Video Game / Mario Party: Island Tour

Mario Party: Island Tour is a video game developed by NDcube and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. Uniquely, in a first for the series, the game was initially released on North America in November 2013, and then all other regions (including Japan and South Korea, where in fact it arrived last) during early 2014. It's the third handheld installment in the Mario Party series.

True to its name, this game takes place on the floating islands known as the Party Islands, with various play modes. The story begins as Mario and his friends receive a letter inviting them to said islands, and they accept. Bowser, realizing that he was left out once again, builds a tower named after himself and encourages anyone to join his evil side; in the meantime, he uses a bubble machine to create bubbles imbued with evil magic to lock the fun in the Party Islands. Indeed, whereas the standard Party Mode takes place in the paradisial floating islands, Story Mode pits a player-chosen character onto Bowser's Tower in order to challenge Bowser and stop his evil plans. Blue Toad and Yellow Toad serve as the game's hosts.

In terms of gameplay, Island Tour is a mix of the classical style that was prevalent in most previous games and the style first seen in Mario Party 9. Players move across the boards independently, but the boards themselves have each a linear design and the objective in each of them is to fulfill a specific objective by the time one character reaches the finish line (for example, one of the boards consists of gathering as many Mini-Stars as possible while avoiding the Mini-Ztars, much like in the Mario Party 9 boards; in fact, this board also provides an exception to the general rule of finishing the party session, as it requires all characters to reach the finish line for a conclusion).

Being programmed for the Nintendo 3DS, the game supports StreetPass. This allows players to receive data from other players and, depending on their stats and overall performance, the characters representing them can be challenged as CPU rivals in minigames, though this can only be done once with that character unless the system is tagged with the same person the following day. Another feature is that, much like in Mario Party DS and 9, the player will earn Mario Party Points by playing the various modes in the game as well as minigames, and they can be used to purchase recordings of character voices as well as music tracks from boards, menus and minigames, thus encouraging the player to assemble a Sound Test. Some of them are available from the start, but others have to be unlocked first (thus enforcing a Double Unlock).

A few minigames employ Depth Perplexion to take advantage of the system's stereoscopic 3D feature, which the game is compatible with; there are even two special minigames that makes use of the system's Augmented Reality capabilities. A major oddity is that 1-vs.-3 and 2-vs.-2 minigames do not exist in this game.

Lastly, this game marks the playable debut of Bowser Jr. in the Mario Party series, after having appeared beforehand as an NPC (in DS) and later as a boss (in 9). Per series tradition for newcomers, he has to be unlocked first so the player can play as him.

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This game provides examples of:

• 15 Puzzle: The minigame Tile Savvy has each character to slide the pieces of a scrambled puzzle in order to reveal an image, and doing so will reveal the next puzzle to solve. The first character to solve three tile puzzles wins.
• Augmented Reality: The minigame Ka-Goomba has the player use the 3DS to aim at Goombas that appear around an AR card (or an official image of them downloaded and displayed on a tablet or handheld phone) and shoot them to score points (the normal ones are worth one point each, while the gold ones are worth three). Near the end of the minigame, a Whomp appears and has to be hit from the back (for which the player has to move around carefully without losing focus on the AR card or image) until its HP is fully depleted. When the Whomp is defeated, the minigame ends.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Managed to beat Bowser Tower? Too bad, the real Bowser says the player managed to only beat a bubble copy of himself in the final boss minigame, and then he will always knock you right off his tower, asking the player can always come back to challenge Bowser in the tower.
• Big Boo's Haunt: Kamek's Carpet Ride. True to its name, the board is played as characters ride magical carpets to move through the spaces, instead of walking. The first part takes place above a small forest village (inhabited by Whittles and Wigglers) next to a lake during night, and then forks between two haunted mansions (one being a library, and the other being an alchemy lab). The objective is to land on certain spaces (Just-Right Spaces) by using numbered cards; because of this, winning a minigame will allow the player to choose a card out of a selection, giving them the chance to grab the best (whereas the ones second, third and fourth in said minigame will have them choose among the remaining cards. Landing on a house's Just-Right Space will send all character to its interior, and then whoever lands onto the next Just-Right Space will be the winner.
