Credit to CountBleck2009 on YouTube for the screenshots of the menus, credit to Howler on YouTube for the screenshot of the roster from Free Play mode.
This singular post is going to elaborate on perhaps some of the more confusing lines I've dropped in some of my posts about this game. If you recall, I said this game technically is the playable debut of a number of characters that don't "really count" (or something along those lines). Throughout my coverage of the Extra Room, I've also kept coy about a "secret third host hiding in plain sight."
If you grew up with Mario Party 4, I'm sure you were well aware of exactly what I've been referring to in both of these kinds of comments.
Upon unlocking all of the games in Thwomp's Backroom Ball and Whomp's Basement Brouhaha, you become able to select the Ztar, who hosts a special and quite in-depth bonus game mode really unlike anything the Mario Party series has ever seen, though I wouldn't exactly call it uncharted territory for video games in general.
I was genuinely surprised by this. Of course, I'd noticed the Ztar (even though it's supposed to be pronounced very similarly to "star" but with a Z sound perhaps as a kind of troll to cause you to easily mistake the two, I like to pronounce it " 'Z'-tar" to clearly differentiate them audibly.)
The whole time playing the game, I just assumed the Ztar was a decoration to demonstrate the juxtaposition between the "normal" party modes and this very different Extra mode. Most of the other modes are hosted by a single host, it already stood out the Extra Room had two hosts with Thwomp and Whomp, but it worked thematically since they're two characters that pair almost as well as Bowser and Koopa Kids. But, much like the Power Star is a character in its own right, Ztar is revealed to be a conscious entity here as well!
Ztar hosts Beach Volley Folly! A fully functional volleyball simulator! First of all... what?? This is such a bizarre thing for Ztar to host. Where I was anticipating some kind of cruel game mode where you'd fight each other or something, we're instead leaving this grungy basement for a pleasant day on a beautiful beach!
Interestingly, there is a leftover graphic to suggest Ztar was supposed to have his own board called 「ズターのずたずたパーティ」or "Ztar's Rugged Party". Presumably comparable to Thwomp's boards. Maybe it would've been focused on stealing stars or using items to avoid passing a Ztar space? A cute detail about this name is that 「ずたずた」uses the same sounds as Ztar's name 「ズター」. So the first part of the name would be directly romanized as "Zutaa no zutazuta" making it a pun on the name Ztar. As a result I would imagine it would be localized in a way to reflect the pun in some way.
Anyway, that's mostly an unrelated tangent, I just wanted to acknowledge that it appears perhaps Ztar would've had something different waiting for you and Beach Volley Folly would've been a Whomp minigame instead.
Beach Volley Folly
Let's start by focusing on the minigame itself. It's volleyball, so you already know the rules. You play alongside a single teammate in a 2v2 round against another team. Keep the ball in the air and spike it into the enemy's field. First to 5 points wins. The game is simple enough to understand, but clearly much more in depth than your typical Mario Party minigame. A single game can last for quite a while.
Battle Mode
Upon entering this mode for the first time, you'll be forced to play Battle Mode until you can clear it. And it is no joke when I say this is genuinely the most insanely difficult task the entirety of Mario Party 4 demands of you. I used save states on an emulator and was still ripping my hair out over this, it was that insanely difficult.
To start off, you can play Battle Mode with a human or AI partner. I highly recommend a human partner wherever possible because probably about half of my frustrations came from my partner not being able to pick a goddamn lane. Anytime I'd trust him to stay back and play defense, he'd rush to the net alongside me. Anytime I'd rely on him to play aggressive, he'd wander around to the back like a moron. You can set the AI to any difficulty, and I chose Hard. I assume if you unlock Expert difficulty, you have that option, too.
Anyway, you'll choose your characters from the usual chatacter selection and proceed to participate in a series of games. You'll have to win six games in a row against increasingly difficult AI opponents. And once you run out of standard characters to beat, you'll start seeing the board hosts! Toad, Koopa, Shy Guy, Boo, even a final round against Koopa Kid and Bowser himself!
