Mario Party games have always been a blast, but there's something particularly special about the first few games in terms of their aesthetic choices. Prior to 6, Mario Party games often had this dreamlike feel to them, only aided by their ethereal-sounding scores. Mario Party 3 was quite possibly the peak of this art direction style and with the best core gameplay in the entire franchise, it easily solidifies itself as my favorite Mario Party game of all time.
The first two Mario Party games, while definitely fun, still had a lot of growing pains to deal with. The first game lacked items entirely, its boards were unbalanced, and its minigames were rudimentary and at times physically painful. Mario Party 2 had better and more balanced boards, items, more polished minigames, and more content, but the item system still wasn't fully formed yet and many of the minigames were repeats. In my opinion, Mario Party 3 was where the series truly came into its own with the introduction of a Story Mode, a consistent formula for board design, entirely new minigames that far outnumbered the lineup in 2, a perfected item system, and an incredible new art direction, so how about we do something different and start with that this time?
The most notable thing about Mario Party 3 has to be its artstyle. Mario Party 3 goes for a unique pop-up style where all the environments look like they're folded out of a book, and it just looks incredible. The pastel coloring and abundance of stars give the game a dreamy feel not unlike Kirby 64 and Paper Mario, the simplicity of the environments also mean they've aged remarkably well to this day, and the way the 3D modeled characters contrast with the environments make the game feel all the more like a board game. While MP4 does try to recapture this style, I still think Mario Party 3 is the only game in the series to have this much of a visual identity. Like, sure, Mario Party 2 has costumes and they're cute, but the entirety of Mario Party 3 still looks fantastic to this very day. And complementing the visuals is Ichiro Shimakura's phenomenal score, way too good for a Mario Party game. Shimakura just gets Mario Party's vibe, he understands the assignment 100%. Not only is he responsible for the three best soundtracks in the series (3, 4, and Advance), but he's still working as Mario Party's sound director to this very day. Mario Party 3's music is dreamy, synthy, and so incredibly calming and joyous, it adds so much to MP3's atmosphere. There's a lot of incredible tracks here but the highlights would be Nice And Easy, Chilly Waters, Let's Get A Move On, Stardust Battle, and Woody Woods.
Mario Party 3's core board gameplay is the best in the entire series, it's so perfectly balanced. The fundamentals are as solid as ever, you roll a dice to move along the board and you need to try to get as many Stars as possible, each costing 20 coins. The real improvements are in the item system. In Mario Party 2, you could only carry a single item at a time, but in Mario Party 3, you can now carry three items. This gives you a lot more choice and customization in your item loadout, and thus lends the game some much needed strategy. Mario Party in general is very luck-based, so a strong item system can help to balance it out with more skill-based strategic elements. Nearly every game from 3 onward adds in some sort of weird gimmick that messes with the item system, but Mario Party 3 keeps things simple to its benefit. It also helps that the selection of items is also the best in the series. There is a wide and vast variety of helpful items ranging from Mushrooms that let you augment your movement, to Skeleton Keys that let you take shortcuts, to Lamps that let you play around with the Star's locations, to Boo summons and repellants, to even a few really disruptive rare items. Mario Party 3 actually has my favorite item in the entire series, the Wacky Watch. This is a very rare item but getting it will let you set the turn count to 5 regardless of how many turns are left, which means it can both shorten and elongate a game. It's hysterical and perfect for annoying your friends.
The board design is also incredible this time around. While not as instantly iconic as some of the boards in other games like 2 or 8, Mario Party 3's boards are perfectly-designed. Each board is built around a central gimmick, usually one that interferes with your movement. Chilly Waters has an icy center that only a few people can stand on at a time, Deep Bloober Sea and Creepy Cavern are split in two halves blocked by a gate, Spiny Deserts have fake Stars but also lots of shortcuts around the board to keep things balanced, and my personal favorite, Woody Woods has a ton of junctions that change directions every two turns. Each of these gimmicks are simple to understand but require a lot of foresight and strategy to be able to work around them, which is totally possible thanks to Mario Party 3's robust item system. Each board also has an Action Time event which is basically a psuedo minigame that plays out on the board itself, and in some cases like with Chilly Waters's snowball minigame, failing the Action Time can even be a valid strategy in itself.