• Bullfight Boss: Chain Chomp, the second boss fought in Bowser's Tower, will frequently charge at the player's character. At one point, it'll perform a big leap to try to land onto the character to harm it. The character can trick it into hitting one of the four chainlink-made tiles of the floor, making it so it touches part of the lava when it completes its Ground Pound (as the battlefield will briefly sink at that moment). This tactic has to be repeated until the Chomp's HP depletes in full, though when it goes under half it'll charge faster at the character and the ground pound will be so strong that lava will splash upward from all chainlink-made tiles, potentially hurting the player's character if they aren't careful.
• Car Fu: The minigame Bumper Thumper takes place at the top of a colorful column in the middle of an amusement park, and has the players clash against each other while driving round bumping vehicles to see who gets knocked off. The borders are covered by pink walls, so these have to be removed with the pushes and clashes so there's a hole to push someone away. The last player standing wins, though more than one can win if they resist during 60 seconds (of, if they're human, agree to get a tie).
• Casino Park: The board Shy Guy's Shuffle City takes place on a giant casino table. This mode can only be played with two or more human players. Each character moves across the board by drawing cards, and can trade cards with other players, but possessing the Bowser Card after three turns causes something bad to happen to the player.
• Conveyor Belt o' Doom: The minigame Hop Till You Drop has the characters hop between many boxes and objects that are being transported to the left by a gigantic conveyor belt. The characters have to keep moving to avoid staying behind, as the left side leads to a pit. And because the transported objects are big, falling onto the conveyor will make it impossible for the affected character to climb back, so they'll be doomed to get dragged into the pit. Further complicating matters is that some objects have on their tops rotating cylinders that also act as conveyors.
• Corridor Cubbyhole Run: Banzai Bill's Mad Mountain. There are two segments of the board that are each in the line of fire by a Banzai Bill's cannon; and if a character throws their dice and gets the side of a Bill, then the Banzai will fire away from the cannon it's currently positioned and knock off anyone in its trajectory; a character can avoid the large enemy by hiding on one of the many caves that act like safe zones. If a character lands onto an Event Space located between the two segments, the Bill will stop occupying its current cannon to reappear into the other.
• Death Mountain: The board Banzai Bill's Mad Mountain takes place near the top of a brown mountain, and the objective is to reach a fortress located at the top of a gray mountain's peak. The problem is that the lower and upper areas of the brown mountain are respectively guarded by two Banzai Bill cannons, in one of which a Banzai stands ready to be shot; and if a character uses their dice and get the image of a Bill Banzai, they'll shoot the Banzai and make it knock off anyone in its way (there are caves that serve as safe zones one can enter to be safe).
• Demoted to Extra: After having been playable in the previous 3 games, Birdo is reduced to a minor NPC in this game.
• Developer's Foresight: Extra dialogue is added to the Bowser's Tower should the player be playing as Bowser Jr. For example, Bowser expressing how proud he is of his son's progress.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In Bowser's Tower, Bowser will occasionally give out random "punishments" through a roulette wheel once you reach certain floors. One of these punishments is to send you back down to the first floor, which, if chosen, Bowser will outright say "That's just cruel, even by my standards!" and won't follow through with it. He also won't take any of your Mario Party Points if "Lose all your Mario Party Points" is chosen.
• Evil Knockoff: Bowser uses a clone machine to create bubble clones of the main characters. When one of the real characters enters the tower, they'll be challenged by these evil clones, who have to be defeated in minigames so the reacl character can proceed. Bubble clones appear in each floor of Bowser's Tower.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Bowser's Tower, which is placed by the evil Koopa king in front of Party Islands out of spite for being left out. It's a tall, cylindrical tower from which Bowser encourages everyone to come and complete his challenges. Its floors are guarded by evil clones of characters, made of bubbles and who will obstruct progress until they're defeated in minigames. Powerful bosses also lurk the tower.
• Excuse Plot: The characters have fun in the boards of Party Islands. Bowser wasn't invited, so he built a tower in front of them and creates evil clones of them with bubbles, so one of the good guys has to go to the tower to stop the Koopa king's plans.
• First-Person Snapshooter: The minigame Point 'n' Shoot has the four players stand respectively in front of four green cameras aiming at a rural town, where many mooks live. Each players aims with their camera by moving their Nintendo 3DS, and the game will show three pictures, each showing a mook that has to be taken a picture of. Each mook can only be photographed by one character, so inevitably someone will be left without taking any pictures. In the next round, other three mooks are shown so the characters attempt to take pictures of them. After three rounds, the character who took the most pictures wins.
