Mario Party 9

Mario Party 9 (マリオパーティ9 Mario Pāti Nain) is a party video game for the Wii. It was officially announced at E3 2011 and was released on March 2, 2012 in Europe, on March 8, 2012 in Australia, on March 11, 2012 in North America, and on April 26, 2012 in Japan. It is the first Mario Party game in the series to be developed by Nd Cube, as they take over development of the series from Hudson Soft. Hudson Soft was namely absorbed by Konami in March 2012.

Gameplay
Like previous Mario Party titles, two to four players take part in each game, composed of a virtual board, and move around a variety of themed lands to collect Mini Stars, while avoiding certain spaces. A gameplay element in all of the boards is that all four players move around in one vehicle. The number of spaces the player moves is determined by a roll of the dice block found within the game. Minigames reappear, and have a larger focus on the gameplay than they did in the previous game. Mario Party 9 features twelve playable characters, with two unlockable. Instead of trying to collect coins to buy stars, players receive Mini Stars (bananas in DK's Jungle Ruins) if they pass by them. Players must also try to avoid Mini Ztars (Z-bananas in DK's Jungle Ruins), which deduct their current amount of Mini Stars. In this game, the minigames don't appear after everyone moves, but only when a player ends up on any of the spaces or events that triggers a minigame. A person can play on solo mode to unlock the final stage, as well as two playable characters.

Each board culminates in a boss battle that is played with all players in the vehicle. There is also a boss battle at the halfway point of a board. There are many more mini-games in Mario Party 9, and game length has been set to 45 minutes.

At the end of each stage, the number of Mini Stars (bananas in DK's Jungle Ruins) the player collects is converted into Party Points, which can be used to buy new stages, constellations, vehicles, difficulties, and sounds.