I don't agree that it's more fun than people give it credit for. I think its criticisms are justified, and I say this as an ardent Mario Party fan. I don't like how practically all of the boards, while unique, have some BS luck-based mechanic that pretty much act as roadblocks to play against players who want to do well. In Perilous Palace Path, I remember that it doesn't matter if I score well and I get only Gold Dice Blocks and the best items, you're going to get screwed by the board hazards such as the Thwomp switch, the Goomba Tower junction, and finally the Whomp switch. In the Mini-Star board, it doesn't even have minigames by the end of every turn, a board that would have benefited from such a feature, and you're more at the mercy of the dice block than ever. Rocket Road can make you roll a zero and waste your boosters (it's extremely short on top of that), while the entirety of Banzai Bill's Mad Mountain is praying someone doesn't roll a Banzai Bill when you're outside. The Bowser board has similar BS roadblock crap that Perilous Palace Path had and doubles prevent players from going further, which means first place is actually a disadvantageous position in the minigames since you can't roll doubles with a single one. The Kamek one is the least-BS-y one from what I've played but it still sorta relies on luck.
The "praying you don't get a bad roll" part is pretty much sums up the entirety of the boards in the game. "Unique" is hardly a praise I'd give for them if most of them end up being a miserable experience.
I do think Bowser's Tower, the single-player Boss minigames, and the minigames in general are actually pretty good, it's the strongest set of new minigames on the 3DS (Star Rush had a very mediocre selection while Top 100 just had old minigames). I'm quite fond of Emergency Hexit and Tanks A Lot myself and the rest isn't bad at all.
