Lawrence.com

The Mario Party series has a solid history of delivering competent to wildly imaginative fun in its six-year lifespan. The quasi board game on screen tends to get even the most critical of gamers to play. At long last, Game Boy Advance owners now get a version of the popular series to pocket.

Unfolding in traditional fashion, Mario Party Advance puts you on an adventure on a board-game type of platform where you roll the dice to advance, meeting odd, extremely talkative characters along the way and playing mini-games to advance. The difference is that the main adventure is only available in single-player mode. The multiplayer games are limited to the Duel games you unlock along they way, which are plenty, but the exclusion is rather puzzling. As you play the 50 mini-games, you can also earn coins to buy some of Professor E. Gadd's "Gaddgets," which are basically novelties that don't add up to much fun.

I think the main problem with MPA is that most of the mini-games have been done several times in previous titles, some of which aren't even Mario Party games. For the short time they last, the games don't pack a fun punch like they used to or even try to eclipse some of the creativity found in the recent Wario Ware micro-games. For all intents and purposes, the entire experience feels generic. That's not a quality reminiscent of Nintendo games.

Part of the generic feel is the underwhelming presentation. Nintendo is known for taking a stranglehold on the potential of the Advance and boasting of its graphical prowess. There is no such beauty in MPA: everything looks pretty stale, and there's nothing flashy to remember. The tunes are familiar but are an odd mixture of clear and super-compressed sounds that don't make an attractive package.

I expect more out of Nintendo. The recent rash of less-than-average games from the leading innovator in the industry is less than encouraging. With as many Mario Party games as there are already, it becomes increasingly more difficult to make an argument for a successor. Mario Party Advance does not, in fact, advance the series nor give it a worthy start on the handheld.

Graphics: C-

Sound: C-

First Play: C-

Last Play: D-

Gameplay: D

Overall: 64% D