can, amongst other things, view play records and choose different sounds and songs.