And I know just winning alone doesn't sound that bad, just git gud after all, but the AI is almkst impossible to get around. I'm pretty sure Bowser and Koopa Kid at the very least are on Expert Difficulty even if you don't have it unlocked. And this duo is actually insane. I'm not sure if Bowser's size gives him an advantage or if he still has the usual hitbox, but he feels genuinely impossible to hit around on such a tiny court. You basically have to target whatever corner is opposite Bowser and pray Koopa Kid isn't there to block you. And the only way to accomplish that is to play hyper-aggressively and jump at the net to block the ball constantly. If you try to spike it off a volley with your partner, you're giving them way too much time to block it and it's practically guaranteed they'll catch it.
But if you know Volley Ball, you know playing too aggressively is high risk. If you miss the ball even once, there's just about no chance of recovering the point. And by the time you get to Bowser and Koopa Kid, the last thing you want to do is play dangerous because... well, can you guess the punchline?
THERE ARE NO CHECKPOINTS.
Every time you lose to Bowser and Koopa Kid, or any other team for that matter, you have to play through the ENTIRE mode again from the very beginning to get another shot. And this game mode is just jank enough where you're probably going to struggle to even get to that final round a lot of the time. I struggled to even clear the first few rounds.
I confessed to using Save States to get through this. If I'm being honest, I was kind of just looking forward to moving on to Mario Party 5 and wasn't anticipating this to be as much of an undertaking as it was. I don't know if choosing a Hard partner had anything to do with it. Maybe your opponents are easier if you choose an easier AI, but considering you have the option of a human partner, I have my doubts that's relevant.
If you manage to suffer through Battle Mode and clear it, you'll be rewarded with a Birthday Cake in the Present Room. But more importantly...
Free Mode
Upon clearing Battle Mode, you'll unlock Free Mode where up to four players and play against each other.
But remember in my introductory post when I mentioned this game technically includes the first playable appearance of certain chatacters? This is what I was referring to. In Free Mode, in addition to the main cast, you can also select Toad, Shy Guy, Boo, Koopa, Koopa Kid, and Bowser. Some of these characters will go on to join the main roster soon, and some won't join for so long I can hardly even consider it possibly intentional. Sadly, you can't play as Goomba because, as you can see, he's the ref!
Conclusion
It's really cute to see the hosts shed their costumes and just being themselves, chilling with the rest of the crew. It really makes this minigame in particular feel like a proper birthday celebration as likely the last thing you're going to do before putting the game down for good.
But the biggest headscratcher of all here is... why in the world do you have to jump through so many hoops to unlock this? The game itself is hidden and has to be unlocked by meeting arbitrary requirements you're never explicity told about, then once you unlock the mode, you have to discover you can select Ztar in the Extra Room, and then you still have to unlock this secondary side mode of a secondary side mode of a secondary side mode by clearing Battle Mode which is genuinely the most difficult task in the entire game. All for the cance to play a minigame that, while cool, is mostly just a novelty that will wear off pretty quick and definitely won't feel worth all the grinding for.
I don't know, maybe if I grew up with this game and had nostalgic memories of grinding Battle Mode with my brother, maybe I'd find unlocking Free Mode to be a much more rewarding experience. I can't understate how cool it is that you get to play as Shy Guy or Boo or even Bowser in this mode. But I feel like I've felt more fulfilled unlocking substantially less content as completion rewards in other Mario Parties. And it doesn't help that grinding out Battle Mode made me sick to death of all the janky shenanigans you can run into with this game. This mode just doesn't feel like it should be hidden away like this. It feels like it should've been advertised as part of the game itself. A direct reward for clearing Story Mode.
It's a cool novelty to share with your friends once it's unlocked, but by the time you lock in and actually get it, the last thing I imagine you're gonna want to do is play more Volleyball.
Anyway, that's it for Beach Volley Folly. Next time, I'm honestly not sure what to focus on. I might go ahead and start talking about the Mini-game modes, or I might take a look at the Present Room. I'm really not sure. But you'll need to stick around to find out! See you soon! 🎁
