It's finally time to begin discussing the mini-games in Mario Party 4, and I already know those of you who are fans of Mario Party 4 have been waiting with baited breath for me to talk about these because they're such a huge part of the game. And indeed, if there is anything to praise Mario Party 4 for, it's the minigames!

Full disclosure, these minigame posts have been some of the most infamously long posts I've had to make, so I'm gonna try a slightly different approach that I hope works out better in the end.

Also, unfortunately I had just spent a few hours making sizable progress on this post only to accidentally close the fucking app and having to start over from scratch. So I apologize if any of this post seems a little rushed.

Mini-games

Mario Party 4 features a total of 60 minigames, the first time in the series a new game has had fewer minigames than its predecessor. Of these, there are...

16 4-Player,

9 1v3,

9 2v2,

6 Battle,

3 Bowser,

5 Story,

3 "etc.",

and 9 Extra Minigames.

I've already covered the etc. Minigames between Story Mode and Bowser's Gnarly Party as they're not relevant to the rest of the game, and I've covered the Extra games in more detail in the Extra Room posts. I'll still be grouping them in.

In addition, though they're definitely more in line with board events than actual minigames, an argument can be made that the Mini-Minigames on each board could count as minigames too. Each of the 5 boards features a coin and item mini-minigame which technically boosts this game up to having 70 minigames if you include them. Still technically less than MP3 and the Story, Etc., and Extra Minigames are doing a lot of heavy lifting. I will not be including the Mini-minigames among the minigames.

Before we get into the minigames, though, I want to acknowledge that this is the first Mario Party game on a new console, and as a result, there are new control mechanisms in place that weren't possible, or at least reasonable, on the N64. Most significantly, the GameCube's L and R triggers receive analogue inputs. Button mashers involving L and R are consequently a bit more involved than usual button mashers. They might require you to press the full button from a neutral position, or they might only care about the "click". This can and will affect your pace and timing for Button Mashing and Rhythm games, and could potentially be used to influence Precision games, too.

Likewise, Rumble is also a new feature of the GameCube controller. Technically the N64 had a Rumble Pak accessory, but it was an external peripheral and would get in the way of the convenience of playing the game with a group of friends. Rumble tends to be used for Reaction games, where now instead of watching for a visual cue, you're waiting for a signal felt in your hands. Rumble is also commonly used for Precision games where the controller might rumble more as you approach something, or Memory games where you might havw to remember a certain pattern of rumbling to match it to other patterns. Rumble can be turned off in the settings, in which case a visual cue will be displayed instead, but this is more of an accessibility option for players who genuinely cannot feel the rumble and erases a layer of these games. I genuinely recommend playing with rumble on wherever you can to get the most authentic experience.

The GameCube controller has a C-Stick instead of C Buttons, but much like how past games didn't use the C-Buttons in their minigames, this game doesn't really use the C-Stick. Though future GameCube Mario Partu games will use the C-Stick often to control a second moving part complimentary to the control stick for Precision, Reaction, and Precision games. However, this doesn't affect much here since the C-Stick isn't used.

Finally, the new controller layout allows for all games easy access to two extra face buttons, Y and X, as well as the Z and L buttons both being accessible together. Many games utilize these new possibilities for reaction, rhythm, and button mashing games, as well as more complex controls for action and strategy games.

4-Player Minigames

25% Luck: 4/16

19% Memory: 3/16

31% Button Mashing: 5/16

31% Rhythm: 5/16

44% Reaction: 7/16

56% Precision: 9/16

38% Action: 6/16

44% Strategy: 7/16

0% Coordination: 0/16

Manta Rings: Button Mashing, Precision, Action

Slime Time: Button Mashing,

Booksquirm: Luck, Reaction, Precision, Action, Strategy

Mario Medley: Rhythm, Strategy

Avalanche!: Button Mashing, Precision, Action

Domination: Button Mashing

Paratrooper Plunge: Precision, Action

Toad's Quick Draw: Luck, Memory, Reaction, Precision, Strategy

Three Throw: Rhythm, Reaction, Precision, Strategy

Photo Finish: Memory, Reaction, Precision

Mr. Blizzard's Brigade: Reaction, Action

Bob-omb Breakers: Luck, Reaction, Precision, Action, Strategy

Long Claw of the Law: Luck, Memory, Reaction, Strategy

Stamp Out: Rhythm, Precision, Strategy

Mario Speedwagons: Rhythm

Take a Breather: Button Mashing, Rhythm

Due to my odd experience of unlocking the present tied to Take a Breather with a fluke and never being able to come close to matching it, I'm not certain if I should count it as a Button Masher or Rhythm game. I have no idea which strategy is more optimal, so I'm counting it as both.

There is a very healthy mix of minigames here, though you'll likely notice the majority of Button Mashers are all in this one category, and it's a little baffling because Slime Time and Domination are basically functionally identical minigames. I really feel like one of these should've been a Battle minigame.

Anyway, my favorite 4P minigame is definitely Booksquirm. It's even a solid contender for my favorite Mario Party minigame of all time! The game shares many of my favorite qualities of Hot Rope Jump. When you're playing against somebody who matches your skill level, it gets incredibly tense as the pages start to flip so fast you struggle to keep up. The game ifself is incredibly intuitive, yet there are many layers of depth to optimizing your gameplay. Of course, you can look at the holes in the next page to get a head start on the next safe spot. But you can also look through said holes to determine whether or not there's another hole behind them, and use that knowledge to quickly identify the next hole. You can also start running into the edge of a hole as soon as it reaches the point you can no longer run under it and get squished, a high risk strategy that is outright required as the pages turn faster and faster. And the luck component is just significant enough to where bitter rivalries will form over this one game. It's no wonder Booksquirm is commonly cited as a favorite among the community.

I want to give an honorable mention to Mr. Blizzard's Brigade, too. This is just such a fun, chaotic mess of a game with a lot of risky strategies that can exchange a little luck for an advantage in better chances at evading. Obviously, you get more time to react if you're on the opposite side of the lake to the Blizzard that's about to throw a snowball, but going too far to the opposite edge means you're in a bad spot to dodge the Blizzards closer to you if they get ready to throw. Nowhere on the lake feels safe, making this game delightfully intense.

As for the worst 4P minigame, I genuinely don't think there are any bad ones at all here. My leats favorite I'd have to say is Bob-Omb Breakers. I just personally really suck at Puzzle games and it's so frustrating to set up a big combo only for some asshole to get the piece you needed to set it off first and steal all of your points. It's just a skill issue at the end of the day, though. The fact that you can steal your opponent's combos rather than just jamming them is a very interesting twist on a puzzle game.

1v3 Minigames

22% Luck: 2/9

0% Memory: 0/9

0% Button Mashing: 0/9

11% Rhythm: 1/9

44% Reaction: 4/9

44% Precision: 4/9

33% Action: 3/9

67% Strategy: 6/9

78% Coordination: 7/9

Candlelight Fright: Action, Coordination

Makin' Waves: Reaction, Precision, Strategy, Coordination

Hide and Go BOOM!: Luck, Strategy, Coordination

Tree Stomp: Action, Strategy, Coordination

Fish n' Drips: Reaction, Coordination

Hop or Pop: Rhythm, Action

Money Belts: Luck, Reaction, Precision, Strategy, Coordination

GOOOOOOOAL!!: Reaction, Precision, Strategy, Coordination

Blame it on the Crane: Precision, Strategy

It might be a bit of a surprise to hear, but it's actually impressive how many 1v3 minigames are actually coordination games. But to qualify as a coordination game, an individual player typically cannot hard carry their entire team. The most skilled player on the team will have to slow down to the level of their teammates and support in any way they can. Many of these games are almost impossible for the team to win without coordinating their efforts. It's very difficult to coordinate on the spot, especially when it's often in someone's best interest to throw the game so their teammates don't win any coins. When somebody is actively sabotaging, these Coordination games can become next to impossible for the team fo win. Depending on who you ask, that might be a good thing or a bad thing. If you ask me, throwing a minigame is just as valid a strategy as trying to win them.

This creates an interesting balancing factor for 1v3s where it becomes really hard for the Solo player to win if the team is in synch. But the team is typically only as skilled as its weakest link. But it's not always bad to be the solo player. Games like Fish n' Drips and Money Belts are heavily weighted toward the solo player. It takes an exceptionallu skilled team, or an exceptionally weak solo player for the team to come out on top in these games. If you ask me, this is the best way to handle a 1v3 game. It's almost impossible to make a well balanced asymmetrical game. Leaning into that advantage and requiring the team to work together to achieve an easy win. Is the best way to go about it.

That said, I can't say I'm the biggest fan of this game's 1v3's. Not to say that they're bad, but none of them really stood out to me.

My favorite 1v3 game would probably have to be Tree Stomp. The mechs are so huge that you have to rely on some degree of trickery to catch the solo player off guard. It can be difficult to coordinate with your teammates, especially if they're just blindly closing in on them. But getting into the solo player's head to try and figure out where they're gonna try to escape to is the best way to manage it.

My least favorite 1v3 is probably Money Belts. Don't get me wrong, this game is a blast if you're the solo player. It's just like Coin Flower Shower! You get it all and the team gets the crumbs. So you can imagine how this 30 seconds of nothing feels on the team's side.

