In this day and age of yearly sequels and follow-ups to top-selling game franchises, there aren't many franchises that exemplify that trend more than Nintendo's Mario Party series. Now on its seventh installment, in the appropriately titled Mario Party 7 for the Nintendo GameCube, the Mario Party series of virtual board game party action continues to crank out a new hit with each passing year. After six games you'd think that the series would start to fade in popularity, but gamers keep on buying each new rendition, and as such Nintendo and developer Hudson Soft keep the games coming at an alarming rate. For better or for worse, Mario Party 7 doesn't change the franchise's clearly winning formula at all; however, it does introduce a new feature or two and a gigantic roster of new mini-games that deliver the multiplayer party atmosphere fans come to expect.

Setting the stage for Mario's seventh shindig is the MSS Sea Star, a luxury cruise ship Mario sets sail on after Toadsworth offers him a vacation away from his usual duties of saving the world. Mario's regular gang of pals are also invited to join the party, including Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Daisy, Toad, Toadette, Boo, Wario, Waluigi and first-time partiers Birdo and Dry Bones, all of whom are playable characters in the game itself. One name not seen on that list is the dreaded Bowser, who, after feeling the sting of being left off the cruise's invite list, sets out to be the pooper of everyone else's party. This new cruise ship setting brings along the addition of six new vacation-hotspot game boards - Grand Canal, Pagoda Park, Pyramid Park, Neon Heights, Windmillville and Bowser's Enchanted Inferno.

On these new boards, Mario Party 7 plays the same as always, continuing to follow the straightforward virtual board game style, having players choose their favorite Mario universe character and rolling dice to move said character around game boards, collecting coins, competing in an abundance of quick-action mini-games, using orbs to hinder the progress of opposing players and hunting down stars to ultimately win the game - nothing has changed. As such, Mario Party 7 still isn't friendly to the solo gamer, with its frustrating reliance on the luck of the roll and a slow game pacing that doesn't allow you to skip the turns of CPU competitors.

As always, Mario Party 7 is only enjoyable in a multiplayer environment, and in that regard it can still be mildly entertaining, even though the game itself hasn't evolved much. Game modes not in short supply, featuring a Party Cruise mode offering free-for-all Battle Royales and cooperative Tag Battles, a one-on-one dueling Solo Cruise mode, a new Deluxe Cruise mode spotlighting the game's new eight-player functionality, and the Minigame Cruise, which gives you access to all the unlocked mini-games for play without the board game elements. Mario Party 7's main addition this outing is the increased multiplayer limit, from the series' standard of four all the way up to eight, for the first time ever. What's great about playing with eight people is the game's controller sharing mechanic. Since the GameCube only has four controller ports, obviously only four controllers can be used. To allow for eight players, though, the game calls for two players to team up and share one controller, with one player manning the left shoulder button and analog stick and the other player handling the right shoulder and C-Stick.

The main draw to any Mario Party game is unquestionably the mini-games, and when it comes to mini-game variety and all-around quantity, Mario Party 7 doesn't disappoint; with 86 new mini-games making up the roster, it's quite remarkable how the developers have managed to think up so many new games. Then again, the available mini-games aren't tremendously innovative compared to what's been done in the series before. The usual assortment of boat races, Goomba pounding contests, thought puzzles, battle games, slot machines, button-mashing duels and so on are all here and still fun to play with a group of friends. Returning from Mario Party 6 is the Nintendo Gamecube Mic peripheral (it's included with the game), and accompanying the mic are 11 mini-games specifically tailored to the device. The mic games are more of a gimmick than anything else, but there's good fun to be found in directing a race car down a track using shouted "left" and "right" commands to steer or screaming "fire" to shoot darts in a target-shooting contest, especially as the voice recognition works without any problems.

On the presentation front, Mario Party 7, as is a common theme here, doesn't showcase much improvement over earlier games. Visually, the backgrounds and game boards have been spruced up a bit, but overall the game looks the same as always - which is fine by me, as the simplistic graphic design based more around providing a colorful and inviting game world to play in is well suited to the game's family-friendly nature. More detail wouldn't hurt, but I don't see much use in knocking a party board game for not having the most incredible graphics - this isn't a cutting edge FPS, after all! The game's audio design is also similar to the rest of the series, consisting of the usual character emotes and one-liners, nostalgic Mario-themed sound effects and a whimsically toned soundtrack. Again, it's nothing spectacular, yet nothing to gripe about either.

Mario Party 7 probably is the best game overall in the franchise to date; however, even with that being the case it simply doesn't do enough new to warrant a definitive purchase. Fans of the series who just can't get enough of the Mario Party antics will likely pick this seventh installment up no matter what I say, and frankly whether or not you liked all the previous games, there's nothing here that'll make you feel any differently either way. If you have somehow never played any of the first six titles, the new eight-player functionality and gargantuan selection of mini-games does fit the bill if you're searching for a quality Gamecube party game. For me, though, the bottom line is simple: rent the game whenever you have a bunch of friends over, have a ball with it for the night, then take it back to the rental shop. After six near-identical games already, it's hard to justify paying full price for a seventh.

Reviewed by Matt Litten for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).