Note: Images/screenshots of games used in this article is for representation purposes only. Their inclusion doesn’t mean they are bad games or were failures. Also, these points are just hints that a game “may” be bad or flop. 

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to GamingBolt as an organization.

Late embargo

There can be many reasons for a game to end up disappointing, but one of the best clues comes when a publisher implements an embargo for the day of launch, or sometimes even later. Exceptions such as DOOM 2016 not withstanding, it’s usually indicative that there’s something to hide.

Mario Party 10 itself is a culmination of this kind of schizophrenic progress the series has made over the years. At almost every turn and corner, there’s something that seems to exist solely to disrupt your enjoyment of the game, a series of frustrations that would, by all accounts, completely dismantle any other game. Yet, because of some fundamentally good gameplay, and intrinsic charm at its heart, Mario Party 10 manages to persevere and emerge on the other side as a game that still merits a recommendation- in certain situations.

As with all other Mario Party games, Mario Party 10 is Nintendo’s take on a board game. As with all of Nintendo’s other multiplayer properties, Mario Party 10 mixes player skill with unpredictable randomness that ensues in chaos, in an attempt to keep things fresh, fun, and on an even ground for even less skilled players. But unlike Smash Bros., which values skill, with a dash of randomness, or Mario Kart, which is equal parts skill and randomness, Mario Party is all randomness- any semblance of skill it once might have required gone thanks to the changes wrought on by Mario Party 9, which persist. Players still travel around the board in one communal car, and in the central Mario Party mode, even minigames have been de-emphasized. This means that the central Mario Party mode is, in fact, a total waste of time. There is nothing there. It represents the purest distillation of the destructive casualization the franchise has suffered over the years.

"The central Mario Party mode is, in fact, a total waste of time. There is nothing there. It represents the purest distillation of the destructive casualization the franchise has suffered over the years."

If the Mario Party mode were all that Mario Party 10 had, it would have been a disaster. Thankfully, the other two modes exist, and collectively, they can lead to the kind of mayhem that makes Mario Party so memorable. One of these is Amiibo Party. Amiibo Party requires, as the name implies, an Amiibo to actually play the mode, leading to some of the best and most active integration of Nintendo’s NFC figurines in a game yet. The actual Amiibo usage is limited to just tapping your Amiibo on the Gamepad each time you take a turn (like you would move your piece on the board on a game board), but still, it adds to the charm, and more importantly, little kids love it.

Amiibos aside, Amiibo Party also plays like classic Mario Party- each player moves his or her piece around the board individually, based on dice rolls, and progress is determined by a combination of strategy, foresight, skill at minigames, and random and unpredictable elements of chance. The minigames themselves are incredibly fun, and are the kind of thing that made Mario Party a mainstay of party gaming in the first place.

Amiibo Party definitely represents a step back in the right direction for the franchise, though there are still some points of contention here- for starters, Amiibos themselves represent an unnecessary cost (they don’t actually add to the gameplay) to access arguably the most desirable mode in the game, and a lot of college students, for instance, (lets not kid ourselves, college students and adults form a bulk of the audience for the game) may not want to be seen holding toy plastic figurines (although one can argue that when you’re playing Mario Party 10, you’re already too far down that road anyway).

There is also the fact that the complexity brought on by different boards in the older Mario Party games is still not a thing in Amiibo Party. Oh, different boards exist (and which one you get actually depends on which Amiibos you scan in at the beginning of the game), but there’s no tangible impact on the gameplay itself. The difference is all aesthetic.

Still, on the whole, Amiibo Party represents a step back in the right direction, and can offer players some great fun and party fuel. However, for as good as Amiibo Party is, the central attraction in this game is likely to be the Bowser Party mode.

"Amiibo Party represents a step back in the right direction, and can offer players some great fun and party fuel. However, for as good as Amiibo Party is, the central attraction in this game is likely to be the Bowser Party mode. "

One has to think about what Nintendo was thinking when they came up with Bowser Party- in every sense of the word, it is unbalanced, asymmetric, unfair, and generally just maniacally contemptuous of its players. Well, all of them but one. See, Bowser Party mode lets one player be Bowser, and be the antagonist to the other players. And chaos ensues.

Bowser is absolutely overpowered. He breaks the game. He gets four or five dice rolls, free perks to pull ahead of everyone else, and he gets to play against all the other players in minigames (on the Gamepad), and almost always win. If that sounds like a complete nightmare to you, it is. It is also the single most fun mode in Mario Party 10. Wars can break out over who will play as Bowser next, as playing as any of the other players is entirely trivialized. Bowser Party may completely nullify the older dynamic of Mario Party, but in turn, it adds a new one, one that exploits and leverages the player dynamic to its advantage.

