Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Medium: Digital/Cartridge
Players: 1-20
Online: Yes
ESRB: E
Is there any game or franchise that better embodies the spirit of “love-hate relationship” than Mario Party? Sure, the blue shell in Mario Kart can ruin an otherwise thrilling race, or a sports game can feature some insane last-minute heroics, but I don’t think any game can make you go from rage to elation and back as consistently as Mario Party.
That, of course, continues with Super Mario Party Jamboree. During the time I’ve spent playing it, I went from first to last and back to first over the course of a single turn. I played an entire game on easy mode, won pretty much every single minigame, had more coins than the other three players combined…then lost when the game awarded enough bonus stars to Koopa Troopa to let him come from behind. I saw a friend’s son almost reduced to tears when, during the game’s penultimate turn, he landed on a Bowser space, lost 20 coins, and then lost his last star because of the game’s new Jamboree Buddy system (more on this in a few moments) that made him have to do the Bowser space twice.
If this were any other series or franchise, you might come away from it saying that the game is fundamentally broken. But because it’s Mario Party, you can’t help but come away from Super Mario Party Jamboree eager to play it again and again and again.
To be sure, part of the reason I’m so into the game is that I’ve been able to experience the series through a newcomer’s eyes. As I mentioned back when the game was announced, over the last year or so I’ve been playing a whole lot of Super Mario Party with a friend and his two sons. Even as someone who doesn’t have kids (and generally doesn’t like spending time around them), it’s been a blast to see the kids learning all the ups and downs that come with playing Mario Party. When they learned there was a new Mario Party game coming out, their enthusiasm was infectious.
For the most part, I think that Super Mario Party Jamboree delivers everything you could hope for from a new Mario Party game. There are more than 110 minigames, for one thing, and they run the gamut from fairly simple (like Domination, a return from Mario Party 4, where you button mash as quickly as you can to line up as many Whomps as you can, to push them over like dominos) to surprisingly complex (like the multi-stage Mario’s Three-peat, where you have to compete in Leaf Leap, Bumper Balls, and Shy Guy Says, with points being awarded for your performance in each).
There are also a good number of boards to be found here: seven in all, including five new boards (the returnees being retooled versions of Mario’s Rainbow Castle and Western Land). There’s a good variety between them, and they each do an excellent job of having their own little intricacies to learn and master. Likewise, the game features the largest Mario Party roster ever, ranging from the obvious returnees to newcomers like Pauline and Ninji.
On top of that, you have a good number of modes to choose from. There’s the usual party mode, of course, that everyone has come to know and love/hate, but there’s also a pretty enjoyable single-player campaign, the Party-Planner Trek, where you tour a number of islands, gathering mini-stars to, as the name implies, help plan a party. There are various minigame modes, including a couple that focus entirely on minigames with motion controls. There are even two online modes, one cooperative (Bowser Kaboom Squad, where you compete alongside seven other players to take on Imposter Bowser) and one competitive (Koopathon, where 20 players compete in a series of minigames).
But what makes Super Mario Party Jamboree noteworthy is that it features a couple of new additions: a pro mode, and Jamboree Buddies.
Pro mode is unquestionably a good thing if you’ve ever wanted a more challenging take on your standard party game. It adds a fixed number of turns, a limited number of items in the shops, a set number of coins that can be stolen by Boo, and all kinds of other features that reduce luck to a certain extent. Not completely, of course – this is still a board game at heart, where you’re handing yourself over to a roll of the dice – but it certainly felt more competitive than a typical game of Mario Party.
Jamboree Buddies, on the other hand, are either the greatest or worst idea to ever grace a Mario Party game. The concept is simple enough: every so often a Jamboree Buddy ally appears on the board for a set number of turns, and if anyone can reach him or her they can try to win them as an ally. Each Buddy brings with them certain advantages, ranging from slower dice, to add-ons for every roll, to more coins, to a bunch of other options. If anyone passes the player with a Buddy, they get to steal the Buddy until someone passes them in turn.
What makes it either brilliant or terrible is that these Buddies can wildly skew the game. If you reach a star space, you can buy two stars, or you can steal two stars when you reach Boo. You can buy two items in shops. On the flip side – as my friend’s son discovered, much to his chagrin – they can also double your misfortune, forcing you to go through two Bowser spaces, for example. On the one hand, Jamboree buddies are amazing, because they can really drive home how arbitrary and random Mario Party can be. But on the other hand, they’re awful, because they…well, they can really drive home how arbitrary and random Mario Party can be. It really depends on whether they’ve helped you win or not, and I can absolutely see how someone could see them as game-breaking – but, at the same time, I can’t say I hated it when I was lucky enough to steal a Jamboree Buddy on my last turn, reach a Boo, and steal two stars that helped me win the game.
All of which is to say: Super Mario Party Jamboree is everything that makes the series so loved and so hated. There were times when I wanted to ragequit and throw my Switch at the wall, and there were times when I cheered at unexpected good fortune in minigames and star placements – and those times often came in quick succession. Super Mario Party Jamboree shows that Mario Party is still a blast to play nearly three decades into its lifespan, which is a pretty neat achievement however you want to look at it.
Nintendo provided us with a Super Mario Party Jamboree Nintendo Switch code for review purposes.
