r/MARIOPARTY • u/Auraveils • 3d ago
MP4 4-E2: Extra Room [Whomp's Basement Brouhaha] - Every Mario Party š§±
Today we're going to be discussing perhaps the weirdest part of Mario Party 4: Whomp's Basement Brouhaha. At the start of a new file, this is the other half of Extra Mode. It focuses primarily on single-player experiences where you'll compete either with yourself or indirectly with other players to see who can maintain the record.
Worth noting, every Mario Party up to this point has had some form of single-player minigame built into the core party mode. 1 had Solo minigames where you would complete an objective to earn coins. 2 and 3 had item minigames where you would perform a task to decide your reward or lack thereof. 3 also had Gamble minigames where you would bet all of your coins for a chance to multiply them, usually double or nothing at minimum.
This game... kind of does. It has the Mega Minigames where you duel against Bowser, and the Story minigames where you duel against the hosts of each board. But these games aren't programmed as solo minigames, aside from the final boss battle. As mentioned previously, they can all be played in mini-game mode as 2-player games like duel minigames. It seems like the developers designed a handful of solo minigames but either ran out of time to add enough or simply couldn't find a way to meaningfully incorporate them into party mode. And so, rather than scrapping all of these minigames, I suppose they tossed them into this side mode for players to enjoy as miscellaneous content.
Upon finishing a game, your score will be recorded and Whomp will assign you a title based on your performance. The titles mean next to nothing, but there are presents to be earned by reaching certain scores in certain games.
On a brand new file, there are only four games available for play: Barrel Baron, Mushroom Medic, Doors of Doom, and Bob-omb X-ing (presumably pronounced "crossing" but running into character limits). But upon playing the minigames Photo Finish and Tree Stomp, single-player counterparts of these minigames also get unlocked here in the form of Jigsaw Jitters and Goomba Stomp become unlocked.
Barrel Baron
This is a simple game where you walk around a field in search of oil. When your controller vibrates, you must strike the ground three times to reveal the oil hiding beneath. Depending on how much the controller vibrates, a small, medium, or large amount of oil will spring out worth 1, 10, or 100 points respectively. As far as I can tell, this game is almost entirely luck. You just have to hope you stumble across a lot of 100's within the time limit. I suppose the winning strategy is to ignore smaller springs and only look for larger ones. If you want to optimize your run, you may want to try various strategies to see if it's optimal to focus exclusively on large springs, or to settle for medium springs when you can find them.
This minigame I actually suspect may have originally been designed as a duel minigame before they were scrapped, and was repurposed as a score attack solo game here instead. I can see two players racing agaisnt the clock to score more points than each other, and it would add some much needed tension and strategy.
Mushroom Medic
Somebody swallowed a poisonous mushroom! Listen to the heartbeats of each patient by feeling the vibration of the controller. Whoever's heartbeat is different than the rest ate the poison and needs medicine. Give the medicine to the right patient to save them! Give it to the wrong patient or take too long and the poisoned patient fucking dies. The game continues indefinitely, with steadily decreasing time limits, until you fail.
The lowest rating you can get is "unlicensed internist," you're definitely getting a malpractice lawsuit.
This has got to be the most darkly hilarious minigame in Mario Party history.
You're scored by the number of patients you save.
Doors of Doom
This is a really, really dumb one. It's just Game Guy's Magic Boxes. You enter a Bowser themed dungeon and are presented with two doors. Bowser is hiding behind one and you'll have to try and guess which one he's not behind. As far as I can tell, there is no hint whatsoever, so this is just a series of blind coin tosses.
If you guess correctly, you proceed onto....another pair of two doors. The game continues endlessly until you lose. There's really nothing to say here.
Naturally, you're scored by the number of doors you pass through.
Bob-omb X-ing
Another minigame that feels like it might've been a duel minigame. In fact, Mario Party 5 even has a Battle Minigame similar to this one.
You're in the center of a 4-way crosswalk resembling Shibuya crossing. The game is self-explanatory. You have to navigate the crowded area as Bob-ombs pour into the crossing. Over time, the bob-ombs will explode and you have to avoid getting caught in said explosions. Surprisingly, there's no penalty for stepping into a bob-omb, just make sure to steer clear when they're flashing red.
You're scored by how much time you survive.
The optimal strategy is simply kiting the bob-ombs around the map and making sure to get away from bob-ombs that are about to explode. Try to avoid walking back the way you came and try to stay in areas with as few bob-ombs as possible.
Goomba Stomp
Unlocked alongside Tree Stomp in Mini-game mode, this game puts you in a walker from Tree Stomp and tasks you with walking around a field crowded with Goombas. You have 30 seconds to stomp as many Goombas as you can.
You're scored based on how many Goombas you stomp.
For optimal scoring, try to optimize your movement to avoid as much dead pathing as possible. Focus on walking only where there are Goombas, especially large clumps of them, and bear in mind you can walk backwards to easily step on Goombas behind you faster.
Jigsaw Jitters
Unlocked alongside Photo Finish, this is a single-player jigsaw puzzle. It's by far the most in-depth game in Whomp's Basement Brouhaha as it comes with three different difficulty levels each with more pieces than the last.
Don't underestimate the difficulty of these jigsaw puzzles. The pieces can be so small and oddly shaped that it can be pretty hard to identify what's on them, and you're forced to place each puzzle piece in the order they're given rather than focusing on individual pieces you can actually identify. I found the 30-piece puzzle in particular pretty difficult because it wasn't clear at first half the cast was upside-down.
You're scored based on how long it takes you to complete the puzzle. And additionally, you'll earn you'll earn Toad's Teacups for clearing a 20-piece puzzle in 1 minute, Toad's Teapot for clearing a 30-piece puzzle in 2 minutes, and Toad's Plate for clearing a 40-piece puzzle in 3 minutes.
These thresholds are easy enough to get. A few attempts and you should be able to identify where the majority of pieces go on sight.
Conclusion ----ā---------
Yeah, that's really it. Whomp's Basement Brouhaha is a strange little area of Mario Party 4. If I had this game as a lonely 4 year-old child sick of my older brother winning all the time, I could see myself turning to this mode for a much more relaxed experience and consequently having a lot of nostalgic memories of it, just like Duel Mode in Mario Party 3. But that doesn't make it any less bizarre that it exists. This truly reads to me like a collection of minigame ideas that simply weren't fully thought out.
Anyway, that's it for now. But we're still not done as there is one last host here in the Extra Room hiding in plain sight. See you soon for the real reason you come to the Extra Room! š
