5 Party Games With Minigames That Rival Mario Party

Party games are endless fun for everyone involved. Whether you’re playing with your family or with friends ahead of a night out, there’s really nothing better than getting your blood pumping and frustrations flying with a board game-style party game. Some of the best memories I have stem from playing a game like Mario Party and beating my sister, who seems to annoyingly always win at every mini-game we play.

While Mario Party seems to be the cream of the crop when it comes to picking a party game, there are a slew of other party-style titles available that feature mini-games that are just as fun, if not more. From 2001 on, here are some party-style titles that deserve just as much love, jam-packed with mini-games that rival Mario Party‘s.

Tamagotchi: Party On!

A Party Game With Its Own Unique Vibe That Is Completely Different From Mario Party

I was a massive fan of Tamagotchi as a child and even into adulthood. The little tech taught me a great lesson about responsibility, cleaning, playing games with, and feeding my little virtual pet so he wouldn’t end up passing on into the next world. That’s why I was so thrilled to see a party game, Tamagotchi: Party On!, based on the little world that Bandai Namco created, bringing my pet Tamagotchi out of my handheld device onto my television screen.

Tamagotchi: Party On! is a multiplayer party game unlike anything else. I was so used to the Mario Party-esque board game style that this one spun me for a loop. You play a little character with big dreams, set on becoming the next Tamagotchi President. With each dice roll, the goal is to collect Popularity Points by doing tasks befitting of a president-elect.

Mini-games include washing windows, shaking hands with constituents, flipping the pages of a book, cleaning up litter, and washing community trucks, all for the sake of getting voters on your side. Games are colorful and interactive, played by shaking and swiping the Wii remote via motion controls.

I genuinely felt a sense of accomplishment every time I was voted in as the rightful Tamagotchi President, given I worked so hard to achieve my goal. It’s a wholly unique concept, and one I haven’t seen from a party game since.

Fuzion Frenzy

Xbox Has Party Games Too

Players are offered 45 mini-games in the fast-paced romp that is Fuzion Frenzy, released in 2001. I enjoyed playing this title when I was a kid because it seemed to combine all the challenging facets of mini-games into one, offering diverse options from challenging obstacle courses to rhythm-based games that kept me on my toes. It was like every party-style game I’ve ever played, all in one.

There are two modes to choose from when playing this title: Tournament Mode and Mini-Game Frenzy.

• Tournament Mode is your standard playthrough where players will compete across each city zone, challenged with sets of three mini-games with the goal of collecting colorful orbs. Orbs are then used in a chaotic final “Fusion Frenzy” arena round, which will determine the winner.
• My favorite way to play is the Mini-Game Frenzy, which lets you jump straight into the mini-games without playing through a whole tournament. This mode is casual yet endlessly fun, allowing my family and me to explore every game to see which we like best.

The Twisted System mini-game seemed to be an all-around favorite in my family. Players are meant to avoid rotating beams, moving to the rhythm of the rotation so they won’t get knocked off. The speed of the rotation ramps up as you progress, making keeping time with the rotations borderline impossible. Lots of screams of frustration and general annoyance are involved.

LEGO Party!

A Nostalgic Party Game That Builds As It Goes

LEGO Party! is a four-player, board-game-style party game with mini-games galore that rival many in how fun they are. Players pick one of four maps inspired by LEGO sets and traverse their chosen board, which builds as they go. This title features over 60 skill-based mini-games that are played before turn order is chosen. Winners determine the turn order.

For die-hard LEGO fans, each mini-game is themed around beloved sets. This includes LEGO Pirates, LEGO Space, LEGO NINJAGO, which was my personal favorite as a kid growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, and Theme Park. It’s hard to pick favorites since all of them are pretty addictive and don’t feel boring, even after the fourth or fifth playthrough. Since everything is crafted of LEGO bricks, it gives these mini-games a sort of nostalgia and kitschy look you can’t find in any other party game.

One of my favorite mini-games, and one of the most challenging, is the Read The Instructions game, which forces players to scour the instructions of a specific LEGO build and put it together in a short timeframe. Racing against the clock to put pieces together and translate instructions to actions is extremely tough, especially when you’re not great at doing things under pressure, like me. It’s like putting together Ikea furniture, but on a time crunch.

Another favorite, especially with my ultra-competitive family, is Perfect Pillars. In short, each player must stack a colorful tower up as high as they can without running out of space. Build too high and without caution, and you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot. The game is a fun mix of strategy and speed, rewarding players for thinking outside of the box with their structures.

Pummel Party

A Party Game That Caters To Both Children And Adults

Up to eight players can face off on one board in Pummel Party, developed by Rebuilt Games in 2018. Unlike most party-style games, this title is chaotic and fast-paced, focusing on adult-esque humor in its mini-games. This certainly diversifies your options for fun with friends, given most mini-games are created with kiddos in mind. There are a multitude of mini-games to choose from, each with different goals.

Some have players racing through obstacle courses with rocky terrain and belligerent opponents willing to push or kick others off to get to the goal. Other games are centered around winner-takes-all style mechanics, where players must battle it out in an arena, getting into shootouts or wielding weapons against friends to be the last man standing.

Because I love to suffer, Snowy Spin is one of my favorite mini-games in Pummel Party. Essentially, you are tasked with avoiding and maneuvering around icy platforms, standing on slippery terrain alongside your fellow players. My personal strategy was to be overly aggressive, pushing and shoving, while avoiding falling off the edge myself. This mini-game, and so many more from Pummel Party, provided my family and me with endless laughs.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves

A Party Game All About Micro Fun

If you’ve never played a WarioWare game, well, you’re in for a treat. Instead of that iconic red and blue plumber being the main character, Wario takes center stage, although he isn’t alone. Think of WarioWare: Smooth Moves as a rhythm-meets-multiplayer party game. Players will utilize motion controls to get through the wackiest of mini-games, otherwise known as micro-games in this title, that come in rapid succession, lasting five seconds at max.

Using your Wii remote, you’ll be instructed to strike one of four Posing Styles that will dictate the way you play each micro-game. There’s the Remote Control, where players will hold their controller normally, pointing at the screen, or The Samurai, where one must grip the controller vertically above their head like a sword. The Umbrella Posing style consists of gripping the controller straight up with a finger beneath, like holding an umbrella, and The Elephant, which has players hold the controller up to their nose, mimicking the appearance of a trunk.

Once you’ve got the controls down, it’s time to party.

Some of my favorite micro-games are the extremely odd ones. Defeating a giant monster so that it doesn’t destroy the city, battling out a thumb war, playing jump rope with a spork-like character named Fronk, mixing food in a wok by tossing it up in the air and not letting a single veggie drop, and picking a giant floating nose. The games are endlessly unique and extremely addictive. As you ace these micro-games, they speed up, which brings even more challenge to games you thought you’d already aced.