From Aaron Stanton,
Your Guide to Nintendo Games.
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Nintendo Monopoly is perfect for video game fans buying their first copy of the board game, but there's not enough here to justify a new purchase if you already own a copy. It's fun using Nintendo-themed pieces, but USAopoly has done a poor job of producing a Monopoly version that really utilizes the depth of Nintendo lore. If you don't own a Monopoly game yet and are thinking about picking one up, get this one. Just don't expect to be rolling in nostalgia.

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The Details of Nintendo Monopoly:

Monopoly board games come in many different flavors. USAopoly has released a Nintendo version of the classic board game. Instead of using a little shoe to work your way over properties like Boardwalk, you march Link's shield or Mario's cap over properties labeled Toad and Samus Aran. The Chance and Community Chest cards have been replaced with Coin Blocks and ? Blocks, and houses and hotels have been renamed Power-Ups and Invincibility. It's Monopoly featuring Nintendo memorabilia. While the idea is certainly enough to get Nintendo fans excited, the implementation of these changes are fairly shallow and feel as if put together in a short time by a team with only limited knowledge of the Nintendo universe.

Property Names:

The properties are not locations, but simply Nintendo characters. Instead of being able to own Princess Peach's Palace, Bowser's Castle, or Samus's ship, you get to buy property with a picture of a Metroid on it. While this isn't bad, there's a great deal of creativity that could have been included to make the theme more interesting. Mario and Luigi are Boardwalk and Park Place, of course, but I'd much rather be able to own Mario's house in Mario RPG, or Yoshi's island.

Houses and Hotels:

In order to give them a Nintendo flavor, USAopoly has renamed the little plastic houses and hotels as "Power-ups" and "Invincibility". However, the name change is all there is. The little plastic houses you put on your properties look exactly like the Monopoly's of the past. The renaming trick comes across somewhat as a cheap way of making it Nintendo without really doing any work, like making new plastic molds to actually be mushroom power-ups or something similar. Considering everything else is Nintendo themed, the houses seem very out of place.

Go, Go to Jail, and Free Parking:

Not every property has been changed. Go to Jail, for example, still has the traditional police officer with his whistle. Free Parking still has the little car. While not every item on the board has to be changed in order to make me happy, the majority of what you find in Nintendo Monopoly could have been reproduced with Photoshop, a printer, and some Nintendo marketing brochures. With so many different versions of Monopoly on the market, it's possible that USAopoly didn't really take the time to truly take advantage of the intellectual property.

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