Video Game / Mario Party 9

Mario Party 9 is a video game published by Nintendo for the Wii in 2012. It's the ninth home console installment in the Mario Party series, and not only the second and last for the Wii, but also the final Mario game to be released on the system. It is the first home console Mario Party game to lack the involvement of the series' original developer, Hudson Soft, instead being the first developed by NDcube, who had previously developed Wii Party, and would go on to become the new main developer for the series.

One night, Mario and friends are gazing up at the Mini-Stars glittering in the sky, when suddenly, they all disappear into a massive black hole. It turns out that Bowser has built a large space station that he is using to gather all the Mini-Stars and he plans to use them to decorate his castle. Mario and company all set off to venture through several boards to rescue the Mini-Stars and teach Bowser a lesson once again, but some of Bowser's minions are following them to sabotage their efforts...

Being the first Mario Party game with a new developer, this game marks the beginning of a more experimental era for the series. The main board game introduces a radical shake-up of the board game formula compared to all the previous installments. Up to four players ride together through the boards in a vehicle, of which they take turns being the "Captain". Throughout each board, the players pass through clusters of Mini-Stars, and whichever player is captain when the vehicle passes through them is the one who gets to claim them. Mini-Stars can also be earned by playing minigames, which now require the players to land on dedicated spaces in order to play. A new minigame type are the Boss Battles, longer minigames in which players score points for attacking the boss in different ways, with the winner being dictated by who scores the most before the boss character's health is depleted. Each board has a start and end space, with the players taking part in one boss battle once they reach the fort at a certain point in the board, and a second boss at the very end. After the final boss is defeated, the game ends, and the player with the most Mini-Stars is declared the Super Star.

A more minor change comes to the normal Dice Block, which has its maximum roll changed from 10 to 6 to account for the rebalanced board sizes. The items that players can collect throughout the boards all take the form of Dice Blocks with different numbers on them, allowing them chances to manipulate their rolls to increase their chances of landing on more advantageous spaces. The 2-vs.-2 minigame type from previous Mario Party installments has been removed, but in their place is a new set of Bowser Jr. minigames, in which two players must work together to defeat Bowser Jr. Yellow Toad hosts the Party mode, Blue Toad hosts the Minigame modes, and Green Toad appears in Party Mode to mark the Homestretch of each board.

Compared to Mario Party 8's more realistic artstyle, 9 has a general aesthetic more typical of the Mario franchise. The environments are either ripped or heavily inspired by those found in the New Super Mario Bros. series, and many mechanics from those games are referenced throughout the boards and minigames.

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This game provides examples of:

• Added Alliterative Appeal: The strategy guide's description for Sock It to Lakitu says "Beat this bad boss by battering him with blistering Bullet Bill barrages!"
• Alliterative Name: The minigames Buddy Bounce, Pianta Pool, Jigsaw Jumble, Peak Precision, Tuber Tug, Tumble Temple, Ballistic Beach, Bumper Bubbles, Bomb Barge, Piranha Patch, Pier Pressure, Magma Mayhem, Fungi Frenzy, Ruins Rumble, Hazard Hold, Tackle Takedown, Weird Wheels, Hole Hogs, Mecha March, Crossfire Caverns, Spike Strike, Blooper Barrage, Bowser's Block Battle, and Castle Clearout. There's also the boards Blooper Beach and Magma Mine.
• A Twinkle in the Sky: Lakitu and Bowser Jr. gets the same treatment when they get defeated.
• Artificial Brilliance: During the "Double Pounder", after the player moves to a switch, the CPU teammate will automatically move to the other one and ground pound it when the player does, even on Easy, making the minigame one of the simplest Bowser Jr. Minigames to clear.
• Artificial Stupidity: If a computer character gets a Spin Space event that lets them swap Dice Blocks with another player, they will sometimes pick Random, even though it will result in nothing happening if the random wheel lands on an opponent with no Dice Blocks.
• Astral Finale: The final board in Solo mode is Bowser Station, a space station where Bowser has taken all of the Mini-Stars. The players fly through space in a flying saucer, and make stops at various space colonies to take part in different Captain Events.
• Auto-Scrolling Level: Skyjinks and Polar Extreme are minigames that challenge players to navigate through platforming stages and traverse obstacles while the screen automatically scrolls forward, forcing them to keep up.
• Bat Family Crossover: Within this Mario game, DK's Jungle Ruins is a board that is heavily based on the closely related Donkey Kong Country series, more specifically Donkey Kong Country Returns. The board is located in a jungle heavily inspired by the ones from that game, players can access Lucky events by being launched out of Barrel Cannons, and Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong appear together to host bonus minigames.
