The Wonderful World of Mario Party Mods

 It's time to talk about something that I've delved deep into over the last few years and even gotten a few articles published on: Mods!  There's a surprisingly large amount of them, whether it's on the internet or the Steam Workshop, and they come in so many varieties.  There's character mods, level mods, and depending on the game, even game mode mods. One type of these I recently discovered was Custom Mario Party boards, where folks create all new experiences in place of the standard boards.

When I discovered these only a month ago, I knew I had hit something great to talk about. There's a surprising variety of them for all three original N64 games in the series, and there's 2 ways to even get them in.  These can be made to work on the regular N64 hardware, but since this is a more technical and difficult, the easiest method to use is the Project64 Emulator.

But this article is less about that part, though the knowledge of how it all works was necessary. What I aim to talk about here is the sheer amount of fun boards that one can find, so that I could share the fun that I discovered with everyone.  The Mario Party Legacy Forum features downloads for these and today I aim to share some of them and what makes them great, so without any more delay, let's begin!

Rogueport



This is a pretty straightforward one to start us off with. This board sees Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door join the party by turning the main hub world into a brand new board in Mario Party 3.  Rogueport was one of the more interesting places to be in a Mario game, being far from a friendly place.  It's depicted as a seedy stopping off point, a place sailors frequent, and where money could be parted from its owner.  Turning it into a board for the party game is almost genius in that if sounds at first like it wouldn't work, but ends up making the case to work brilliantly, having a good theme, interesting event ideas, and giving Mario's rpg series a little more love.

TRG Land Direct



This board is a collaboration between a few people and was made for the YouTube group The Runaway Guys.  The board, made by The Jewker, Smashtoons, Kyon2570, and MasterTimeThief, was created for the recently ended Runaway Guys Colosseum 2021, which raised money for Direct Relief.  It was made available to the public recently, after the charity event managed to reach a big donation goal, and the board features many references and jokes related to the core group.  This is a great board for those looing for a challenge, because TheJewker specifically states in the description that they used the new board in order to mess more with players.  It's a board with many areas, and is quite a large board, but it's a charming one all the same and will provide some good laughs.

Grunty Tower



This map is a simple one, but a bit tricky too.  Players chase stars around the top of Gruntilda's Tower as seen in the final battle in Banjo-Kazooie.  The board tricks players into a sense of simplicity, seeming to be a simple circle around the area, but when the game starts, folks will find a few places where the board tricks them with what direction they go.  It's pretty small for a board in Mario Party but it's a fun little custom map and really should provide a good deal of fun for players.  In addition, seeing Mario characters interact in the world of Banjo the bear is always fun.

Sinistar



This board is a super interesting idea.  Similar to Grunty Tower, it takes the characters in Mario Party 3 and brings them to a map representing the old 80's arcade game Sinistar.  Being the author's first map, they admit it's rather simple with no banks, boos, or item shops, but the theming and the fact that this turns it into a straight competition for stars make it intriguing enough.  It's a board that twists and turns, while Sinistar himself looms in the background.  It almost seems as if players are collecting stars to ward off the evil monster, and that gives more fun to the simple board.

There's honestly a lot more I could mention or talk about here, but I think that's best saved for another article, as This was just meant to introduce the idea and give readers a taste of the kinds of custom mods they can see in Mario Party.  People are endlessly creative when it comes to making mods, and this series showcases some of the most creative out there.  I encourage anyone interested to look into these and see what interests them because there is simply so much to explore.

Thank you so much for reading, and I'll see you next time!



SweetSailorRosalina


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