Mario Party Advance

Mario Party Advance brought the minigame fun of the popular series to the Game Boy Advance, deliberately abandoning the traditional game board with dice and random figure movement typical of the series' console entries. Instead, it offers an extensive collection of more than sixty short minigames, which the player unlocks by gradually exploring a virtual town called Shroom City, where they meet various characters, complete small side tasks, gather materials, and unlock further content and new minigames. Characters from the Mario universe accompany the player as shopkeepers and quest-givers, making Shroom City feel like a living hub tying the individual minigames into one whole.

The minigames cover a wide range of skills, from quick reflexes through simple logic to small rhythm-based tasks, ensuring decent variety even over longer, repeated play. The graphics are colorful, clean and easy to read, typical of the whole Mario Party series, and the controls are fully adapted to the handheld's standard buttons without any need for motion sensors. The game also supported multiplayer via a link cable, including the practical option to play without every participating player needing to own their own cartridge. A number of the minigames also cleverly make use of the GBA's specific controls, so even after years of being ported to other platforms, these particular variants remain tied specifically to this handheld.

Compared to the series' console entries, Mario Party Advance received a somewhat more mixed reception, because the absence of a game board and direct competitive tension between players at one screen shifted the character of the experience more toward solo content-collecting and progressing through the town. Even so, it is still valued today for its great variety of minigames and as a solid portable alternative for fans of the series who wanted to experience a similar kind of undemanding fun away from the home console as well, whether on a long trip or just during a short break between school and chores.