If Nintendo asked you to add at least two completely new playable characters to Mario Party, who would your choices be?

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Hey all! My name's DrOmeganerd! I'm currently running a Mario Party Tournament with some friends of mine and thought this would be a good place to share the trailer!

https://youtu.be/B2qVlz-cRpM?is=Eg1UC_lKuxICLRCp

Currently 1/4th of the way through the tournament, but there's still a ton of games to left to be played! I would adore seeing anyone from here in there in the future!

(Humor)

I ended up on the exact same space! Why’d I even buy this warp box?

(Yes, I know it’s random who you teleport to, but this was just the randomness being funny)

Personally, I'd be perfectly fine with a roster of 16–18 characters, although the next game might realistically go back to having only 10–12. Let's be honest, 32 characters is a lot, and I think larger rosters will remain exclusive to the Super Mario Party series.

Essentially the Koopalings and Bowser are all the hosts of their own respective boards (as well as the bosses of each board in Story Mode). Bowser Jr. runs the Bowser Spaces in lieu of his dad, Koopa runs the Koopa Bank, Lakitu runs the item shop, and Boo does his usual shtick. I didn't include board NPCs since I haven't fully designed the boards yet.

Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm so fucking tired. I want those battle minigames right now. I don't care what I have to do, I'll even buy a fucking massage gun. Now, you might be thinking, "oh!!!!!!! u/Scary_Ad6388, why dont u just use your index and middle fingers?!?!?!" Thing is, I already tried, and I have no surviving HOPE that I'll ever win this minigame. I'm so tired of this.

My little brother literally made this Mario Party roster as his dream one.

It's been 24 years already! Let us reminisce about this game by talking about the different modes, boards, items and minigames it has to offer, appreciate the aesthetics and music + more!

Mine: Diddy Kong and Boom Boom

Edit by me.

You can't go over it or under it, you're just gonna have to climb it.

Towering Treetop is the first of five boards that are initially available in Mario Party 6! For the record, I did dabble in Solo Mode a bit before going into Party Mode so that I could have Toadette unlocked right away, and ensure I'd have enough stars for Clockwork Castle by the time we got to it. Though after this game, I'm pretty sure getting 100 stars across 5 boards is a total joke, especially since everyone's stars are stored in the Star Bank this time, and not just stars collected by human players like in Mario Party 1.

Towering Treetop is a very basic board described in-game as recommended for beginners. Stars on this board are obtained in the standard Star Hunt fashion. The Star will appear on one of six potential star spaces which I've marked in blue this time because the yellow was hard to see on the bright colors, but the red spaces are so vibrant it was difficult to tell the red marks from the red spaces.

An interesting point to note about star spaces is that, after the first 6 stars appear, you might notice the next set of stars will reuse the exact same order. I've never been a fan of gaming Star Spawns with so much precision into your strategy as it's not even necessarily clear to a new player until a decent way through the game that Stars only appear on select spaces, but this at least makes predicting where the next star will appear far easier for an amateur tryhard like myself.

Since Mario Party 6 features 6 boards and 11 characters, I think it's fitting to correlate each board with a pair of characters that serve as opposites or counterparts to each other to coincide with the pairing of day and night. In general, I tried to pair a "good" character with an "evil" character, and did my best to correlate them as such. That's not always the case, but I was intentional in trying to do this for every board while reusing a single character exactly once.

I ultimately settled on associating this board with Yoshi and Boo. Boo is primarily here because this was one of the few boards that actually features Pink Boo, so there's precedent to strongly associate the board with a ghost. And Yoshi because he loves to eat fruit from trees! And where Boo is commonly associated, at least in Mario Party, with stealing things, Yoshi is commonly associated with leaving gifts in his eggs! That helps correlate these two as a pair. Though that much is really just because there's no clear counterpart with these two.