• Big Boo's Haunt: Boo's Horror Castle takes the players through a haunted castle where they must avoid getting caught by Boos that want to steal their Mini-Stars.
• Blow You Away: In Hazard Hold, one of the attacks that the player controlling the machines can use is a giant fan that slowly rotates left and right, and fires a blast of air in whatever direction it's facing.
• Bonus Stage: Instead of boss minigames, DK's Jungle Ruins features two bonus minigames called Diddy's Banana Blast and DK's Banana Bonus. Both minigames place players in a series of Barrel Cannons they launch themselves out of, with the goal of collecting as many Bananas as possible. All Bananas collected during these minigames will be carried over to the players' scores on the board.
• Boss Rush: An unlockable mode in Minigame mode is called Boss Rush, where up to four players play through all of the Boss minigames one after another, and score points after each battle based on their rank. There are options to fight the six mid-stage bosses, the six main stage bosses, and all twelve bosses.
• Bowling for Ratings: The minigame Goomba Bowling is a spin on more traditional bowling. Instead of ten pins at the end of the lane, twenty Goombas are placed in a line that moves back and forth throughout the lane, and the goal is to hit as many as possible in one throw with a red Koopa shell. Additionally, instead of gutters, the sides of the lane feature walls that the shell can ricochet off of. The idea is to both angle and time your throw so the shell will follow the line of Goombas as they waddle back and forth and hit them all in a row. Before their throw, players can both move their position and aim their throw left and right. There is also an extended version of Goomba Bowling accessible in the Extras menu, where players can play an entire five-frame game with two chances per frame.
• Bullet Hell: In Billistics, players are placed atop a tower high above the clouds, and must run around to avoid Bullet Bills that fly at them from all directions. Getting hit by any of them will send them flying off the tower, and more Bullet Bills attack at once the longer the mini-game goes on. After enough time has passed, some Bullet Bills will start homing in on the players.
• Button Mashing:
  • Launch Break is a mini-game where the players mash the buttons on the controller to power up a rocket as much as possible. The rocket is divided into three segments, with the timer having three segments to match, forcing players to switch which button they are mashing at a moment's notice. First they mash the 1 button, then the 2 button, and finally, they shake the Wii Remote sideways as fast as possible. The player who does the best job at mashing the correct buttons will launch their rocket higher than anyone else to win the minigame.
  • DK's Jungle Ruins has a Lucky Space event where one player is placed in the hands of a large Donkey Kong statue with a trail of Bananas floating above them. The player is given five seconds to mash the A button as fast as possible to build up power before the statue throws them up at the Bananas. The more power they build up, the higher they will be launched, and the more Bananas they will get.
• Camera Screw: invoked Perspective Mode is a one-player mode where the player plays through ten specific mini-games with the added twist of an alternate camera angle designed to make the game more difficult. Many of these involve the camera being zoomed in on the player's character so they cannot see as much of their surroundings.
• Casino Park: Bowser Station has some gambling-themed Captain Events, such as a bingo game. There's also a Jackpot Machine that sucks in Mini-Stars when players land on specific spaces, and can award them all to a player lucky enough to land on a Jackpot space. Finally, both Boss minigames puts everyone's luck to the test, as both are based around rolling Dice Blocks.
• Comeback Mechanic:
  • When the players reach the Homestretch, Green Toad will give a free Slow Dice Block to the player in last place.
  • Landing on Bowser Spaces actually tends to be beneficial for the player in last place, as events where Bowser would usually steal Mini-Stars will have him take pity on the player in last, and give them Mini-Stars instead. Alternatively, he can take half of everyone's Mini-Stars, then distribute them based on placement in a mini-game, which is high-stakes enough that it can easily change the results of the entire game, and the player in last has the least to lose.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: Bowser Jr.'s minigames all involve him forcing two players to team up in order to defeat him. The participants will either gain or lose five Mini-Stars depending on whether they win.
• Death from Above: Thwomper Room takes place in a room where the ceiling is lined with six Thwomps that drop down before rising back to the ceiling. Contact with any of them will result in a player being eliminated immediately, and the player that survives the longest is the winner.
• Defeat Means Playable: Magikoopa/Kamek and Shy Guy can be unlocked as playable characters by completing Solo mode, which requires the player to ensure that they lose on every board.
