The best minigames have the partiers navigating obstacle courses of moving and/or vanishing platforms by running and jumping, using the Wii Remote like an NES controller. You know: Mario stuff. In one game, platforms disappear into lava, leaving survivors on tiny islands with just enough room for you to edge an opponent into the goop.
Your old Wii Remotes get plenty of use in their various motion-based modes, too: Track a certain Goomba in a crowd and point at it with your crosshairs; waggle the Wiimote until your balloon nearly bursts, then hold it really still so an extra waggle doesn't push it past its breaking point. There are some less fun tilt-based games, like a soccer match on giant balls that will have you contorting to win. Motion controls may sound regressive in 2015, but in the thick of the Mario Party, it's all goofy fun.
I wish I could tell you to just play Mario Party for the minigames, but you actually don't get to play that many of them. In Mario Party mode, you only play a minigame if you land on a minigame space – and they’re rare enough that it's entirely possible to play an entire game without hitting one.
Minilame!
Bowser Party Mode
Bowser Party not only introduces a fifth player to the party, but also makes use of the Wii U GamePad – a fittingly large controller for the role of Bowser as master party crasher.In this mode, up to four players share a car and roll dice to flee from Bowser on one of three boards shared with Mario Party mode (two are unavailable for some reason) while Bowser rolls a handful of dice in an attempt to catch up at the end of each turn. If Bowser catches up, he takes on the four other players in a 1v4 minigame. Interestingly, these games are balanced individually to favor either Bowser or the partiers. As Bowser gets more "angry" throughout a match, the minigames you play will be tilted in his favor.Playing as Bowser is a blast: You blow fire at scurrying players; mess with their minds by rotating and stopping a giant wheel that throws them into flames; and officiate a game of BINGO that the partiers pretty much always lose. You do all this with your own screen and set of controls, so others can't see your scheming. I highly recommend the submarine game board, where the Bowser player gets to draw on the GamePad to try and trick players into choosing the wrong path on the big screen. You don't actually have that much psychological sway, but taunting with GamePad graffiti is totally gratifying.
Whether you are Bowser or not, this five-person modification of Mario Party is 10's greatest achievement – and one of the best uses of the Wii U GamePad yet.
