The Most Important Mario Party Characters (According to the Box Art)

Box art, posters, marketing material in general, they say something about the intentions and emphasis of a work. Today we study what Nintendo decided to highlight in the Mario Party Box Arts, specifically which characters are the most important in the series.
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[@legomi6628]

Can someone please explain the math to me? I don’t really get how he calculated the scores..

[@CMeeCraftGaming]

Sorry for not explaining it more clearly in the video. The final score is the quanity of appearances plus .1 for each box art to come after the characters first appearance, multiplied by a logarithmic-linear hybrid function based on the quantity of boxes appeared on. (basically meaning that there's bigger difference in the multiplier between say 1 box art and 2 than for say 12 and 13.) Hope that clarifies things.

[@legomi6628]

@@CMeeCraftGaming ahh thank you so much for clarifying! :3

[@demonicbunny3po]

So, to clarify, the score prioritizes earlier appearances in addition to how many appearances. Because the log scaling won’t do anything for the overall weighting of the variables.

[@jdiegoskinny]

@@CMeeCraftGaming somehow this made me way more confused, but i trust you!

[@tylerbremer6696]

If all that is true, doesnt that mean the two easter island heads that should have been counted because they have faces on Mario party two are more important than the 2 depictions of the skeleton key?

[@linkthepringlesman3951]

I’d argue you missed a Yoshi. In the Mario Party DS boxart, Yoshi also shows up in the reflection of a tuba, which is a depiction at the very least.

[@Zepeup]

I’d argue that a reflection counts as the same depiction of a character. If Yoshi wasn’t visible then the reflection could certainly represent them, but since they are I’d say that counts as only 1.

[@FearsomeLAG]

And he missed yoshi in the mario party 75 boxart

[@nxtvim2521]

​@@Zepeupyeah but he also counted the icon of Luigi on the Dice block for Mario Party 1, despite Luigi being on the box art.

[@tora9567]

@@nxtvim2521that’s not a reflection

[@Spicypiscesss]

I knew power star had that win sealed after the 9th appearance on the dice block in mp4

[@globalincident694]

It is the only character that appears in every playthrough of every game, so that does make sense

[@gferrol118]

I've not seen the Mario party jamboree art yet. Bowser being shocked by his burnt pancake is the best thing ever

[@idoghacker8008]

The clown car makes different faces depending on what it's doing (at least from what I remember) though. It's more than a painted vehicle. Mario Maker also (oddly) shows that it basically comes to life if an item is placed in it regardless of the item being alive or not.

[@xarin42]

I was about to say this.

[@Kimarnic]

2:10 Well, it advertised rumble because back then controllers didn't vibrate, the Rumble Pak did it first

[@ziggle5000]

Such a zoomer moment lmao

[@andreworders7305]

20:12 shouldn’t boo bell be a depiction of boo?

[@MasLikesThings]

Hi other boo lover I formally agree that he should change his mind

[@brownieandcrew1873]

I just realized how much games boo is in

[@doopfizzle4742]

The mystery character behind the ESRB logo on Super Stars is actually Rosalina, in certain promo art for the game, the minigame cutouts are off to the side and it shows that Rosalina is piloting the green hoverboat. Dunno if it actually matters since she still isn't technically on the boxart due to being covered.

[@Scorbunzx]

Luigi there is no other choice

[@JediSteve-J3-]

True

[@Placeholder93]

Waluigi is better

[@Rose-ez7yn]

i read this as you commanding luigi to make a tragic decision to save the greater good

[@Scorbunzx]

@@Rose-ez7yn Luigi my boy you have no choice bust daisy’s ghost now!…Luigi’s mansion is disturbing when you really think about it.

[@CakeKingYT]

Luigi in MP9 be like:

[@Lottililex]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one who forgot Mario Party 10 existed

[@CatSurfer]

The clown car shows up in the enemies tab in Mario Maker 2 which makes me believe it's its own character

[@Wildfire9002]

When damaged(hit by spikes) it changes its face i think its face happens in smash bros with Bowser jr Edit cause i felt i had to fix it

[@coleminer8847]

9:00 You missed the 2 stars on the smallest banners Though the way you phrased it sounds like you did include them but the editing suggests otherwise

[@kylebissett2753]

I would count the clown car as a character. Doesn’t it blink?

