| Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade | |
| Developer: | Art Co., Ltd |
| Publisher: | D3 Publisher |
| Series: | Simple series |
| Platforms: | Wii U |
| Genre: | Party game |
| Modes: | Single-player, multiplayer |
Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade is a party game released for the Wii U. It was developed by Art Co., Ltd and published by D3 Publisher. The game was released in November 2012 for the PAL region, and in December for North America and Japan. The game was panned by critics.
There are two modes of playing the minigames available: Challenge Mode and Freeplay Mode. Challenge Mode has players compete in five set Wii Remote games based on the world selected at the start, with five randomly chosen Wii U Gamepad games in between. Up to four people (with CPUs to make sure that there are always four players) can play at once to try to beat a set score and unlock more characters and minigames to play in Freeplay Mode. In Freeplay Mode, up to 10 of the minigames can be chosen, regardless of whether they use the Gamepad or the Wii Remotes, to be played in a set order with up to four people (with CPUs to keep the number of players at four, if necessary) with no restrictions or scores to beat.
Despite the title, there are 35 minigames in total. They are spread around five different worlds, with each world having five Wii Remote games and two games that use the Wii U Gamepad.
Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade received "overwhelming dislike", according to the review aggregator website Metacritic.[1] The game was panned by critics, holding a score of 11/100 on Metacritic, making it the second lowest scored game on the website at the time, behind .[2] [3] After Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, which had five critic reviews, was removed from the full list of game scores due to Metacritic increasing the minimum review count for featured games to seven critic reviews. Thus, Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade has since become the number one lowest scoring game on the website.[4]
Criticism targeted its visuals, design, minigames, controls, and voice acting. Kristoffer Nyrén of Eurogamer said that "the feeling of torture arose" before he played the game, specifically criticizing its graphics for being "extremely outdated" and its controls for frequently malfunctioning.[5] Zack Kaplan of the Nintendo World Report said that "it makes a promise it can't keep, assaults your ears with annoying voice acting, and sucks all the fun out of owning a Wii U", scolding its poor controls, minigames (as "devoid of fun"), and irritating voice acting.[6] Anthony Severino of Game Revolution described it as having "absolutely zero redeeming qualities", chiding its gameplay (as "borderline unplayable"), controls, and voice acting.[7] The Official Nintendo Magazine gave it a score of 11%, jokingly concluding the review (written in the style of a diary) with an "ONM Coroner's Report" that read: "Patient suffered a psychotic breakdown while playing this game. No treatment possible."[8]
| Publication | Accolade | Year | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Official Nintendo Magazine | Worst Wii U Games[9] | 2013 | ||
| ScrewAttack | Worst Wii U Game in 2013, Worst Game of 2013[10] | 2013 |
Known in Japan as