Super Mario Party Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV review for Nintendo Switch 2

To say I was a huge fan of Super Mario Party Jamboree would probably be an understatement. It was easily my personal GOTY last year, and I’ve been playing it regularly since it came out. So as you can imagine, I was pretty excited to see that the game would be getting a Switch 2 edition complete with new modes called Jamboree TV.

Now that it’s here, though, I’d say my feelings are a little more complicated.

On the one hand, I still love Super Mario Party Jamboree. The base game is still a blast to play, whether you want to play it solo or with friends. The single-player mode is outstanding, even if it lacks replayability, and the selection of boards here is on par – if not better – than anything else the series has ever done. The Buddy allies are still either going to make you gleeful about how they can suddenly shift the tide of a game, or furious at how they can completely unbalance it. As I said when I first reviewed the game last year, Super Mario Party Jamboree encapsulates the sense of randomness – both good and bad – that made the Mario Party series so much fun (and so infuriating) in the first place.

As far as Jamboree TV goes, however, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s more like a tech demo showing off what the Switch 2 can do than a true upgrade for Super Mario Party Jamboree.

Take Bowser Live, for instance. It’s a short series of minigames where you have the option of competing either with camera-based games or microphone-based games. Not yet having the Switch 2 camera, I opted for the microphone games, and…you make a bunch of noise. That’s pretty much it. You get a game where you have to control your character by getting louder or quieter, a game where you have to clap to the beat (and where you really notice the input lag between clapping and the game registering your clap), and a game where you have to make as much noise as possible. While it’s possible that the camera-based games are a little more worthwhile, and I have no doubt that some people will love seeing their faces onscreen, given how lacklustre the microphone games are, the mode feels gimmicky at best.

Carnival Coaster, the other entirely new mode in Jamboree TV, is a little more worthwhile, but again, it largely feels like a tech demo – in this case, showing off how the Switch 2 incorporates its Joycon mice via an on-rails shooter. The games here are a lot more varied than they are in Bowser Live, which means you’ll get a little more replayability out of them, but it’s hard to say the mode is a must-play.

Having said that, Jamboree TV isn’t all bad. It also adds two new ways to play the core game boards: a five-turn Frenzy mode in which everyone starts off with stars and coins, and a Tag Team mode that turns the game into a 2 vs 2 showdown. Both add fun wrinkles to the Mario Party Jamboree experience, with Frenzy mode turning the game into a quick sprint that feels like sudden death, while Tag Team mode adds a bit of strategy to the game. The latter mode, in particular, added all kinds of drama to my experience with the game thanks to a Together Dice that allowed me and my teammate to buy a pair of Golden Pipes, which in turn enabled us to come from two stars down on the last turn and eke out a narrow victory.

It’s hard to say, though, that the Frenzy and Tag Team modes totally justify the cost of buying the Switch 2 edition of Super Mario Party Jamboree. It’s still a great game – probably the best Mario Party game ever – and you’ll have a blast with the core game whether you’re playing it on Switch 1 or Switch 2, but the $20 upgrade pack that is Jamboree TV is nowhere near as essential.

Nintendo provided us with a Super Mario Party Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV Nintendo Switch 2 code for review purposes.