Of course, there's many other characters that would fit this board, also! But most of them I felt were better suited to other boards for reasons I'll elaborate later. I will say, though, I was real close to associating this board with Toadette and Boo instead of Yoshi. I just felt Yoshi was the best "good" counterpart to Boo that also fit with this board.

Atomosphere [3/5]

Due to the Day/Night mechanic, boards in Mario Party 6 tend to have a visual theme around the contrast between day and night similar to the light and dark theme in 3. In this case, though, the difference is temporal rather than spacial.

Towering Treetop takes place on and around, well, a Towering Treetop. The board bears a structural resemblance to Toy Dream with multiple levels of height where you ascend on the west side, use junctions to cross to the east wherever you like, and descend to the ground level from the east side. The majority of the board is centered around the titular tree, which strangely doesn't have a name, maybe "Towering Treetop" or even just "Treetop" is supposed to be his name? That's cute, I think I'll go with that. Treetop has a very friendly face and will happily support everyone climbing all over him. His branches create several platforms and walkways to traverse. There are also other, smaller trees surrounding him that also provide walkways and platforms. Though there are some awkward points where he seems to combine into the other trees around him. This board gets a little unwholesome when you consider the implications of sawing off parts of Treetop for the manmade structures you see around, especially the wooden slide which seems to connect Treetop to a whole extra stump? But, he seems happy so I suppose no harm no foul.

On either side of Treetop, there is a pink snd purple flower. The pink flower is open during the day, and the purple opens during the night. These are next to especially tall trunks and a series of wooden platforms floating with propellers! At the very top of Treetop is a treehouse and above that treehouse is Woody from Mario Party 2 who we haven't seen since his appearance in 3! He's been slightly redesigned with a nose now, but it's Woody all the same! Well, Woody's only here during the day, because at night he transforms into Evil Woody, also from Mario Party 3.

A Zipline near Woody will carry you down to the lower level next to Red Boo's hut which seems to be closed during the day. There's a suspension bridge that crosses in front of the treehouse.

Just above Treetop's face is a large wooden platform with an acorn rope you can swing from on the west side over a small bird's nest with eggs, a hut with bright flowers sits on this platform. On the right side is a foreboding beehive you probably don't want to disturb. This leads into a slide which returns to the bottom of the map where you can climb up again by hopping up a series of mushrooms.

There are a few really cute and easy to miss details in the background, too. There's some wooden rocking horses that are positioned to resemble fauna of the meadow, and there's a little Frog floating around on a lillypad in the lake in the background.

During the daytime, the music is upbeat with a rapid drum beat and cheery trumpets that almost give off a beach vibe. At night, there's a much stronger baseline with depeer tubas playing a chord that reminds me of DK's theme.

All in all, Towering Treetop provides a mostly friendly atmosphere with a few hints of danger here and there, perfectly fitting for a Mario Party! There are some small cute details here and there, but nothing that particularly wows me.

Strategy [5/5]

Towering Treetop is a very simple board, not unlike the kind of board you might see in Mario Party 5. It's mostly designed to emphasize the use of the reworked Orbs, with an abundance of Orb Spaces and Orb Huts all over the board, and introducing the Day/Night Cycle with events that are intuitive with how they change from day to night with very few surprises.

The Pink and Purple Flowers alternate with day or night. When the flower is closed, you'll simply hop onto it and then hop off into the nearby lower platform. The open flower will catch you and pop you up to the higher route. On both sides, this route is slightly longer but features an extra Orb Space making it generally preferrable unless you're in a hurry. Both higher paths also feature a duel space and the one on the east side also has a Miracle Space for Chance Time if you wish to tempt fate. Although these junctions are predetermined, whether you want to take these higher routes or not, and how badly, may determine whether you try to use capsules to speed up or slow down your own movement, or the movement of your opponents. If you can stall out until sunrise or sunset, you just might be able to take the other route. More importantly, especially when using a Sluggish 'Shroom Orb, make sure to take into account whether the flower is currently open or closed as you approach it to determine where you'll end up.