2v2 Minigames

22% Luck: 2/9

33% Memory: 3/9

22% Button Mashing: 2/9

33% Rhythm: 3/9

33% Reaction: 3/9

56% Precision: 5/9

11% Action: 1/9

33% Strategy: 3/9

100% Coordination: 9/9

The Great Deflate: Rhythm, Coordination

Revers-a-bomb: Rhythm, Reaction, Action, Strategy, Coordination

Right Oar Left?: Button Mashing, Precision, Coordination

Cliffhangers: Reaction, Precision, Coordination

Team Treasure Trek: Memory, Precision, Coordination

Pair-a-Sailing: Reaction, Coordination

Order Up: Memory, Coordination

Dungeon Duos: Luck, Memory, Button Mashing, Rhythm, Precision, Strategy, Coordination

Cheep Cheep Sweep: Luck, Precision, Strategy, Coordination

It's pretty typical that every 2v2 game. It's much easier to sabotage when you only have one teammate to mess with. Dungeon Duos in paericular has many different components due to being a gauntlet of various challenges. Button mashing to open doors and rotate platforms, precision to jump across said platforms, luck and memory in trying to find the correct warp pipe to advance through the pipe maze, and rhythm to pump up the air balloon.

Dungeon Duos is my favorite 2v2 game and it's probably not exactly a hot take. It tests so many different skills that even exceptionally skilled players probably have one or two sections they're not playing perfectly, adding in the luck component in the pipe maze and there's a very realistic chance a less skilled player can win at this game.

Revers-a-bomb is a solid honorable mention though. If you can get in sync with your teammate, your opponents won't stand a chance.

My least favorite 2v2 is easily, EASILY Cheep Cheep Sweep. This minite-long slog of a minigame just kept coming up every other 2v2 I swear. And this game just SUCKS. You have to move very slowly to avoid scaring the cheep cheeps away, or work with your teammate to scare a cheep cheep right into their net. Of course, you could just as easily scare them into your opponents' net, too. On paper, this sounds like a really interesting chicken game where you have to move slow enough so as not to scare the cheep cheeps, but faster than your opppnents so as to catch more than them. But in practice, you move so slowly and the minute long timer feels like so much time dedicated to a single minigame in which so little is happening. This one just feels like it never ends.

Battle Minigames

50% Luck: 3/6

0% Memory: 0/6

0% Button Mashing: 0/6

0% Rhythm: 0/6

33% Reaction: 2/6

67% Precision: 4/6

0% Action: 0/6

17% Strategy: 1/6

0% Coordination: 0/6

Trace Race: Precision

Chain Chomp Fever: Luck, Reaction, Precision, Strategy

Paths of Peril: Luck, Precision

Bowser's Bigger Blast: Luck

Butterfly Blitz: Precision

Rumble Fishing: Reaction

The most important thing to note about Battle Games in this game: They aren't even close to random. The player who lands on the Battle Space gets to choose from two presented options, theoretically giving them an edge in the game as they'll naturally choose whichever option they think gives them the better chances. This changes the significance of Bowser's Big Blast from random chaos everyone is subjected to to being a strategic option that only comes up when someone just wants to make sure the most skilled player doesn't win.

This choice system is such a good idea, but when there's so little variance in the kinds of skills these games test... it kind of comes off as an illusion of choice, doesn't it? Why aren't there any button mashers or memory games? No Action games where you're actively trying to battle other players? No games with more explicit Strategy involved? So many games in other categories could've benefitted from being Battle games but just aren't.

My favorite Battle Minigame is Bowser's Bigger Blast. I'm consistently leaving reminders that I'm a defender of luck games, but this is the probably the most interesting implementation of one for the reasons I've noted above. That said, I certainly avoid this game like the plague. But that's all the more reason to love it!

My least favorite Battle Game is Butterfly Blitz. There aren't any particularly bad Battle games, and I have no problem winning at this game, at least against the AI, but it's just a pretty frustrating experience. I don't know what it is, but something about the perspective makes it really difficult to catch the butterflies. I swear my net passes right through them half the time.

Bowser Minigames

100% Luck: 3/3

33% Memory: 1/3

0% Button Mashing: 0/3

0% Rhythm: 0/3

33% Reaction: 1/3

0% Precision: 0/3

0% Action: 0/3

33% Strategy: 1/3

0% Coordination: 0/3

Darts of Doom: Luck, Reaction

Fruits of Doom: Luck, Memory, Strategy

Balloon of Doom: Luck

Bowser Games are a brand new category introduced in this game. You could have absolutely nothing at stake or your entire gamestate depending on what the cards have in store for you. These games are designed to be highly stressful, but sometimes the risk isn't even present. These games are also incredibly rare. Bowser has to appear either instead of or following up after Koopa Kid, and then he has to decide to do a Bowser Mini-Game instead of a Bowser Suit Giveaway or Bowser Revolution. And to get a specific game after this, it's yet another random chance after that. After a 50 turn game on every board, and story mode's 15 turn games on every board, I'd only naturally played Darts of Doom and Balloon of Doom. It took a long afternoon of brute forcing the RNG using save states and proceeding frame by frame to finally get Fruits of Doom. I wanna tell this story, but it'll probably have to wait for my final post as I discuss the experience of completing the game.

All Bowser games have a Luck component, to varying degrees. Fruits of Doom is definitely the least so, but the list of fruits scrolls so fast you'll obviously run out of fruit you're confident in remembering after a few rounds. Leaving it up to blind chance is a recipe for disaster, but you can still use some logic to figure out what's most likely to be safe.

Consequently, Fruits of Doom is my favorite Bowser Minigame. The mind games and mental gymnastics you'll find yourself doing once you've exhausted your list of safe choices give this game so much unique tension. Coupled with Bowser's fake-outs that leave you biting your nails when you pick a fruit you're not certain of makes it especially memorable.

Darts of Doom is my least favorite. It is more skill based than Balloon of Doom, but something about that kind of makes this game worse in my opinion. The reticles dart around so quickly as to give you an illusion of strategy or timing, but I find they move around far too quickly to actually make educated decisions on. It's much more important to make sure all three darts don't hit the bull's eye resulting in an instant loss. If that's the only thing you're focusing on, though, you're leaving it entirely up to chance whether or not you end up with the lowest score. But focusing too much on your score will cause you to focus too much on a single reticle's position and increasing your chances of either missing the board or hitting the bull's eye. If you fuck up trying to do somwthing, in my opinion, it feels so much worse than just losing to pure RNG. This game feels specifically engineered to troll you and make you feel like you just suck at a skill based game.

"etc." Minigames

33% Luck: 1/3

0% Memory: 0/3

0% Button Mashing: 0/3

33% Rhythm: 1/3

0% Reaction: 0/3

33% Precision: 1/3

33% Action: 1/3

33% Strategy: 1/3

0% Coordination: 0/3

Bowser Wrestling: Rhythm, Strategy

Panels of Doom: Luck

The Final Battle!: Precision, Action

I've already covered these games in their respective posts, so there's no need to goninto too much detail.

The only reason I'm going by the official designation "etc." instead of my proposed name "Mega Minigames" is because of how these minigames are sorted in-game. But I highly disagree with putting The Final Battle! here. It should definitely be grouped with the Story Minigames or in its own category.

Anyway, the first two games in this category are duels against Bowser on Bowser's Gnarly Party, achieved by passing him using a Mega Mushroom for a chance to bypass his penalty.

These aren't really a category of minigames so much as a collection of miscellaneous ones... separate from the Extra Minigames. But I suppose my favorite of these has to be the Final Battle while my least favorite is Panels of Doom.

Story Minigames

60% Luck: 3/5

0% Memory: 0/5

0% Button Mashing: 0/5

0% Rhythm: 0/5

40% Reaction: 2/5

40% Precision: 2/5

0% Action: 0/5

40% Strategy: 2/5

0% Coordination: 0/5

Bowser Bop: Luck, Reaction, Precision, Strategy

Archaeologuess: Reaction

Goomba's Chip Flip: Luck

Mystic Match 'Em: Luck, Strategy

Kareening Koopas: Precision

Once again, I've already covered these games in the Story Mode post so check that out if you want more.

Since these minigames only appear in Story Mode as arbitrary roadblocks with no penalty for failure besides having to try again, there's really no tension with these minigames at all. Goomba's Chip Flip gives the illusion that it's a memory game, but I'm not certain you can actually follow the tokens as they're shuffled. If you can, it's incredibly difficult to follow more than one, maybe two. As far as I'm aware, this game is just luck. Mystic Match 'Em is also more or less just luck with a slight hint of strategy since you have to decide whether or not it's worth keeping the cards in your hand.

It's a bit disappointing there isn't a wider variety of minigames here, but I suppose something like a Button Mashing game here might be a recipe for disaster.

My favorite story minigame would probably have to be Kareening Koopas. None of these games are exceptionally great or anything, but sliding the Koopas into the holes can be pretty satisfying to do as fast as possible.

My least favorite is Mystic Match 'Em. It was the only game here that took me more than one attempt to win. But the reasoning is little more than the heavy reliance on luck. You can minimize the luck by strategizing which cards to go for and guessing what cards your opponent is collecting, but there's not mucu to go on with that sort of thing.

Extra Minigames

56% Luck: 5/9

22% Memory: 2/9

0% Button Mashing: 0/9

0% Rhythm: 0/9

67% Reaction: 6/9

56% Precision: 5/9

33% Action: 3/9

44% Strategy: 4/9

11% Coordination: 1/9

Challenge Booksquirm: Luck, Reaction, Precision, Action, Strategy

Panel Panic: Luck

Jigsaw Jitters: Memory, Reaction, Precision

Barrel Baron: Luck, Reaction, Strategy

Mushroom Medic: Memory

Doors of Doom: Luck

Bob-omb X-ing: Reaction, Precision, Strategy

Goomba Stomp: Luck, Reaction, Precision, Action

Beach Volley Folly: Reaction, Precision, Action, Strategy, Coordination

I already covered the Extra Minigames in their own posts, just like the others, check out the Extra Room posts for more information.

