CAUTION
Back in the day, folks used to rotate their palm on their Nintendo 64 controllers for Mario Party minigames, leading to injuries, and an official “glove” release from Nintendo. This time with the Mario Party 64 Switch re-releases (Mario Party 1 and 2) via the expansion pack, they’re just adding that warning upfront.
Here’s the warning in full for the first game, seen when booting it up:
“CAUTION: To avoid irritation to your skin and/or damage to the control stick, do not rotate it with the palm of your hand. Rotate the control stick with your thumb or by holding it between your thumb and forefinger.”
The wild thing about this is that I always won these minigames, and never used my palm. Same thing with the button-mashing contests! Mario Party has caused a lot of folks strife over the past few decades, and this warning caused all those memories to come flooding back.
Here’s two of my most memorable Mario Party experiences:
- Someone refused to play minigames when they were on my team so that I would get less coins
- After losing Totem Pole Pound, someone threw their controller across the room, which hit the N64 and froze the game
Fun times! On the flipside, I’ve played with a lot of good sports, and will continue to do so with these re-releases. Some of these original minigames just can’t be beat, despite numerous attempts to bring them back from the dead in a new flavor.