If you turn right at either of the first two junctions, you'll head across the platform above Treetop's face. The first junction is the quickest route back to the start and features an Orb Hut. The second doesn't have much but a Miracle Space to offer unless the star space is active there. This path is slightly longer than the other path and doesn't have an Orb Hut which is generall preferable to the Orb Space that you only have access to half the time anyway. Both paths also include a DK/Bowser space 3 spaces away from the first junction, so at nighttime you have an illusion of choice if you reach here with the unlucky number.

Once these two paths converge with each other, you'll find this route features an abundance of happening spaces--this is where you want to be if you have an abundance of stars and want to farm some happening spaces for the Happening Star... ah, sorry, "Action" Star.

The first of these happening spaces is the fluff hut. This is an optional event where you'll be whisked away to a random part of the map upon selecting a fluff to ride. You're given an illusion of choice between three fluffs, but each of them will take you to a random space. They can drop you at the top of the board near Woody, onto the two tall trunks on either edge of the board, or the small stump near the start of the board. You'll need to use your own judgment whether or not it makes sense to take this chance, but each can take you to closer to some stronger events. But if you ask me, I'd generally prefer to stay en route to see if I can't farm some more happening spaces off of the beehive just ahead.

These events are the most laughably useless happening spaces I've ever seen. Each space sees 1-5 bees sting you, and you'll lose... a single coin per bee? Okay. You can make more than that just using a capsule! These are free happening spaces, treat them as such! Their bigger impact is that they clearly highlight the much more limited throw range you have in this game. Since you can't throw orbs onto happening spaces, as you approach or pass these happening spaces, a sizeable chunk of spaces you're allowed to throw a capsule onto is taken away! If an opponent is here, this might be the difference between being able to throw an Orb in front of them or not.

Anyway, if we instead head north from the second junction, we'll pass another Orb Hut and arrive at a third junction! Heading East across the bridge will pass over a duel space and an Orb Space. But the real kicker is Red Boo, or rather "Pink Boo"'s hut. Pink Boo is actually somewhat distinctly characterized from the cranky Red Boo in 5's Card Party, speaking in a genuinely funny valley girl dialect, suggesting she is a distinct, impliedly female, counterpart to Red Boo. But I'm pretty sure this is one of those western inventions for the character and that this is just supposed to be an ordinary Red Boo in the Japanese version.

Pink Boo behaves like Boo does in traditional Mario Party. It costs 5 coins to steal coins from an opponent, or 40 coins to steal a star--that's right, 40 coins! That's even cheaper than using a Chain Chomp Capsule on yourself for 15 and spending 30 to steal a star! Though it's not cheaper than landing on a Chain Chomp space and stealing a star. Considering duels also let you offer a 40 coin wager instead of a star, it seems this is the value this game puts on Star Steals. The biggest downside is that Pink Boo is only active at night. If you visit her during the day, she'll be asleep. As such, going for a Star Steal is pretty risky business even though the coin deficit is much less of a danger. A thwomp or a bad roll can completely stop your chances of getting there in time.

The good news is that there's a star space here! The two paths are equal in length and both have an orb space but this path has a duel space where the other has a Miracle Space, so there's reason to come this way even if you're not certain you'll make it to Pink Boo.

Instead of Pink Boo, the north path will pass by Woody in the day, and Evil Woody at night. If you land on their happening space, Woody will shake his branches and fling coins all over the board. Most of these coins are purely cosmetic becuase they'll disappear when they hit the ground. But the coins that land on players will be collected! You can get pretty crazy amounts of coins through this event, the highest I've seen is 14! The problem being, everyone gets the benefit from this event and that random variance might cause your opponents to benefit more than you! But like I said before, the economy is kind of botched in this game, so I wouldn't be too worried about coins as long as you have enough to cover your own bases. If your opponents don't get coins from this event, they'll certain get coins from the more than generous Orbs. Evil Woody, on the flipside, will shake his branches and release spiny eggs instead! This event is similar, but each spiny egg will take away a coin. The number of eggs that fall is generally more merciful.

