As mentioned earlier, Bowser is rather steamed about all this party business, which figures in to the game with the addition of "Bowser time." In the standard, four-player party format, there's a Bowser-shaped meter that slowly fills up after each full rotation of turns. Once filled, Bowser will do something nasty, such as steal coins, stars, or times--or he'll possibly force you to purchase worthless items from him. It ultimately adds more weight to the already heavy role that luck plays in the game, and as an aside, it makes Bowser seem more petty than actually evil.
Mario's having his yearly party. Attendance is not required.
Over the course of the three Mario Party games to have already appeared on the GameCube, the series hasn't really seen any appreciable improvement in its presentation. It does seem like Mario Party 7 puts forth a little effort to clean up some of the backgrounds, though the characters still have a sort of fuzzy look to them and feature some rather mechanical-looking animations. Still, the game largely trades in really, really colorful and jaunty tones, as you would expect from a Mario game, though it's definitely missing the extra level of shine that you would expect from a first-party Nintendo game. The sound design is also totally archetypal Mario, trotting out the same familiar sound effects, vocal quips, and musical accompaniments.
It's easy to fault Mario Party 7 for a very pronounced dearth of originality. The addition of eight-player minigames is really the only new feature worth considering buying the game for, as the rest of the changes are token gestures. So it's otherwise the same old Mario Party all over again. However, his compulsive level of sameness is counterbalanced by the fact that (besides the Mario Party series) there are not a lot of other games like this on the GameCube these days--or anywhere else, for that matter.
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