Elsewhere, Mario Party 10 does well for itself. The game looks stunning and gorgeous, utilizing the Super Mario 3D World engine to great effect. It sounds well, has little to no glitches, and on the whole has that trademark Nintendo polish. An omission exists which brings the package down, and that is the lack of online play. Whereas personally, I am of the mind that Mario Party should be played with other players in the same room, or not at all, I also understand that that is not always practical, and for a lot of players and families, online play can be a boon. Unfortunately, it is not even an option that is offered, leading to another instance of the kind of three steps forward, two steps back design mentality that characterizes the entire game.

Is Mario Party 10 a good game? If the definition of a good game is one that is well made, and achieves what it set out to do, the answer is unequivocally a yes. It’s stunningly well made, and offers hours upon hours of fun between its three game modes. However, issues exist, such as the central Mario Party mode being almost completely trivialized, Amiibo Party’s unnecessary overhead, thanks to its requirement of Amiibos, and the lack of an online mode. For many families, Mario Party 10 will be an essential addition, and is wholly recommended- for everyone else, hold on tight. Mario Party 10 is indicative of Nintendo getting the series back on track, but it’s not there yet. The next one should be a return to the glory days.

This game was reviewed on Wii U.

The NPD report for March 2015 is in, highlighting sales from the month before across various platforms. Nintendo’s games figured as a large part of that list and there were some significant stand-outs for the company as a whole.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D sold 184,000 units last month with a lifetime sales total of 730,000 units. Mario Party 10 has already sold 290,000 units while Mario Kart 8 has a lifetime sales total of 1.9 million units. However, perhaps the most successful franchise for Nintendo has been Super Smash Bros. It sold 110,000 units in March on the 3DS and notched up 2.4 million units in its lifetime for the handheld. Meanwhile, the Wii U version managed nearly 1.6 million units across its lifetime.

Keep in mind that these are sales figures across the United States and do not account for the significant success each game has seen in Japan. In other good news, hardware sales for the Wii U and 3DS saw a 60 percent increase in the past three months compared to the same period in 2014.

The latest Gfk Chart-Track data is available and it covers sales for all the major UK game releases of the past week, including EA’s Battlefield: Hardline. As if the success of the open beta wasn’t enough of an indicator, the cops vs. crooks themed first person shooter debuted as the number one title across all formats in the UK. It even succeed Battlefield 4 which only debuted at second place when it began its run in November 2013.

This isn’t to say it didn’t have some tough competition. Final Fantasy Type-0 HD took second place while Mario Party 10 debuted at sixth. Resident Evil: Revelations 2’s physical release arrived at seventh place.

Meanwhile, established titles like Grand Theft Auto 5 (3rd place), Dying Light (4th place) and FIFA 15 (5th place) continue to hang on in the top ten. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare saw a slight boost in sales but is only in eigth place followed Minecraft on Xbox and PlayStation. Halo: The Master Chief Collection also saw a strong rise in sales, moving up to thirteenth place thanks to a new Xbox One bundle.

(Source)

In 2014, Nintendo managed to even reverse the Wii U’s sales momentum a little– sales are up this year, compared to last year- and they managed to reverse the Wii U’s perception, at least among enthusiast gamers, from a standing joke to a highly desirable platform with the best library of exclusives on the market.

Their lineup for this year had a lot to do with all of this, sure, but a lot of it also had to do with their stellar E3 showing back in June, where they demonstrated that, unlike some other companies, just because their system was underperforming, they would not abandon it. Instead, they doubled down and showed off a slate of great upcoming games on the platform, that somehow looks even better than everything we already have.

In this list, we look at those upcoming games- there’s an amazing lineup of new Wii U games announced for 2015, and here, we will look at just which of these are the ones you should be looking forward to the most in the coming year.

Ready? Okay, here we go.

Project Guard/Project Giant Robot

Exactly what these games are, we’re not quite sure yet, which is a bit surprising, given that Nintendo is so insistent that they are coming next year. We actually don’t even know if they are two separate games yet- but given that Nintendo has always shown them off and referred to them together, we’re going to go ahead and assume that they’re both part of the same package.

Undoubtedly, these were the weakest part of Nintendo’s otherwise stellar E3 showing. We had been hearing a lot about the new mysterious project Miyamoto had been working on, and how it would utilize the Wii U Gamepad in innovative ways, but their E3 debut, at least, left a lot to be desired, and the games just ended up coming off looking rough and unpolished, and also unconvincing proof of concepts. The Treehouse stream, which you can see above, was a little better, as they started to look like some interesting and innovative takes on existing genres. Although right now, it may be easy to just dismiss them as unpolished tech demos, it would probably be unwise- from these rough tech demos, Miyamoto has wrought masterpieces before such as Pikmin, or crowd pleasers such as Wii Sports.

Whether or not Project Giant Robot/Project Guard end up in that same list of successes for him remains to be seen, but the man has earned our benefit of the doubt- if anyone can innovatively make a compelling case for the Wii U Gamepad, Miyamoto is it, so we’re going to watch just how this pet project of his turns out.