[@generalcrab0009]

I think those Power Stars in the image for Crank to Rank were actually Grand Stars. You can sorta see the little circular bits on the ends that the Grand Stars have

[@RHVGamer]

I hope Normal Fish shows up again!

[@megastarwarsrocks99]

The tree in Mario party 6 is named Wispy Woods

[@14akamaru]

Like the tree from Kirby?

[@megastarwarsrocks99]

@@14akamaru like the tree from Mario party 6

[@14akamaru]

@@megastarwarsrocks99 Which is apparently named after the tree from Kirby

[@Woodchucked]

@12:07 The hills have eyes! 👀

[@Neptune-kshox]

"Luigi is holding a mini mushroom, which the ESRB has decided to censor." -CMeeCraft Gaming, 2024

[@GamerGuy0623]

I’m surprised hammer Bro isn’t in the box art at all.

[@Mage_Nichlas_]

I will say that Island Tour and Star Rush aren't... awful. They are just very bad traditional Mario Party games. I recently played them and, with going into them with the expectation that they are awful, they are kinda enjoyable.

[@soulsilversnorlax1336]

Marioparty DS was great, in my opinion, despite being a handheld Marioparty. So the 3DS games really have no excuse for being so disappointing.

[@Mage_Nichlas_]

DS is amazing and comparatively they absolutely get clapped. But comparing and complaining about what they could've been doesn't let you actually look at what's there. I'm not saying Mario Get-Together Island Tour and Star Rush(the better one) are as good of a "game to play at a party" as the real Mario Party games but they are a little neat.

[@toumabyakuya]

@@soulsilversnorlax1336 Eh, Star Rush was decent. Yeah, is not what anybody would expect a Mario Party to be like, but it wasn't bad.

[@sahaprocks7751]

Eh Island Tour is still bad

[@StevenVillman]

@@Mage_Nichlas_ What are you talking about there???! _Mario Party: Island Tour_ and _Mario Party: Star Rush _*_are_* real Mario Party video games! ಠ_ಠ

[@GBDupree]

While I can sort of understand your methodology with ranking them higher or lower based on when they appeared (more recent = lower score). I think that isn't the perfect method as certain characters didn't exist early on, such as Rosalina or even Bowser Jr.. Now Bowser Jr. is understandable as the Mario Party games, specifically, tend to focus on Koopa Kids or otherwise original characters even when Bowser Jr. was already a character they could've chosen, so it makes sense for him. But Rosalina didn't exist before Mario Party 9 (her first appearance in the series was the earliest possible which is impressive), as MP8 was in development before Galaxy came out. And she gets equal treatment in every boxart afterwards as every other playable character, she only has less apearances because she had less chances due to not existing for most of the series (and even then, The Top 100 helped a lot to boost her ranking). So either the ranking shouldn't be chronologically weighted, OR you should account for earliest possible showing instead (though this would be so much harder to do). In this case Boo Bell would be the lowest possible rating because its an OG item from 2( I think?) onwards, yet didn't get an appearance until the newly announced games. Another way to fix this is to have several rankings using different methods to appeal to everyone. Such as showing this list again, but only counting in-the-flesh appearances and not depictions, like the bowser spaces, for example. Or with only 1 count per boxart regardless of how many instances they appear in it (so all the penguins count as a single point rather than like 11 or however many you counted). This helps with species of characters that naturally exist in larger numbers than Mario ever could. Though you could account for different colors, so Yoshis, Toads, and K. Koopas would still get proper treatment as the different colors are technically different characters. Also its weird that DK is consistently an important character (arguably even MORE so after he stopped being playable if you consider him being the opposite of Bowser in gameplay as a major character of all the boards and events) yet has very few boxart depictions compared to tons of other characters who have been around just as long as him.

[@dradel2050]

11:23 I'd count the castle as a depiction of a Mushroom

[@The_Yosh]

I don't understand how the Clown Car doesn't count as a character, but items like the Boo Bell does.

