Mario Party 5

Mario Party 5 is the fifth installment in the Mario Party series. The most notable change in this game is that the shopping system was replaced with the new Orb system.

In Story Mode, a playable character has to face Bowser and the Koopa Kids throughout every stage. Eventually, the character will face Bowser one-on-one.

The game is notable for featuring places and characters that appeared in or resembled places and characters from Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. The most prominent of these are the Star Spirits.

Playable Characters

Returning Playable Characters:

• Mario
• Luigi
• Peach
• Yoshi
• Wario
• Daisy
• Waluigi

New Playable Characters:

• Boo
• Koopa Kid
• Toad

The Mario Party 5 website drove many fans into the inaccurate belief that the game would be about Mario characters running for president, when in fact, it was just a feature of the website.

New features

Mario Party 5 has a few new features. First off, in Story Mode, all the Koopa Kids move at the same time, quickening game play. The point of single player mode is to deplete all of the Koopa Kids' coins by beating them in mini-games.

It also features two whole new modes: Bonus Mode, and Super Duel Mode. In Bonus Mode, players could choose one of three bonus games: Beach Volleyball, Ice Hockey, and Card Party. In Super Duel Mode, one buys vehicle parts using points received by playing mini-games and build a battle vehicle to use in different tournaments or against friends. To unlock all the different parts, one must play all the tournaments and beat certain opponents.

As usual, this new installment to the Mario Party series comes with new mini-games, characters, and maps. Toad, Boo, and even Koopa Kid are the new playable characters. In this game, Donkey Kong is only a playable character in Super Duel Mode once one unlocks him. In party mode, he now shows up on new Donkey Kong spaces and either gives the players coins/stars or starts a Donkey Kong mini-game which involve collecting bananas for a predetermined amount of coins. (It is unknown why they removed him from the series.)

The game was also significant for being the second in the series to introduce 3D game boards. Previous titles, all except for Mario Party 4, utilized pre-rendered backgrounds, which were static and limited in their presentation. As a result all subsequent Mario Party titles, with the exception of "Mario Party Advance" on the Game Boy Advance, have employed 3D backgrounds allowing for much more dynamic fields of play.

Mini-Games

See Mario Party 5 (mini-games).

Boards

• Toy Dream
• Rainbow Dream
• Pirate Dream
• Undersea Dream
• Future Dream
• Sweet Dream
• Bowser Nightmare (unlockable)

Capsules

Below is a list of the 28 capsules in Mario Party 5.

• Bubble
• Cursed Mushroom
• Klepto
• Mushroom
• Super Mushroom
• Warp Pipe
• Wiggler
• Bob-omb
• Bullet Bill
• Coin Block
• Goomba
• Hammer Bro
• Koopa Bank
• Paratroopa
• Piranha Plant
• Spiny
• Kamek
• Lakitu
• Magikoopa
• Mr. Blizzard
• Ukiki
• Bone
• Chain Chomp
• Chance
• Duel
• Miracle
• Tweester
• Bowser Capsule

Music

The music in Mario Party 5 was composed by Aya Tanaki. It is somewhat significantly different from the other Mario Party games--including its sequels--in that the music sounds sophisticated and (despite being synthesized as in all Mario Party games) has the illusion of being played by a professional symphony orchestra. This may be caused by the use of sounds that sound like true instruments, especially the harpsichord. This apparently didn't catch on, however, as Aya Tanaki has not composed any other Mario Party game, and Mario Party 6 and Mario Party 7 returned to the style of Mario Party 4.

Trivia

• The capsule depicting a Toady is incorrectly labeled as "Magikoopa Capsule". Later Mario Party games correctly labeled it as "Toady Orb". This may have inspired the Mario Party Advance Broom Zoom caption to state that Toadies possess brooms, while they, in actuality, do not (although Magikoopas do).
• Chain Chomp replaces Boo on stealing coins and stars.
• The mini-game "Cage-in-cooking" plays off of "cajun cooking".
• The mini-game Merry Poppings may be a pun on Mary Poppins, a famous series of books.
• Mazed & Confused is a pun on Dazed and Confused, a song from the Led Zeppelin.
• Areas and characters that either appeared in or resembled those from the Paper Mario series include:
  • The Star Spirits (Eldstar, Mamar, Skolar, Muskular, Misstar, Skolar, and Kalmar)
  • Pirate Dream (it resembled or may have been a dream about the Pirate's Grotto)
  • Toy Dream (it resembled or may have been a dream about the Shy Guy's Toy Box)
  • Klepto (a Klepto named Buzzar appeared in Paper Mario)
  • The Tweesters in the game had the same design as those in Paper Mario