Mario Party: Island Tour Critic Reviews

A fantastic addition for the 3DS. The graphics are crisp and utilize 3D well, while the music fits each game and board without becoming monotonous. Every mode and board is easy to pick up and play with anyone, anytime.. Island Tour is a perfect balance of old and new that keeps the game fresh with playing styles to meet every need.

Simplistic and easy to pick up, the pure fun that results make this a great game for people of all ages and gamers of all skill levels.

Mario Party: Island Tour has lost a little of the magic that seemed to be in the first releases of the game way back on the Nintendo 64.

This is a solid rendition of the well known formula, catered to the needs of the handheld generation, but without an online mode the fun is limited.

It's not a perfect party by any means, but some good design considerations, better-than-average variety, and always-enjoyable Mario thematics put Mario Party: Island Tour a few notches above your average video game bash-in-a-box.

You might add a little to the score if you’ve got friends who are frequently ready and willing to play, but Mario Party: Island Tour ultimately feels par for the series’ course. It’s still good, but is mostly hurt by a higher barrier to entry for multiplayer, a lack of continuing the push towards truly "Mario" feeling mini-games, and the series’ ever-present dominance of luck over skill.

It was nice to have a brief but satisfying match while out and about.

The simplified objective makes for a more fun experience, and I wish they made more Mario Party games on the console in this style. That being said, it still is just Mario Party for a handheld console. Don't expect anything more than that.

Island Tour is not a step forward for the franchise, but also backward. NdCUBE chose to capitalize on its experience and create funny games for the crowd. Despite a truly forgettable single player campaign, multiplayer still manages to give some chills.

Don't get me wrong; Island Tour's not particularly bad in any way; it's really not, but… unless you're hankering for a pretend board game and know a bunch of people who'll be keen for regular sessions, it's hard to imagine this being one of those purchases you'll look back on and think "that was the right decision."

A new entry in the Mario Party saga designed exclusively for 3DS. Fun to play with friends, but the solo mode is quite tedious.

We were expecting something big, something everyone would like but Mario Party: Island Tour has shot wide. Once again, we have a Nintendo game that is really lacking innovation. We can go further and say that the spirit of the series seems to evaporate even if the minigames are still fun enough... One more thing: forget about online modes is almost a crime for this kind of title in 2014.

Nintendo is a master at finding a specific target audience and offer them exactly what they want, sometimes even with a little less quality than usual. Mario Party: Island Tour does just that, speaking to the more casual audience among the owners of Nintendo 3DS.

A decent Mario Party game, nicely adapted for portable gaming, but not very well balanced and with a poorly executed single player mode.

Mario Party: Island Tour will provide you and a bunch of mates with a great evening of laughs, but most of the time you'll be laughing AT it rather than with it.

There is still plenty of fun to be had when taking on some of the more successful mini games with a group of friends locally, but the game as a whole does come across as more of a re-tread of something we have played time and time again.

Those seeking a long-lasting single-player experience may want to steer clear though, as there isn't enough depth to the solo-focused modes to keep you engaged for very long.

Ditching the lengthy matches of Mario Party's past in favor of shorter options makes sense, and it makes for more manageable experiences. But it's still saddening that the longest game of Island Tour that you'll ever play should wrap up in under an hour.

Board game enthusiasts will find themselves bored quickly, the average player will only break it out when there are friends around—which is the point, and I guess with friends the skill-based games aren’t too bad—and Party aficionados will be able to scratch that virtual itch.

Mario Party: Island Tour is a pretty decent new addition to the series... if you have friends to play with. Despite the engaging Bowser’s Tower mode, the single-player campaign will soon run out of ideas.