There's really not much I can say about this mode.

Beach Volley Folly is an obvious standout to the point where it's kind of unfair to call it my favorite of these. It's the obvious choice due to just how much depth there is, it's basically its own entire game mode.

If I had to choose a favorite ignoring Beach Volley Folly, well... it's still not a fair competition. I just said Booksquirm is arguably my favorite minigame in the whole series and you're gonna give me an endless version of it? Where do I sign??

As for my least favorite, it's plain as day. I'm sorry, but as much as I try to defend anything and everything, Doors of Doom is just plain stupid. It got even worse after a commenter pointed out that the result is predetermined regardless of the door you choose, not that it matters because it's just a 50/50 chance either way anyway. There never was any strategy to such a choice in the first place. Getting the highest ranking is literally just bashing your head against it until you fluke through. It's disgusting.

Cut Content

It's been a little bit since I've covered some cut content. But this game actually has some remnants of unfinished minigames in its data. We don't get even close to as much info on these as the cut minigames from Mario Party 1 or 2, but they still exist. You can get more info on them on The Cutting Room Floor.

Some of these minigames are just the kinds of debut items you might expect to see. I don't find much interesting there. Two minigame files in particular, though, appear to have been actual scrapped minigames.

The first of these is a strange stand housing a dollhouse-like model of a tree. The stand says "4-Player Game" on it, suggesting this may have been a major minigame with multiple options to choose from, but it looks like only the 4-player variant was unlocked. There is also a forest scene which looks like it would've been the stage for the minigame. It's hard to envision what this game would've been with so little to go on. Maybe you'd have to jump around to stomp on Goombas roaming the forest? Collect Mushrooms? Your guess is as good as mine.

The other minigame is much more interesting to talk about, though. It looks like a minigame where you would've stood on a round platform balancing on top of a globe while a monitor overhead warns you of incoming hazards. The leftover graphics for this monitor suggest to me that Tweester likely would've been ramming into the platform from various directions, causing the platform to tilt.

The more interesting thing about this game is that it would've been the first appearance of Tweester in Mario Party, predating his appearance in Mario Party 5. It seems like there are some Paper Mario fans among the Mario Party team!

Conclusion

It's all too clear why people commonly say this game has the best selection of minigames. Though it unfortunately also features one of the smallest. 60 minigames already isn't a lot, and 20 of those are hidden away in side modes or incredibly niche circumstances. In regular party mode, you're really only looking at a total of 40 minigames you're interacting with on the regular. Even the largest selection, 4-Player minigames, there are only 16. Even Mario Party 1 had 24. It's a shame this game couldn't have simply lifted some more long-time favorites like Platform Peril and Hot Rope Jump to pad out the minigame list a bit more. But again, it's obvious this game had to have been rushed.

But even though I did find myself running into a lot of repeats, this game could certainly be worse for it. With the boards being so consistently rough, the minigames need to do a lot of carrying and, well, I think they do. There are some stinkers, as there are in any Mario Party game, but very few minigames do I actively dislike. And of those, I can't really say anything bad about their design. They're just games I have personal skill issues with. I think I can honestly say Cheep Cheep Sweep is the only game you'll come across regularly enough to get frustrated with that I genuinely just don't like. And that's saying a lot because even my favorite games I've covered so far have had some really low lows and nothing in this game comes close to comparing to The Beat Goes On. While I wish there was more variety, I don't think I can turn my nose up at a selection of games so consistently good that repeats hardly matter.

Well, I think that about wraps up my thoughts on Mario Party 4's minigames. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on the presentation of the minigames here. I think this approach is a lot pess redundant and is easier to work with. But I have a few more ideas that might convey more information about each minigame.

Next time should be my final update in Mario Party 4 itself where we'll go over the overall aesthetic and presentation of the game. See you soon! 🎁

(Credit to Yoshi Party on YouTube for the screenshot of Battle Mode and Jobexi for the screenshot of the other menus except for the Custom List screenshot which I got from another post on here by u/LuxerWrap and the screenshot of the Play submenu listing the gameplay modes which came from Super Mario Wiki)

Mini-game Modes in Mario Party have always been pretty cut and dry. The main draw is usually the Free Play mode where you come to practice both your favorite minigames so you never suffer the humiliation of losing at them, as well as the games you suck at so you can... stop suffering the humiliation of losing at them. Mario Party w themed its Minigames as their own park in the greater theme park setting, with each mode being a different attraction within the park. Mario Party 3 depicted it as a small library with side modes tucked away behind doors.

This game divides the side modes into two separate modes. The Extra Room covers all the weird side minigames themselves, while Goomba hosts the Minigame Mode, which is where you'll find a more traditional Minigame centric experience. There's not much in the way of theatrics here like in the Extra Room unfortunately. Frankly, I'm not sure why these two modes couldn't have been combined to give it a bit more personality. As it stands, the Minigame Room is unapologetically just a series of menus that are very similar to the setup screens in other modes. It's a bit disappointing, but let's not pretend this mode really needs to be anything more. What it lacks in presentation, it definitely makes up for with some interesting ideas... though sadly it seems Mini-Game Island-esque modes are a thing of the past at this point.

When you first enter Minigame Mode, you can choose between a selection of options. Besides Play, you can view your records and a list of all the minigames and see how many you're missing and whether they belong to the Easy Set or... a Custom Set.

Custom

I've mentioned the Custom Set before as an option you can use to give yourself an advantage in Story Mode. This mode allows you to go down the very same list of all Minigames you've played before and select the ones you want. There are minimum requirements to ensure the game's mechanics all work. For example, you need at least three Battle Games. All Bowser and etc. minigames are also automatically included. And obviously all Mini-Minigames are also baked into the boards themselves rather than on the minigame list, so you won't be choosing between those. But as long as you follow the guidelines, you can include as many or as few minigames as you like.

You might use this to turn off all the luck games, or all the button mashers. Or, maybe you want to play exclusively those types of games. Maybe you wanna turn off the games you hate to see or include only the games you consistently win at if you're a coward. Whatever you want to use it for, thr Custom List gives you a shocking amount of freedom for how you want to play.

Once you have your Custom List just the way you want it, simply save it and the Custom List will be added to the Minigame Category options when you go to set up your next game where only the games you selected for the Custom List will have a chance to appear. And the game doesn't even shy away from letting you use it in Story Mode which really surprised me! You might want to use this to your advantage to unlock Expert Difficulty.

Personally though, while I love the idea of the Custom List, I don't like to use it in practice. Mario Party games tend to have a problem with redundant minigames you just keep seeing over and over, and removing minigames from the list only accentuates that problem even more. Before you know it, you'll grow tired of the very minigames you said you wanted, and that'll end up souring your experience across the board.

Play

Obviously, the main bulk of your attention in Minigame Mode is to, well, play Minigames. There isn't too much new in this department. The first option is Free Play where you can play any minigame you want. The second minigame is... Team Play where you can play any... 2v2 minigame you want... Huh? Okay, technically this game splits the players up into teams just like Team Mode in Party Mode, but there's literally no reason you can't just do this manually in Free Play Mode, which gives you the freedom to play any game rather than just 2v2. This game mode doesn't even keep track of score or anything. I'm starting to think the devs just added "different" modes in bad faith just to make it look like there's more content here than there actually is.

No, besides Free Play there are really just two alternate game modes to choose from.

Battle Mode

It's been called the Minigame Arena. It's been Called the Battle Room. Now, it's Battle Mode. Yes, this is the same old same old "first to x wins" game mode we've had since Mario Party 1. Choose a Minigame category: 4P, 1v3, 2v2, or Battle; the number of wins: 3, 5, or 7; and then play random minigames nonstop until someone runs away with the prize.

It's nothing special, but it's tried and true. If you just want to get some minigame action and don't wanna worry about all that pesky dice rolling, hop right in over here to test your skills with your friends. But if you ask me, it's just not Mario Party if you're not occasionally getting screwed over by bad rolls.

Tic-Tac-Toe Mode

Besides the Custom Set, this is really the only original idea this game offers. And to be fair, I think it's a cute creative idea that adds more tension to winning individual minigames.

You can probably go ahead and guess what Tic-Tac-Toe mode is just by the name. Players are divided into teams of 2 and must compete to win a game of Tic-Tac-Toe. But Tic-Tac-Toe is an infamously solved game that always ends in a tie. The solution here is minigames, of course. At the start of each round, both teams select a space to place their tile on. Then, you play a 2v2 minigame. The winnee gets to claim their chosen space. Rinse and repeat until somebody gets 3 in a row or the game ends in a draw.

It's a cute idea for a mode, but it comes with the drawback that it only uses 2v2 minigames. I feel like this mode could've been a lot more interesting with a little more thought. Maybe have all four players play at once in a free for all. If one player is about to claim 3 in a row, it's a 1v3 against all other players. Maybe occasional Battle Games can allow stealing spaces. Maybe the game isn't won by getting 3-in-a-row but by a certain number of rounds and you get points based on how many lines you have on the final turn. Just an idea.

Conclusion

Minigame Mode is admittedly pretty disappointing here. Each game in the past has had something unique and interesting to poke around in their Minigame Modes. But this one is both lacking in presentation and content. Tic-Tac-Toe mode is a cute novelty, but it's still nothing more visually than a 2D non-diagenic graphic and doesn't hold a candle to Game Guy's Room. This mode also suffers from being upstaged quite a lot by the Extra Room. Had the Extra Room been added as a sub menu here, I think it would've added a lot more personality and made this Minigame Mode a lot more memorable.

