Mario Party 4

Mario Party 4 (マリオパーティ 4) is a Party game developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo in North America on October 21, 2002. It was later released in Australia on November 3, 2002, in Japan on November 8, 2002, and in Europe on November 29, 2002. It is the fourth game in the Mario Party series and the first installment for the Nintendo GameCube.

Mario and his friends are all standing around outside Princess Peach's Castle when suddenly, a giant floating bag approaches them. It begins to cast a shadow over the characters and the castle, and everyone is getting nervous. Suddenly, the bag opens, revealing a giant cube. Toad, Goomba, Boo, Shy Guy, and Koopa Kid pop out from the cube and invite the characters to play with them in the Party Cube! The plot of Story Mode is that it is the chosen character's birthday. Each of the first five board hosts has a present for the character. However, the player won't receive the presents unless they can win each of the boards that the hosts have created.

Out of these six hosts, all of them became playable characters in later installments of the Mario Party series. Toad became a playable character from Mario Party 5 through Mario Party Star Rush, Goomba became playable in Super Mario Party, Boo became playable in Mario Party 5 through Super Mario Party (except for Mario Party DS, Mario Party 9, Mario Party 10, Mario Party Star Rush, and Mario Party: Island Tour, and Mario Party Star Rush, and Mario Party: The Top 100), Shy Guy and Koopa Troopa became playable in Mario Party 9 and Super Mario Party, and Koopa Kid became playable in Mario Party 5 and Mario Party 6 (but lost his playable character status in Mario Party 7, was removed in Mario Party 8, and was succeeded by Bowser Junior beginning with Mario Party DS—though Bowser Junior became playable in Super Mario Party).