Bowser's Warped Orbit
- “Beyond space! Beyond time! And beyond decency! We're in the blackest hole of all. Bowser's Warped Orbit! It's seriously sick and twisted!”
- —MC Ballyhoo, Mario Party 8
Bowser's Warped Orbit is Bowser's board in Mario Party 8. In order to have it playable in Party Mode, the player must unlock it by completing the Star Battle Arena once.
This is Bowser's most unique board in the entire series, for it is a space station in outer space. However, it still goes by the laws being a "lava" board, as it is located above the sun. Another difference is that Magikoopas and Toadies work here, and not the usual underlings like Goombas and Koopa Kids. The objective here is to steal Power Stars, with each player starting out with five (ten stars for each team on Tag Battle Mode). Instead of Chain Chomps that were utilized in Snowflake Lake from Mario Party 6 and Pyramid Park from Mario Party 7, players must use special candy to steal from their opponents: Bowser Candy and Bullet Candy.
Landing on a DK Space causes Donkey Kong to appear on a steel-keg satellite, and give the player a free Power Star (a piece of candy in Star Battle Arena). Landing on the Bowser Space causes Bowser to come down from his observation tower to steal a Power Star from the player (although if the player has no Power Stars, Bowser will give them ten coins instead). But in Star Battle Arena, whenever a player lands on the Bowser Space Bowser comes down from his observation tower and takes away a star. And the star does not appear back on the board and so instead of having six stars, there only will be five (five stars left in play). Landing on the Lucky Space takes the player to Shy Guy's Orbital Buffet, which has a path of Blue Spaces, each with three coins on them, and the player can also get three free pieces of Bowser Candy or Bullet Candy.
One of the ? Spaces on the board causes Bowser to come down and chase the player all around the board in a complete loop. Anyone that is in their path will also get chased down (this essentially just moves all the players involved to the same space). The ? Space next to Kamek makes him use his magic to shuffle everyone's candy around, just like he did back in Mario Party 5. The ? spaces (arrow spaces in Duel mode) next to the warp tube (underneath the observation tower) causes players to travel through the tube and reach to the other side of the board, always collecting twenty coins along the way (but nothing in Star Battle Arena because the tube is part of the board's path, not a shortcut). All the other ? Spaces make Bowser reverse the direction of the flow of the board.
In Star Battle Arena, the winning conditions are to steal stars from their opponent via the Bowser and Bullet candies until their opponent has zero stars. Players started with three Power Stars each. During the Star Battle Arena, if the player defeats Blooper or Hammer Brother, they will get to fight Bowser in a void-like arena. Also, the player will unlock Hammer Brother or Blooper, depending on who they fight. The opponent is random unless the player is using one of those two characters, in which case the other one will be the opponent. Therefore, to ensure unlocking both, the player should use the first villain unlocked during his or her second play.
The change of direction in this board is similar to Backtrack, a duel board in Mario Party 3.
It slightly resembles Bowser's Galaxy Reactor from Super Mario Galaxy.
Names in Other Languages
Trivia
- This is the only board where the player cannot get a free star from landing on the Lucky Space (unlike every other board). Instead this Lucky Space has candy to collect which turns out to be Bullet Candy and Bowser Candy by passing Candy Spaces.
