LogFAQs > #938649110

Warp Pipe
For the first three titles, Warp Pipes are a means to an end, and honestly kinda neglected. They essentially exist to either funnel you to another part of the board, or are features in Bowser Land to attempt to escape the parade route. I like this Bowser Land implementation the best compared to Luigi's Engine Room and Waluigi's Island; using them as a sudden escape, or a controlled risk in order to get another tick toward the Happening Star, is really solid, and adapt them really nicely from the Mario series as a whole. Warp Pipes SHOULD be unpredictable and interesting, and making them a controlled risk is greatly reflective of that. They get the promotion from 'board accessory' to 'item' in Mario Party 4, replacing the Warp block... and are summarily useless because the Warp Space also exists, and due to the prevailance of Mini Mushrooms and their usual proximity to Mini Mushroom pipes and events. It DOES have an advantage over the Warp Block where it's spinner-based, so it's more possible to learn and time how to use it than its purely random predecessor, but boards are already so obnoxious to traverse in 4 that a Chomp Call is usually the better defensive play-based option, and the Mega Mushroom is always a cheaper offensive-based option. From there, it gets wrapped into the Capsule system, and probably suffers the most from it since the cost of using it isn't usually worth the potentially negligible benefit compared to just throwing it on the board and hoping you land on it. With how segmented almost all of the MP5 maps are, it's far more effective as an annoying trap to escape from a certain area, but with how much those segments love to loop around on each other, it's less of the interesting choice it was in MP2 and more just a "oh, that happened. Neat." kinda feeling. It was fixed in MP6 and MP7, but by then there were so many specialized orbs that the Warp Pipe just seemed inferior to options like Klepto on Castaway Bay, Tweester, or the overwhelming control that the Sluggish Shroom offers. It's quite unfortunate, but the thing has just been overshadowed and never the best option in every single appearance it's had as an item. Unless you could Gold and Star Pipes, which I don't because those would tank its rating even more due to how damn inexpensive they are for being Magic Lamps!

Bowser
There is no greater force of joy in the Mario Party series than Bowser. In every single game, this guy has an absolutely PRISTINE track record of unbelievable quality. For virtual board games, there are no "bad luck" or "negative" mechanics; if there's a character who's your direct antagonist or screws with you based on a roulette, they are "Bowser". Bowser ascends above Mario Party and becomes emblematic of virtual board games as a whole. Just, look at this guy's track record:

Mario Party - The most absolutely dickish that Bowser ever will be. Bowser's cruelty knows no bounds in this game, and yet his hatred is distributed evenly. Bowser is an active board element, essentially selling counterfeit items whilst insulting the player all the while. This man shoves an inner tube on you, watches it pop, makes you pay 30 bucks for it, and asks "oh wow, have you gotten fatter?". This is especially brutal in Bowser's Magma Mountain, where you have to play a dice game with him, and if you fail, he will steal a star from you. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. If you land on a Bowser Space with no coins and one star, Bowser will generously buy the star off of you for 10 coins - no need to consent or thank him, the big guy knows what you want! BUT Bowser Spaces have such a strong chance to screw EVERYONE over, with Bowser having multiple mini-games that drain coins from 3 players. Bowser's Chance Time, Bowser's Balloon Burst, Bowser's Tug-O-War - all of these have the potential to DEVASTATE coin counts, and one is even a stick rotation game so that MAXIMUM suffering can be inflicted. But perhaps best of all is Bowser's Bash 'n' Cash. This mini-game just has players beat the crap out of a player in a Bowser suit, taking 5 coins from them and giving them straight to Bowser with each swing, while the single player is absolutely helpless. Bowser then says, "What horrible people! They stole x Coins! What a great opportunity for you, now you know what it's like to be me!". But, if they steal NO coins (or if no one falls beneath Bowser's threshold in Bowser's Face Lift), Bowser will go "what?! Nothing happened?! Well I don't like you, so I'm going to take 20 coins". The absolute legend.

Mario Party 2 - Becomes the villain of each board and introduces the Bowser Bomb. Not only are Bowser's costumes absolutely ace in this game, but he's got some of the best lines and animations in general (AUGH YA CORKED ME being a stupid, fun highlight). Nothing is more devastating than Bowser's turn starting, as he rolls 3 dice and takes ALL of the coins from a player he comes across, telling the player "if you value your life, you'll give me all your money" in Bowser Land. This is also a game where he starts feeling true pity for you - if you land on his space with 0 coins and hit "Coins for Bowser", he will GIVE you money, making landing on Bowser not just a strategic option for harming everyone or hoping for revolution, but the ability to rebound if you've been hit hard by fees or just threw the rest of your money into the bank or Item Shop. He gets the final bow in the credits curtain call, and he DESERVES it - this man's the star of the show.

Mario Party 3 - The nicest Bowser will ever be. Reduced to a pure comedy role in the story, after being a dominant topcard threat for all of the past two games, he lets both Daisy AND Waluigi go over him clean and asks the player to avenge him before he dies of wounds inflicted by Waluigi. Additionally, this is the only Bowser Roulette based on timing - whenever you hit the A button on that thing, whatever option is highlighted, that's gonna be the one it picks. The roulette IS tricky to time, but Bowser has so many more options to help you out. Giving you phones so you can call him whenever, giving you cosplays of him to mug people with, he even truncates his communist propaganda speech during the Bowser Revolution. He'll also give you tons of coins based on your placement and turn order if you visit him with 0 coins - no rolling Coins for Bowser required. You can get up to 50 for the big man if you're in last with 0 coins in the last 5 turns. This is also where Sexy Bowser appears. Due to the Bowser Phone and the roulette, Bowser is less an inherent negative in this game so much as he is a flexible tool with an intense chance to screw you over.

Mario Party 4 - Even though the Bowser Space is worse, Bowser himself stands out. He lands with MASSIVE, almost jumpscare-esque impact whenever he shows up, and provides THE best Bowser mini-games in the entire series. He's not even trying to hide his obvious inflation fetish anymore, and can somehow say the phrase "he shoots, he scorches!" while breathing fire, which is just pure skill. He's willing to challenge the player directly in mini-games if they grow as large as he is in Gnarly Party, with sumo wrestling especially being fun to see. He also has, by far, the best boss fight the series has seen (discounting Toad just being better than you in MP1), with multiple phases, a weird fire boomerang he never uses in any other game, and even putting the Gamecube over with the lava cube. After a game of being nice, Bowser is back as a LETHAL threat, and still a joy to see.

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