I have a lot of sentimental value with all three of the Nintendo 64 Mario Party games. Words can't fully describe how much I love all three of them. Mario Party 5 I'll also honor by mention, because of it's incredible music, even though I was unfortunate enough to get a defective copy of the game (it only worked for like 5 minutes) But I still got to listen to the music and it really is amazing! I've also played Mario Party Advance, 7, 8, and 9. I enjoyed some of 7's mini games and music. Pipe Dreams is my favorite! Mario Party 8 was okay, but a lot of its mini games and "How-to-win-Stars" objectives were the same as in 7, only with new skins and made to work with the Wii Remote; so if you're looking for originality, sorry to fans who read this. Mario Party Advance, I'll admit was a real odd one. But some of its music is familiar to me so it's enjoyable for my ears. Some mini games were fun, but a lot of it lacked challenge. If there's one thing I loved though, it's how many different well known characters were present for you to interact with. The cast, in my opinion, was like a "lovechild" of characters ranging from Super Mario 64, the older Mario Parties, and the Super Mario Advance series (in other words, Super Mario's 2, 3, World, and Yoshi's Island) In short, I love seeing so many different characters from different games put together into one like Mario Party Advance. And some of the locales you could visit were well done, as far as GameBoy Advance games go.
But I went with voting on Mario Party 1. Why? Because I just can't get over everything about it. The ability to buy items from a local shop to use in any and all games (like the colorful Plus/Minus/Slow/Speed Blocks! The Warp and Event Blocks which carried over to later games, the magic Coin boxes, etc.) All the board games are memorable and iconic (DK's Jungle Adventure, Yoshi's Tropical Island, Mario's Rainbow Castle, Eternal Star!) And there are reasons to play the stages and become Super Star, like in Tropical Island, you need to be Super Star to save two Yoshis' friendship when deadly whirlpools separate the two. The music is memorable and catchy! Tons of the mini games are fun and at the same time faithful to the original Mario formula, like Coin Block Blitz, where you simply have to hit ? Blocks and collect their coins to win. I think Mario Party 9 is the only other game in the series that does a good job, if not better, at making its mini game collection faithful to both Super Mario and even Donkey Kong Country games! And even if not all the games stick to Mario's platforming game elements, 1's Mini Games are still loads of fun! Also, gameplay is fast, getting through all four turns doesn't take very long at all. Sure, Mario Party gained a level of infamy because of its "Blister-inducing-rapid-control-stick-rotating mini games" but as a fan I can easily overlook this issue. And finally, and most important to me, as I said before is the sentimental value. I have lots of wonderful memories of playing this game as a kid and having so much fun with it and my older sister. I'll never forget those days and that's why Mario Party 1 holds such a special place in my heart.