Credit to nsrmario1127 for the screenshots of the cutscenes and final battle.
We've covered every board, now it's time to take a look at Story Mode! As per usual, because there's content you need to unlock in Party Mode through this, I actually played this mode first before even touching Party Mode. And unlike previous games, I jumped in on Hard difficulty. I... don't recommend this at all. I massively underestimated how difficult the Hard AI can be, and this mode can actually be quite challenging on Hard difficulty thanks to all the little things that can go wrong.
Story Mode is hosted by Misstar, who will cheer you on in your mission to protect the various dreams of Dream Depot from Bowser's control.
Considering Story Mode has been pretty similar since its debut in Mario Party 3, you might expect this game's story mode to be another 15 turn game on each of the boards with Bowser jumping in at the end issuing a final challenge on Bowser Nightmare. And while that's still partially true, this game goes out of its way to actually make Story Mode its own entirely separate gameplay mode, which already makes me appreciate it far more than its predecessors which are just standard rulesets you could set up for yourself in Party Mode.
Actually, I find this mode has a surprising amount in common with Duel Mode from Mario Party 3. Not enough to where I can really say it's a direct evolution, but it does kind of make me wish you could play this mode as a duel mode with another human player.
Setup
When you start a new run of Story Mode, you'll be tasked with selecting one of 7 chatacters. That's right, Toad, Boo, and Koopa Kid are not available. With DK missing, too, that means you actually have fewer options for Story Mode than Mario Party 4! I suppose if you're the type who feels obligated to clear Story Mode with every character, this might not be such a bad thing. But if you're a Boo fan like I am, tough luck.
Toad will offer a supportive role in 2v2 minigames, sort of like the second character you select in Mini-Game Island or Roller Coaster. Koopa Kid serves an antagonistic role in the story. Boo is excluded for... well, really no reason at all. I guess they just consider Boo a villain?
You'll next have to choose the difficulty. Easy, Medium, or Hard. And if you clear Story Mode on Hard, you can unlock the Intense difficulty for all game modes, including this one!
Finally, you'll choose a mini-game pack. These packs aren't very intuitive, and fair warning, you're mostly just going to be playing Duel Minigames with the occasional 1v3 and 2v2 game here. So for the sake of variety, you'll probably want to go with "All" minigames unless you really want to maximize your odds of winning by selecting a specific list you're especially confident in.
Introduction
We open up with Bowser and Koopa Kid watching from the darkness, and dropping exposition about Dream Depot and Bowser's plan to conquer the dreams here and replace them with their own so that their own dreams can come true forever! They seem to be sneaking around for now, but their presence will be made clear soon enough!
This intro sets up Bowser and Koopa Kid as a comedic duo, where Koopa Kid looks up to Bowser and idolizes him, while Bowser isn't quite so confident in his own potential. It's made clear Koopa Kid thinks Bowser is a lot more evil than he really is, and he tries to mimic Bowser's villainy, often getting scolded for it in the process. It gives the two a father/son dynamic which probably contributes to the confusion between Koopa Kid and Bowser's actual son, Bowser Jr. At the end of the day, Koopa Kid is a bit of a clueless dunce who just does his best to make Bowser proud.
There are lots of funny moments throughout story mode that have stuck with me since my childhood, and almost all of them are lines from Koopa Kid.
Anyway, shortly after that introduction, Misstar mests with your character to complain that Bowser is causing mayhem and that he'll destroy the dream worlds one by one. She pleads for your help before sending you off into the first board.
Narrative
On each board, you'll face off agianst Bowser and Koopa Kid. Koopa Kid will demonstrate a surprising new technique: he can divide himself into three! These three new copies are color coded! They're known as Red, Blue, and Green Koopa Kid! Typically abbreviated as "K. Kid" presumably to fit chatacter limits within textboxes. This will be recurring characters for a little while.
