Mario Party 3

This was the final Mario Party game released in the N64's final days, and the last one created by via a team-up between Nintendo and Hudson. Most gamers, including me, consider it inferior to the first two installments.

The story is a little deeper this time. An ancient star called the Millennium Star descends upon the Mushroom Kingdom. He then teleports Mario and his friends into another dimension contained inside a giant toy box and proclaims that whoever wins and becomes a superstar in yet another board game styled competition may claim ownership over him.

The game introduced two new characters to the roster: Daisy and Waluigi while Tumble replaced Toad as the host of the game. The item system was improved over Mario Party 2 and allowed you to carry several at once. New items like the Barter Box and Koopa Card and Wacky Watch were available in shops. An interesting duel mode with RPG elements was also added, during which two players would build up parties to attack an opponent and reduce their life force to zero.

While not a terrible game by any stretch, it's still marred by a few flaws. First of all, the games development was clearly rushed to be released before the N64 was discontinued, so the graphics looked no better than Mario Party 2 from the previous year. The character models and boards looked rough and unpolished.

Aside from the new characters and items, the games main highlight were the 70 brand new mini games with none recycled from the last two games, although not all of them were very fun. Some, like Aces High were awesome, but others, like Fowl Play, were frustrating and the controls were difficult. But most of them just felt too easy or more based on luck then actual skill. And, finally, the stage designs felt simple and uninspired with much more straightforward board layouts than previous installments.

Overall, gamers who liked classic Mario games would have found more enjoyment playing Mario Party 1 and 2 than this one.

Mario Party 3 pulls no control-spinning-I'm-going-to-break-a-friggin-blister-on-my-hand mini-games, but rather challenging and easy-controlled mini-games. Although the boards are not as unique as the 2nd, they're still as good. The boards even have something called Action Time. There are old and new items like the Wacky Watch. But the thing is that there are no updated games from the 1st Party, which is a shame, but the new ones make up for all the fun and more. This is a must for Mario Party fans.

I didn't mind playing Mario Parrty 3, but i have got to say that it is no way near as good as the original which is the first ever Mario Party that was released on Nintendo 64. I do like Mario Party, I played the 4th Mario Party game which was the first ever Mario Party game to be released on the console Nintendo Gamecube. Now there are 6 Mario party games and I've only played Mario Party, Mario Party 3, and Mario Party 4. I would like to play Mario Party 2, Mario Party 5 and Mario Party 6. I wonder if the will ever be another Msrio Party game, Mario Party 7. I'm sure there will be. I also would like to see another mario Sunshine game. Mario Sunshine 2. That would be cool because I did enjoy playing on Mario Sunshine. I give Mary Party 3 7 out of 10.

As far as the Mario Party series has come since it's debut in 1998, it's no doubt the N64 games were the ones people remember and the later ones slowly began to lose their luster over time. But going back to 2001, the final Mario Party on the N64 was an absolute treasure, and proved the N64 to be one of the most fun party consoles ever made.

In this one, 2 more characters are added to the fun - Waluigi and Daisy. More mini-games are added, and a few are taken away. There's a few new game modes, plenty enough to keep you occupied and plenty to replay just for the heck of it.

My favorite piece of this game is it's OST - Probably the best one. Ichiro Shimakura did an amazing job for this one, blending whimsical & frantic wonderfully.

Hard copies of this one have skyrocketed in value, so the best way to play this one as close to original is on a flashcart, but it wouldn't be too hard to play this in emulation.