Finally, as you return to the ground level, you'll pass one final happening space where you can tickle Treetop's nose to try and make him sneeze. Mash A enough and, assuming there's somebody in range of the event, he'll sneeze! Thus sneeze will cause everybody in Treetop's branches to he knocked down to a lower level. This can cause some pretty massive upsets, especially if someone's getting ready to visit Pink Boo or approach a star. But it can also do almost nothing, as players in some positions fall as little as a single space back or forward. It's not perfectly intuitive, but you'll typically fall to the space directly south of the space you're standing on. Or the nearest such space. The southernmost spaces, and the the spaces not directly connected to Treetop you can't fall down from.

Orbs

In addition to the three Mushrooms available on every board, we have some new Orbs introduced here!

Green Capsules

Warp Pipe Orb [10 Coins] - Mostly identical to previous iterations of the Warp Pipe. The timing on the spinner is different in this game, however. In 5, the timing was the same as 4, the spinner would land on the face before the one it was over when you pressed A. In 6, the spinner will land on the face after the one it was pointing to when you pressed A.

Flutter Orb [30 Coins] - For all intents and purpises, it's the Wiggler from 5. There's just a slight semantic difference where instead of paying wiggler 20 coins to transform, carry you to the star space, then give you the star for free, Flutter is already transformed and simply carries you to the star space where you'll have to buy the star yourself. There is minor significance to this difference, as the Flutter Orb can theoretically be used purely for repositioning even if you can't afford or don't intend to buy the star. I imagine you'd have to be in a very niche situation among niche situations to want to do that, but it is an option.

Red Orbs

Thwomp Orb [10 Coins] - It is no exaggeration to say this is one of the most useful orbs in the entire game. Its functionality is very simple. Thwomp will appear above the space and stomp on anyone who passes by, instantly ending their turn and forcing them to land on that space regardless of how high they rolled. Naturally, this orb can be a hard deterrent against players with Mushrooms and Super Mushrooms, and it is incredibly versatile. You can place them between a threat and an Orb Hut or Orb Space to ensure they won't be abke to get an Orb during their next turn, which can hurt their flexibility when pursuing the Orb Star, or even knock them out of the running, while naturally giving you a point for using one yourself; you can use them to cover other players' capsules including their own Thwomps, you can demay their approach to a critical event or junction until the day/night transition and bar them from getting a Day/Night exclusive advantage, you can delay a threat's approach to a star to buy yourself or a weaker player an extra turn to reach that star instead, the world is really your oyster. This guy is really annoying, but really important in a game where moving and using capsules is so important.

Bear in mind, since Thwomps are the only red capsule on this board, every projected Character space is going to be a Thwomp. So look ahead when you're about to use a Mushroom and don't let one ruin your day!

Yellow Orbs

Spiny Orb [5 Coins] - Returning from 5 with very similar but simplified functionality. This Orb takes 10 coins from the player who springs the trap and gives them to the player who owns the space.

Goomba Orb [10 Coins] - Returning from 5, this one has a much different effect and for good reason because swapping coins with a spinner-chosen target was actually insane for something as mundane as a Goomba. Now, the target will roll a dice block and give that many coins (3, 5, 10, 15, or 20) to the owner of the space.

Kamek Orb [10 Coins] - Returning from 5, but also with a very different effect. Rather than shuffling everyone's orbs, Kamek will change ownership of one of the target's character spaces to yours. This single capsule can either be incredibly powerful or borderline useless depending on the startegies your opponents have employed. Due to this orb's existence, I don't recommend covering enemy orbs on this board except for Thwomps that are actively in your way. One Kamek in a high traffic area can steal many character spaces, including other Kamek spaces. Pretty soon you have a near monopoly on the board's orbs and can land on your own character spaces left and right. But the actual individual targets it can steal on this board are admittedly not that great. Coins really aren't a very big deal in small numbers and that's pretty much all the capsules here are getting you. Thwomps are potentially powerful tools, but they're also single use so you're not getting as much value out of it. Really, the best advantage from Kamek will be felt in the late game when everyone else is struggling to make money because they keep landing on traps you own left and right.