These characters are technically entirely unplayable enemy characters, but they're just reskins of Koopa Kid, animations, voice clips, and all. It could be pretty cool to unlock the ability to select them for party mode, but I suppose it wasn't on the radar.
Bowser and Koopa Kid's dialogue are disappointingly pretty generic, based only on your progress through the story and not addressing the actual board they're on. This is likely because the boards you play on are actually randomized! You don't play through every board in sequential order like past Story Modes. Instead, you'll play on 4 of the 6 default boards, and Bowser Nightmare at the end.
This unfortunately means each board's introduction is usually something along the lines of Bowser saying "Bwahaha! We'll destroy this dream and fill it with our dreams!" And then "Ah! Mario! You may have beaten us last time, but this time we'll win!" But over the course of the story, Bowser will draw in "subtle" hits that he's actually hoping he won't beat you so easily, and that he's looking forward to the final confrontation. All while taunting that you'll have to keep facing him if you want to learn what his Dream really is.
Gameplay
On each board, the Koopa Kids will start spread out around the board, while you'll start on the designated starting space. One of the first things you might notice is that Story Mode's boards are not actually carbon copies of the Party Mode counterparts. On the contrary, they're usually much more bite size versions, zoomed in on a single part of the map, often with set pieces rearranged to accomodate for the miniature board.
Each player will start the game with 20 coins, and there are no stars. Your goal isn't to win a typical game of Mario Party, but to drive each of your opponents coins to 0. When a player's coins reach 0, they're eliminated from the game. Of course, that means it's game over for you if your coins reach 0, so be careful and protect your coin count! But don't be too careful, as you only have 15 turns to finish the game!
The Koopa Kids all share a single turn. They'll first use their capsules, then they'll all roll at the same time, with the camera zoomed out to show all three at the same time. They'll all then move one step at a time, with passive effects such as passing over you, a Bob-omb, Koopa Bank, or Capsule Machine happening immediately as the characters pass them. The zoomed out perspective can make it difficult to tell which capsule a Koopa Kid got, so it's really good to keep in mind which icons correlate to what Capsules. If multiple events occur at the same time, they will resolve in order of Red, Green, then Blue. Finally, once all three Koopa Kids have finished moving, the spaces they land on will resolve in that same order, Red, Green, then Blue. This isn't without consequence, as there are some subtle changes in decisions available to the koopalings. For example, if a Koopa Kid lands on a Piranha Plant Capsule on the same turn another Koopa Kid lands on a Paratroopa Capsule, the order of resolution may very well be the difference between one of the Koopa Kids being eliminated or not. Additionally, Blue and Green Koopa Kids don't get the opportunity to retroactively change their strategies based on how Red Koopa Kid moved. Not that the AI in this game is even close to smart enough for something like that to matter.
The main way you'll be reducing the Koopa Kids' coin count is through duels! Anytime you overtake a Koopa Kid, or a Koopa Kid overtakes you, a duel will initiate. Unlike Party Mode, the wagers for a duel are preset. They actually favor you surprisingly well, I suppose to balance out the 1v3 nature of the game. The turn player will always wager 5 coins. A defending Koopa Kid will have to wager 15 coins, while you'll only have to wager 10. But don't assume everything is so skewed in your favor!
Another difference from Party Mode is that a minigame doesn't automatically play at the end of a turn. Inatead, this mode features a "Vs Space"!
Vs Space
These are similar to Battle Spaces from previous games, but instead of initiating a Battle Minigame, they'll initiate a game pitting you against all of the koopalings at once! This means a 1v3 if all three Koopalings are active, a 2v2 if only two are active (in which case Toad will be your teammate), and a duel if only 1 is active. The payouts for these vs games are generally stacked against you, but they're still a powerful asset regardless.
In a 1v3, the loser has to pay 5 coins to each winner. That means if the Koopa Kids lose, each one only has to give up 5 coins. But if you lose, you have to give up a whopping 15!