• Demoted to Extra: After having been playable in the previous console game, Boo, Dry Bones, Hammer Bro, and Blooper are all reduced to NPCs.
  • Boo appears as a board hazard on Boo's Horror Castle.
  • Dry Bones and Blooper are boss characters.
  • Hammer Bro. now hosts the Battle minigames.
• Descending Ceiling: Smash Compactor places the players in a small room with a ceiling that periodically falls and crushes them. The goal is to drop down one of the holes that open in the floor to get to safety before the ceiling falls, but only one player can use each hole, and there are never enough holes for everyone, so at least one player is going to be unlucky and get Squashed Flat every time the ceiling falls.
• Eternal Engine: Bob-omb Factory is an industrial factory that manufactures Bob-ombs, where players traverse over conveyor belts that can influence their direction, while dealing with Bob-ombs that stow away on their vehicle and cause the Captain to lose Mini-Stars when they detonate. Bowser describes it as a supercool factory where he makes all of his evil stuff.
• Excuse Plot: Bowser has stolen the stars from the sky. Go explore a bunch of boards and play a bunch of minigames to get them back.
• Failure Gambit: One potential outcome of landing on a Bowser Space is having all players take part in a Reverse Minigame. These take an existing minigame, but the goal is to deliberately come in last, such as being the last player to reach the bottom in Chain Event, or being the first player to get eliminated in Billistics. The "winner" will receive ten Mini-Stars for their trouble.
• Falling Blocks: Castle Clearout is a puzzle minigame that appears in the Extras section of the menu that can be played with one or two players. Players drop groups of three colored marbles into a playing field, and must connect six marbles of the same color in order to eliminate them from the playing field. In the one player mode, players can play through 50 stages with the objective of eliminating marbles with stars on them, while in two player mode, the goal is to outlast the opponent. If the player creates a group of six marbles in the shape of a line, triangle, or hexagon, all marbles of the same color will be eliminated at once in one player mode, or extra marbles will fall into their opponent's field in two player mode.
• Final Boss: In Solo Mode, Bowser's Block Battle is the final boss minigame on the final board, Bowser Station. In Party mode, while the other boards let the players choose what boss minigame they want to play, Bowser Station always ends with Bowser's Block Battle.
• Final-Exam Boss: Once Bowser has been reduced to half of his health in Bowser's Block Battle, he starts rolling a Dice Block with pictures of the previous bosses on it. He will summon whichever character he lands on to attack the players.
• Fishing Minigame: Pier Pressure. Players are placed on a pier with several fishing rods to choose from. The objective is to pick a fishing rod that will catch a Cheep Cheep, but some of them will catch Urchins that will eliminate whoever catches them. All the players can do is pick a rod and hope for the best.
• Floating in a Bubble: The minigame Bumper Bubbles has players floating through the sky in bubbles, trying to collect more balloons than anyone else. However, they must also avoid spiked balls, as contact with any of those will pop their bubble, causing them to lose all of their balloons and start over from scratch.
• Flunky Boss:
  • Lakitu attacks by throwing Spinies into the arena that wander around and get in the players' way.
  • Wiggler is accompanied by Piranha Plants that rise from the ground and take a bite out of players that get too close.
• Flying Saucer: The Shiny Saucer is an unlockable vehicle for the Bowser Station board that resembles a stereotypical alien spaceship. The Starship Bowser has a similar look, but is designed with spikes that resemble those on Bowser's shell.
• Foregone Victory: The boss minigames will always end with the boss being defeated, as there's no way for all of the players to lose. Instead, victory in these minigames has more to do with scoring more points by attacking the boss more often than the other players.
• Foul Flower: In Piranha Patch, the goal is to collect flowers that grow from buds that appear around the stage, but these buds can just as easily grow into Piranha Plants that damage any players that touch them, so getting close to the buds before they open is a risk.
• Friendly, Playful Dolphin:
  • Dolphins appear in the first segment of Blooper Beach. They appear in front of the team, and give five Mini-Stars to whichever player is Captain when the team catches up to them.
  • Dolphins give the players a ride in the minigame Ring Leader. The objective is to score points by jumping through hoops, some of which require the dolphins to dive in order to perform a higher jump.
• Frustrated Overhead Scribble: In Skipping Class, Growing Up, and Don't Look, any players that fail to follow the instructions in the allotted time will have a ball of scribbles appear over their head.
