Mario Party

Mario Party
Developer: Hudson Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Nintendo 64 Released in JP: December 14, 1998 Released in US: February 8, 1999 Released in EU: March 9, 1999 Released in AU: March 9, 1999 This game has unused areas. This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has unused music. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has a notes page This game has a prerelease article

Mario Party is one of the first games that try to tie real-life friends into the world of video gaming. The success usually depended upon whether or not the game's owners had any real-life friends. It's spawned a large amount of sequels, released mainly on home consoles, but there have also been GBA, DS and e-Reader entries for the series.

Debug Menu

Use the Gameshark code 800F09F7 0083 for USA version, 800EFE57 0083 for Japan, and 800FD1E7 0084 for PAL. The game drops you right at the debug menu. (Disable it afterwards so you won't get stuck in here.) Note that the Donkey Kong render in the background is just a silhouette with a question mark in it, which may indicate the debug menu was created before Nintendo had obtained Rare's permission to use the Donkey Kong model.

This large list contains all of the game's mini-games, and then some. Selecting a mini-game with A goes to the character select screen. Press Left/Right to choose your character, A to confirm your character, and Start to start the mini-game. Also, pressing the R button changes the game mode.

Pressing Z on the game list opens the options menu, where you can set various player options.

Some special stuff is:

@MOTION CHECK (81)

This appears to be a test room. There is a large sunflower in the middle (from Coin Shower Flower), a slope at the top where you slide down, and a spinning thing that hurts everyone.

RANDOM PLAY (90)

This is a strange game mode. It works similar to the main game, but there is no board, instead random mini-games are played one after another. The tally screen displayed between the minigames doesn't otherwise appear anywhere within the game. It appears to use the same pictures that are used as the background in the debug menu, including the "missing" DK render. There are no explanation screens and no results screen. All kinds of games are selected; 4-player games, 2-vs-2 games, 1-vs-3 games and one-player games. The position of the players is determined at random, displayed on the screen using "MAIN" and "SUB".

The game seems to freeze whenever it selects one of the Bumper Ball Mazes as the mini-game.

64DD support

Mario Party supports the 64DD for a possible game add-on. While the US version displays a black screen when there's a 64DD attached to the system, the Japanese and European versions ACTUALLY recognize the 64DD (as there's technically only two region versions with both JP/EU and US) and checks for the disk. If it's the wrong disk, an error will appear in either Japanese, English, French, or German depending on the selected language.

Unused Mini-Games

There are a few mini-games in the code that are never actually used.

All or Nothing

This mini-game is called いちかばちか (All or Nothing) and the explanation screen appears to be for an early version of Chance Time. Instead of various symbols to transfer stuff between players, however, according to the unused advice text, the blocks featured Mario and Bowser marks, and you had to get the Mario mark to win the game. This mini-game was likely removed because it depended too much on luck. As can be expected, you are taken to the final version of Chance Time after leaving this screen.

Tour de Mario

Called ツールドマリオ (Tour de Mario) in the game, this appears to have been a cycling mini-game. The preview icon, strangely, is a black image with the text "Now Printing!" on it. There's also large Japanese text overlaid across the explanation screen that says "under construction." It likely was simply not finished in time.

Bungee Jump

In the ROM, one can find the string "Bungee Jump". However, the explanation screen of this mini-game cannot be triggered; the game freezes before it appears. It was most likely cut in the early stages of development.

Same Game

This mini-game is actually fully functional, and can be played through the use of a GameShark code. It is a 1-player game which works just like the actual Same Game. The tiles are underneath your character, and you ground-pound to remove sections. If you manage to clear all of the tiles, you can grab the treasure chest underneath; otherwise, you must go through one of the doors, which nets you a single coin. To play this game in the North American version, use the Gameshark code 800F09F7 0006.

An explanation screen doesn't exist for this mini-game, but a preview icon was created for it:

Yoshi's Tongue Meeting

This mini-game is partly functional, but obviously still incomplete. Characters sit atop a Yoshi on the left side (unless you are Yoshi, in which case you're just standing in the same pose without a rider), with a baby Wiggler on their tongues. The tongue extends to the Wiggler's mother and you have to unite them by pressing A at the right moment. Too soon, and they won't reunite, too late and the baby will kick its mom into the bush. The music and sounds are all broken in this mini-game, and there's debug text which shows whether or not you succeeded. Also, as with Same Game, no explanation screen exists. To play this game in the North American version, use the Gameshark code 800F09F7 0008.

Regional Differences

Region-Specific Unused Music

The track "Move to the Mambo" is used in the European and Japanese versions, but not in the American version. There are two mini-games which use the song, and their replacement songs are listed below.

Mini-game	Song used in US version
Balloon Burst	Faster Than All
Musical Mushrooms	Coins of the World

Sound Effects

Two of the characters' voice clips have been replaced in the American and European versions due to religious references. These replacements are maintained in all versions of Mario Party 2.

Luigi: Losing a Mini-Game

Japanese
International

Wario: Losing a Mini-Game

Japanese
International

Mini-Game Differences

In the Japanese version, the background that appears in the Face Lift mini-game reads "Super Koopa 64" while all other versions read "Super Bowser 64".

Japanese	International