The Custom List is easily the most exciting feature here. And while I personally lack excitement over using it, I can definitely acknowledge it's a really cool feature that really feels like it should be in every Mario Party... which makes me wonder why it's not. I suppose the devs thought it was too overpowered to let the player exclude any minigame(s) they wanted and that it messed with game balance too much, but... I don't know... let people play how they want? Is it really a problem that Little Timmy just wants to play coin games where everyone wins? That's another tangent, I suppose. More relevant when we get to this topic in Mario Party 5. But the most unfortunate thing about Mario Party 4 being the only game with a Custom List is... this is probably the Mario Party game that needs it the least. I've shat on this game quite a lot during my coverage of it, but I genuinely think Mario Party 4 has the most consistently good lineup of minigames of all the games so far.

We'll have to see if that claim holds up to scrutiny, but I definitely recall only a small handful of minigames actually getting on my nerves. But next time, we'll start taking a look at the Minigames themselves which is definitely where the peak of my praise for this game will he coming from. Look forward to it! I'll see you soon! 🎊

Throughout my coverage of Story Mode and the Extra Room, I've alluded to the Present Room a few times. There really isn't much to say about this mode and I was debating with myself whether it's even worth its own post or if I should just lump it in with the final runthrough. However, I thought this area is a bit more interesting than just a typical menu, so I figured it was worth a brief spotlight.

The Present Room is hosted by Shy Guy, and it's basically an achievement room. By accomplishing various feats throughout the game, you'll unceremoniously unlock new presents throughout the game! Similar to Mt. Mariomore in Mario Party 3, this is meant to be an incentive to keep you coming back to this game long-term. In practice, though... who wants to play Mario Party over and over against AI as all the characters they don't like?

Naturally, just like Mario Party 3, I refrained from grinding out Story Mode with every single character just to technically have a proper 100% complete save file.

Anyway, inside the present room is a set of 9 dollhouses. 8 of which are themed after the playable characters and 1 which is generically star-shaped. As you earn presents, they'll automatically be placed in the appropriate dollhouse. There is also a pedestal promising a large trophy for total completion. In this case, a literal one if you have the patience to unlock all the presents. Additionally, the roof is a window leading into a beautiful field of stars. The constellation earned from clearing Story Mode can he viewed above their respective dollhouses.

I've already touched on the majority of presents you can get. But to summarize:

You'll get most presents by clearing each stage in Story Mode as each character. This includes the 8 constellations and completes the 8 character dollhouses.

I've also mentioned a few additional presemts that can be earned from Extra Mode by clearing each puzzle in Jigsaw Jitters within a target time: 20 piece in 1 minute, 30 piece in 2 minutes, and 40 piece in 3 minutes.

I may have failed to mention this, but you can also earn a Goomba Plate by reaching a record of 15 pages or more in Challenge Booksquirm in Thwomp's Backroom Ball.

And of course, clearing Battle Mode in Beach Volley Folly will unlock the Birthday Cake, which really looks more like a giant wedding cake.

But even after accomplishing these feats, you may still be missing some prizes. These last presents are unlocked by accomplishing specific feats in minigames. Note: The PAL version of the game has some oddities with framerate and the game's timers, so target times my vary between regions.

Clearing Dungeon Duos in 1:30 or faster will unlock a Shy Guy Plate.

Staying Underwater for 7 seconds or more in Tale a Breather will unlock the Boo Plate.

Clearing Right Oar Left in 45 seconds or faster will unlock the Koopa Plate.

Reaching the goal in 1:00 or faster will unlock the Bowser Plate.

A record of 100 whomps in Domination will earn you Goomba's Clock.

A record of 10 seconds or faster in Mario Speedwagons nets you Boo's Picture Frame.

Each of these are mostly just accomplished by practice. They don't reallly require perfect runs and can be reached pretty easily for the most part. I can't provide any advice Zoom Zike hasn't already in his Identifying Luck video on this game, but I will note that you'll need to practice your Button Mashing for Domination and I still genuinely don't know how I got my record of 11 seconds in Take a Breather because I've never been able to come close since. There is definitely some kind of hidden knowledge on the specific way that game wants you to mash L and R. I can't wrap my head around whether you want to hold the triggers down and "click" them really fast or fully release the first trigger before starting to press the other. And likewise, if you need to "click" the triggers at all or if partial presses are enough. Or if it's straight mashing or rhythmic mashing, and if there's some visual cue you supposed to watch for (I've tried matching my character's movements to abysmal results). It also doesn't leave my mind I might run into a similar problem as with Mecha Marathon where, in this case, some of my inputs might be missed by accidentally pressing both triggers together instead of alternatively.

Once you've managed to obtain all of the other presents in the Present Room, your final prize will be the Party Star Trophy on that pedestal you see taunting you the moment you step into the room.

And... well, I suppose that's it! Like I said, there really isn't much to talk about here. But I hope you can see why I felt it was significant enough to cover on its own right as opposed to the final post. Anyway, our time with Mario Party 4 is starting to come to a close. But that doesn't mean we're ready to close up shop just yet! Next time, we'll be talking about Mini-Game Mode! See you soon! 🏆

Credit to CountBleck2009 on YouTube for the screenshots of the menus, credit to Howler on YouTube for the screenshot of the roster from Free Play mode.

This singular post is going to elaborate on perhaps some of the more confusing lines I've dropped in some of my posts about this game. If you recall, I said this game technically is the playable debut of a number of characters that don't "really count" (or something along those lines). Throughout my coverage of the Extra Room, I've also kept coy about a "secret third host hiding in plain sight."

If you grew up with Mario Party 4, I'm sure you were well aware of exactly what I've been referring to in both of these kinds of comments.

Upon unlocking all of the games in Thwomp's Backroom Ball and Whomp's Basement Brouhaha, you become able to select the Ztar, who hosts a special and quite in-depth bonus game mode really unlike anything the Mario Party series has ever seen, though I wouldn't exactly call it uncharted territory for video games in general.

I was genuinely surprised by this. Of course, I'd noticed the Ztar (even though it's supposed to be pronounced very similarly to "star" but with a Z sound perhaps as a kind of troll to cause you to easily mistake the two, I like to pronounce it " 'Z'-tar" to clearly differentiate them audibly.)

The whole time playing the game, I just assumed the Ztar was a decoration to demonstrate the juxtaposition between the "normal" party modes and this very different Extra mode. Most of the other modes are hosted by a single host, it already stood out the Extra Room had two hosts with Thwomp and Whomp, but it worked thematically since they're two characters that pair almost as well as Bowser and Koopa Kids. But, much like the Power Star is a character in its own right, Ztar is revealed to be a conscious entity here as well!

Ztar hosts Beach Volley Folly! A fully functional volleyball simulator! First of all... what?? This is such a bizarre thing for Ztar to host. Where I was anticipating some kind of cruel game mode where you'd fight each other or something, we're instead leaving this grungy basement for a pleasant day on a beautiful beach!

Interestingly, there is a leftover graphic to suggest Ztar was supposed to have his own board called 「ズターのずたずたパーティ」or "Ztar's Rugged Party". Presumably comparable to Thwomp's boards. Maybe it would've been focused on stealing stars or using items to avoid passing a Ztar space? A cute detail about this name is that 「ずたずた」uses the same sounds as Ztar's name 「ズター」. So the first part of the name would be directly romanized as "Zutaa no zutazuta" making it a pun on the name Ztar. As a result I would imagine it would be localized in a way to reflect the pun in some way.

Anyway, that's mostly an unrelated tangent, I just wanted to acknowledge that it appears perhaps Ztar would've had something different waiting for you and Beach Volley Folly would've been a Whomp minigame instead.

Beach Volley Folly

Let's start by focusing on the minigame itself. It's volleyball, so you already know the rules. You play alongside a single teammate in a 2v2 round against another team. Keep the ball in the air and spike it into the enemy's field. First to 5 points wins. The game is simple enough to understand, but clearly much more in depth than your typical Mario Party minigame. A single game can last for quite a while.

Battle Mode

Upon entering this mode for the first time, you'll be forced to play Battle Mode until you can clear it. And it is no joke when I say this is genuinely the most insanely difficult task the entirety of Mario Party 4 demands of you. I used save states on an emulator and was still ripping my hair out over this, it was that insanely difficult.

To start off, you can play Battle Mode with a human or AI partner. I highly recommend a human partner wherever possible because probably about half of my frustrations came from my partner not being able to pick a goddamn lane. Anytime I'd trust him to stay back and play defense, he'd rush to the net alongside me. Anytime I'd rely on him to play aggressive, he'd wander around to the back like a moron. You can set the AI to any difficulty, and I chose Hard. I assume if you unlock Expert difficulty, you have that option, too.

Anyway, you'll choose your characters from the usual chatacter selection and proceed to participate in a series of games. You'll have to win six games in a row against increasingly difficult AI opponents. And once you run out of standard characters to beat, you'll start seeing the board hosts! Toad, Koopa, Shy Guy, Boo, even a final round against Koopa Kid and Bowser himself!

And I know just winning alone doesn't sound that bad, just git gud after all, but the AI is almkst impossible to get around. I'm pretty sure Bowser and Koopa Kid at the very least are on Expert Difficulty even if you don't have it unlocked. And this duo is actually insane. I'm not sure if Bowser's size gives him an advantage or if he still has the usual hitbox, but he feels genuinely impossible to hit around on such a tiny court. You basically have to target whatever corner is opposite Bowser and pray Koopa Kid isn't there to block you. And the only way to accomplish that is to play hyper-aggressively and jump at the net to block the ball constantly. If you try to spike it off a volley with your partner, you're giving them way too much time to block it and it's practically guaranteed they'll catch it.

