Video game development can take several twists and turns. A title can get announced to boisterous fanfare only to nosedive spectacularly upon launch. Ten years later, it will get dissected on Matt McMuscles’s YouTube channel. Fortunately,Mario Party, Nintendo’s flagship party game franchise, has experienced a consistent run with little controversy…Or so we thought.
Nintendo has a reputation for keeping its development detailsunder shrouds of secrecy and ironclad NDAs. However, our investigative journalists uncovered concept art, spoke with former employees, and ultimately uncovered five potential Mario Party mini games that never saw the light of a TV screen. And the stories behind them may make you exclaim, “Ninten-DOH NO!”
Root Of The Toot
The Wii generation gave us many innovationsin gaming, along with a few oopsy-daisies here and there. Remember pop ‘n music? Sure, you don’t. That’s because it was a crappy Wii reboot of a beloved Japanese rhythm game. The wiimote won’t solve all your problems, including spicing up your stale party game series.
“Root Of The Toot,“initially planned for Mario Party 8, was a Wiimote misfire that utilized motion controls and the controller speakers to create an amusing potty-humor mini game was simple,one of the Wiimotes would emit a fart sound from its speaker. Then, it was up to fellow players toquickly point their wiimote at the farter.
While the game sounds simple in theory, it was a mess in execution.Testers often found bugsregarding the motion controls, making it difficult to tell who correctly pointed first.
In addition to “Root of the Toot”’s technical issues,Nintendo’s higher-upswere also concerned about characters other than Wario passing gas.
Former Nintendo President Satoru Iwata reportedly said:
“No, no, no! Only villains fart! Farts are emanations of EVIL. Anyone who depicts wind passing beneath my beloved Peach’s skirt that isnotmagicalwill faceimmediatetermination!”
Night At The Rally
Planning compelling mini games is more challenging than you might think. For instance, look at the development of Mario Party 3. After two iterations of multiplayer mayhem, Hudson Soft developers felt cooked over what type of games to create next. Unfortunately, this led to some lazy recycling of ideas.
Newly discovered concept art revealssketches for a mini game called “Night At The Rally.“During the evening, each player bets on which kart racer will win a predetermined race on a circular racetrack. At the end of the rally, each player receives coins proportionate to their driver’s placement in the race.
If this concept sounds familiar, you’re not the only one. The mini game was scrapped after several development team members compared it to “Day At The Races.”
Yeah-athon!
Do you know that JoyCon motionin Super Mario Party that causes your character topump their fist in the air and say “YEAH!"?Perhaps you remember breaking down this motion for any Mario Partyers over 50. This sweeping JoyCon motion almost became a more significant part of the Switch’s first Mario Party.
The mini game,“Yeah-athon!,” tasked competitors to perform the iconic joycon motion as many times as possiblein 60 seconds. (Imagine repeatedly listening to Mario and friends shouting, “YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!”…Oof. That Sounds like a cult.)
This irritating mini game flopped with playtesters, who struggled to perform a “Yeah!” motion upon booting up the game. As you can imagine, attempting the “Yeah-athon” was a chaotic ordeal. Not only was the mini game canned, but you can thank “Yeah-athon” for giving us the button-press option that we all use instead of flailing our arms around like morons.
Mario Party Superstars celebrates the history of the fan-favorite party game by featuring remastered versions of classic mini games like Bowser’s Big Blast, Face-Lift, and Rockin’ Raceway. However, this celebration had more ambitious visions that didn’t make it into the final product.
The development team createdToad’s Tunestoshowcase Nintendo’s vast catalog of memorable game music. Toad would wail themes from Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and more Nintendo IPs in this melodic mini game. Then, players would guess the tune as a multiple-choice question. The player that correctly guessed the fastest received the most coins.
There was a lot of internal hype about Toad’s Tunes, including a proposed deal with Sony to include licensed music from RCA artists. An anonymous source recentlyleaked a demo featuring some of Toad’s vocals. After listening to the demo, we think it’s clear why Nintendo abandoned the idea.
ULTRAAAAA COMBO!
Any dedicated Nintendo fan knows that the century-old game company developed asymbiotic relationship with the UK studio Rareware in the 1990s.Rare developedone of Nintendo 64’s most memorable titles, Banjo-Kazooie. The studio was also responsible for several classic games based on Nintendo IPs, including Donkey Kong Country and Diddy Kong Racing.
Diddy Kong Racing featured two guest characters from upcoming Rare titles: Banjo (from Banjo-Kazooie) and Conker (from Conker’s Bad Fur Day). Thus, Banjo and Conker were two of the earliest guest characters featured alongside Nintendo IP. But, did you know there was almost a Rare guest appearance in the first Mario Party?
One of Mario Party’s initially planned mini games was"ULTRA COMBO!“ThisKiller Instinct crossovertasked Mario, Luigi, and the gang with copying button sequences performed by Jago, Orchid, and Fulgore tounleash killer combos that would knock out their fellow competitors.
We know what you’re thinking. The Killer Instinct mini game got scrapped for being too violent for a family game. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the case. What actually put the kibosh on the KI mini game wasKIGold’s poor sales performance on the N64.Ironically, the prolific fighting game Super Smash Bros. launched a month after Mario Party in January 1999.
THIS ARTICLE WAS SATIRE!THESE STORIES AREN’T REAL! And if you haven’t figured that out yet, then no bonus stars for you! We’re not rewarding media illiteracy.
Super Mario Party Jamboree
Super Mario Party Jamboree is a bumper edition of the popular party game series from Nintendo, with over 100 minigames and seven boards. It also features online play for up to 20 players.