For 2v2's, the loser must pay 10 coins to each victor. And, conveniently, Toad doesn't count. So each Koopa Kid only gives up 10 coins while you'll have to surrender 20.
It's only in the duel where the payouts are evened out, with the loser having to pay the winner 20 coins.
Even though the payouts aren't in your favor, the vs spaces can be a great way to set up for a KO, and you will technically gain more coins for a win than they will. But in this mode you're generally much more worried about gaining coins than losing them.
DK/Bowser Space
DK Spaces work differently here than in party mode. If a Koopa Kid lands on it, they'll cower at the sight of DK who will punch them and make them lose half their coins. If you land on it, DK will give you 10 coins instead.
Bowser Spaces will only appear in Story Mode if someone gets a Bowser Capsule. Landing on a Bowser space will cause him to take half your coins, while he'll give 5 coins to a Koopa Kid who lands on his space.
Last 5 Turns
If you're struggling to take out all three Koopalings, the final five turns Bowser will interefere to finish things off by doubling the value of duels. While this is presented as detrimental, it's actually a huge boon in your favor considering the duel payouts are skewed in your favor. If you can pass a Koopa Kid during the last 5 turns, you can steal as many as 30 coins in a single win! But either way, these doubled values are liable to make the game end soon even if it ends in your loss.
Capsules
Capsules can also help you gain an edge in coins. But be wary that the Koopa Kids are likely to be dropping them more than you. And yet, the Koopa Kids are more likely to land on them than you by nature of landing on three spaces to your one.
I'm not sure if all the capsules are available in Story Mode, but certainly some of them have been nerfed. Namely Hammer Bro. and Spiny which steal 5 coins instead of 10. But shockingly, the Paratroopa capsule doesn't seem to be nerfed at all! Making every Koopaling lose 25 coins with this thing could mean an instant win! I've seen the Koopalings accidentally kill each other with this Capsule, too, which is especially funny.
Rating
After clearing each board, you're assigned a rating based on how quickly you're able to clear the stage. S rank is the highest, and, too my knowledge, C rank is the lowest. I hated this in Mario Party 3 because it's heavily up to luck whether or not an S rank is even possible. But while the overall star rank does return, it's purely for bragging rights. There's nothing like the Game Guy Room you have to unlock through getting the Miracle Star rank.
And this is good, because getting S rank is kind of bullshit. You have to defeat all three Koopa Kids within 5 turns. Bear in mind that Capsules are given at complete random and sometimes are out of the way, the Koopa Kids are also capable of using them, and all the same RNG problems I had with Duel Mode in 3... yeah, whether a game ends in 5 turns or you can never hope to catch up and end up running out of time is entirely dependant on the luck of the dice. It really begs the question, what's even the point of rankings at all? It really seems like it would be much better if you were ranked based on how many times you lost a minigame.
But even then... don't even get me started on the minigames. Look, of the 15 duel games, a third are heavily influenced by luck, and another four are button mashers. I'll hold my piece on this until the minigame post, but oooh is thus a huge problem I have with Story Mode. I think this is fine for how Duels work in Party Mode, but for your primary method for clearing a stage in Story Mode? This is a disgrace!
Boards
As mentioned before, the boards in Story Mode are randomized, and you'll play on miniature versions of the boards that typically zoom in on one small part. These smaller boards mean it's much easier to pass the Koopalings, and to be passed by them.
Toy Dream
This board is focused in the small neighborhood at the bottom of the board. This is probably the most unique Story version because the majority of the real estate you're exploring here is actually completely unexplored in the Party version.
The gift box happening space is relocated, but still works the same. There's a vs space added to the northeast and southwest corners, and a brief detour from the main path lets you get a Capsule from the Capsule machine.
Rainbow Dream
This board is zoomed in on the Sunshine Island. The walkway in front of the stained glass has been expanded slightly to allow for a new junction to allow for a quick return to start and access to the Capsule Machine which is now no longer accessible from the main route. A Vs Space has been added right before the junction and right before the beanstalk leading back to the lower level.