But if you know Volley Ball, you know playing too aggressively is high risk. If you miss the ball even once, there's just about no chance of recovering the point. And by the time you get to Bowser and Koopa Kid, the last thing you want to do is play dangerous because... well, can you guess the punchline?

THERE ARE NO CHECKPOINTS.

Every time you lose to Bowser and Koopa Kid, or any other team for that matter, you have to play through the ENTIRE mode again from the very beginning to get another shot. And this game mode is just jank enough where you're probably going to struggle to even get to that final round a lot of the time. I struggled to even clear the first few rounds.

I confessed to using Save States to get through this. If I'm being honest, I was kind of just looking forward to moving on to Mario Party 5 and wasn't anticipating this to be as much of an undertaking as it was. I don't know if choosing a Hard partner had anything to do with it. Maybe your opponents are easier if you choose an easier AI, but considering you have the option of a human partner, I have my doubts that's relevant.

If you manage to suffer through Battle Mode and clear it, you'll be rewarded with a Birthday Cake in the Present Room. But more importantly...

Free Mode

Upon clearing Battle Mode, you'll unlock Free Mode where up to four players and play against each other.

But remember in my introductory post when I mentioned this game technically includes the first playable appearance of certain chatacters? This is what I was referring to. In Free Mode, in addition to the main cast, you can also select Toad, Shy Guy, Boo, Koopa, Koopa Kid, and Bowser. Some of these characters will go on to join the main roster soon, and some won't join for so long I can hardly even consider it possibly intentional. Sadly, you can't play as Goomba because, as you can see, he's the ref!

Conclusion

It's really cute to see the hosts shed their costumes and just being themselves, chilling with the rest of the crew. It really makes this minigame in particular feel like a proper birthday celebration as likely the last thing you're going to do before putting the game down for good.

But the biggest headscratcher of all here is... why in the world do you have to jump through so many hoops to unlock this? The game itself is hidden and has to be unlocked by meeting arbitrary requirements you're never explicity told about, then once you unlock the mode, you have to discover you can select Ztar in the Extra Room, and then you still have to unlock this secondary side mode of a secondary side mode of a secondary side mode by clearing Battle Mode which is genuinely the most difficult task in the entire game. All for the cance to play a minigame that, while cool, is mostly just a novelty that will wear off pretty quick and definitely won't feel worth all the grinding for.

I don't know, maybe if I grew up with this game and had nostalgic memories of grinding Battle Mode with my brother, maybe I'd find unlocking Free Mode to be a much more rewarding experience. I can't understate how cool it is that you get to play as Shy Guy or Boo or even Bowser in this mode. But I feel like I've felt more fulfilled unlocking substantially less content as completion rewards in other Mario Parties. And it doesn't help that grinding out Battle Mode made me sick to death of all the janky shenanigans you can run into with this game. This mode just doesn't feel like it should be hidden away like this. It feels like it should've been advertised as part of the game itself. A direct reward for clearing Story Mode.

It's a cool novelty to share with your friends once it's unlocked, but by the time you lock in and actually get it, the last thing I imagine you're gonna want to do is play more Volleyball.

Anyway, that's it for Beach Volley Folly. Next time, I'm honestly not sure what to focus on. I might go ahead and start talking about the Mini-game modes, or I might take a look at the Present Room. I'm really not sure. But you'll need to stick around to find out! See you soon! 🎁

Today we're going to be discussing perhaps the weirdest part of Mario Party 4: Whomp's Basement Brouhaha. At the start of a new file, this is the other half of Extra Mode. It focuses primarily on single-player experiences where you'll compete either with yourself or indirectly with other players to see who can maintain the record.

Worth noting, every Mario Party up to this point has had some form of single-player minigame built into the core party mode. 1 had Solo minigames where you would complete an objective to earn coins. 2 and 3 had item minigames where you would perform a task to decide your reward or lack thereof. 3 also had Gamble minigames where you would bet all of your coins for a chance to multiply them, usually double or nothing at minimum.

This game... kind of does. It has the Mega Minigames where you duel against Bowser, and the Story minigames where you duel against the hosts of each board. But these games aren't programmed as solo minigames, aside from the final boss battle. As mentioned previously, they can all be played in mini-game mode as 2-player games like duel minigames. It seems like the developers designed a handful of solo minigames but either ran out of time to add enough or simply couldn't find a way to meaningfully incorporate them into party mode. And so, rather than scrapping all of these minigames, I suppose they tossed them into this side mode for players to enjoy as miscellaneous content.

Upon finishing a game, your score will be recorded and Whomp will assign you a title based on your performance. The titles mean next to nothing, but there are presents to be earned by reaching certain scores in certain games.

On a brand new file, there are only four games available for play: Barrel Baron, Mushroom Medic, Doors of Doom, and Bob-omb X-ing (presumably pronounced "crossing" but running into character limits). But upon playing the minigames Photo Finish and Tree Stomp, single-player counterparts of these minigames also get unlocked here in the form of Jigsaw Jitters and Goomba Stomp become unlocked.

Barrel Baron

This is a simple game where you walk around a field in search of oil. When your controller vibrates, you must strike the ground three times to reveal the oil hiding beneath. Depending on how much the controller vibrates, a small, medium, or large amount of oil will spring out worth 1, 10, or 100 points respectively. As far as I can tell, this game is almost entirely luck. You just have to hope you stumble across a lot of 100's within the time limit. I suppose the winning strategy is to ignore smaller springs and only look for larger ones. If you want to optimize your run, you may want to try various strategies to see if it's optimal to focus exclusively on large springs, or to settle for medium springs when you can find them.

This minigame I actually suspect may have originally been designed as a duel minigame before they were scrapped, and was repurposed as a score attack solo game here instead. I can see two players racing agaisnt the clock to score more points than each other, and it would add some much needed tension and strategy.

Mushroom Medic

Somebody swallowed a poisonous mushroom! Listen to the heartbeats of each patient by feeling the vibration of the controller. Whoever's heartbeat is different than the rest ate the poison and needs medicine. Give the medicine to the right patient to save them! Give it to the wrong patient or take too long and the poisoned patient fucking dies. The game continues indefinitely, with steadily decreasing time limits, until you fail.

The lowest rating you can get is "unlicensed internist," you're definitely getting a malpractice lawsuit.

This has got to be the most darkly hilarious minigame in Mario Party history.

You're scored by the number of patients you save.

Doors of Doom

This is a really, really dumb one. It's just Game Guy's Magic Boxes. You enter a Bowser themed dungeon and are presented with two doors. Bowser is hiding behind one and you'll have to try and guess which one he's not behind. As far as I can tell, there is no hint whatsoever, so this is just a series of blind coin tosses.

If you guess correctly, you proceed onto....another pair of two doors. The game continues endlessly until you lose. There's really nothing to say here.

Naturally, you're scored by the number of doors you pass through.

Bob-omb X-ing

Another minigame that feels like it might've been a duel minigame. In fact, Mario Party 5 even has a Battle Minigame similar to this one.

You're in the center of a 4-way crosswalk resembling Shibuya crossing. The game is self-explanatory. You have to navigate the crowded area as Bob-ombs pour into the crossing. Over time, the bob-ombs will explode and you have to avoid getting caught in said explosions. Surprisingly, there's no penalty for stepping into a bob-omb, just make sure to steer clear when they're flashing red.

You're scored by how much time you survive.

The optimal strategy is simply kiting the bob-ombs around the map and making sure to get away from bob-ombs that are about to explode. Try to avoid walking back the way you came and try to stay in areas with as few bob-ombs as possible.

Goomba Stomp

Unlocked alongside Tree Stomp in Mini-game mode, this game puts you in a walker from Tree Stomp and tasks you with walking around a field crowded with Goombas. You have 30 seconds to stomp as many Goombas as you can.

You're scored based on how many Goombas you stomp.

For optimal scoring, try to optimize your movement to avoid as much dead pathing as possible. Focus on walking only where there are Goombas, especially large clumps of them, and bear in mind you can walk backwards to easily step on Goombas behind you faster.

Jigsaw Jitters

Unlocked alongside Photo Finish, this is a single-player jigsaw puzzle. It's by far the most in-depth game in Whomp's Basement Brouhaha as it comes with three different difficulty levels each with more pieces than the last.

Don't underestimate the difficulty of these jigsaw puzzles. The pieces can be so small and oddly shaped that it can be pretty hard to identify what's on them, and you're forced to place each puzzle piece in the order they're given rather than focusing on individual pieces you can actually identify. I found the 30-piece puzzle in particular pretty difficult because it wasn't clear at first half the cast was upside-down.

You're scored based on how long it takes you to complete the puzzle. And additionally, you'll earn you'll earn Toad's Teacups for clearing a 20-piece puzzle in 1 minute, Toad's Teapot for clearing a 30-piece puzzle in 2 minutes, and Toad's Plate for clearing a 40-piece puzzle in 3 minutes.

These thresholds are easy enough to get. A few attempts and you should be able to identify where the majority of pieces go on sight.

Conclusion ----‐---------

Yeah, that's really it. Whomp's Basement Brouhaha is a strange little area of Mario Party 4. If I had this game as a lonely 4 year-old child sick of my older brother winning all the time, I could see myself turning to this mode for a much more relaxed experience and consequently having a lot of nostalgic memories of it, just like Duel Mode in Mario Party 3. But that doesn't make it any less bizarre that it exists. This truly reads to me like a collection of minigame ideas that simply weren't fully thought out.