• Ghost Leg Lottery: In the boss minigame Chain Chomp Romp, each player must select one of five mine carts placed on tracks that lead to cannons that they can fire at the giant Chain Chomp. However, they will be forced to change tracks at each junction they pass. The players will be shown the track before they make their choice, then they must pick a minecart that will lead them to one of the cannons. If they pick a cannon that leads directly to Chain Chomp, it will take a bite out of them, costing them points.
• Giant Squid: A giant Blooper appears in the boss minigame Blooper Barrage. It attacks from the ocean, and the players fight it by firing cannons at it from a pirate ship.
• Goomba Springboard: In Buddy Bounce, players can bounce on top of another player's head in order to gain extra height. Doing so is the only way to reach the 10-point balloons, which are otherwise too high up.
• Graceful Loser:
  • If Luigi comes in third place during a four-player free-for-all minigame, he will clap during the results screen.
  • Any player characters that lose in Garden Battle will applaud for the winner at the end of the game.
• Green Hill Zone: The first board is Toad Road, which takes influence from the traditional grassland levels that populate the first world of most Mario platformers, and takes players across a winding dirt road through the hills of the Mushroom Kingdom. There's also a small island that has a series of ancient ruins on it where players can earn Mini-Stars, and a small forest can be seen on the left side of the board.
• Ground Pound: Many of the mini-games allow players to perform a Ground Pound by pressing the jump button in the middle of a jump.
  • In Wiggler Bounce, players must use their ground pound ability to stomp on Wiggler's segments to score points.
  • Fungi Frenzy is divided into three rounds where players use their Ground Pound ability to collect Mushrooms from ? panels on the ground. Before the each round starts, each panel will show how many Mushrooms they contain, and the player who collects the most is the winner.
  • In Whomp Stomp, all players that manage to avoid getting crushed by the Whomp in each round will climb up onto its back, where they can Ground Pound it to damage it and score points.
  • Double Pounder challenges two players to pound eight colored panels to create a path to chase after Bowser Jr. However, the panels are color-coded, and require both players to pound the two panels of the same color simultaneously in order to be activated.
  • In Sand Trap, two players must work together to make Bowser Jr. fall down through a grid of sandy blocks. The grid has 16 blocks in a 4x4 square, with one player placed on a row of four switches on both the X and Y axis of the grid. Players can ground pound the platform adjacent to a row or column of the grid, and if both players pound at the same time, the block highlighted in the cross between the two will disappear. Players defeat Jr. by removing the block that he's standing on, but he doesn't stay still, so players will have to remove enough blocks so he won't have anywhere to run.
• Guest-Star Party Member: The Ruins Rumble minigame gives the Rivals team three Dry Bones allies that the one player must defeat in addition to the player characters themselves in order to win. Even if the one player is successful in eliminating all of their opponents, they can still lose if any of the Dry Bones survive to the end of the minigame.
• Harder Than Hard: The computer players can be set to a Very Hard difficulty, which is a step up from the regular Hard difficulty level. There's also a Master difficulty level that can be bought from the Museum, which is a step up from Very Hard.
• Hope Spot: When the Super Star is being determined at the end of the game, the platforms under the losing players disappear one by one, causing them to fall. Sometimes, the Star will hover over the player that came in second long enough for them to do a victory pose, only to move over to the actual winner before dropping them.
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: The minigame Player Conveyor challenges the players to navigate a maze of conveyor belts to reach the goal in the center. Once the player steps on a belt, they cannot move until they reach the end of it, so they must determine the correct path to take to reach the goal. Additionally, these belts can lead to Warp Pipes that bring anyone who enters them to the opposite corner, or they can lead to a ! tile that will launch anyone who steps them back to the outside of the playing field.
• Inevitable Waterfall: In Time Attack, the player character's canoe triumphantly jumps off a waterfall after clearing all ten minigames.
• Jungle Japes: DK's Jungle Ruins is a bonus board located atop a temple in the middle of the jungle. Donkey Kong serves as the board's host, and players collect Bananas instead of Mini-Stars. There are no bosses in this board; instead, Diddy and DK host respectively two bonus minigames where the objective is to gather as many bananas as possible.
• Later-Installment Weirdness: All of the console Mario Party installments up to this point were developed by Hudson Soft, and had a consistent formula. This is the first game in the series to be developed by Nd Cube, who would take the series in a more experimental direction for the future installments.
• Late to the Realization: In the cutscene before Bowser Station in Solo mode, when Bowser Jr. tells his dad that Mario and friends are headed to the space stage, he describes the stage and prepares to send his minions to deal with them just like all the previous stages, only to suddenly remember that it means that they're headed straight for him, after which he and Jr. decide to take things into their own hands.
