Mario Party 8 Strategy Guide Part 1
I have had some amazing responses from my Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Strategy Guide, and have written about Mario Party 8 before. However, my first Mario Party 8 article did not go into detail about how to win the game. For those of you who want to win more, beat your friends at becoming the SuperStar, or you just want to show that computer who’s boss, this strategy guide is for you.
Of course, there is no guarantee that you will win if you use this tactics, because your opponents may have read the same article.
Strategies for All Boards
Of course, the object of the game is to gain the most amount of Stars. If there is a tie with the stars, the maximum number of coins determines the final outcome. Don’t ask me what happens if there is a tie with Stars and coins. So the trick is to maximize on the number of both.
One way you can get some extra stars is land on those yellow Lucky Spaces. The Lucky Space will usually get you an extra Star and good handful of coins. Of course, you cannot control the dice roll, unless you get some Slowgo Candy, which allows you to roll from one to five. At first, I thought that Slowgo candy was absolutely useless, because I usually want to advance more spaces with the Twice or Thrice dice. However, the advantage of the Slowgo dice is you can learn to time your jump so you can control your roll. The person that ends up on the Lucky Space is given an advantage over the other characters.
The Bonus Stars at the end of the game can make a loser into a winner quite quickly. In previous Mario Party games, it used to be that the awards went to who won the most mini-games, and other ones that I can’t remember and personally don’t feel like doing the research. In Mario Party 8, the Bonus Star awards are completely random as to why someone wins a Bonus Stars. They are as obscure as the most Red Spaces landed on, the most Green Spaces landed on, who gobbled the most Candy, bought the most Candy, to the usual who won the most minigames. Therefore, buy and eat as much candy as possible, land on red spaces often, and then the green spaces as well.
Green Spaces can result in both good and bad things happening. As you go about the boards, learn which green spaces result in rewards or punishments.
As far as the individual game boards are concerned, here are a few strategies that you can use in order to insure success:
Donkey Kong’s Treetop Temple
This is a game that will have you going around the board in order to get to the star before the others. Plan this out, because you will need twenty coins to buy it when you land on the proper space. If a player is getting too close to it, see if you can’t bankrupt him or her using some Cashzap, Vampire, or Bowlo candy. It is of course always best to have some twice or thrice candy in order to gain the maximum amount of spaces to get to the proper spaces.
If it is inevitable that your opponent is going to get the star, sometimes it is better to let him or her get it, rather than making the futile effort to “beat them to it”. The next Star may be moved so it is closer to you. Maybe you can use some Duello candy and hopefully get the star back or at least a few coins.
The DK space can help because landing on them will cause Donkey Kong to throw you to the star. Hopefully, you’ll have enough coins to get it.
Goomba’s Booty Boardwalk
This game, the goal is to get to the end as many times as possible to get the star. Since stars are free, spend whatever it takes to take dolphin rides to get there. Maximize on Twice and Thrice Candy in order to advance as many spaces as possible. In other words, just get there and back again ASAP. As mentioned before, land on that yellow Lucky space when you can, it can turn the tide of the game quite quickly.
Using the Bloway Candy will put your opponents back to the start, and might give you just the advantage you need. Yeah, that’s pretty cutthroat, but if you want your opponents to get some Stars, you can use the Springo Candy just to get to the place that they are.