Anyway, that's it for now. But we're still not done as there is one last host here in the Extra Room hiding in plain sight. See you soon for the real reason you come to the Extra Room! 🏐

I really loved this mode a lot more than I thought I would. I always dreaded dying on the N64 version because starting a level with single lasers always felt like such a slog. But this mode in particular lets you practice the levels so much that you quickly become knowledgeable on where all of the secrets are which in turn puts you on tbe fast track to actually mastering these levels for your inevitable Expert Mode runs in campaign mode.

Some levels' challenges were frustrating, but I'd say all except Aquas were ultimately very satisfying to complete. No level took more than an hour or two to grind out, though I'm also a veteran who grew up with the original. I imagine this mode will be a lot harder for new players, but I highly recommend it regardless because it'll teach you a lot about these levels and how to get higher scores.

I've gone back amd forth on what levels are the most challenging. Surprisingly, I think Corneria is easily one of the hardest. I found myself most nervous on the All Range Mode levels because it's so easy for random shit to just crash into you and break your wings. Just staying low never seemed to be enough.

Bolse was by far the most frustrating because of the game constantly cutting away for cutscenes. You'll be lined up for a perfect shot at a group of enemies when Star Wolf shows up. You'll be tailing two Wolfens at once when the core appears. And when those cutscenes end, the enemies you were about to shoot down are now far from you. I've gone back and forth, but I think it's fair to say Bolse is the hardest level for Challenge Mode.

Venom 1 was also incredibly frustrating mainly just because Falco's dumbass exclusively takes the worst possible lines and gets in your way constantly. But none of the missions are particularly bad, the challenge just comes from surviving expert mode Venom which I found surprisingly challenging. But it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be because I quickly learned thst you're actually able to "restart from checkpoint" after entering Andorss's lair. Challenge Mode typically removes checkpoints, so I didn't think they'd be so generous. But since this checkpoint is automatic instead of requiring a checkpoint ring, you can retry all of the missions involving Andross himself as many times as you need. This was a godsend for Venom 2 where I was dreading having to fight Star Wolf again every time. Venom 2 also doesn't end as soon as you kill Andross, so you can focus on one mission at a time and not have to redo the level from the beginning.

Other than that, most of the challenges that gave me trouble were ultimately just knowledge checks. Especially the "destroy all X" challenges. And I swear Macbeth's challenges were specifically designed to troll you as there are several targets you have to go super out of your way to even see. Bombs are your friend.

Some further points that helped me on missions I struggled with: In Area 6, you can get laser upgrades by destroying the swarms of enemies. I use a bomb to destroy the first swarm when it crosses in front of the first satellite. I believe the drops these swarms provide are static, but they may change based on your condition. Other than that, break a lot and mash like your life depends on it. And make sure not to break your wings because it's impossible to destroy those last few without hyper lasers.

On Solar, you can occasionally get bombs from neutralizing the solar flares with your bombs. You have to collect 6 bombs, not have six bombs. So use them liberally. Find the static laser upgrades and keep your health up so ROB gives you bombs instead of lasers or health. I'm not certain if this level has as heavy RNG as most people imply, as I was consistently reaching the end with only 5 bombs until I started using bombs on the flares at different areas. I'm unsure if the flares have RNG with their drops or if only specific flares drop bombs. But once I started bombing the flares, I got to the end collecting 7 bombs in only 2 more attempts.

Aquas is just a miserable level in general and somehow sucked even more than I expected. I can't say any of the missions were especially challenging, but playing the entire level without shooting was just dumb, and it took me forever to find the Spindles I was missing at the end of the level. Iirc, they're just straight ahead but it wasn't until after I found them and cleared the mission that I was able to see them clearly on subsequent runs. You should be able to find them easily enough if you just go straight. I guess I psyched myself out and was trying too hard to search the corners.

Also, if you're using a Switch 2 pro controller, map GR and GL. I mapped GL to D-Up for easy somersaults and GR to break, which helps tremendously with a lot of the crab claw issues this game has. On DPS intensive levels like Area 6 and Aquas, it's also beneficial to swap GL for bombs so you can just focus on mashing A with your thumb. But bear in mind certain enemies are immune to explosions. Namely the Wolfen II and Golemech. The latter of which is especially criminal because one of the guides I looked up for help told me to use bombs to soften it up and made the quick kill challege take far more attempts than it should've.

I think my favorite detail about Challenge Mode is that the final expert challenge on Venom 2 is to clear the escape sequence without taking damage. If you're doing all the levels in order, this is a wonderful payoff to finish off your grind, as it's a nice and easy challenge that lets you take a breather.

Just a small detail I noticed after clearing Bolse's expert missions and reading this bio... the holoviewer section on the Bolse Core describes the weak points as "yellow panels." Obviously, these panels have indeed traditionally been bright yellow lights. But in this game in particular, they've been recolored to instead glow a bright red. And this change is visible in the holoviewer model as well.

This is interesting to me because it suggests these Holoviewer articles were either written early in development before the models were finalized, or a decision was made late in development to change the colors of the panels for some reason.

I just thought this was a funny error that provides a peak into what the development of the game might've looked like. Realistically, I imagine the writer of these archives was probably simply writing them based on the original game and not necessarily the updated content and simply assumed the panels would remain yellow as they've always been.

I accidentally put Poipole in Sinnoh Fighting because I wasn't paying attention. I finished off the game anyway and got Shiny Mega Staraptor in the last box but it doesn't count toward the pokedex because the game already ended I HATE IT HERE

Every Mario Party so far has had a little something extra on the side. Mario Party 4 is no exception. But the Extra Room is a bit more to unpack than these modes tend to be, so I'm going to take a few posts to talk about it all.

The Extra Room is a special side mode that's hosted by Thwomp and Whomp, as well as a secret third host hiding in plain sight. But at the start of a new game, only Thwomp and Whomp are available to discuss.

The Extra Room appears to be some kind of clubhouse where your hosts offer you exclusive content you can't experience anywhere else!

Thwomp hosts Thwomp's Backroom Ball, a small collection of miscellaneous multiplayer-centric games to play.

At the start, Thwomp only has two games to play. Mega Board Mayhem, and Mini Board Mad Dash. As you can probably guess, these are special bonus boards, comparable to the Mini-game Arena/Trial from Mario Party 1 and 2. However, it differs quite significantly. If you just want to play minigames with your friends, we have some alternative game modes over in Mini-Game Mode.

These boards, as their names imply, are centered around using Mega and Mini Mushrooms specifically. These boards are small and mostly featureless. The item shops only sell one item at a time, and the item they offer appears to be random but might be determined by placement. Unfortunately, Mushroom spaces remain unchanged and you still have the typical 50/50 odds of getting the mushroom you actually want. Not to mention you have to land on them first.

In both of these boards, Mini-games are almost completely scrubbed. I say almost because Mini Board Mad Dash actually fearures Bowser spaces which can still initiate Bowser Mini-games, but this really just seems like an oversight more than anything. Mini-games otherwise don't occur under any circumstances, it'll just go straight from the end of the last player's turn to the start of the first player's next turn.

Each Player will begin with 100 coins. With no stars to collect, the goal is to come out with the most at the end of 10, 20, or 30 turns.

Mega Board Mayhem

Mega Board Mayhem is a board map designed by Thwomp, who apparently took six months to build it. It features a square shaped design with a central route that can only be accessed using a Mini Mushroom, strangely enough despite the name suggesting you'd mainly want Mega Mushrooms. This central area is important. Not only because of the lottery here which could potentially secure your victory if you manage a jackpot, but also because it's really the only steategic alternative besides whatever items you manage to get your hands on. You can slip through here to avoid getting templed by someone approaching with a Mega Mushroom. There are bkue spaces all over the board, but of course your main means of making money here are Mega Mushrooms. Trample your opponents with Mega Mushrooms to steal their coins and secure your lead!

Try not to get baited into buying bad items here. The Warp Pipe might help you avoid confrontation, but it also costs you 10 coins anyway. Same for the Sparky Sticker. Most of these items just aren't worth their asking price. The only one I'd say is worth it to spend coins on is, situationally, the Super Mega Mushroom. But you'll need to make sure to hit multiple opponents with it! It's probably best just to take your chances and hope to land on Mushroom Spaces... and I think you can already see the glaring issue with this board by now.

There aren't even close to enough Mushroom spaces to reliably get Mega Mushrooms enough to even have any kind of meaningful exchange. Much less actually getting into position to hit anybody with them. You're more likely to win just from how much money your opponents will be spending on the lottery or useless items than actually playing this board the way it's supposedly designed to be played. If they were gonna modify the way the shops worked, why not just have them always sell you a free Mega Mushroom or something? And since you have to use these Mushrooms to hit your opponents, that means you also cannot use them to help with positioning. Yup, win or loss here is almost exclusively luck. It should feel right at home with all the other MP4 boards.

Mini Board Mad Dash

You'd think the other board offered here would be hosted by Whomp, right? Nope, this board is also made by Thwomp! Apparently he didn't take as much time, only two months.

Anyway, this time around your goal isn't necessarily to steal coins from your opponents, but to avoid losing your coins to the traps across the board. Your goal is to get Mini Mushrooms prior to passing the Mini Pipes so you can slip through and return to start safely. If you miss too many mini-pipes, you'll end up on the longest route back that's absolutely infested with Boeser and Red spaces. Yikes!