• Lethal Lava Land: Magma Mine starts deep underground in a volcano. Once the mid-boss fortress has been destroyed, the magma will begin to flood the entire cave, forcing the players to move through the rest of board quickly in order to escape.
• Level in the Clouds: Skyjinks is a minigame where players have to navigate through platforming obstacles while high up in the sky. Falling off the platforms will cost players one of their three "lives".
• Luck-Based Mission
  • In Pinball Fall, players are given a choice of five different balls at the top of a large hill, then they all roll down the hill, and whichever ball reaches the bottom first is the winner. On the way down, there are a variety of obstacles that slow the balls down, such as bumpers, holes, and the other racers. While the player is given a view of the course before the game begins which they can use to predict which ball will make it down fastest, they have no control of the balls on the way down, aside from ability to shake the Wii Remote to free their ball if it gets stuck in a hole.
  • 10 to Win is a minigame where players take turns picking panels to determine whether they, their rivals, the current leader, or the player in last will have their platform raised a certain amount. The first player to reach ten points is the winner, but the players have no idea what they're picking until they do it.
  • In Mecha Choice, players are being pursued by a swarm of Mechakoopas, and have to choose one of three doors to escape from them. Every time, however, one of these doors leads to a dead end that causes the player to lose if they pick it.
  • Manor of Escape challenges players to find the correct doors to reach the bottom floor of a mansion to get out. While the players can look at the doors their rivals pick to more easily complete the process of elimination, there is no way to know where any of the doors lead until someone goes through them.
  • Pier Pressure gives players a choice from a series of fishing rods on a pier. The goal is to pick a rod that will catch a Cheep Cheep, but if the player picks a rod that catches an Urchin, they lose.
  • In Whomp Stomp, players are placed on a rotating platform with one player placed directly in front of a Whomp. In each round, players can choose to add either one or zero to the counter in the center, then rotates one player at a time until the counter hits zero. Whichever player is unlucky enough to land in front of Thwomp when the counter hits zero will get crushed underneath and lose a point, while the others will all be free to attack the Thwomp with a ground pound to earn points. Whether players choose to add to the counter is not revealed until after all players have made their choice, so whether any given player should choose to add is a pure gamble.
  • Bombard King Bob-omb challenges players to pick one of four Bob-ombs to throw at King Bob-omb to score points. The Bob-ombs come in three different sizes, with the largest ones being worth three points, and smallest ones only being worth one. However, the catch is that if more than one player picks the same Bob-omb, the characters will bump into each other when they run over to pick it up, and no one will get to throw it. There's no way to tell which Bob-ombs the other players have picked, so all you can do is pick one and hope for the best.
  • Bowser Jr. Breakdown is a luck-based boss fight. The entire fight consists of rolling a Dice Block to light up the dots on the gauge at the top of the screen in hopes of landing on an increment of 3 so you can score points by attacking Bowser Jr. However, if the player is unlucky enough to land on a Bowser Jr. panel, Jr. will get a chance to roll his own Dice Blocks for a chance to attack that player, costing them points. Unlike the Whomp and King Bob-omb mini-games, there is absolutely nothing the players can do to influence the outcome.
  • In Bowser's Block Battle, the players' scores are determined by which characters land face-up on the Dice Blocks that Bowser throws at them. However, players can manipulate the outcome, as they are given ten seconds to pick up any Dice Blocks they want and throw them to try and land them on a different face.
• Make My Monster Grow: In Bowser Station, Bowser turns himself giant before he begins the final boss minigame. In the minigame itself, once he's down to half of his health, he grows even bigger.
• Magical Mystery Doors: Manor of Escape places players on the top floor of a haunted mansion, with each floor having six doors. The objective is to reach the bottom floor before anyone else. Every door is connected to another door, but only one door per floor will bring the players down a level.
• Magic Carpet: The default vehicle for Boo's Horror Castle is a floating carpet. The Boo Blanket is an alternate design that can be unlocked, which has a Boo's face on it.
• Match-Three Game: King Boo's Puzzle Attack is a boss mini-game where players score points by attacking King Boo by swapping two power-up tiles around a board to make three of the same power-up in a row.
• Minecart Madness: The players navigate Magma Mine by riding in a mine cart, and have to race to the top before the rising magma roasts them. The default mine cart is a typical wooden one with iron trim, but two alternate skins can be unlocked, including a cart made of bones, and cart with a Chain Chomp face on the front, with chains for railing.
