So, you have to be a tad skeptical when yet another Disney title hops out the door. However, Disney's Party has the good fortunate of being developed by Hudson Soft -- the company famous for Mario Party. If anyone is capable of restoring a little magic to Disney's videogame kingdom, Hudson Soft is the company to turn to. Read on to learn if Hudson successfully spread some of Tinker Bell's fairy dust.
Features:
- Over 30 mini-games
- Eight differently themed worlds
- Four game modes: Game Board, Pairs, Mini-Game, Free Pass
- Play as the lovable stock Disney characters Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Daisy -- as well as Billy the Ghost
- 1-4 players
Gameplay
Hudson Soft has had a lot of experience developing party games, so it comes as no surprise that all your standard features make an appearance. This round, the party is taking place at the expense of moneybags Uncle Scrooge, who has stopped at no expense to build the ultimate amusement park. Wanting you to be the first to experience his revolution of fun, Scrooge has invited all his favorite people, Goofy, Donald, Daisy, Mickey, Minnie, and the random character Billy the Ghost, to explore his park through a convenient contest he's set up. Whoever manages to win will be granted a wish (like Mickey will get a kiss from Minnie).
Unable to resist Scrooge's prize, you and three other players (which can be any combination of human or computer controlled) have the option of embarking on a Game Board quest, Pairs, Mini-game, or Free Pass. Of course, the meat of Disney's Party is the mini-games, but the deepest mode is the Game Board.
Game Board and Pairs modes play identically, except that in Pairs -- you play in pairs. These modes play like a board game on your GameCube -- your characters move across a playing field according to a set of rules, and you win by succeeding at simple multiplayer games. The winning condition is that you score the decreed amount of "BINGOs."
Each character is given a card that is marked by rows of colored blocks (the colors are determined at random). You'll have to win game pieces that correspond to the colors on your game board to mark off blocks. The basic game requires you to only score once (which can be done by getting a row of five diagonally, horizontally, or vertically), but you can change the rules so that you have to any value of rows up to the entire game board.
There are 14 different spaces that your characters can move to. The basic types are item (where you gain an item for landing there), event (you either get or lose items), mini-games (compete for stars, which act as wild card pieces), and transportation (take you to a different island). Along your journey there will also be spaces that let you place a game piece on your game board -- you're only able to place one piece at a time, which can either aid you or hurt someone else. Each island also has an item shop where you can buy pieces and blocking items -- since each island is modeled after one character that character will get a discount in the store.
Moving about the world uses a rather odd system. A spinning wheel (the Wheel of Destiny), which resembles a pie chart, pops up on the screen. Then, all the available spaces (represented by different colors on the wheel) appear around it. You move your character on the space you want to go, and once everyone is set the pie chart adjust itself so that the space that more people want to go to will be given a larger representation. The wheel then spins, and the entire party must move to whatever space it stops on -- the players that guessed the correct colors will be awarded a bonus. This takes the adventuring out of your island adventure since you have little say in where your character moves to.
You'll continue moving about the theme park while occasionally playing mini-games or witnessing random events until someone meets the winning condition. Once someone wins, you'll still have a chance to redeem yourself in a final game if "you try your best." This final match has no bearing on who wins, but instead tries to end the game with no hurt feelings. Also, Scrooge will give awards for "best item collector," "best mini-game player," etc. Once the ceremony is over and the credits roll, you'll be awarded cards of the different characters (depending on the amount of points you earned) as a collectible.
Mini-Game mode cuts out all of the roving around a board found in the Game Board and Pairs modes, lettong you focus on what's fun -- the mini-games. You and three others compete in randomly selected mini-games to win stars. Whoever is able to collect the required number of stars first, wins. Free Pass gives you access to all of the mini-games you've unlocked (by playing them in one of the main modes).
The mini-games are a pretty diverse lot. One game has you rushing around pulling vegetables out of the ground while another sends you snowboarding down a hill collecting flags. Another game has you trying to match an animated image of a character with the motion his silhouette is making on a curtain. You'll be forced to run through a room searching under moving objects to find ghosts, or count the number of animals running across an open plain.
While there are over 30 different games, a lot of them are very similar to each other. They break down into racing through an area collecting flags, running around an area collecting stars, turnips, pearls, crystals or whatever and stealing them from your opponents, and pressing displayed button combinations. While there's the occasional game that varies from this stock, like the excitement of counting or matching pictures, after only a short time it feels like you've played everything there is, even if you haven't seen all 30 games.
The other big problem, as with most party games, is that there is no reason to play the single player mode. It just isn't fun. There's no skill involved in moving about the board and there's no challenge (or fun) in competing with the computer controlled characters.
If you have friends willing to play Disney's Party, it can be entertaining for a short period of time -- but the mini-games get old and since the Game Board lacks the adventure-like mode of Mario Party. Disney's Party feels and plays like a kid's version of Mario Party, and since Mario Party is already accessible to all ages, Disney's version is far from captivating.
Graphics
Disney's Party manages to stay true to its Disney roots. Environments, if not heavily detailed, could all fit into a Disney animation (many items on the islands are ripped straight out of Disney shorts). The characters stay true to their nature and display they're typical animations of both disappointment and joy.
While Hudson managed to stay true to the Disney image in their graphical representation, there also isn't anything overly impressive in the presentation, especially since everything has a blocky look to it and resmebles a simpler version of Mario Party.
Sound
While you do hear some Disney inspired orchestral pieces looping in the background -- the musical score remains in the background. You won't be trudging through Game Board mode bobbing your head to nostalgic renditions of Disney sing-a-longs. The songs are pleasant enough -- they just fail to be emphasized.
What is on the forefront -- and gratingly so-- is dialogue from the characters. These sound-alikes sound like their portrayals of their counterparts are forced. Definitely not the best impressions around. The chosen phrases are too few and repeated too often. There's nothing like listening to the music and then hearing "Isn't this fun?" ringing in your ears or Mickey's famous "Yippee!"
Hudson's intention of bringing the Disney characters is well founded, but after hearing the same, not so clever phrases, at least 20 times during the shortest game possible, you're more inclined to turn off the sound than revel in the wonder of voice acting.