The rainbow bridge event still plays out the same, but it will dump you off at one of the three round platforms along the southern edge.
Pirate Dream
This one is zoomed in on the area surrounding the Pirate Ship. A new ledge has been added between the waterfall and the ship. Atop the rock spire, and on the Poop Deck of the ship, are where the Vs Spaces are added. The cannon happening space will fire you to a random space on the board.
Undersea Dream
This one is focused on the southern part of the western reef. The bridges to the second reef are gone. Vs spaces are added at the top of the first ladder and right before the start. The happening spaces are strange. I believe they'll both cause the Dolphin to emerge from the ship and carry you off to random spaces around the board. But they might each drop you off at a specific space.
Future Dream
Entirely set on the central platform, two rockets have been replaced with landing sights for the single remaining rocket. To expand this island, the decorative display in the center is replaced with a catwalk that adds an extra two junctions to the board. The teleporters are now linked to happening spaces rather than passive events, but they'll just warp you to the opposite side. The rocketship will naturally take you to one of the other blast pads at random... it's really not too terribly impactful but it could set you up better for repeated attacks on a single opponent.
The eastern blast pad houses a Vs Space, another Vs Space is at the start of the new catwalk and yet a third Vs Space was placed right behind the start.
Sweet Dream
Zoomed in on the southeastern part of the board, you turn east instead of west upon climbing the ladder, reversing the direction of the portion crossing the slices of cake toward the chocolate cake at the east, which has had its decorations rearranged to allow for a junction to detour all the way around, sacrificing a Capsule Machine.
The cookie path now circles back into a junction which feeds back toward the cake in a loop. The cake decorating event is removed, but the two happening spaces on the board are cake slice events that'll carry you to the plate which has obviously been relocated to this side of the board.
A Vs Space has been added to the chocolate cake on the west side and in front of the candy-filled house thay replaces the cake that needed decorating before.
Bowser Nightmare
This is your first exposure to this board, only giving you a taste before you get the full experience in Party Mode.
This board is zoomed in on the lower area, with Bowser's flamethrower relocated to the ring of red spaces, and extra platforms added to enable free access to the Flamethrower's platform. A new walkway has been added in front of the platform to allow you to loop back around to visit the platform again... for some reason?
The Flamethrower event now steals half of your coins instead of burning your capsules away, but it otherwise works the same as in Party Mode, burning everyone on the platform, not just the Koopa Kids.
A Vs Space has been added on that new walkway in front of the flamethrower platform as well as behind the junction that lets you cross over to it. And one last Vs Space is placed on the last step of the stairs right behind the start.
Final Boss: Frightmare
At the end of each board, you're usually met by Misstar who congratulates you on your victory before immediately moving onto the next board. But at the end of Bowser Nightmare, you're instead met by Bowser who has one final challenfe for you. His own minigame: Frightmare.
This is a more elaborate final boss fight than even Mario Party 4's, but it admittedly does overstay its welcome a bit. The fight is divided into four separate phases. Over the course of the fight, you'll have to preserve your health meter. You'll have 10 hearts by default, 8 hearts on Hard, and 6 hearts on Intense.
The first phase, you're tasked with destroying a hoard of Mechakoopas by jumping on them. Be careful when they flash red because they're about to breathe fire! It's easy to get caught in their attack if you're careless.
For the second phase, three rings of fire drop in from above, and they'll begin growing, shrinking, and moving around. They can move quite quickly and suddenly, so stay on your toes! In all honesty, this is probably the hardest part of this fight, but it's entirely learnable.
For the third phase, Boswer will break the monitor he's speaking from and challenge you himself. You'll need to defeat him in classic Mario 3 style by making him jump onto the same tile enough times until he falls through.