Of course, there is also one other board, the unlockable Waluigi's Island. Unlike the other boards in Mario Party 3, Waluigi's Island is not well-designed at all, but that's the point. It's a chaotic mess full of purposefully cheap, luck-based, and unfair design decisions including an endless loop, gates, a random junction, an island entirely composed of red spaces, and a bomb that destroys all of a player's coins. It's so rigged against every player that it doubles back around to being an absolute blast to play, and it works perfectly as a final board. There's a reason why Waluigi's Island is one of the most beloved boards despite its unfairness, it's perfectly calculated chaos.
But that's not all, Mario Party 3 also has a second main mode with its own six boards. Mario Party 3 introduces Duel Mode, an incredibly fun addition to the series that unfortunately wouldn't appear in any other game. Duel Mode pits two players against each other on a small board, and the goal is to take out the other player's entire health bar. You do this by recruiting enemy partners who can be positioned at the front and back of each player, and can this be used both for offense and defense. There's a wide variety of enemies each with their own distinct attack stats and unique abilities, so there's a lot of strategy in terms of who you want to recruit and where you want to position them. On top of that, each partner costs a salary per turn, so it's also in your best interest to do well in minigames so you can keep up a steady stream of income and pay as many partners as possible. Duel Mode totally could've been a slog that dragged down the game if executed poorly, but it's so much fun and still ranks among one of my favorite sidemodes in a Mario Party game.
On top of all that, Mario Party 3 is also the first Mario Party game to introduce a Story Mode. You have to beat every standard and Duel board to gain seven stamps before defeating the Millennium Star in a final boss fight. While I do really like the concept of a Mario Party game celebrating the turn of the millennium, Mario Party 3 is not my favorite Story Mode in the series. Later games have more and better boss fights, Mario Party 5 completely changes up the gameplay to help the Story Mode stand out, and I also have a soft-spot for modes like Mini Game Island and Bowser's Tower that are purely minigame centric, but MP3's attempt is still pretty up there. Mario Party 3's Story Mode still has a lot of options and replay value to help it stand out like multiple difficulties, a ranking system, and a reward for beating it with each character, and there are plenty of charming cutscenes in between the board games to spice things up. After all, if it wasn't for the Story Mode, we wouldn't get to see Daisy slap Bowser into oblivion.
Man, all this and I haven't even gotten to the minigames yet. I've already mentioned that I think Mario Party 6 has the best lineup of minigames, but Mario Party 3's roster isn't half bad either. At 71 minigames, it's the largest out of the N64 games, and all of them are entirely new. While most Mario Party games tend to have a fair share of stinkers, I think Mario Party 3 has one of the most consistent minigame lineups in the series. With the exception of The Beat Goes On, most of the games are good at worst and fantastic at best. Highlights include Ice Rink Risk, Frigid Bridges, Toadstool Titan, Crazy Cogs, Ridiculous Relay, Eatsa Pizza, All Fired Up, Storm Chasers, Eye Sore, and my personal favorite, Snowball Summit. Snowball Summit has you roll up snowballs and toss them at your opponents, and there's a ton of strategy since you can also use them as shields. Oh, and Mario Party 3 finally introduces proper Duel minigames, and they're some of the best in the game! Tick Tock Hop, Fowl Play, Motor Rooter, Popgun Pick-Off, End Of The Line, all fantastic.
Mario Party 3 is an incredible entry in the series that perfects the formula in pretty much every way. With a refined item system, top-notch board design, a consistently strong original lineup of minigames, two styles of play, a Story Mode, and a wonderful aesthetic that ties it all together and stands out as one of the best-looking games on the N64, Mario Party 3 feels like the complete Mario Party package.
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