• Mini-Boss: There's one signature miniboss per board in Story Mode, which is fought in the halfway point. In party mode, players can choose which one to fight regardless of the board they're playing. Notably, one of the minibosses, Bowser Jr., can also be fought in up to 10 different minigames, one of which is triggered by player choice when he or she lands upon the Bowser Jr. space.
• Mini-Mecha: In Mecha March, Bowser Jr. attaches his Junior Clown Car to a pair of mechanical legs and runs tries to run away down a hallway, so two players must chase after him using their own two-legged machine. Both players control one of the mech's legs, and shake the Wii Remote to move their leg when it is in the back position. Occasionally, both players will need to shake simultaneously to jump over rubble that blocks their path. If the players can catch up to Jr. before he escapes to the end of the hallway, they win the minigame.
• Misère Game: This happens during a "Reverse Mini-Game" in a Bowser Event. You play a standard mini-game, but the objective is to lose as quickly as possible instead of trying to play the normal way. The first person to lose the game will win. In the case of the minigame Chain Event, you have to "win" by being the last player to touch the bottom after going down through the chain, so in this case you have to drag yourself for as long as possible.
• Monkey Morality Pose: DK's Jungle Ruins features a Lucky Space event with three totem poles depicting Diddy Kong with his hands over his eyes, ears, and mouth. The middle face on each totem pole spins around, and the participating player must time their button presses to stop the face when it is facing the screen in order to score bonus Bananas.
• Mook Promotion: Lakitu, Wiggler, Whomp, Dry Bones, Cheep Cheep, Blooper, Spike, and Chain Chomp are all regular enemies from the Mario platforming games that appear as Boss characters in this game. The boss versions are much larger than their more common brethren.
• Morton's Fork: Upon reaching the Homestretch, Bowser will appear to reveal that he has a "present" for the current Captain, and gives them the choice to take "a whole bunch of presents", before placing Bowser Spaces on several spaces within the Homestretch. While the Captain can influence the number of Bowser Spaces by saying "No", sometimes Bowser will place a higher number of Bowser Spaces regardless of how the Captain answers.
• No Item Use for You: One outcome of the Spin space will cause the Captain's opponents to be unable to use their special Dice Blocks for one turn.
• No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: Bowser Station and DK's Jungle Ruins are completely circular boards with no branching paths.
• Only One Save File: This is the first Mario Party game since Mario Party 2 that does not give the player the option to choose a save file upon starting. Any actions the player takes during the game will be saved to one universal file.
• Paintball Episode: The minigame Flinger Painting places the players in front of a giant blank canvas, and arms them with paintball guns. The goal is to cover more of the canvas with your color than any other player by firing paintballs at it. The paintball guns can be charged by holding the fire button down for a second before releasing, resulting in a larger shot. Players can cover paint left by their opponents, adding extra strategy. The player with the most paint coverage when the time limit expires wins the minigame.
• Palmtree Panic: Blooper Beach takes the players on a boat ride through a series of tropical islands in the ocean. Along the way, they will encounter sea creatures like Dolphins and Sushies, but they must also watch out for the pirate ship controlled by the Huckit Crabs, which will cause the Mini-Stars on the board to turn into Mini-Ztars if someone lands on an Event space.
• Pet the Dog: If the player in last place lands on a Bowser Space and gets an event that would cause them to lose Mini-Stars, Bowser will give them Mini-Stars himself instead.
  "Even I'm nice every once in a while! Write me a thank-you note later!"
• Plot Coupon: Unlike in all previous games minus Advance, where the most coveted pickups were Stars (Advance features Gaddgets instead), Mario Party 9 has the many Mini-Stars that can be gathered in the boards as well as won in minigames, and whoever has the most by the end of the party session will win (the DK boards replaces them with bananas, which serve the same function).
• Poison Mushroom: Mini-Ztars appear at certain points on each board. The player who collects them will have Mini-Stars deducted from their score. Z-Bananas appear on DK's Jungle Ruins, and serve the same purpose.
• Power Up Letdown: While the 1-10 Dice Block has the potential to give its user a greater roll than any other Dice Block in the game, it could just as easily give them as low a roll as any of the others.
• Promoted to Playable: After appearing as items and non-playable characters in previous games, Koopa, Magikoopa/Kamek, and Shy Guy all make their playable Mario Party debuts in this game, the latter two being unlockable.
• Racing Minigame:
  • Speeding Bullets places the players in rideable Bullet Bills with no brakes. The players must race to the end of a course while avoiding obstacles such as Warp Pipes and Piranha Plants.
