As an early Christmas present, my sister got Mario Party: Island Tour. I had told her about the low scores, but she didn't listen -- and I can't blame her. Mario Party games never get very high scores, but still tend to be entertaining, even if based largely on luck. Mario Party: Island Tour is much of the same -- maybe a bit less.
The biggest difference with Island Tour as opposed to other Mario Party games is that most of the boards do away with stars and coins and just involve one player getting to the "finish line." This is weird and somewhat disappointing, but worse yet, you only play a mini-game every three turns, rather than after everybody has one turn. Thankfully, there is a mini-game mode for people who want to do that. While some of the mini-games are cute and good for a laugh, the big issue with it all is that at least half of them seem to be chance games, where there's no skill involved. The same can be said for a lot of the game boards, which favor luck over skill. Mario Party games and even Mario Kart games tend to do this at times to let people in last place catch up, but it's a bit much in this game. If you don't mind finishing last simply because you picked the wrong place to stand in a mini-game or happened to land on a "?" on a board, then you'll be fine. Basically, don't take Mario Party: Island Tour too seriously. As annoying as the lack of stars and coins on most boards is (as well as the emphasis on chance over skill/real thought), the $40 price tag is perhaps the biggest turn off here. This game features 7 boards to play, as well as (I believe) about 80 mini games. That seems like a decent amount, but the games don't last long while you play them. $30 would be much more reasonable, so I'd recommend buying this game on sale.
As I said, if you can tolerate getting screwed no matter how well you're playing, and like playing brief games of Mario Party, this game's not too bad. The biggest thing this game has going for it is its Mario-themed charm. A decent amount of the mini-games are entertaining, but this is probably the weakest Mario Party yet that I have played. It's a game that's not great. Really, I'd consider it "barely decent." I wouldn't run out to buy Mario Party: Island Tour, but I believe it's better than most critics seem to think it is... it makes me wonder if they even played a Mario Party before.
3.25/5
+: It's a Mario game; Some mini-games are pretty fun; Good in short bursts.
-: Not enough content for the price; Too many "been there, done that" and chance-fated mini-games; Doesn't feel too Mario Party-esque with the omission of coins/stars on most boards.
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