"Mario Party 5" retains the fundamental gameplay featured in previous installments, which is based upon a themed board game played by characters of the "Mario" series. The player's objective is to obtain the most stars by the end of the board game, which are usually purchased when passing the designated star space on the game board. Coins are earned mainly by winning minigames, which occur after all players have rolled the die. "Party Mode" is the main multiplayer mode, and involves four characters competing in a standard board game either independently or in opposing pairs. As with its predecessors, players can adjust the number of turns in a game by multiples of 5, and determine the difficulty of artificial intelligence opponents, among others.