• Fishing Minigame: The minigame Cheepers Keepers has all characters stand on a pier to capture Cheep Cheeps with fishing rods. For each character, a button is shown in the screen, indicating the one that has to be pressed repeatedly to reel the rod's line. The score each character receives in each round will depend on how many Cheep Cheeps are captured in a row, which in turn will depend on how much the characters reeled. Whoever captures the most Cheep Cheeps after three rounds wins.
• Gimmick Level: Most boards share the central idea of reaching the goal line first, with a few variations in each case to keep the idea fresh. However, Star-Crossed Skyway stands out because reaching the end won't be enough: the objective for each player is to gather more Mini-Stars than the rest (much like in the boards of Mario Party 9). Another exception is Bowser's Peculiar Peak, where the objective is to be the last player to reach the goal line, since the ones reaching first will be punished by Bowser (this also requires losing the minigames to the fullest extent possible).
• Green Hill Zone: The board Perilous Palace Path, which is the first board but ironically it's also the longest to complete in a typical party session (closely followed by Star-Crossed Skyway, which is the third). It's a path in a grassland that features elements like a river, some bridges, a castle, and a volcanic zone named after Bowser. During the course of the journey, the characters find a Thwomp that is obstructing a bridge, a tower of Goombas holding an arrow sign in a road fork, and a Whomp that has to be defeated. The first character to reach the finish line wins.
• Ground Pound: In the minigame Claiming The Cube, the characters are located in a minuscule cube-shaped planet, and each of its faces has four panels. When the minigame starts, some of the panels will begin glowing, and the objective is to stomp them with a ground pound while they're in that state. Each character earns points by pounding these panels, though they can also squash other characters to sabotage them. After 30 seconds, the character who earns the highest score wins.
• Guerrilla Boulders: Played with in the minigame Mad Ladders, which takes place in a tall mountain with numerous ladders that can be used to climb it. The intro cutscene shows the player that the enemies who drop the spiked rocks downward are Spikes, but the characters are placed too deep in the mountain's foot to notice them. Thus, when the minigame starts, the characters have to climb the ladders and switch sideways between them in case one of the Spikes' rocks is falling right onto them (if the character is hit, they'll be stunned for a brief while and waste time). The first character to reach the top wins.
• Herding Mission: The minigame Hare Today has the characters grab gray rabbits that exit from the holes of a grassy crater's surrounding walls, and place them in the circular pen placed in the center. Golden rabbits appear as well, and placing one to the pen will yield three points. After 30 seconds, the character with the highest score wins.
• Hot Potato: The minigame Bob-omb Aplomb has the four players stand respectively on four rocky platforms erected over a sea of lava. Bob-ombs will begin falling from above, and each character has to kick away the ones landing onto their platform, whether aiming at the lava or at the other characters' platforms. If a Bob-omb standing on a platform explodes, it will destroy it and the character onto it will fall onto the lava. The last player remaining wins, though more than one can win if they can resist for 60 seconds.
• Hover Board: The minigame Blown Hover has all characters drive hoverboards across a straight-lined racetrack build above the clouds. The speed the hoverboards can reach as they accelerate is high, so the characters have to keep an eye on the obstacles they're approaching, and depending on the case they have to either jump over them or move beneath them (clashing will deplete a big part of the speed, making the character waste a lot of time recovering and making the hoverboard regain speed). Whoever reaches the goal first wins.
• Human Cannonball: The aptly-named minigame Cannonball! has the four players crank their respective cannon's handles as quickly as possible during four seconds. They then hop onto the cannons to be shot. The faster they cranked the handles, the farther will they be shot. The player who lands onto the farthest spot wins.
• I Fell for Hours: In the minigame Diamond A Dozen, the players stand in front of five holes that all lead to an ancient chamber built way below, likely hundreds of meters. Each hole, however, has a specific amount of diamonds, and before the minigame starts we can see the holes' tall track and the diamonds found in them. Each character has to choose the hole, hoping it's the one with the most diamonds, and then fall onto it to gather them. Once they reach the chamber at the bottom, the game counts how many diamonds each one has, and the one with the most wins.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: In Bowser's Tower, as the player's chosen character and their companion Green Toad defeat the bubble clones created by Bowser in his evil tower, they run upstairs in a spiral pattern to move bwteen floors and reach the top. However, because of how tall the tower is, this will require clearing multiple floors.
