Bear Bones All-Stars! (video game)

Bear Bones All-Stars!  (マラキと仲間たち：ブロックパーティー, Maraki and his Friends: Block Party) is a party game developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Activision. ''Bear Bones All-Stars! ''was first shown at E3 1999 and was released for PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and Windows in North America on May 17, 2000, later in Europe on May 31, 2000, and then in Japan on June 3, 2000. It is the first installment of the Bear Bones All-Stars series. The game features characters from Bear Bones Productions, including those from Malachi Universal, Sarah, The Kidriends, The Animal Life, Aiden & Koop, Jan and Jason, Toon Friends, Beverly Hills Tina, Sypha, Ami the Mermaid, Wonderful Darlene, My Hero Academia, Fairy Tail, Sunny the Flower, Demon Slayer, The Kutabatas, Mouse Trapz, Geo the Creature, Jollytoons, and Jake the Robot with Liam from Live Tour as the host. The publisher Activision contacted Hudson Soft, the developers of Mario Party, to assist with development, they have also released the game in Japan.

Gameplay
Players play as 8 different characters and play more than 20 stages and six different party modes. Player 1 can choose Party!, Replay, and Cup challenge (Players 2, 3, and 4 have a mode called "Party Play"). Each stage has different events although the last stage is almost opposite from the original stage when the player first starts. Every party game has each different Boss depending on 5 different events (or party modes) on which level. At the end of each turn after the last player moves, a minigame starts. Like the first 8 Mario Party games, there are 4 types of mini-games (Free-for-all, 1 vs. 3, 2 vs. 2 and Josie's Minigame (similar to Battle Minigame).

Malachi Universal

 * Malachi
 * Purple
 * Takashi

Sarah

 * Sarah
 * Nate

The Kutabatas

 * Mitsuru
 * Sumire

The Animal Life

 * Scott
 * Hilda

Toon Friends

 * Jarek
 * Riley

Bleach

 * Ichigo
 * Rukia

My Hero Academia

 * Izuku
 * Ochako

Wonderful Darlene

 * Darlene
 * Chewy

Beverly Hills Tina

 * Tina

Jan and Jason

 * Jan
 * Jason

Aiden & Koop

 * Aiden
 * Koop

Sunny the Flower

 * Sunny

Geo the Creature

 * Geo

Ray Elio

 * Ray
 * RJ
 * Holly

Jake the Robot

 * Jake

Sypha

 * Sypha

Download
The game was made available for download on PlayStation Store for the PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 in North America and in Japan for $5.99 or 436 yen on February 24, 2010. It was released to the PlayStation Store in Europe on March 17, 2010.

Reception
Bear Bones All-Stars!, despite being resold as a Greatest Hits and Player's Choice title, received very mixed reviews. Matt Casamassina of IGN gave the PS1 and Dreamcast versions a 4.9/10 and the PlayStation and PC versions a 4.5/10. While the sound was praised, the gameplay and graphics were criticized for being a major clone of Mario Party.

Review aggregator Metacritic gave the N64 version a 62 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews", while the PS1 version received a 50 out of 100, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews", and the Dreamcast version received a 61 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews", and the PC version received a 43 out of 100, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

Ryan Davis of GameSpot gave both versions of the game a 5.2/10, disliking the lack of variety in the minigames and the bizarre board designs.

Official UK PlayStation Magazine, scored the game with a 5/10.

In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 30 out of 40 for both versions.