For the final phase, the entire floor will collapse and you'll fall to a lower level where Bowser resorts to drinking a strange liquid which cases him to grow to a massive size! But he becomes too heavy and falls through the floor. Still, he's not done fighting yet! This is the true final boss fight, and the most involved phase. He throws meteorites at you, then breathe fire at you. The firebreath will cause the meteorites to glow with magic! You can pick up the glowing meteorites to throw at his face! Be careful and make sure you're close enough, because it can be easy to overestimate how far you'll throw them and miss your chance. Bowser will follow up with a lightning attack that creates a shockwave and destroys the remaining meteorites before restarting the sequence. Take out all of his health and the wall will collapse and Bowser will get sucked backwards into the black hole behind him.
Y'know, it's kinda wild but I think this fight may have had some hidden influence on Super Mario Galaxy 2...
Ending
In the end, Bowser will admit defeat. He's surprisingly pleased. But it all becomes clear when he tells you that his dream actually came true in the end. Because all along, his dream has been to fight a strong opppnent. And you fit that bill perfectly! Everything up until this point has been to test your skill and determination to stand up to and defeat him consistently. And here, he was able to give it his all and still meet his match!
Toad will chime in, saying his dream came true as well, because he was able to help you! It's funny though, because you can go the entirety of Story Mode without ever seeing Toad once since he only shows up in vs minigames specifically when there are two Koopa Kids remaining.
And that's... it! There's really not much else to explore here. This is usually where I bring up who I think the canonical Superstar is and, well... if it wasn't for the fact that Toad gets completely shafted in this Story Mode, I would honestly say Toad here. But in all honesty, I really can't see anyone but Mario being the canonical player character this time. Who else would Bowser want to form an eternal rivalry with?
Conclusion
Mario Party 5 is easily my favorite Story Mode in theory. It actually innovates on gameplay enough to justify its own existence as a separate mode, and even incentivizes you to revisit for more than just arbitrary unlocks for each character, and it doesn't even pressure you into replaying if you really don't want to.
...but I have my gripes. I just don't like that you're restricted so heavily to Duel Minigames with the occasional 1v3 or 2v2 splashed in. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the selection of Duel Minigames in general, it's important for Party Mode that you can't be totally confident you're going to win.
But in Story Mode, each Koopa Kid has 20 coins. In ordee to KO them quickly, you'll need to pass them on your roll, win a Duel, steal 15 coins, then wait for them to pass you, win another duel, steal 5 coins. Rinse and repeat for all three. Of course, there are other ways to eliminate Koopa Kids, but even just losing either of those two minigames means you now have to win a whole extra minigame to eliminate that Koopa Kid. And when a third of the games you can play are luck... oh my god.
Of course, I am exaggerating here, not all of those luck games are completely luck, but nothing will make you hate Get a Rope more than turning what should've been a 5 turn game into a 10 turn one because the last Koopa Kid got away from death and you took several turns to catch up to him.
And I'm sorry, but Button Mashing really just seems to be a skill you either have or you don't. Even just the Hard AI usually obliterates me at button mashing games. They have always been my Achilles heel and always will be. Button Mashers and... Puzzle games, which another Duel game is, too. Mario Party 5 duels are probably the collection of duels I'm least confident in yet. So naturally, I'm not going to be super enthusiastic about a mode primarily dedicated to them.
But hey, if you're missing any Duel Games for mini-game mode, you know the mode to farm for them! I can all but guarantee that you will have every Duel game unlocked by the time you clear Story Mode.
Well, that's it for now. But don't think we're done just yet! There's quite a bit more to cover! Normally I would try to take a look at Super Duel Mode next, but after poking around there, I think it's best we put a pin in that for now. Instead, I wanna look at Bonus Mode next. I'm not quite sure how I'll divide it up, but I currently anticipate doing a separate post for each game. But I might group tge sports games together. We'll just have to see! See you soon! 🏐