  • Snow Go places the players in snowmobiles and challenges them to be the first to complete five laps around a small oval track. Additionally, two Mr. Blizzards in the middle of the course will throw snowballs that freeze any players they hit, and they will need to shake the Wii Remote in order to escape. Additionally, halfway around the track is a patch of thick snow that can only be avoided by using a ramp to jump over it.
• Rhyming Names: The minigames Snow Go, Pix Fix, Zoom Room, Whomp Stomp, and Spike Strike. There's also the board Toad Road.
• Ring Out:
  • Magma Mayhem places the players atop a platform hanging from a chain above a sea of lava. The objective is to be the last player standing by attacking the other players to push them off the edge. Complicating matters is the fact that the players can weigh down sides of the platform depending on where they are standing.
  • Bomb Barge places the players on a raft floating down a poisonous river with Bob-ombs raining onto it. Any players that fall off the raft are eliminated, and they can kick the Bob-ombs into their opponents to this end.
• Rise to the Challenge: After the castle is destroyed in Magma Mine, the lava level rises up two spaces every time someone rolls the Dice Block, so players must roll high enough to outrun it. Further complicating matters are spaces that make the lava rise even higher if players land on them. If the lava catches up with the team, the current Captain will lose half of their Mini-Stars.
• Secret Character: The player must complete all six boards in Solo mode before they can unlock Magikoopa/Kamek and Shy Guy.
• Seesaw Catapult: The minigame Bowser Pop challenges two players to pop eight Bowser Jr. balloons floating up in the air. To reach them, they use a seesaw to launch each other up at them. Whichever player is currently standing on the seesaw can move it left and right, and in order to maintain momentum, the player in the air must land on the raised side to launch their partner when they land.
• Shell Game:
  • In the minigame Plunder Ground, four Monty Moles will take treasure chests, some of which contain gems, then burrow underground and move around before resurfacing. Players must pick a Monty Mole that has gems in their chest in order to score points, but only one player can take each chest.
  • DK's Jungle Ruins has a Captain Event called Barrel Choice where four barrels are filled with different amounts of Bananas or Z-Bananas, then the barrels are shuffled. Once the shuffle is finished, the current Captain gets to choose which player takes each barrel. Complicating matters is the fact that during the shuffle, Diddy Kong and Donkey Kong will try to distract the Captain by jumping around in front of the barrels.
• Shooting Gallery: Blooper Barrage is a boss mini-game where the players man cannons aboard a ship, and must fire away at a giant Blooper to score points. Blooper will fight back by throwing Urchins that target a specific player, but the player being targeted changes if someone shoots them.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World:
  • Polar Extreme has players platforming across a series of glaciers covered in slippery ice.
  • Mob Sleds is a 1 vs Rivals minigame where the players are placed in a small maze covered in ice. The one player must avoid the three opponents, who are navigating the maze in sleds. The one player can slide around the area freely, while the team of three are restricted to moving in one direction on the rails littered around the arena.
• Solid Clouds: Buddy Bounce places the players atop a series of clouds that act as trampolines. These are the only flooring in this particular minigame, making it impossible to stop bouncing on them.
• Sore Loser: Most of the characters are this when placing last in a minigame. Notable examples are Peach, who buries her face in her hands and cries about it, and Toad, who throws a tantrum like a child.
• Sound Test: The Museum contains an area where players can listen to different music and character voices found throughout the game. Players can use the Mario Party Points they earn to unlock additional sounds for the player.
• Space Zone: Bowser Station is another Bowser-themed space station that players fly above on a spaceship. They can take detours to nearby colonies for bonuses in-between the boss fights with Bowser Jr. and Bowser.
• Spider Tank: The vehicle of choice for Bob-omb Factory is a four-legged walking machine.
• Squashed Flat: Smash Compactor is a mini-game where players have to escape down portals to avoid having the ceiling dropped on them. Players who fail to escape in time get crushed flat, before blowing away like paper.
• Stargazing Scene: Solo mode begins with Mario and friends looking up at the Mini-Stars in the night sky, but they are interrupted when Bowser appears and creates a black hole that sucks the Mini-Stars in. At the end of the game, after defeating Bowser and freeing the Mini-Stars, Mario and friends pick up where they left off.
• Threatening Shark: Sushies appear in the first segment of Blooper Beach. They appear behind the team, and move four spaces every turn. If they catch up with the players, they will steal Mini-Stars from whichever player is Captain.
