Super Mario Party Jamboree is a bit of a tautological title, but it’s also the perfect way to describe this latest Mario Party game. There’s just more party in it! More maps, more characters, more mini games than in any previous mainline entry. At the third attempt on Switch, it feels like Nintendo Cube (formerly Nd Cube) have finally cottoned on to what series fans have been saying all along: just give us more, and don’t mess with the formula.
Of course, you can’t really blame a developer for trying to iterate and add new ideas to such a long-running series, but it’s fair to say that the various experiments in the 2010s just didn’t land. Players moving together in a car, character specific (and smaller) dice, free movement without set paths, they just didn’t scratch the itch that fans of the N64 and GameCube games had. Mario Party Superstars was, in many ways, the answer to this – “You want old stuff? Have some old stuff!” – remaking classic boards, bringing back 10-side dice, and remaking a bunch of classic minigames.
Now Super Mario Party Jamboree is carrying that on. It is essentially the same gameplay as before, but with new boards, new minigames, both button and motion controls, and some new twists on online multiplayer as well.
There’s also more characters than ever. A total of 22 playable characters are available to choose from, with a whole host of Bowser’s minions filling out the usual roster, as well as Pauline and Ninji, who are completely new for the series.
There’s five new boards and two remakes in Super Mario Party Jamboree, and we went hands-on with Mega Wiggler’s Tree Party. As is typical, players roll a die and move between 1 and 10 spaces on their turn, visiting stores, triggering events, and choosing the path to travel down as you race to reach a star on the map. After all the players have had a go, it cuts to a minigame, which is the main place to earn coins to afford those stars and items – again, items are fairly standard, with the main wrinkle we spotted being that there’s now two types of warp pipe: a green random one and a gold ‘move to Star’ one.
For Mega Wiggler’s Tree Party, there’s three main routes – a small loop, a main loop and then an extended branch off that – as well as the option to take a path along Wiggler’s back as a shortcut. The risk there is that other players can land on event spaces that see Wiggler move and completely throw you off course.
It’s a fairly straightforward board, but there’s still things like piranha plants that will snap at you and steal more money for each player they catch, and a game of chance where you try to extract honey from honeycombs, and hope you don’t trigger the bees.
The 110 minigames in Super Mario Party Jamboree will cover all bases with both button controls and motion controls represented, and a mix of free-for-all and team-based modes. There’s some great ones, like teams trying to cut steaks perfectly in half, and revisited ideas, like a player hiding in one of four slots while the others try to find them…. with hammers. The 3v1 minigames are always difficult to balance, and it’s fair to say that some still stack the odds way in the favour of the solo player, or the party of three. Still, it wouldn’t be Mario Party if there wasn’t some arbitrary nonsense!
If you just want a quick dose of Mario Party shenanigans without having to sink at least an hour into playing a full board, then there’s plenty of ways to get straight at the minigames, such as with the Daily Challenge. This offers up themed collections of three minigames to quickly race through, such as Minigame Munchies featuring cookie cutting and avoiding gigantic sandwiches as they fall from the sky, with players earning stars for each round they win.
These days you need to have online multiplayer, though, and thankfully Super Mario Party Jamboree builds on the options featured in the last two games. You can play a full board in online multiplayer, which is always welcome, but there’s snappier online modes alongside this.
The Koopathlon sends up two 20 players into a race of minigames, with each coin that you earn during a round sending you running around the track. Every few rounds, you’re then confronted with a showdown against Bowser as you try to avoid or outpace hazards he sends your way – like hopping over fireballs shot from the side of the screen – and with a penalty that will send you back a certain number of spaces depending on if and how long you survive for. The first player to complete five laps wins, which will keep you occupied for a good long while!
Then there’s the cooperative Bowser Kaboom Squad mode for up to eight players. There’s an imposter Kaiju-sized Bowser stomping around, with some other minions like Charging Chucks alongside for good measure, and you have to take him down. How do you do that? Well, crates of bombs are dropping from the sky and you need to go grab them and load up a cannon to deal damage, all while time ticks down for a coop minigame round, and the chance to earn some bonus items. You have to defeat Bowser within 5 rounds, which could be easier said than done!
For one thing, the coop minigames can be pretty tricky, like trying to collectively walk on in time to outpace a Wiggler, and Bowser’s stomping can knock people out so they need to be recovered from bubbles. Running around the stage is simple enough, but the camera controls are minimal if playing with a single Joy-Con, as all you can do is turn the camera to face the cannon, which can leave large parts of the map and incoming danger out of sight. It’s still good and frantic fun, though.
Like a second serving of a tasty jambalaya, Super Mario Party Jamboree is more of the same, but in all the right ways. There’s still some experimentation with the online multiplayer modes, but the core board game experience is being kept intact, and there’s that extra 10% on top.