[@haronka]

4:55 I am glad that I am not the only one, who knows about that game

[@swhawk]

Among the Top 6, we have 4 out of the 6 OG playable characters. Those 4 (Mario, Peach, Luigi and Yoshi) are the playable characters in Mario Party Advance. The other two characters who crack into the Top 6 are Power Star and Bowser, which are central elements of the competition. Wario is just barely out of Top 6, while DK is the character from the OG six that has the lowest rank, ranking below Waluigi, Daisy, and several side-characters.

[@ashmander3465]

Yoshi and Mario are playable in Mario party e but Luigi and peach aren't playable

[@StevenVillman]

@@ashmander3465 Yoshi ranks #3 overall (ahead of *_both_* Luigi *_*and*_* Peach but behind the Power Star and Mario) - because there's a reflection of him on the tuba (in addition to his actual body in the proverbial flesh) on Mario Party DS's box art, which 'CMeeCraft Gaming' forgot or failed to include in the count.

[@SamLabbato]

wait! for the mario party star rush box art, did they just use a render of diddy kong's smash model? I swear that's the exact idle pose he has in the smash games

[@elicenyne]

"Luigi is holding a Mini Shroom, which the ESRB has decided to censor."

[@ivanzoneBR24]

Diddy Kong fans are eating good Lol

[@Silias06]

Somehow its both a surprise but yet makes complete sense that the game that wants you to collect stars' most important character is the stars

[@DrRank]

In the MP3 art, you can also just barely make out Daisy's hair above the 3.

[@Bear_swagger999]

10:17 Why Koopa clown inst on list, freaking staris there becaue he have a face the koopclown change expression and is not on list but the star is a charater?? if u said that mario car just could drawn a face and aint going be character i guess the star wouldnt too right? i guess the same logic as ice cream if i drawn a face over it wouldnt be considered a character soo by thi slogic everysingle power up would be out of list because only have a face inst it?

[@brendiesel386]

Waluigi is holding another bob omb in the box set for star rush

[@heyheyitsjae2475]

I haven't seen the boxart for the new game before. Walugi's screaming face is everything

[@runningoncylinders3829]

Well we did have a Mario 64, and a Mario 35, so a Mario Party 73 just seems like the next logical step.

[@Quick_Ink]

2:37 missed 2 Moi? (Easter Island head) on Mario Party 2

[@Mariofan-lz5gf]

10:54 you forgot the Koopa Shell, which you counted in Star Rush.

[@PrussianoKbb]

7:57 I Cannot forgive you, YOU FORGOT THE POWER STARS

[@henryapplebottom7231]

I like how Mario party three full on Mike wazalski's the princesses.

[@Awesome_Seal_Guy]

10:37 yes, handheld is my ideal mario party. Most because i dont have mario party on any other console. 👍

[@MelonArmyMick]

Characters i have seen 1. 12:29 you can also see Toad in the right in hexagon heat :D 13:00 You can see a depiction of a drawn blue toad kinda :D 15:33 I have the USK game and i can see that its Rosalina and in my copy there is a rabbit in the cover :D

[@seriousquil7161]

I’m excuse but ya missed another Yoshi on Party DS box with the reflection. Also what’s with the decimals with the ranking? Shouldn’t it just be full number since we’re counting the appearance of the character?

[@GBDupree]

He ranks them lower depending on how long into the series it took them to appear. I sort of get the idea behind it, if it took a lot of games before a character appears on the boxart, then they must not consider that character to be important. But on the other hand, DK got passed up a lot on the boxarts despite always being an important character in the series. And characters like Rosalina didn't exist until later (though luckily the Top 100 boxart made up for that with multiple depictions of her) so couldn't have appeared earlier. But anyways, that's why some are in fractions, because they only appeared once, and it was more recently (this is interesting since Boo Bell has been around since the N64, yet only gets an appearance in the newest, currently unreleased, game). So a 0.5 would be very recently, while a 0.7 appeared awhile ago but not early on, and a 1 appeared early on. I don't know if its the best way to figure out their importance, so I'd wish he'd rank them using several techniques so we could pick our favorite method. Like show the list again, but now only in-the-flesh appearances and not other depictions like bowser spaces, just to see how much that changes things.

