They were exhausted. You could see it in Dan Ryckert’s eyes—a mix of chaotic glee and the realization that he was about to force his friends through five hours of digital torture. This wasn't just another video game stream. When the Giant Bomb crew sat down for Mario Party Party 9, they weren’t just playing a Wii game; they were testing the structural integrity of their own friendships and the patience of thousands of live viewers.
It’s honestly kind of legendary.
For those who weren't there during the mid-2010s era of games media, the Mario Party Party series was a flagship endurance test. The premise was simple and, frankly, a bit cruel: the staff would play every single Mario Party game, in order, for 50 turns each. By the time they hit the ninth entry, the energy in the room had shifted from "this is a fun joke" to "we are legally obligated to finish this nightmare."
Why Mario Party Party 9 was the ultimate turning point
Everything changed with this one. If you’ve played the series, you know the deal. Hudson Soft was out, and NDcube was in. They decided to throw the entire foundation of the franchise into a woodchipper. Instead of four players roaming the board independently like functional adults, everyone was shoved into a single car. You moved together. You suffered together.
Basically, the agency was gone.
During the Mario Party Party 9 broadcast, the frustration was palpable. Jeff Gerstmann, a man who has seen everything in this industry since the nineties, looked like he wanted to dissolve into his chair. The "car mechanic" meant that if you rolled a high number, you might inadvertently drive your entire team into a pit of Mini Stars loss, and there wasn't a damn thing the other players could do to stop you. It turned a game of strategy and spite into a forced march.
Brad Shoemaker and Drew Scanlon usually provided the moral compass for these features, but even they started to crack under the weight of the "Lucky Spaces" and the sheer randomness of the Bowser appearances. In previous iterations, you could at least pretend you lost because of a bad movement choice. In 9, you lost because the car went left instead of right.
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The "Car" problem and the death of strategy
Most fans of the series point to this specific game as the moment the franchise lost its way, and the Giant Bomb crew's reaction mirrored the community's outcry. When you're all in one vehicle, the concept of "board control" evaporates. You aren't playing the board; the board is playing you.
- The Captain system: Only the person whose turn it is gets the rewards (or penalties) of the spaces landed on.
- Linear paths: Gone were the complex loops of Mario Party 2 or 3. Most boards in 9 were a straight shot to the finish line.
- The Boss Minigames: While these were actually a decent addition, they couldn't save the pacing issues.
During the stream, the crew spent a significant amount of time debating whether this was even a game anymore. It felt more like a social experiment designed by Nintendo to see how much "pure luck" a human being could tolerate before screaming.
The sheer length of the Mario Party Party 9 recording
People forget how long these sessions were. Because they insisted on playing the maximum number of turns—which, in the context of the car mechanic, meant traveling the entire length of the board multiple times—the video clocks in at a massive runtime. It’s a slow-motion car crash.
Honestly, the best part of the whole thing wasn't the gameplay. It was the meta-narrative. It was watching Dan Ryckert thrive in the misery of his coworkers. There is a specific kind of "Dan energy" that fueled these videos—a chaotic neutral force that believed the more unfair the game was, the better the content became.
He wasn't wrong.
The viewership numbers for these marathons were huge for Giant Bomb. It tapped into a weirdly specific internet niche: watching professional adults lose their minds over a colorful toad-themed board game. It was the precursor to the modern "long-form" personality-driven content that dominates Twitch and YouTube today.
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Why people still watch it in 2026
You’d think a ten-year-old video of guys playing a mediocre Wii game would be buried by now. It’s not. It’s a comfort watch for a lot of people. It represents a specific era of the internet where things felt a little less polished and a little more authentic. There were no "like and subscribe" stickers popping up every five minutes. It was just a couch, some microphones, and a collective sense of impending doom.
Also, it serves as a historical document. It captures the exact moment Nintendo tried to "fix" something that wasn't broken. Seeing the raw, unedited reaction to the car mechanic from people who had just spent forty hours playing the previous eight games provides a perspective you won't find in a standard three-minute review.
The technical reality of Mario Party 9
If we're being fair, Mario Party 9 did look better than its predecessors. The transition to the Wii's later lifecycle meant the environments were vibrant and the minigames were generally high quality. "Tumbleweed Tussle" and "Skyjacker" are legitimately fun.
But the "Party" aspect? That died.
When the Giant Bomb team finally reached the end of the board, there was no celebration. There was only the quiet, hollow realization that they still had Mario Party 10 waiting for them in the future. The ending of the Mario Party Party 9 video is a masterclass in exhaustion. Jeff’s final words usually summed up the futility of the entire exercise.
The game introduced "Mini Stars" instead of the traditional Coins and Stars system. This simplified the economy to the point of boredom. You didn't buy anything. You just collected shiny bits until someone hit a Bowser space and lost half of them. It removed the "robbery" mechanic that made the original games so cutthroat and replaced it with a generic redistribution of wealth that felt unearned.
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Key takeaways from the Giant Bomb experience
- Context is everything. Playing Mario Party 9 for twenty minutes is fine. Playing it for five hours while being filmed is a mental health hazard.
- Randomness isn't always fun. There’s a sweet spot between "skill-based" and "total chaos." This game jumped the shark and landed in a pool of pure RNG.
- Chemistry carries content. The reason this video works isn't the game; it’s the four people on the couch. Their history and established tropes (Brad’s bad luck, Jeff’s cynicism) made the 50-turn slog watchable.
Actionable insights for your next retro session
If you’re thinking about revisiting this game or watching the Giant Bomb archives, here is how to handle it without losing your mind.
First, don't do 50 turns. The game wasn't built for it. The car mechanic makes the board move significantly faster than the old games, but it also makes the experience feel repetitive much sooner. Stick to the standard 10-15 turn limit if you're playing with friends.
Second, if you're watching the "Party Party" video, treat it like a podcast. It’s the perfect background noise for cleaning your house or grinding in an RPG. You don't need to see every dice roll to understand the suffering; you can hear it in their voices.
Third, use it as a lesson in game design. Compare the movement in 9 to the movement in Super Mario Party Jamboree or Mario Party Superstars. You’ll see that Nintendo eventually listened to the fans (and the screaming critics) and moved away from the car, returning to the individual movement that made the series a staple of the N64 and GameCube eras.
Finally, check out the "Best Of" clips if you can't commit to the full multi-hour runtime. There are fan edits that condense the five hours of Mario Party Party 9 into thirty minutes of the most highlights-heavy salt. It’s a much more efficient way to witness the collapse of the Giant Bomb staff's collective spirit.
Go back and watch the moment someone lands on a "Back to the Start" space near the end of the game. It is perhaps the single most devastating moment in the history of the site. It’s not just a game mechanic; it’s a tragedy.