• Jet Pack: In the minigame Fuel Me Once, each character has to fill up a jetpack with just enough gas so they can equip it and fly to a round green platform above a lake that has some dark tiles in the middle segment, positioned exactly 100 meters away from the characters' launch site. Filling the jetpack with too little gas will make a character descend into the water before reaching the destination, while filling the jetpack with too much gas will make the character fly past the platform and thus fall onto the water as well. Making things trickier is that, when the minigame starts, the gas gauge's hand will show that the fill-up speed is designated randomly, and the gauge itself will be covered shortly after the fill-up itself begins, thus forcing the character to time the exact moment when they have to stop the gas input. The character who lands closest to the 100-meter spots wins.
• Jump Rope Blunders: The minigame Great Bars of Fire has the players stand onto specific spots that surround a pair of misaligned Fire Bars. When the minigame starts, the two Fire Bars begin spinning, so the characters have to duck to avoid the upper Fire Bar, and jump to avoid the lower one. To increase the difficulty, the Fire Bars gradually change their speed, and they don't do it simultaneously, which makes the timing for the ducks and jumps much trickier. A character is eliminated when hit three times, and the last one standing wins (however, more than one can win if they resist during 60 seconds).
• Knows the Ropes: The minigame Git Along, Goomba has the characters stand respectively on round wooden platforms that surround a large stand with Goombas. Each character has to spin a lasso and then throw it at the stand to capture as many Goombas as possible (the more a character spins their lasso, the bigger its diameter will be, giving them the chance to capture a larger Goomba crowd). After 30 seconds, the character who captured the most Goombas will win.
• Leaning Tower of Mooks: The Goomba Tower that appears halfway through the board Perilous Palace Path, and also the first boss fought in Bowser's Tower. In the latter, groups of five Goombas appear in tower formation to attack the main character, who has to throw apples onto them to defeat them one by one; when a group is completely defeated, the next appears and the player has to repeaat the process until their collective HP depletes in full (though when half of it is depleted, the Goombas will come in groups of six and some of the falling objects will be spiky fruits that must not be touched).
• Lethal Lava Land: Bowser's Peculiar Peak is the last board unlocked in Party Mode, available when all other boards are played at least once each, excluding Shy Guy's Shuffle City (this is because that board cannot be played with only one human player available). It takes place in a precarious volcanic landscape, and the objective is to avoid reaching the goal line (since the "winner" will have to roll 3 or lower with a dice to keep surviving, or else they'll be knocked off by Bowser and lose the party). Winning the minigames is also crucial, as the ones who perform worse will receive Bowser Dice Blocks that add to the number of steps they walk when hitting the standard Dice Block, potentially getting closer to Bowser. The player farthest away from Bowser wins.
• Level in the Clouds: The board Star-Crossed Skyway takes place in an idyllic, paradisial landscape located upon large clouds in the skies, and featuring elements like overgrown beanstalks, checkered pink pavements, large bodies of grassy rock where some flowers have grown, and a spooky forest with purple (likely toxic) water. The objective in this board is to collect as many Mini-Stars as possible before reaching the end, much like in the boards of Mario Party 9; they can be earned by winning minigames, playing board events, or landing onto certain spaces. There are also Mini-Ztars, which have to be avoided.
• Luck-Based Mission: The minigame Pachinko Wizard has each character try to guess where a Spiny Egg from Lakitu will fall, and then choose a different spot to stand in the hopes that the falling object won't hit them. Since one of the rows of spherical obstacles is waving left and right, it's almost impossible to predict where the Spiny Egg will fall, so it's ultimately a matter of being lucky. Whoever gets hit will be disqualified, and the remaining three characters have to repeat the procedure until only one remains (and as fewer characters remain, so will the number of spots, which will therefoew grow bigger in width and thus make the predictions riskier). The last remaining player wins.
• Magic Carpet:
  • This is the means of navigation for the characters in the board Kamek's Carpet Ride.
  • In the minigame Tragic Carpet Ride, the characters stand onto a huge flying carpet that is being devoured by hovering Mattermouths, though the eaten portions materialize again after a brief while. The characters have to avoid falling down and stand onto the carpet while avoiding both the holes and the skeletal heads. The last player standing wins, though it's possible for more than one character to win if they can resist during 60 seconds.
  • In the minigame Color Correction, the characters are riding color-coded carpets above a large area whose floor has many special circular tiles. When a character hover above one such tile, it will glow with a color matching that of the character's carpet. Thus, the objective for all characters present is to move around the area to make several tiles glow with their associated color (any character can also override the color of a tile where another already passed by). After 7 seconds, the most common color among all tiles will declare its character the victor.