Though the prominence of Bowser Spaces here is a bit confusing. Obviously, the intention is that you want to avoid the Bowser spaces because they're likely to make you lose a lot of coins. But not only do these Bowser Spaces enable Bowser Mini-games to be played while the rest of the boards mechanics go out of their way to remove any and all minigames, but it also means it's not unlikely to make all the caution in the world completely unnecessary because of Boeser Revolution. Granted, you'll be at a disadvantage if Bowser Revolution strikes you because you're in the middle of a sea of red spaces, but this can still fuck with the other players who have managed to avoid the long route back.

Ideally, you'll want to aim for the second mini-pipe, as that gives you the longest safe route back and passes a shop, too, in case an item catches your eye. But again, the items typically aren't worth it. Though the Warp Pipe is definitely a lot more useful here since you can swap an enemy onto the sea of red before they're prepared and really watch fhem suffer.

And again, this board suffers for the same teason as the other: Whether or not you can even get your hands on a Mini-Mushroom is blind luck. Much less actually getting through the mini-pipes without over or undershooting them.

Unlockables

In addition to the two bonus boards, Thwomp's Backroom Ball features special variations of minigames. Challenge Booksquirm is an endless variant of Booksquirm which will not end until everyone gets squished so that you can test your limits. Although the game can get repetitive after a while, Booksquirm is one of, if not, my favorite minigames in the entire game. So it's fun to have a mode where I can play it endlessly without the game abruptly ending just because the AI can't kep up. Unlocking this game is as simple as having played Boomsquirm in another mode.

Lastly, there's Panel Panic. This one is a variant of Panels of Doom, unlocked by having played that minigame on Bowser's Gnarly Party by challenging Bowser using a Mega Mushroom. You and anyone else playing will select a panel numbered 1 to 9. After everyone selects a panel, Bowser and the remaining cast will claim the leftover panels. Once everyone is in place, everyone will hit a dice block and the respective panels to the numbers rolled will crumble, taking the character standing on it with it. The game continues until the last player is standing, and ends in a draw if both remaining players' numbers are rolled... yeah, this one kinda blows.

That's it for Thwomp' Backroom Ball, there's really not much to talk about. But next time, we'll take a look at what Whomp has to offer us! See you next time for Whomp's Basement Brouhaha! 🧱

Technically at least one from every gen, but hopefully I can get an actual Johto and Galar proper pokemon this time around.

Sandaconda and Tatsugiri are my only last ones. I've been taunted with almost Tatsugiri a few times now, but the Sandaconda teases have been vile. especially today with final evolution and ground on the same side! It's not even the gmax variant I'm waiting on literally just the standard form 😭

I accidentally blew up these Cacti with a bomb while fighting Stalizalfos, so I placed a travel medallion to come back later when they respawned. I warped back after a Blood Moon and every fruit except the only one I needed had reappeared.

I warped away and gathered some resources from Eldin and then warped back again several in-game days later, same thing. Every fruit except the one I needed for the Korok was there.

I went and completed Vah Naboris and waited for another Blood Moon, warped back, STILL the Korok fruit was missing.

Finally, I questioned if warping to the travel medallion was causing my issue. So I finished up the other sidequests in the desert and returned to the Korok, this time without warping to the Travel Medallion. Sure enough, the Korok fruit successfully respawned this time.

Is there something to this? Do these Korok fruits really not respawn if you warp directly to them? Why do the other fruits respawn just fine but not the Korok? Or was this just some kind of freak RNG and the fruit just coincidentally respawned between the last two checks?

Happy Birthday to you, it's time to grind out another Mario Party story mode!

I wasn't actually sure whether I should cover this or the Extra Room just yet. I like to cover bonus boards immediately after covering the individual boards, but I think it's appropriate to slide this in between as I can't cleanly isolate the bonus boards from the rest of the Extra Room's content.

So, Story Mode... if you've been following along, you know how I feel about Story Modes in Mario Party. This game's Story Mode is a slight improvement in some ways on Mario Party 3's, and a slight downgrade in some others.

Setup

Just like Mario Party 3, upon selecting Story Mode, you'll be met with a setup screen. But right away you'll see the atmosphere in Story Mode is hardly any different at all from other modes. So... why even make this separate from Party Mode? I should probably avoid going back on that tangent.

First, you get to choose your character. Unlike Mario Party 3, you're actually able to use Daisy and Waluigi in the Story Mode! So rejoice if one kf these is your favorite character!

Next, you get to set the difficulty of the AI to Easy, Normal, Hard, or "Auto" where the CPU players will get progressively more challenging over the course of the game. I like the inclusion of an Auto difficulty, but for reasons stated before, I tend to prefer playing on Easy to grind this mode out as quick and painlessly as possible. Difficulty only effects the AI's performance in mini-games, not their stupidity on the board. But, if you clear Story Mode on Hard difficulty, you can unlock Expert Difficulty as well for all modes, Story Mode included. You have no incentive to play Story Mode on Expert Difficulty besides bragging rights.

Finally, you'll choose the Mini-Game list between All, Easy, or even your own custom list! While creating a custom list limited to only the minigames you're confident you'll always win at, this will have the downside of having a lot more repeated minigames, so bear that in mind. You can create a Mini-game list from the mini-games you've previously unlocked in Mini-game mode. Though there are minimum requirements so you can't just, say, get rid of all the Battle Minigames. The Bowser, Story, and Etc., minigames also cannot be influenced by minigame list.

Introduction

There is hardly anything going on in the introduction this time around. Each of the boards' hosts tell you "Happy Birthday" and Toad explains everyone's got a present for you! You'll have to win on each hosts' board to earn their presents. It's frankly even more straightforward than Mario Party 3's stamp card and, in my opinion, far less thematically interesting.

And so, you're off to select your first board! You can play on each of the initial five hosts' boards in any order you like. Paired with the Auto difficulty, this is actually a neat shake-up, as you can opt to play on your least favorite boards (Koopa's Seaside Soiree) first against the easiest AI and save your preferred boards (Shy Guy's Jungle Jam) for the harder AI. But no matter what, you'll have to play all five, so on the static difficulty options, it's pretty meaningless.

Gameplay

Stop me if you've heard this before.

On each board, you'll play a 15 turn game on your selected difficulty with bonus on with the goal being to win the game in first place.

Unlike Mario Party 3, this mode thankfully doesn't have a ranking system, so there's no stressing over winning by 2 stars. And thank God because that added a massively unnecessary layer of stress to unlocking everything in Mario Party 3. Now the most stressful thing to unlock is Expert Mode, which is far from a tall order.

Additionally, there are no Duels Boards this time around. Instead, after clearing each board you'll play the board's host in a 1-v-1 Duel... I mean Story Minigame.

Yes, despite this game cutting Duel Minigames from Party Mode, these Story minigames are effectively duel minigames. You can even play them against other human players in Mini-Game Mode after you clear them in Story Mode!

So why aren't these duel minigames????

Another pin for now, I suppose.

Story Minigames

Each host has their own Story Minigame they'll challenge you to before giving you their present. If you fail the minigame, you can simply try again until you succeed, so they're fairly low-stakes.

The specific present you'll earn for winning each board will differ based on who you're playing as every character has a unique set of gifts. Each gift is sized to fit inside of a dollhouse in the Present Room, so they really serve more as trophies than actual gifts.

Toad: Bowser Bop

In Bowser Bop, you and Toad will run around a small house with Koopa Kid and Bowser heads popping out of furniture like an especially chaotic version of Whack-a-mole. Run around and smack as many heads as you can, Bowser heads are worth two points! The player with the most points wins and if that's you, you'll earn Toad's present!

Mario gets a Sofa, Luigi gets a Table, Peach gets a Chair, Yoshi gets an egg, Wario gets a Motorbike, Donkey Kong gets a barrel, Daisy gets a bed, Waluigi gets a calendar.

Shy Guy: Archaeologuess

In Archaeologuess, you and Shy Guy will watch five rapidly spinning objects that will gradually slow down. Try to identify the odd shape out first and stand under it. First player to 3 correct choices wins! If that's you, that means you've just earned Shy Guy's gift.

Mario gets a Table, Luigi gets a Dumbbell, Peach gets a Clock, Yoshi gets a Table, Wario gets a Recliner, Donkey Kong gets a Stand, Daisy gets a table, and Waluigi gets a Shower... are they trying to send a message with this one?

Goomba: Goomba's Chip Flip

It's luck! Doesn't being forced to win a luck-based game sound like fun? In all seriousness, it's not a big deal since there's hardly any punishment for failure at all here.

Anyway, a bunch of chips are laid out across the board. You and Goomba will take turns flipping the chips with ground pounds. Their point values will add to your score. There are two 20-point chips, five 10-point chips, five 5-point chips, five 3-point chips, two -5 point chips, and one -10 point chip. Odds are unlikely you'll hit these compared to all the positive ones, but it's always a possibility and the odds will obviously increase over the course of the game.

The first player to 50 points wins! If that's you, you've earned Goomba's present!

Mario gets a Television, Luigi gets an Airbike, Peach gets a Table, Yoshi gets a Computer, Wario gets a Chest, Donkey Kong gets a Tree, Daisy gets Flowers, and Waluigi gets a Shelf.

Boo: Mystic Match 'Em

It's luck! Doesn't that sound FUN?? Again, it's not a terribly big deal, but why are two of these story minigames entirely dictated by luck?

