Underrated Mario Games

Ornithologist Mario said:
Otherwise, I haven't played enough to appreciate it.
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I find it's a game that's easy to learn, but tough to master. The differences in the characters are much more pronounced here than they are in most spinoffs. Once you get the hang of the Manual swing, you can manipulate your shot and do all kinds of draws, fades, and spins, giving you much better control of where your shot ends up.

The extra modes are fun. Ring Shot in particular really tests how good you are at the game.

If you guys would get over the whole "lol golf is boring" thing, you'd find a great game here.
 
I rented the game only. I found it quite difficult to master, but I remember enjoying the game.
 
I found fun with Mario Golf Toadstool Tour a lot. I had basically the same scenario with LGM, though, but I enjoyed the Birdie Challenge and the game in general, even though I was a totally newbie at it
 
I never did unlock Bowser Jr. and Shadow Mario in Toadstool Tour.

That Birdie sub-game was just too freaking difficult for me. I forgot what else I had to do to unlock either of them, but the Birdie game was the one that brought about the most frustration.
 
'3K said:
Ornithologist Mario said:
Otherwise, I haven't played enough to appreciate it.
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I find it's a game that's easy to learn, but tough to master. The differences in the characters are much more pronounced here than they are in most spinoffs. Once you get the hang of the Manual swing, you can manipulate your shot and do all kinds of draws, fades, and spins, giving you much better control of where your shot ends up.

The extra modes are fun. Ring Shot in particular really tests how good you are at the game.

If you guys would get over the whole "lol golf is boring" thing, you'd find a great game here.
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I enjoyed the game...
 
Smashgoom202 said:
I never did unlock Bowser Jr. and Shadow Mario in Toadstool Tour.

That Birdie sub-game was just too freaking difficult for me. I forgot what else I had to do to unlock either of them, but the Birdie game was the one that brought about the most frustration.
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LOL, my sister and I kept on playing that subgame just to see the losing animations.
 
I thought I would find a topic like this here. Goes well with what I recently thought was an underrated Mario game: Mario Party 3! (Ha Ha Ha! ...weh)

When you see the lists asking people what their favourite Mario Party game, the number one choice would usually be Mario Party 2, especially if they have to choose between Nintendo 64 ones. This is likely because it's the first Mario Party to hit all the right notes, presumably from lessons learned from making the first Mario Party: no more rotating control stick minigames, minigames only increasing coins except for Battle minigames and boards having more strategy when players can use an item at any time. However, I believe that Mario Party 3 is the most definitive version as opposed to Mario Party 2.

The first thing is, Mario Party 3 has more originality in that, all the minigames introduced in this game are all brand-new, as opposed to how Mario Party 2 has several minigames taken from the first game, so it's not all original. Granted, they are some of the best minigames, but Mario Party 3's higher originality factor makes it better given that it has more minigames than the second game. Its paper aesthetic, while likely inspired from Paper Mario, gives the game a stronger thematic identity since it encompasses the hub area, boards and minigames, making the whole game coherent in style. The story is also full of fun moments, incorporating the millennium aspect into the game (this game was released at around the year 2000, after all). Let's not forget that we have two extra playable characters in this game that would go on to be part of the "Main 7" of Mario Party, never missing a Mario Party except for Advance.

The boards have a deeper strategy compared to Mario Party 2, for not only introducing more items that can be used, but also allows people to have up to three items. You would know how much of a game changer it is to have the ability to hold three items as opposed to Mario Party 2's one item limit, mainly since players are afforded more options than ever. One such item is a Boo Repellant, so now a Boo Bell doesn't guarantee a steal. Not only that, but there are those Action Times that, while players can time their actions correctly, can also purposefully fail them to put players at a good spot. The Duel Boards are also somewhat strategic and fast-paced, since each board has a theme that dictates how the board plays: one board has pipes that brings people to a different area each time, while another has a fan that swaps partners after crossing it.

The game is overall more accessible as well. You have the option to change the number of turns instead of picking the standard 20, 35 or 50 turns, so a quick game of 10 turns is not out of the question. There is even a Handicap system so that less experience players have a Star advantage. There's even an option to avoid the "hard" minigames. But that's not all: during boards, you can change the speed of the game to be Fast, so that every character moves quickly and AI dialogue moves faster. You can even skip all the AI minigames because not everyone wants to watch AI plays games on their own. Perhaps an advantage with this game as opposed to Mario Party 2 is the ability to replay the minigames as soon as you play them (unplayed minigames are denoted as "???" so you know which ones require unlocking), whereas in the prequel you have to buy the games with coins earned per board, and some of these minigames can only be unlocked after playing the Minigame Coaster (which you have to pay for all the played minigames to unlock: a time-consuming process). At least Minigame Coaster's cool, and it's something I wish Mario Party 3 has.