• Misère Game: The main objective of the board Bowser's Peculiar Peak is to be the last player to reach the goal line, since the ones reaching first will be punished by Bowser (this also requires winning the minigames to the fullest extent possible).
• Monument of Humiliation and Defeat: Bowser builds a huge tower as a monument to his awesome power and locks all the fun of the other Party Islands away.
• Paranormal Investigation: The minigame Peep a Peepa takes all characters onto a haunted ghost ship overrun by Peepas. The objective is to move the 3DS to look around the ship and illuminate the appearing Peepas to defeat them. The longer a character exposes a Peepa with light for, the more points they'll receive. After 30 seconds, whoever scored the highest wins.
• Promoted to Playable: Bowser Jr. becomes a playable character after his first appearance as a non-playable character in Mario Party DS.
• Puzzle Boss: King Bob-omb, the fourth boss of Bowser's Tower, is a literal case. The boss throws a bomb at the player's character, who then has to move left or right the parts of the floor that have different patterns of conveyor belts. The idea is to build with them a circuit for the bomb to be transported at a cannon to shoot it at King Bob-omb, inflicting damage to him; the exact damage dealt will depend on whether the bomb is taken to the standard black cannon (small) or the golden one (big). The player has to hurry, or else they'll take damage when the bomb explodes close to them after 20 seconds. The tactic is repeated until the boss runs out of HP, though when it goes under half he'll enlarge the circuit's number of movable parts from three to four, and occasionally modify the non-movable part of the circuit to force the bomb to only go to the less powerful black cannon.
• Racing Minigame:
  • The minigame No-Traction Action has the players drive karts in an oval racetrack whose floor is not only slippery, but becomes even harder to deal with due to the poor mobility and control of the karts themselves. The first character to complete three laps wins.
  • The minigame Paddle Skedaddle has the characters drive canoes to travel across a creek that in turn flows across a mountain, then a desert, then a grassland and finally a beach (where the creek leads to). The first player to cross the goal line wins.
  • In the minigame Quickest Cricket, the characters are riding grasshopper-shaped vehicles that move around with leaps, like the insects they're modeled after. When the minigame starts, the characters have to hop forward to reach the goal while avoiding rocks, Piranha Plants and Wigglers. The first character to finish the race wins.
• Recycled Soundtrack: The game reuses tracks and sound effects from Mario Party 9, which was created by same developers as this one. This also means Island Tour is the first game in the series to reuse a theme for the minigame instructions instead of having its own.
• Rise to the Challenge: In the minigame Sinking Feeling, the player use AR Cards (or downloaded images of them in tablets or handheld phones) to summon a metallic tower that is sinking into a body of lava that is displayed on the 3DS. They have to control their character to climb the tower, which gradually earns new parts as the old ones sink, to avoid lava for as long as possible. while some of the incoming parts are climbable in all their areas, some have obstructions that are impassable, so the character has to be guided through the climbable parts. If the minigame is played solo, the minigame ends when the character is caught by lava, and the height climbed is shown (if the character climbs high enough, the'll be able to break the current record). If it's played between two or more people, then the last one standing wins.
• Roaring Rapids: The minigame Slip Not takes place in a very large grotto with four cascades that descend onto a large moat with many green crystals (a few fully-vertical cascades can be seen as well, but they're just part of the scenery); the cascades are also surrounded by a deep pit. Each character has to surf through one of the cascades, and as they progress the cascades not only bend more often, but also get narrower, thus increasing the risk of the character's premature fall. The characters who reach the end win, but if all of them end up falling down, then the one who got closer to the goal will be the winner.
• Rooftop Confrontation: Bowser, the Final Boss of his mode (Bowser's Tower), is fought in the topmost peaks of his evil tower. He's driving his Koopa Clown Car and shoot fireballs at the player's character, who has to hit some Dice Blocks to acquire cannonballs to later use them as projectiles when a cannon appears (after running out of ammo, the player has to move onto a new spot and repeat the process). When Bowser's HP falls below half, he'll add new attacks like shooting a longer and quicker succession of fireballs, shooting fireballs upward so the fall onto the player's character like a volcanic rain, and performing a Ground Pound with his vehicle; lastly, the Dice Blocks will vary their numbers, thus also varying the number of cannonballs the player receives upon hitting them. After Bowser is defeated, it's revealed that he was just a copy and the real Bowser kicks the character out of the tower, encouraging them to climb the tower once again.