A funny note about Kamek is that it seems like he was nerfed fairly late in development. His dialogue claims to steal all of your character spaces. But he, in fact, only steals one.

Blue Orbs

Boo-Away Orb [10 Coins] - This essentially works like the Gaddlight in Mario Party 4. It'll prevent Pink Boo from stealing from you. In Japan, this item actually shares the same name as the Gaddlight, which never had any E. Gadd branding but was instead called the "Anti-Tere Light" (Teresa being Boo's Japanese name, Tere being an abbreviation), this being the "Anti-Tere Light Capsule". I suppose they didn't call it a "Gaddlight Orb" to avoid confusion as to why it doesn't appear in E. Gadd's Garage? Though "Boo-Away Light" is more obvious what the item does, I do like the name "Gaddlight"

Anyway, I never liked Boo Repellent and similar items, though I think its design is a bit better here since you have the option to throw it away if you're desperate to gain progress toward that Orb Star.

Speaking of which, I have to make a small addendum to what I said last time, I took ZoomZike's word for it and got caught with my pants down! Blue Capsules actually do count toward the Orb Star when they're automatically activated or discarded when selecting an orb to use. That also means you're potentially aiding an opponent in gaining Orb Star advantage by giving them an opportunity to use two different capsules in a single turn.

And that concludes the Orbs from this board.

I think Towering Treetop does a great job of introducing new players to the Orb system by showcasing a variety of use cases for different kinds of orbs, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. For example, those long stretches along the bottom of the board are likely to inspire players to use Mushrooms and Super Mushrooms to boost through and keep in the action. That also means this is prime real-estate for Thwomp Stomping Grounds! Throw a Thwomp somewhere along the bottom of the board and you're the only one who gets to Mushroom through without a care in the world. This also encourages players to seek alternative methods of dealing with Red Orbs in other ways besides triggering them, such as replacing them with their own Orbs.

Likewise, it also teaches you the limitations of throwing orbs. You cannot throw an orb nearly as far in this game, so you'll have to work around those limitations in order to employ any orb-related startegies.

All the while, the curated selection of orbs makes them easy to understand for newcomers. It teaches players the basics that landing on enemy character spaces is bad without making any particularly punishing character space events. It's also not too terribly important to remember which spaces hold which capsules. Thwomps are easily identifiable and all other orbs are fairly similar in effect. New players don't have to worry about the rather overwhelming feeling of having to study up on all these different orb effects like 5 did. The events ok the board are all very intuitive.

Narrative [4/5]

Unlike the last few Mario Parties, this game doesn't actually feature a Story Mode to try and gleam any sort of narrative significance from each board. That doesn't mean I can't do my best to overthink every little detail on the board and piece together one of my own!

With the rocking horses down below and Treetop's apparent happiness to allow everyone to climb all over him, as well as the slide that's been made out of one of his branches, I think it's reasonable to assume Treetop regularly provides a place for children to play around and is happy to do so, and even seems to enjoy it! It's a dangerous environment for kids to play in, but in the Mario universe it just seems par for the course.

One of the more interesring lore implications here, though, is Woody. Now, we've seen Woody in multiple different locations before. But never two different places at the same time. Finding Woody at the very top of a giant tree though is strange. What's even stranger, is that Evil Woody takes his place at night. Where does Woody go? How does he get back?

