The problem is that I think at first glance, it portrays itself as a series that is just a fun kids' board gamey, dice rolling time like Snakes and Ladders, except the dark secret is that it actually is a game of skill. If you can dominate in item use/positioning and winning the mini games (which is its own arcane set of skills), you can get significantly ahead, which Dan demonstrated. Anytime I've played with friends, you can tell that the owner of the game not only has advance knowledge and practice at the mini games and what to expect on the board, they also know which activities are awarded bonus stars, so they might go out of their way to land on certain spaces when given a choice of paths.
Given that, I think the big differences are item shops (I think 5 and possibly 6 have none whatsoever, you only find random items on the board), what the items do in that particular game, the later games (5-8) let you play items onto spaces on the board as traps, and how good the different boards and their mechanics are. The mini games are kinda the same bullshit from MP 1-10, or at least they follow such similar templates that I can't imagine really claiming "this particular game had the best mini games".
Mario Party 9 and 10 (and their cousins Wii Party and Wii Party U which have similar board game modes) are the games that truly make good on the original Snake and Ladders, random bullshit appearance of the series, and frankly should be considered a different series.
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