• Rump Roast: Very prominent in Bowser's Peculiar Peak, a board that forces everyone to run around with their butts on fire, every single turn.
• Sand Is Water: In the minigame Pokey Corral, the characters stand onto an enormous geyser made of rising sand, though the top's surface has the sand flow away from the center. Due to this, the characters have to move in order to stay in the geyser's top and avoid falling down; some Pokeys rise from the geyser's interior, and being touched by one will stun the affected character, putting them at the risk of being dragged away. Lastly, the geyser's diameter will gradually shrink as well. The last player standing wins, though more than one can win if they resist for 60 seconds.
• Secret Character: Bowser Jr. is unlocked as a playable character after the player clears Bowser's Tower for the first time.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: When the character reaches the top of Bowser's Tower, Bowser will reveal that the destroyed Bowser was a decoy and then proceed to knock the character off the tower, saying that they can come back any time. Yes, this even includes Bowser Jr..
• Shell Game: The minigame Cheep Diamonds starts when four Cheep Chomps stand together in a river and open their mouths in order to receive and eat diamonds that fall from above (though one of them won't receive any); they then close their mouths and begin swimming in different patterns and speeds, and each player has to choose one Cheep Chomp and hope they chose the one who ate the most diamonds. Each diamond is worth one point. In the second round, five Cheep Chomps appear and the sequence repeats (though two of them won't get to eat any diamonds); and in the third, six appear (once again, two won't receive any diamond). When the minigame ends, the player who earned the most points wins.
• Shooting Gallery:
  • The minigame Mild Gunman has all characters play a Western-themed target practice. Each target will appear rapidly in front of the characters, and the letter written on it indicates the button the characters have to press in order to shoot it. The score each character gets will depend on how fast they shoot (from fastest to slowest: 9, 6, 3, 1; whoever presses the wrong button or takes too long to shoot will get 0 points). The target is then moved away and the next one appears. After three targets are hit, the character with the highest score wins.
  • In the minigame Buzz a Fuzzy, there's a large swarm of Fuzzies hovering in the air, while the players stand close to them in a wooden platform. When the minigame starts, each player has to move their 3DS to aim at the moving rows of Fuzzies and shoot at as many of them as possible in succession with one round-headed arrow (the shot is done by pulling and then releasing the gyro stick). The projectile won't kill the hit targets, but simply push them away from the swarm. When all characters do their shot or 20 seconds pass, the next round begins so the characters can aim and shoot again. After three rounds, the character who shot at the most Fuzzies wins.
  • The minigame Drive For Show has the players hit golf balls with clubs to shoot at clue-colored targets hovering in the air to score points, with some targets being worth more than others. The catch is that, after being hit a few times, certain targets will flip into red-colored sides, and they must not be hit or else the offending character will lose points. After 30 seconds, the character that scored the highest wins.
• Slide Level: In the minigame Deck Hunt, the characters are skating through a moderately angled road. As they do so, they have to gather coins while avoiding Spiny Eggs (clashing against one will result in a 3-coin toss, giving the chance to the other characters to steal them). After the characters reach the bottom of the slope, whoever has the most coins wins.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Though no board takes place in this setting, the minigames Slip 'n' Slip and Go With The Flow do:
  • In the former, the characters are standing onto a very slippery square iceberg, and some penguins will being crossing it to move from an off-limits snowy area to another. The characters have to avoid falling onto the cold water (as doing so will freeze them), which is made harder by the iceberg tilting frequently because of the characters' weight as well as that of the penguins that pass by. The last character standing wins, though more than one can win if they survive for 45 seconds.
  • In the latter, the characters are located in an icy cavern with a river where multiple chunks of ice pass by. The characters are tasked to bring penguins from a spot in the south to the one in the north where a mother penguin awaits; the catch is that the river's chunks of ice are slippery and moving at different speeds, so care is required to succesfully reach the other side while transporting each penguin. After 45 seconds, the character who delivered the most penguins wins.
• Snowball Fight: Mr. Blizzard, the third boss of Bowser's Tower, is placed at the end of a snowy descent, throwing large snowballs at the player's character. To defeat him, the main character has to engulf themselves into a snowball to being rolling with it and, while dodging the ice crystals which are remnants of Mr. Blizzard's fallen snowballs, collect special coins that increase the size of their own snowball; this way, upon landing onto Mr. Blizzard, the damage inflicted will be bigger. If the character is hit by one of the ice crystals or one of the falling snowballs, they'll take damage and their forming snowball will have its size reduced, thus reducing the attack power when it hits the boss. The tactic has to be repeated until Mr. Blizzard's HP depletes in full, though when it falls under half he'll throw snowballs more quickly and more often.