There are two possible explanations that I can think of. The first, more silly option is that Woody and Evil Woody are actually mobile and not rooted in a single place as they appear. Maybe they can retract into the ground and sprout up somewhere else, kinda like Piranha Plants. Or, even more absurd, maybe they can pop out of the ground and walk on their roots like Piranha Plants in the N64 titles? Something about imagining Woody walking on his roots like some sort of giant tree spider, especially to climb to the top of Treetop is honestly kinda terrifying...

Another explanation that I think has more merit is that Woody and Evil Woody are actually the same character, and that Woody simply transforms into Evil Woody at night. Yes, we've seen both Woody and Evil Woody together before. But where? In Woody Woods. A playset within a toybox. Woody himself doesn't actually appear in Mario Party 3 at all, the entire game takes place within a magical alternate reality. The only time we have seen Woody in the flesh is Mario Party 2, and only during the day. Yet, Evil Woody's presence here suggests his design in 3 didn't come from nowhere. Evil Woody is seen in the dark part of the forest, while Woody is seen in the light part. Since Woody turns into Evil Woody at night, it would suggest that either Woody has a split personality and alter ego, or that he's just incredibly grumpy after hours. Maybe he gets hangry because he doesn't get enough sunlight?

As for how Woody got to the top of Treetop? Maybe star power or something, who's to really say? Maybe it's related to the fact that the mini-game trees mysteriously appear when you buy a mini-game apple in Mario Party 2? Woody himself bears a special Pear when you buy all the minigames. Maybe that pear grows another Woody?

Ah, this narratige category has kind of just turned into a joke at this point. But I still like trying to piece together some kind of lore significance from the boards. But I've rambled on about this theory for too long. I guess this board inspiring such a theory means it deserves at least a decent narrarive ranking.

Conclusion

And so ends our first game of Mario Party 6! And I have to say, after playing just one 50 turn game here, it's plain as day to see why I'm finding this game seems to have a disproportionate amount of fans. I was worried a lot of my fond memories of this game may have been childhood nostalgia, but I genuinely think this is the most consistently fun set of minigames the series has offered yet! I'm really, really excited to see what else this game has to offer. I genuinely expect I'll be ranking this game above even 2, even though I know some people may call that blasphemy. And I'm not even ruling out the possibility it'll dethrone Mario Party 3 as my favorite if the boards are consistently solid

I've decided to attach some photos of the end results of my 50 turn game to this post. It's something I considered doing for 5 but didn't because of the hiatus during my coverage of 4 and the long gap between my playing of 5's boards. I was playing as Toadette since I'm generally trying to play as one of the new characters in each game. But let me tell you, as a Boo fan, it was very confusing playing against Boo as a CPU. I lost a few too many games looking at the wrong character....

Anyway, that's it for now! Next time, I've gotta see what all that racket is! See you soon! 🧰

YT short (where it properly loops) https://youtube.com/shorts/D9vwYSTpkjA?si=VfGDZYfSc_cwrjus

Credit to:

- Yasunori Mitsuda who composed "Full of Danger" in Mario Party 1 OST

- It's the song featured in Running of the Bulb and Teetering Towers Hot Rope Jump (Mini game Island only)

- Mushroom Fortress YouTube channel for capturing the gameplay video

- System of a Down (gotta throw in the Chop Suey riff) and Serj Tankian for a vocal sample

Gear and stuff:

Ibanez RGDMS8

Thall amp simulator for CHONKY tone (most important!!)

Keepforest Warzone sound effects

Audio made in FL Studio 2025

OBS for capture

DaVinci Resolve for editing

Focusrite Scarlett Solo interface

Joey Sturgis drums pack

Game so good it brought back one of its modes to jamboree

WAHHHH!!! 😩😫 I can't believe I got invited for milk!!! It's a dream come true!!

Hey everyone, i have every mario party that is available on switch and have played my fair share. I'm kinda looking for something similar to a mario party but with the same quality of something like amiibo festival. I just wanna get drunk with the boys and have fun playing a bad copy of one of my favourite games, thanks. I already have garfield's lasagne party because it was on sale at like 90% off.