Mario Party 8 received mixed reviews, with critics praising the inclusion of motion controls but voicing disapproval of its outdated visuals and single-player gameplay.

Mario Party 8 had three Japan-Only Arcade titles based upon it, borrowing mini-games and other assets such as game boards.

When playing with fewer than four people, players select which characters the computer will control, as well as their difficulty levels and handicaps.

The game has fourteen playable characters: Mario, Luigi, Toad, Princess Daisy, Yoshi, Birdo, Princess Peach, Toadette, Wario, Waluigi, Boo, Dry Bones, Blooper, and Hammer Bro, with the latter two being unlockable.

In the Star Battle Arena mode, one player faces off against one opponent on each board in which when they get to the last board, Bowser will take the Star from the player and they will face against Hammer Bro or Blooper (who become playable characters once defeated) in Bowser's Warped Orbit, then once they defeat the character, Bowser will give back the Star Rod and the player will face off in a final minigame called Superstar Showdown.

In the Fun Bazaar, the player can use their carnival cards to purchase in-game music and character voices.

While some of the game boards are classic Mario Party in nature, with players attempting to reach locations where they can buy a Star for 20 coins (10 coins in King Boo's Haunted Hideaway and free in Goomba's Booty Boardwalk due to the distance required to reach the star), others are more varied.

Notable for this is "Shy Guy's Perplex Express", where the train cars which make up the game board can be re-ordered as the result of landing on a certain space, potentially changing the relative positions of all players.

A number of the minigames rely on the unique capabilities of the Wii Remote, while others instead require players to hold the controller sideways and use only the buttons.

[2] Later that year, a demo of the game was shown with six sample minigames at the Nintendo World trade show.

In a press release, Nintendo gave the reason for the withdrawal as an assembly error, but some retailers were reporting that it was supposedly withdrawn from shelves because some copies included the word "spastic", which is considered a highly offensive slur against disabled people in British English.

"[18] In contrast, Matt Casamassina of IGN referred to the single-player mode as "torture" and said that the "graphics don't even impress as a GCN title".

If you want this game so you can share it with friends and family who have played it before then Mario Party fits the bill perfectly.

"[29] Digital Spy's David Gibbon gave it two stars out of five, saying that it was "essentially a GameCube title ported over to the Wii with some last minute remote controls added.

"[27] The decision to keep the game in the 4:3 aspect ratio and add sidebars in widescreen was widely panned as lazy, as well as potentially causing burn-in.

[30][31][32][12] Many critics theorized that the game was originally meant to release for the GameCube, but was ported to the Wii late into development.