• Time Trial: Minigame mode contains a single-player mode called Time Attack where one player has to complete ten specific minigames in the fastest time possible. Each minigame also has an additional side objective, and if the player completes it, they will have three seconds deducted from their time. Between each minigame, their character is shown riding down a scenic rive in a canoe.
• Title Drop: Toad Road has some rock formations atop mountains shaped like the letters M and P, standing for Mario Party. Below these rocks is a large island shaped like a 9.
• Token Evil Teammate: While Shy Guy and Magikoopa/Kamek join Mario and company in Solo mode, they're working for Bowser. One or both of them will appear as opponents on every board, and if either of them come in first, they'll steal all the mini-stars collected in that area, forcing the player to start the board over.
• Token Heroic Orc: While Magikoopa/Kamek and Shy Guy appear as antagonists in Solo mode, the playable Koopa, normally affiliated with Bowser, is firmly on the side of Mario and company.
• Trick-Taking Card Game: In Card Smarts, players are given five seconds to choose a card from their hand, and any players that play the highest number will score one point, with the first player to reach three points being the winner. All players start with the same cards, and can see which card every player has selected. Each card that is played is removed from the players' hands, so if one player uses all of their best cards too early, they might find themselves with nothing to counter the other players later.
• Turns Red: Every single boss gets angrier and harder to beat when they reach half health.
  • Sock it to Lakitu: Lakitu will start throwing Big Spinies to get in the players' way.
  • Wiggler Bounce: Wiggler literally turns red, and starts moving around much faster.
  • Whomp Stomp: Whomp will start adding to the counter before the players have a chance to select their numbers.
  • Bombard King Bob-omb: King Bob-omb will start throwing bombs at players who fail to attack him, damaging them.
  • Deck Dry Bones: Dry Bones will start shuffling the cards after they have been hidden.
  • King Boo's Puzzle Attack: King Boo will send Boos after the player's cursors, freezing them temporarily if they get caught.
  • Cheep Cheep Shot: The giant Cheep Cheep gains a new attack where it jumps out of the water. Players can only see where it's going to land based on its shadow.
  • Blooper Barrage: The giant Blooper starts moving in more erratic patterns and giving the players less time to fire at it.
  • Spike Strike: Spike raises the level of the lava in the arena, giving the players less time to make a choice before the spike balls hit them. Additionally, the number of bubbles containing hammers goes down, giving players fewer opportunities to grab one.
  • Chain Chomp Romp: The number of cannons goes down from four to three, guaranteeing that at least one player is doomed to get attacked by Chain Chomp in a four-player game.
  • Bowser Jr. Breakdown: Bowser Jr. adds additional Bowser Jr. panels to the gauge.
  • Bowser's Block Battle: Between attack phases, Bowser begins rolling his own die to select one of the previous boss characters to summon to attack the players. Additionally, during the player's attack phases, Bowser will start tilting the arena, causing the Dice Blocks to shift around.
• Under the Sea: Blooper Beach has a few segments where the players go underwater.
  • The Sunken Treasure Captain Event places the players on diving platforms at the ocean floor, where they have each collected a cluster of Mini Stars. In order to keep them, players must move enough spaces to return to the surface within three Dice Block rolls. There are three Dice Blocks; a Normal Dice Block, a 1-2-3 Block, and a 4-5-6 Block, and the Captain chooses the order in which players will roll the Blocks. Adding extra tension are Unlucky Spaces that cause anyone who lands on them to be attacked by Fishbones that will take five Mini-Stars away. Any players that reach the surface will get to keep the Mini-Stars they held onto.
  • The Cheep Cheep Shot boss minigame has the players swimming underwater to take on a giant Cheep Cheep that swims around and tries to tackle the players. Along the way, players have to collect green Koopa Shells before aiming and firing them at the Cheep Cheep to score points.
• Versus Character Splash: Boss minigames are preceded by a screen showing the player characters opposing the upcoming boss, with the boss on the right and the players on the left. The current Captain will be front and center compared to their rivals.
• Whack-a-Monster: Hole Hogs. One player uses the Wii Remote pointer to control a hammer that they use to whack the other players as they use the buttons on the Wii Remote to pop up from holes. The team scores one point every time they manage to stay up for one second without getting hit, and if they can score ten points before time runs out, they win.
• You Dirty Rat!: The Captain Event in Boo's Horror Castle features a Scaredy Rat that steals Mini-Stars from the players, then takes turns with the players rolling Dice Blocks. The captain chooses the turn order, and if a player manages to catch up with the Scaredy Rat before it escapes, they win all the Mini-Stars.

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