Mario Party 2 - New Features

New Features

All of the playable characters from the original game are still available, but this time, they are all dressed in costumes unique to the board players are playing on (except for Bowser Land, on which they wear their usual attire). Board characters include Toad, Baby Bowser, and Boo, with the notable absence of Bowser and Koopa Troopa (although both have roles in the game). Another new feature of the game is the introduction of buildings on the boards: the Item Shop and the Koopa Bank, as well as power ups such as the "Red" and "Gold" mushrooms which allows players to roll up to 2 or 3 dice at once. All the board titles end with "land", (ex. "Bowser Land", "Space Land", etc.) and unlike in the original, the winner is announced during a cut scene in which the winner thwarts Bowser who harasses Koopa during certain scenarios appropriate to the board's theme. Baby Bowser also appears and accompanies the space where the location of the previous star was and takes 5 coins from the player who passes by, although every once in awhile, he'll sometimes reward the player 5 coins instead. Boo can still take coins and stars from other players like he did in the first game but unlike in the first game where stealing coins was free, it now costs 5 coins but unlike in the first game he can steal twice as many coins where in the original he could only steal anywhere from 1-20 coins, stealing stars still costs 50 coins like it did in the first game. In the first game, all eight game boards featured Koopa giving the players 10 coins every time they overlapped the board (20 coins within the last five turns) however this feature was omitted in this game, with the exception where it still occurs on the Mini-Game Stadium board.

Mario Party 2 also features several new spaces, with the "1-Player Mini Game" and "Mushroom" spaces from the first game absent; the Battle, Item, and Bank spaces are introduced. The Item space activates mini-games specific to the board that allows someone a chance to collect an item, which is now used to further players' board strategy (as opposed to items being used to toggle universal settings in the first game where certain items appeared randomly during the board gameplay mode). The Battle space triggers the newly introduced Battle mini-games, which puts players against each other for a giant pot of coins with a 70/30 percent ratio share for the 1st and 2nd place winners. The Bank space gives players who land on it all deposits made in the Koopa Bank by others, who must deposit a minimum of 5 coins (1-4 coins if they have less than 5 coins) if they pass the space. One exception however occurs on Bowser's board, where the rules are reversed: players passing the bank get 5 coins while the player landing on the "Bank" space must pay back the total balance. If no coins are present, a star is taken from that player(nothing happens if the player has nothing, however and the balance is reset).

The game also features six brand new boards and modes (including Mini-Game Coaster, akin to the original Mario Party's Mini-Game Island where the player must beat several mini-games across 3, 6, or even 9 worlds depending on which difficulty is chosen) The return of Mini-Game Stadium. Forty-three new mini-games were introduced in Mario Party 2, while old Mario Party mini-games were updated and some were retitled. Three new types of mini-games are also introduced: Battle mini-games, Item mini-games, and Duel mini-games. Also unlike in the first game, players no longer lose coins if they lose in a mini-game. Once all of the chosen amount of rounds on the selected board are used up (Which always consists of 20, 35, or 50 turns like in the original) the total number of coins and stars both the human and computer players collected during the board and mini-games are rewarded and added to the coin bank. Unlike in the original where only the human player(s)' coins and stars were added. Also unlike in the original, each star collected both by the human and computer players is worth an additional 50 coins, where in the original the player had to collect 100 stars to unlock the final board "Eternal Star". This is because the final board in this game, Bowser Land only requires the player to play all other boards to unlock.