Right, so Boom Street is the Australian and European title for Fortune Street which is itself the American title for the Wii incarnation of the previously-Japanese exclusive board game series Itadaki Street. It's the first English translated incarnation of the series, which apparently means it deserves three names. Boom Street combines characters from both Nintendo's Mario stable and Square-Enix's Dragon Quest in a battle of property buying and share prices. This may sound like a strange idea to our Western sensibilities, and to be honest, it is.
EveryBody Plays: There's often something magical that happens when Nintendo characters meet board games. One of our favourite multiplayer staples in recent years, the Mario Party series is a great example of how things usually work, showing how an otherwise fairly average board game can be injected with a new lease of life thanks to the portly plumber's golden touch - as the somewhat disappointing, and Mario-free Wii Party so adequately demonstrated. Boom Street, then, is probably best described as Mario meets Monopoly - a game where the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom decide to stop jumping on each other's heads, or stealing princesses, in the intent of pursuing that most noble of goals - that of being stinky rich.
Impulse Gamer - Nintendo have just released Boom Street in Australia and although the cover looks like some strange version of Mario Party, it's actually far from it. Boom Street is a virtual board game that is oozing with Nintendo goodness that combines elements from popular games such as Monopoly and the Game of Life which creates an interactive board game experience on your TV.
The game that I’m about to review is a bit of a weird one. It’s part of a franchise that first began in 1991, and spanned seven games without actually ever setting foot outside of Japan. Now, in 2012, we’ve got Boom Street (aka Fortune Street or Itadaki Street depending on where you’re from) and one has to ask, has the wait for this franchise been worth it? It’s hard to say. At first, I was rather ignorant and many probably shared my opinion, that Boom Street was essentially Mario Party with Dragon Quest characters added in. After spending many, many hours with Boom Street I’ve come to a realisation—Boom Street is a board game like no other on the Wii and something that will only appeal to a very specific group of people. At least, that’s what I think anyway. It’s hard to say.
