I am so glad that Nintendo took a chance and published Itadaki Street (Fortune Street in the US and Boom Street in the West). It’s a game that on paper would have had to be a hard sell for the business decision makers. I can see the board meetings now. “It’s Mario Party, without the minigames. It’s a multiplayer-focused game that can easily take four hours to bring to completion. It’s Monopoly, only complex.” Those three statements essentially describe Fortune Street, and are anything but million-selling game ideas.
Which is why I am glad Nintendo decided to publish it anyway, and loan Square Enix its characters to maximise the game’s marketability. Because for the niche market that the game targets, this game leaves every other Wii game in the dust for multiplayer value.
That niche market is the people who like board games; not just an occasional gathering for Monopoly or Scrabble, but real board games like Puerto Rico and Catan. It’s not really a casual game, see, it is in many ways a complex and nuanced game. And one that isn’t really a video game, either; this one would be easily producible as a “true” board game.
So what is Fortune Street? At a basic level, it works a bit like Monopoly. Players roll a dice, move around a board and buy property. When other players land on that property, they need to hand over rent (technically it’s called “shopping” in this game, as players buy shops, not houses and hotels). It’s possible to exchange properties with other players, and properties are formed into colour-coded “districts,” which work in the same way they do in Monopoly; buy all the properties within a colour to boost the value of them all. There’s the equivalent of Chance cards, and everything else you’d expect from a Monopoly game. But Fortune Street goes far, far further than that. First up; maps have multiple routes, meaning that it is possible to avoid the nasty squares on the board with a bit of planning, and that small twist effectively removes that element of luck that could ruin a Monopoly session.
This also means that owning properties is generally less effective than it is in Monopoly. Thankfully, there’s other ways to make money. The secondary “market” in Fortune Street is the stock market. Players can buy “stock” in any of the coloured districts as they move around the map. The more people that buy stock, the higher the value of the stock. Obviously, that leads to profit.
A second, more effective way to increase the value of your stocks is to “spruce” the properties that you own. Landing on one of your own properties in this game allows you to invest cash to upgrade any other property you own. Doing that increases the amount of rent that needs to be paid when an opponent lands on the square, but more importantly, a reasonable investment in a property sends the stock value of the district skyrocketing. And that is the main way to profit in this game.
There’s a mass of content in the game, with 15 very different maps, each with their own quirks and are based on various famous settings in both the Mario and Dragon Quest universes. These maps are gorgeously presented, with a wonderful soundtrack pulled from the original games (the Mario Kart map’s soundtrack is especially amusing), lovely character animation and personality.
Thankfully there’s a solid WiFi online mode; though finding people with a couple of hours to burn to play a game might be an issue. The 15 maps will last you a long while in local or online multiplayer though, as there’s a theme to suit just about every mood.
This game has all the charm of the other Mario Party games, but Fortune Street is different in that it has real depth to back the charm up. For board game fans, this game will have them throwing out those copies of Mario Party; this is an unfortunately obscure but brilliant little game. And now we just have to hope for a 3DS version – Fortune Street on the go would be incredible.
-Matt S
6 comments:
And yet the only way they could make this less appealing to me would be to make the players read passages from War and Peace between turns.
Yeah, it's a pity that a game of this quality will only ever appeal to the niche group of gamers that also enjoy proper boardgames.
Still, at least for that group of people, we can forget Mario Party ever existed.
War and Peace might be a long book, but it's also incredible, btw. Higgle recommend it.
I got this game as a present for Christmas, but I haven't played it yet. I'm knee-deep in Saints Row: The Third right now as well as several Ambassador games on the 3DS.
And what's wrong with Mario Party!?
Nothing. As party games, Mario Party does the job.
They're just poor *board games*. Fortune Street is far better at doing that.
The AI on this game is so broken that it makes the game unplayable on Tour mode... which makes the game as a whole unplayable because like 90% is locked and can only be opened up by playing Tour mode. Why would Nintendo release such a badly made game? And why would you give it five stars?
Hi Scott,
Have a read of my review again.
1) I said that it's not for everyone. This is a game for hardcore board game fans. As such I'm not surprised that more casual board game fans found it difficult. Unplayable? No. There's 33% of the boards locked away, so you're exaggerating, and my save file is proof that you can unlock them. It takes some experience in board games more complex than Monopoly, though. I take it you don't play games from the likes of GMT Games, where you need to understand how complex systems work together to be successful at the game?
My advice to you then is to be patient and learn how to play the game before dismissing it as "broken." It's not, it's just not a game of instant gratification, either. For that reason alone it was instantly elevated above all Nintendo's other "Party" franchises (though technically this wasn't Nintendo at all. This is a Square Enix game)
2) I noted that the AI is a bit off in the review. But certainly no more inclined to "cheat" than it does in, say, Mario Party or Mario Kart games.
So why did I give it five stars? Well, 800-odd words of review above the score explain that. Plus, now, this.
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