I suppose it's probably just me experiencing Mario Party 3 first over 2, but even then I feel that Mario Party 3 is genuinely great. The only problem I found is that this game is not as readily available. In fact, Mario Party 2 is the only Mario Party that has been re-released (besides Advance and DS on Wii U Virtual Console), so more people got to experience that game. It's also bad timing on Mario Party 3's part, since it was released so late on the Nintendo 64 that it was not experienced by more people. I have a feeling that Japanese people liked Mario Party 3 better based on two Mario remixes that incorporated Mario Party 3's music as Mario Party representation (Super Mario Ceremony 2011 used Let's Get a Move On and Mario Disco 2015 used Nice and Easy).

Thank you for reading.
 
winstein said:
I thought I would find a topic like this here. Goes well with what I recently thought was an underrated Mario game: Mario Party 3! (Ha Ha Ha! ...weh)
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I thought of buying that game the other day.
 
I always thought Mario Party 3 was well-liked, and usually among people's favorite N64 parties.
 
I thought that too, but then I noticed it's ranking is lower than the other ones. I haven't played Mario Party 3 myself, but it seems like a good game.
 
If you mean the critical rankings, critics have rated every Mario Party negatively except the original and 9, whereas both 1 and 9 tend to be on the lower end of fan rankings.
 
Mario Party 3 tends to be on the higher end while 1, 9, and 8 usually rank low. I still think it's lacking compared to Mario Party 6, which I think is the fan-favorite recently.
 
Magikrazy said:
If you mean the critical rankings, critics have rated every Mario Party negatively except the original and 9, whereas both 1 and 9 tend to be on the lower end of fan rankings.
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It's more mixed than negative, really. 60 isn't a negative score, it's pretty much average.
 
Super Paper Mario- will never understand why some people hate or dislike it. I see the first response to this thread already mentions this game too. But that's a can of worms I don't want to open so I'll just leave it at that.

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team- same as above. Tutorials don't bother me and I really like how the story is longer. Much preferred over what Paper Jam did.
 
I don't see Super Paper Mario as an underrated game. The opinions regarding it are so bipolar that I don't think it's underrated nor overrated.
 
Well my reasoning is that I fail to see how its shortcomings are bad enough to be this split on, but I guess it just depends on the point of view.
 
*zips up lips*
 
Baby Luigi said:
I always thought Mario Party 3 was well-liked, and usually among people's favorite N64 parties.
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I thought that too, but when you ask those who played the Nintendo 64, Mario Party 2 is normally brought up instead of Mario Party 3. A hypothetical Nintendo 64 mini list would typically use Mario Party 2 as the Mario Party game of choice even if I think Mario Party 3 should be prioritised since it's not re-released yet. Even during the latest Mario Awards, Mario Party 2 beats out 3 by a wide margin, only beaten by DS and 8 (probably because they sold the best and thus, more people were exposed to them). As I said, I think Mario Party 3 being available quite late plays into this.

If those who prefer Mario Party 2 prefers it to 3 played both games, then I would have liked to hear the reasons, because I think that 3 has many quality-of-life improvements that just made it felt superior.

Thank you for reading.
 
King Antasma said:
Well my reasoning is that I fail to see how its shortcomings are bad enough to be this split on, but I guess it just depends on the point of view.
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That's just your opinion. Other people hated the gameplay and didn't care for the story. I don't really see any other Paper Mario installment have both a devoted following of haters and fans.
 
Aside from the cute themeing and the adorable costumes (that Odyssey did NOT use for effing Birdo snot's sake), Mario Party 3 has a far better item system (it resembles GCN Mario Party item systems by letting you carry three while Mario Party 2 lets you carry only one item), having a diverse and interesting array of items and is the first game with fully-fledged duel minigames. I'd say Mario Party 3's board gameplay is superior to Mario Party 2's. Though I think the N64 Mario Parties all would be ranked lower than any of the GCN Mario Parties and Mario Party 8 just because Tag Team battle is available from Mario Party 4 - Mario Party DS and offensively removed after Mario Party 9.
 
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8. Super Maro Bros. 2

(1000000 years later)
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