[@cardboardtoaster2169]

I guess Goombas are more important than DK and the Sun

[@franciscotapia9682]

Captain cucumber:the top 100 was very close to having 100 characters (there are 8 yoshis, the 7th yoshi is the 64th character, right next to his 64 ds fellas)

[@tres4945]

Im pretty sure Mario's in at least one of them

[@-a-oy4gu]

9:43 right next to the hot dog truck there Are 2 small purple banners that have stars on them 15:49 next to the skeleton key door you can see a Koopa trope shell

[@Multi_Step]

Hmm... well did you take into account the BACK of the boxart? What about the sides on the N64 boxes? Or the insides on the 3DS and Switch ones? I think those appearances shouldn't be weighted as prominent as the front art, but maybe it'd lead to less ties near the top places and give us a definitive 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place? Just a thought. Super cool video though, I can tell you were already really meticulous picking out each character from their respective arts and I'm mainly joking. (Though I wouldn't mind a follow-up in the future)

[@haronka]

Do Mario RPGs next please! :)

[@ninfan6434]

Both coney island appearances might technically count as an extra Mario because the game takes place on a giant mario statue

[@8ggt]

How do you calculate the points?

[@andreworders7305]

Which box art was Diddy on?

[@twick_original]

As Dry bones biggest fan, I am crying rn

[@mottdropsie]

In before the infamous Luigi on the Mario Party 9 Boxart.

[@themostop6142]

What’s wrong with him?

[@ivanzoneBR24]

​​​@@themostop6142I think he mean the Japanese box art that Luigi is missing

[@ashmander3465]

Not there in original box art there in remade box art

[@Its-me-Penny]

MC Ballyhoo and Big Top are the only good Mario games duo, prove me wrong.

[@Yet_Another_Undertale_Fan]

9:41 It kinda looks like Ludwig, but that’s just a guess.

[@briggers39493]

Just wanted to get this out there, but the mystery character behind the ESRB logo on the superstars box is Rosalina, you can see her on different versions of the box art from outside North America which use smaller/differently shaped age ratings

[@MelonArmyMick]

I stealed Mario Party 8 from my brother to look whos in the hotdog thing but no answer and im cooked 💀

[@Placeholder93]

Glad Nintendo recognized how important waluigi is, he just needs his own game now

[@qurturt8872]

I'm sorry but mp8 was the best game, my childhood nostalgia refuses to tell me otherwise

[@aaronjohnson6572]

100% agree! People that say they hate the motion controls are just refusing to get good.

[@OriginalElysian]

That's the thing isn't it? Nostalgia will always make the games of our childhood seem like the best. I grew up on MP3, and it's still my favorite - I was well into my teenage years when 8 came out!

[@animedude834]

@@OriginalElysianso true, I grew up with MP8 and really thought it was the best thing ever but looking back at it, it’s not that great tbh… N64 Maps are waaaay better especially MP2 and MP3

[@GBDupree]

@@aaronjohnson6572 I love motion controls and defend them whenever possible. MP8 legitimately has bad motion controls for a good portion of the game. this is because they were converted to motion after development, when the game was being made it was for Gamecube, and then they decided to port it to Wii last second and make it exclusive, so most of the minigames are designed for normal controller controls and retroactively made for motion. This means most of them didn't get the time needed to make them smooth, though a few do feel fine as they likely were made later in development. Also the balancing on some of them is really bad. Particularly the soda can shaking minigame, I remember playing it at a party and discovering I couldn't lose because the game has a hidden hard limit on how much the soda can be shaken, which is really easy to hit, and the only reason it didn't end in a tie was because I picked Waluigi who is the tallest character and so holds the soda slightly higher than anyone else, making it impossible to lose and no one could beat me. Its completely unfair and most of the minigames have issues like that that make them unfair or bad.