A deck of cards depicting various instruments is shuffled and dealt. You and Boo get three cards in your hand and the rest are spread face-down on the table. You will take turns discarding a card from your hand and selecting a card from the table to add to your hand. There is a moderate layer of strategy to this game, as you can keep track of which cards your opponent is collecting and what cards have been discarded to help you decide whether you should continue trying to collect the same instrument or switch your focus to another one. Boo cards will interrupt your gamestate and almost guarantee your loss as you'll shuffle your hand back into the board and be dealt a whole new hand, losing all the progress you've made and potentially putting a card you tried to prevent your opponent from getting back into play.

The first player to hold three of a kind in their hand wins! If it's you, that means you've earned Boo's present!

Mario gets a Fridge, Luigi gets a Chair, Peach gets a Treasure Chest, Yoshi gets Shoes, Wario gets a Burger, DK gets a Box, Daisy gets a Side Table, and Waluigi gets a Chair.

Koopa: Kareening Koopas

You and Koopa each have your own tilting board with four holes and four koopa shells. You'll tilt the control stick to tilt the table and try to carefully maneuver the shells into the pockets. After you sink all four shells, you'll advance to a more challenging board. First to clear all three boards wins! If that's you, you earn Koopa's gift.

Every character gets a Doll from Koopa.

Bowser's Gnarly Party

After earning all of the presents, Bowser will make his appearance! He'll claim to have stolen all of your gifts and demands you challenge his board to get them back! You'll proceed to play a game on Bowser's Gnarly Party, which will be your first time playing on the board since you have to clear this mode to unlock it in Party mode.

As per usual, upon winning the board, Bowser will challenge you to one final Sort Minigame. Oh, I'm sorry, this one is an "etc." Minigame, apparently. For no reason other than to justify the etc. Minigame category a little more. It seems to be the only reason the others aren't called Mega Minigames. This just adds credence to my theory that the Story Minigames were originally designed to be Duel Minigames. In which case this final boss minigame wouldn't fit the bill, as it only functions as a Solo Minigame.

Final Boss: The Final Battle!

The final boss in Mario Party 4 was actually a bit tense my first time playing. The boss fight is really just a gauntlet of miniature platforming challenges as you navigate all six sides of a giant cube of lava while two Koopa Kids in Clown Cars taunt you. The whole setting is actually a lot more interesting than Bowser's board itself, I'd say. If I didn't know any better I'd assume it was inspired by Mario Galaxy. It's also an interesting parallel to the Party Cube the whole game is set inside. If you take damage, you'll lose one of your 10 hearts. Naturally, you loss if you lose all 10 hearts.

The first face is just a starting area.

The second face features a sequence where you jump across 4 platforms with spinning fire jets. I find the hitboxes on the fire jets to be deceptively large and wound up taking a lot more damage in this sequence than I expected.

The third face houses a 2x2 slide puzzle where you'll have to ground pound the pieces into place to create an image of Koopa Kid's face. The Koopa Kids will try to attack you as you solve the puzzle.

The fourth and fifth face repeat the two obstacles with harder variations. A platforming sequence with 6 platforms and a 3x3 slide puzzle, with Bowser himself throwing a flaming boomerang at you. And on that note... that is by far the most interesting thing I've seen in this whole game. Bowser with a Boomerang is a really cool idea that I don't think ever comes up anywhere else, even in the main series! But considering he debuted in Super Mario Bros throwing hammers like a Hammer Bro, and he spits fire like a Fire Bro, it's only natural to assume he can also wield boomerangs like a Boomerang Bro! It's a really cool idea I'm shocked we don't see more often.

The final face is a platform with five buttons along the edge. Here, you'll have a direct standoff against Bowser. Bowser gets a health bar of 5 hearts and you'll need to damage him 5 times by pressing the buttons on the edge. Each button you press will glow, and a beam of light will connect any two glowing buttons. When three buttons are connected, the triangle they form will glow and zap Bowser if he's inside of it. This sounds a lot more difficult than it is, as Bowser's hitbox is large and he'll likely be rushing toward you when you hit the last button. The difficulty comes from navigating around Bowser's large hitbox yourself. Just like the fire jets, it's deceptively easy to walk right into him on accident. Make sure to give him a wide berth!

Upon defeating Bowser, you'll have cleared the minigame! After the fact, as outlined in the narrative section of the post for Bowser's Gnarly Party, Bowser will confess that he never actually stole any of your presents and will "accidentally" leave one final gift behind for you.

Mario gets a Bowser Vase, Luigi gets a Bowser Television, Peach gets a heart-shaped Bowser Picture, Yoshi gets a Bowser Lamp, Wario gets a Boeser Clock, Donkey Kong gets a "Bowser Object" which seems to be a strange Bowser doll fashined out of a barrel and a plastic head on top, Daisy gets a Bowser Teapot, and Waluigi gets a Bowser Bath.

Ending

After driving Bowser away, Toad reveals that there is actually one final gift from a secret host of the entire party. Maybe even the creator of the party cube itself? As you talk with Toad, a bright spotlight forms over you and you look up to see a giant Power Star looming overhead. For the sake of continuity, I like to imagine this is the Eternal Star from Mario Party 1, but the intention is probably just that this is "The Power Star" as a character, in contrast to a certain other character we've yet to meet.

The Power Star soon reveals to you that your final gift is a constellation in the sky!

After finishing Story Mode, you'll be able to see your character's presents as well as their constellation in the Present Room. You'll also unlock Bowser's Gnarly Party in Party Mode, and each of the Story Minigames and The Final Battle will become playable in Mini-Game Mode. The Story Minigames are playable between two humans, while The Final Battle only functions as a single player minigame against Bowser.

Additionally, clearing Story Mode on Hard will unlock the Expert Difficulty in every game mode.

Conclusion

It's no secret that I don't enjoy this format for Mario Party story modes. It's functionally no different from Party Mode at all, just with unnecessary stressors as you're forced to worry about getting 1st place which just sucks all the fun out of Mario Party to me. Coupled with this game's overall poor board design, it's especially painful having to spend an entire 15 turns only to have to do it all over again because Luigi swapped stars with you or Peach won the lottery and landed exclusively on happening spaces the last five turns.

And I feel like this storyline just lacks a lot of the creativity Mario Party 3 had in its story. I'll probably be saying this a lot, but I know lore and worldbuilding are probably not a priority for Mario Party's developers. Even still, when they add details that expand the world of Mario Party, it's my favorite thing to praise! And unfortunately, this game doesn't really do that. Mario Party 3 didn't contribute much since the game was set entirely in a toybox, but it did contribute the concept of the Millenium Star and the Superstar of the Universe making the game's narrative seem like a pretty big deal.

But this game doesn't really provide anything like that. The whole game is a birthday celebration, so it's inherently very low stakes. I suppose when you think about the other games, they're also fairly low stakes, Mario Party is just used to settle petty arguments. But there's usually some grand context associated with it. The original Superstar saves the Eternal Star from Bowser's control. Mario Party 2's superstar prevents Bowser from taking over the theme park. Mario Party 3's Superstar of the Universe gets to claim the power of the mythical Millenium Star. But Mario Party 4's Party Star gets... bragging rights? A dollhouse and imaginary constellation inside of a random cube?

I think the setting for the narrative is a cute idea, though my theory about the Eternal Star being the source of the Party Cube is entitely speculation. Nothing in the game states where it came from, it's just a mysterious object the hosts found one day and decorated with their likenesses. So the only worldbuilding this game provides, really, is the Party Cube itself and the "new" characters... Toad, Goomba, Shy Guy, Boo, and Koopa. If we're to assume these are the same characters as their counterparts in previous games, it means they're not new characters but we are expanding on characters we've known for a while. I think that's a perspective I prefer. It retroactively adds more charm to the characters from the past and makes this game feel more significant than self-contained and ignorable.

Anyway, what I will say positively about this mode is that I think having multiple Story Mode exclusive minigames throughout the game is an interesting idea that adds a bit more in the way of making Story Mode stand out compared to Party Mode. But I must reiterate there is little reason these minigames couldn't have been implemented into Party Mode as Duel Minigames.

All in all, I can't imagine my feelings on Mario Party 4's story mode are all that surprising. It's really just a game mode I rush through to play the game the way I actually prefer.

Anyway, that's it for now. Next time, we'll actually take a look in the Extra Room like I teased last time. See you soon! 🪨

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have this thought, maybe this is something that's brought up a lot, but the way Goose talks on her social media combined with the subject matter of the series and the harshness of fandom criticism, down to calling Jax, the character >!whose suicide the entire show is about!< her self insert... I could assume some people have probably reached out to her somewhere along the way, but this feels like the kind of thing people would call red flags in hindsight if she ever actually offed herself. So I don't just want to assume she's doing alright and on the road to recovery.

I mean, she creates a self-insert character that is coined as the most hated character in the entire show, calls him an asshole, writes him to acknowledge himself as an asshole with no redeeming qualities, and then >!has him abstract which she has made very clear is a metaphor for suicide!< in a decision where the entire fandom that has harshly criticized her numerous times and has grown to make her burn out on the series, even seemingly drop certain plotpoints, in a finale which clearly meant a lot to her but seems to have been rushed to some degree, piled on all the reasons to hate Jax along with a strong effort in making him empathetic only for that effort to be rejected and even mocked.

This isn't some "I must defend the corporation" post or anything like that, though Goose is clearly inexperienced with handling this level of popularity. I just have genuine concerns about Goose's mental state and want to know if there's been any known outreach for her. I wouldn't want her to get pinged by millions of strangers online trying to get all in her personal business, but maybe some kind of signal from the fandom that we do see her and care about her. I think that would be a nice thing to do.

Credit: Twitter