Mario Party 2 is a massive improvement over its predecessor, as it is very creative and has so much great ideas.
Lows: Unpredictible formula, CPUs are very unfair (even on easy), getting stars can be a pain, you need 5 coins to pay Boo to steal coins from someone else.
Verdict: The best Mario Party game that money can buy.
In 1998, Nintendo and Hudson Soft brought us Mario Party, a four-player party-adventure game where you compete against your friends or you with a friend can compete against 2 CPU players, or you and 2 friends can compete against 1 CPU player and try to get more stars and coins than anyone else. Mario Party was a good game, but wasn't perfect. That's when Nintendo and Hudson brought us the sequel, Mario Party 2, released for the Nintendo 64 in 2000. Nintendo fixed what was wrong with the first game and improved the formula in almost every imaginable way with Mario Party 2. In Mario Party 2, you have 6 playable characters and they are Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, DK, Peach, and Wario, and they are all on a journey to stop Bowser from continuing all his evil deeds (of course). Mario Party 2 plays similar to it's predecessor, as you start off by hitting a dice block to see how far you can advance on the game board. You need 20 coins to get a star, and you can buy an item from the koopa shops or just win an item when you land on an item-minigame spot. There are items ranging from Super Mushrooms which gives you 2 dice blocks to get a chance to increase the number of spots you can move to, to the Boo Bell which calls Boo so he can steal coins from someone else or a star if you have 50 coins, the Golden Mushroom which gives you 3 dice blocks, a treasure chest so you can try to steal someone's item, a Bowser bomb, which turns Bowser Jr. - or whatever you want to call him - into Bowser where he steals all your coins - so don't let that happen, and more! Each game board is very well designed so that is has a nice sense of challenge to it, and all the cutscenes have some pretty funny dialogue too. There are problems however. You need to pay Boo 5 coins so that he can steal coins from someone else, the CPUs are a little too unfair even on easy, getting to Toad so you can buy a star can be a huge pain, as this game, like the first, can be very frustrating. Overall, Mario Party 2 is a great sequel as it does everything the first game does times a million, and it was a lot of fun. No Mario Party will ever match the greatness of No. 2.