[@aaronjohnson6572]

@@GBDupree Yeah there are a lot of unfair mini-games. Like that one battle mini-game where you shoot at the falling cards. All you need to do is hit 50 and then make the rest X2. Also the motion controls definitely aren’t the best. I’ve just gotten used to them over the years, and refined my ability to play them effectively. I just get defensive whenever someone talks ill will towards a big part of my childhood like MP8. Regardless of all that though everything you said does make sense.

[@Stephen-Fox]

4:10 - The ESRB censored Luigi's mini-mushroom. Got it.

[@PinkBread14]

The mystery character is rosalina

[@Jelly_shy_guy_man]

ITS ME 2:16

[@Jelly_shy_guy_man]

17:25 L but at least I’m in more box arts than donkey Kong.

[@DemiIsNotHere]

Actually... the second koopa on Mario party 6 was a para troopa so the list is incorrect.

[@jkbenbot9305]

COUNT THE CAR!

[@andreworders7305]

3:42 he’s in the uncropped artwork

[@darioelsinapodo8448]

Towering Treetop is absolutely the best Mario Party Tree. Glad to know that the rest are ranked lower, Woody and Timber are ok, but are just not that good. Out of joke, you can realize how no one cares about all of this characters, when I included a fake name there, and probably a ton of people were not gonna realize unless I said it.

[@datgremlin3478]

We all know big top is the most important character

[@ninjaydes]

Does the length of the list make you regret counting items as characters?

[@maxv08]

Why make the math so complicated? Why not just count the actual number of appearances?

[@Estparti]

Why didn't you count the green shell in mario party island tour but you did in mario party star rush?

[@CMeeCraftGaming]

Fair point. I just checked my spreadsheet. It did counted in the calculation. I guess I just somehow overlooked it when writing the script.

[@Zpanda1000]

Red K. Kid got done dirty

[@henveee]

0:00

[@henveee]

"the mario party"

[@samuelmitschele-dauenhauer2984]

Am I nuts, did I watch this video already?

[@Jules-mm7ki]

Nope, the other one is just Mario character in general, not Mario Party specifically

[@samuelmitschele-dauenhauer2984]

@@Jules-mm7ki Ohhh, okay, I have the brain of an old man sometimes…. Thanks

[@tVichi]

4:41 those are stickers not characters

[@8ggt]

They’re depictions of the star, he counts depictions as characters too

[@Levisworld9]

You forgot Mario party ds

[@no_sleep_bois4281]

Where is Mario party ten?

[@marcusmaldonado5709]

Epic video frfrfr

[@indigofenix00]

Every time I see these videos I am reminded of SCP-096.

[@andreworders7305]

Back of the box is box art too

[@andreworders7305]

Pretty sure they’re called Koopa Troopas

[@andreworders7305]

7:25 it’s still not really a real game. It requires a print-out board

[@StevenVillman]

No, it doesn't... You are thinking of *_Mario Party-e_* there.

[@Flufster1]

We just need luigi daisy wario and I can’t believe I’m saying this birdo

[@flixgames4141]

penguin is higher than Rosalina🤣

[@GBDupree]

Penguin is a classic character to be fair, he's been around far longer than Rosalina. Rosalina also got shafted by getting covered up by logos, like the ESRB covering her up. Penguin is also a species, and therefore has more appearances overall due to being able to have multiple appearances simultaneously, like the power star does. Penguin is overpowered, please nerf lol.

[@lateformyownbirth]

Wait, this isn’t a ZoomZike video. -off screen whispering- It’s a CMeeCraft video? Capital

[@NonisLuck]

[@nathoghazi5026]

missed a star in the coin of 73, 0/10 video

[@halfmoon4163]

I was wondering this EXACT question about a week ago, so I guess I can manifest my desires through sheer force of will. SILKSONG WILL RELEASE AUGUST 1, 2024 🧠⚡️

[@EndermanInASuit7]

I think it worked before because it's plausible

[@ARG-ARandomGuy]

15:19 guess we all know what the most important Minigame in the series is

[@dezmas9332]

missed a penguin, robbed

[@pacattack2586]

You know - I think that the ranking is about right though

[@KRBM]

Lots of data to confirm that Mario Party’s a total sausage party