Mario Party 6 is still a great party game to play with friends.
Presentation - The intro starts off with a cute cut scene, and Mario and the gang argue who's the coolest or best character. As they were all fighting with each other, Mario's idea was to throw a party to compete and see who the best out of them all is. The new hosts are the Sun and Moon this time around. Each board has a day time and night time scene for about every three turns. During the day time, the Sun hosts the game. At night time, the Moon takes over for a few turns. Each of the new boards have different themes. For example, there's a tropical board, a snow land, casino theme, clockwork tower, tree top, and E Gadd's engine room etc. Also, not all boards just require you to pay 20 coins to buy stars. For example, in the Snow Land, you ride on Chain Chomps to steal stars from your opponents. Most of the playable characters are the same from Mario Party 5, but the newcomer is Toadette.
Some extra modes utilize the microphone which is used to speak for the character that you chose. There aren't a lot of modes that use the microphone, but the ones that use it are the quiz mode, calling names of fruits, and calling certain weapons to defeat your opponent. Story mode also makes a return, and you can choose a second character that can be your partner. As I can remember, story mode is a tad different from the previous Mario Parties. You can also use your Mario Party points to buy new characters, character voices, secrets, hints, music tracks, and the Clock Tower board.
Graphics - Everything looks bright and colorful. The animations are well done, and there are no signs of any slow down or any glitches. However, the graphics aren't much different from Mario Party 4 and 5.
Sound- There are new party theme soundtracks for each board, and they pretty much sound relaxing and upbeat sometimes. However, the character voices are still a tad repetitive.
Game play - The controls are accurate and responsive. The overall difficulty of Mario Party 6 isn't overly difficult for newcomers, but it's still a bit on the easy side as far as mini-games are concerned.
Lasting appeal - Having up to four players is always a blast with friends. The new microphone peripheral may not be a big part of this game, but it's accurately implemented to hear your voices. Overall, I recommend Mario Party 6 to everybody.
The good - great variety in the boards and mini-games, extra modes to make things more exciting, controls are responsive, looks and sounds decent
The bad - not much variety in the use of the microphone, character voices are still redundant, graphics haven't improved much, game play is a tad too easy
Presentation - 10
Graphics- 8
Sound- 8
Game play- 8
Lasting appeal- 8
Game spot Score 8.4 rounded to 8.5 out of 10