With that 100-star requirement, obviously this is going to be painful, but don't you guys think there should be a "Beat the Game" category for MP1? Starting from a clean slate and progressing all the way until the credits seems to be much more in the spirit of speedrunning than using a file which has already unlocked everything.

I can also see "lose minigames as quickly as possible to save time" being a fun strat to see in action in a cooperative run between four humans. Of course, due to the way stars are accumulated, there'd have to be a designation between co-op and single-player runs.

1 player 4 controllers would be a neat way to see this pan out. I'd be down to see this become a thing.

I think so, too. The lack of pressure to "win" also differentiates this category from All Boards. Instead, the focus is on amassing stars in as little time as possible, which involves a wholly different strategy. Minigames, Boo, Chance Time, etc are all removed from the equation. Your biggest opponent will be the RNG itself, primarily as it relates to star placement.

(This is, of course, referring to the multiple controllers version -- 1P is a much different story. Imagine losing an entire hour to swapping your stars with a CPU!)

That'd be interesting, but not necessarily fun to watch. As someone who enjoys the random nature of Mario Party, turning a run into a "Farming" kind of thing doesn't jive well with the game. But it'd be impressive to see? So maybe it should be a four-player thing.