• Socialization Bonus: There are StreetPass Minigames where, as the name implies, you play minigames against other players of the game by StreetPassing them. It must be done 50 times for 100% completion. Additonally, playing the Utter Nonsense minigame and the Shy Guy's Shuffle City board, both of which require playing with another 3DS user (the latter even requiring a third user), are also required for 100% completion.
• Space Zone: Rocket Road is a Super Mario Galaxy-themed board that goes through a rainbow-colored linear path (similar to the Rainbow Road tracks of Mario Kart fame), and where players acquire Booster items to race to the finish line. The Boosters can be obtained in many ways, including winning minigames.
• Sphere Factor: In the minigame Musical Snares, the characters are maneuvering onto rubber balls on top of a giant drum, and have to collect musical notes (the silver ones are worth one point each, while the gold ones are worth two). As a character collects the notes, their rubber ball will grow bigger. After 30 seconds, whoever got the highest score (and thus stands onto the largest ball) wins.
• Spring Jump: The minigame Trounce 'n' Bounce has the characters jump very high thanks to some checkered yellow blocks placed in a grassy ground. With each jump, some of these bouncy blocks begin disappearing and the characters have to punch each other to claim a block to land onto for a new jump, and whoever ends up falling onto the grass will be eliminated. At latest, only one bouncy block will remain, which ensures that only one character will be able to jump again and make the others land onto the grass. That remaining player will be the winner.
• Squashed Flat:
  • In the minigames "Hide and Go Splat" and "Squish You Were Here", failure to escape the Tox Boxes or closing walls will squash your character. In addition, the "Squish You Were Here" minigame squashes you vertically.
  • It doesn't only happen in minigames. The Perilous Palace Path board does this twice - once on the bridge challenge if you press the incorrect button, and second if you fail to destroy the Whomp at the end.
• Stargazing Scene: In the minigame Starring Artist, the characters stand onto a balcony and look upward to see the starry sky. When the minigame starts, some lines connecting certain stars will be shown, and each character has to use the touch screen of the 3DS to draw within those lines to reveal a constellation (modeled after a classic Mario enemy). The characters who draw faster will receive more points (the one who takes the longest won't get to finish the drawing, and thus won't earn anything). After three rounds of drawing, whoever scored the highest wins.
• Start My Own: Bowser, unhappy for not being invited to the Party Islands whereas Mario and his friends were, decides to place an ominous tower in front of them called Bowser's Tower, hoping to draw more attention and also creating evil bubble clones from a machine.
• Swarm of Rats: In the minigame Rat-a-tat Flat, the characters face an incoming group of Scaredy Rats which pop out of mouse holes located in the surrounding walls. The objective is to splat as many of them as possible; the white ones are worth one point, while the golden ones are worth three. After 30 seconds, the character who scored the most points wins.
• Tennis Boss: Dry Bowser, the fifth boss of Bowser's Tower, can only be defeated by throwing back his bone projectiles at him with a hammer. The catch is that, for each swing, a sequence of buttons has to be pressed so the player's character can successfully redirect the incoming projectile; right before Dry Bowser throws a bone, the player has three seconds to memorize the sequence of button presses, and after the bone's throw the buttons will be hidden. At first, each sequence consists of only three buttons; but when Dry Bowser's HP falls under half, the sequences will increase to four buttons each, and when the HP is next to zero Dry Bowser will throw a huge bone that requires a sequence of five buttons to be shot back.
• Vehicular Combat: The minigame Tanks A Lot has the characters duke it out against each other in a colisseum while driving miniature tanks. There are large bricks that can be used as a cover, though they're breakable. Hitting a character yields one point, and makes the shot character respawn in their starting point. The first character to score three points wins.
• The Walls Are Closing In: There's a minigame called "Squish You Were Here", players have to avoid closing walls for 60 seconds or until one player does not get squashed flat by finding a wall that will not close completely. The walls reopen, get faster and have less safe spots each time.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: When the character reaches the top of Bowser's Tower, Bowser will reveal that the destroyed Bowser was a decoy and then proceed to knock the character off the tower, saying that they can come back any time.

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