Mario Party is back, again, but this time in a big way. You’d argue it never left – we’ve already had both Super Mario Party and Mario Party Superstars on the Switch. But Super Mario Party Jamboree feels different. Not only is it the first wholly original Mario Party game since 2018, but it’s also a best-of-both-worlds situation. Jamboree is an enjoyable romp for all the right reasons – bringing together the briskness of Superstars with the devotion to original content that Super Mario Party provided. The result is a party that’s fun for hours and, more importantly, one well worth attending.
The beauty of Mario Party has always been in how simple it is, and Jamboree is no different. You and three other characters are placed on a board, moving around to purchase as many stars as possible as they rotate throughout the board. At the end of each turn, everyone is thrown into a minigame, with the winner gaining some advantage in the next round. It’s an incredibly simplistic premise that has stayed the same for over two decades. But it’s easy to see why – Mario Party is easy for anyone and everyone to pick up and enjoy. It’s immaculately paced in Jamboree too.
There’s a heap to do in Jamboree, but the crux of your experience will be spent in Mario Party mode. This is the traditional mode – allowing up to four players to jump into one of seven boards and battle it out for the most stars. As mentioned above, the flow of Jamboree feels like the best that Mario Party has felt for some time, but a few additions to the proceedings change things quite considerably. The most major being the Jamboree abilities.
Jamboree’s abilities feel like a natural evolution of the Ally system from Super Mario Party. During any game, a character will appear on the board. If you reach them, a unique minigame is initiated, with the person who reaches them receiving a handicap. Whoever wins the minigame recruits that character to their side, opening up a variety of buffs. For one, every character has a unique ability – Wario gives you coins before each turn, for example. But also, anything that happens to you in the game while your buddy is with you is doubled. You earn twice as many coins, lose twice as many coins, and can buy two stars when you land on a star space.
The Jamboree ability system is a clever idea, though I wish there was some way to adjust their frequency or even the length of time they stay with players once they are gained. They only pop up a little in short games, often appearing right at the end, where it’s never worth it to divert your attention to them, given how many turns are left. It’s also disappointing that only ten of the game’s twenty-two characters can be recruited. It’s by no means a dealbreaker, but it does sometimes feel like they’re not worth the diversion if you’re already close to a star or have your eyes on something else.
Where I’m more confident that Jamboree gets it right is the boards themselves. Five of the seven boards included here are brand new, with the other two returning from the first two Mario Party games. The new boards are fantastic. Much has been said about Mega Wiggler’s Tree Party already. But other boards, like Goomba Lagoon, have a shifting tide mechanic which leaves people either stranded on an island, doomed to run in circles or wash them away entirely.
But my favourite is easily King Bowser’s Keep. On this brutal and punishing board, Bowser is constantly turning each space into a Bowser Space and stealing stars and coins from players for a vault. The vault itself can be unlocked by any player, who can unlock it if they reach it and guess the code to open it. It’s a fun and exhausting board for all the right reasons. Overall, all of the boards are nothing short of incredible – mixing some novel designs with even more novel gimmicks to ensure everyone has a chance at any given point.
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Praise also has to be given to Jamboree’s new Pro rules options. This is a set of rules you can apply before each game where all the random elements and chance-based minigames are either eliminated or tweaked. It’s a good idea for those looking for a more serious game, but a lot of these options are individually tweakable before you enter a game if you want to fine-tune your options. Our group, for example, really liked the idea of voting for minigames but didn’t like the idea of Pro rules, so we chose to do so for our sessions.
The package is rounded out with some great new modes, too. Much has been said about the Koopathlon and Bowser Kaboom Squad in Brodie’s preview last month, which are two modes that up the player count and the chaos. I recognise that they might not be technically achievable locally, but I hope that one day, Mario Party will expand to include more than four players in a fashion similar to these. The single player mode, Party-Trek Planner, is similarly something I enjoyed when I played the game earlier this month. It’s a nice alternative way to play Mario Party, especially if you want to unlock stuff, and it gives solo players something to do.
When you’re not keen on something as involved as a full round on the board, the Experience Party mode offers up something slightly different to Mario Party and the Minigame Bay. There are three separate games to play – Paratroopa Flight School, Toad’s Item Factory and Rhythm Kitchen. Rhythm Kitchen is the most straightforward – you essentially participate in a series of motion-based minigames to create (oddly realistic-looking) foodstuffs for a judging panel of Yoshis. It’s the simplest of the three modes but a nice little diversion, too.
Paratroopa Flight School has your character outfitted with Paratroopa wings, flapping your arms to move around a semi-open level. You can either co-operate here to transport a character from one point of the map to another or play head-to-head as you float around the map to collect biddybuds. Toad’s Item Factory is my favourite, allowing up to four players to work together to move a ball through a factory by controlling various stages of a production line with the Joy-Con. It feels the most detailed and most involving of the Experience Party area.
But Experience Party highlights one of my only true major issues with Jamboree. The motion controls could be better. Especially during some of the minigames you encounter in the Mario Party mode, there were a few times when our controllers wouldn’t behave like they should during the minigames. Another minor gripe is that three boards have to be unlocked through earning achievements. If you’re grabbing this game for a party night, only some things will be available from the get-go. Given the minigames are short and the unlockables aren’t too grindy, they’re minor issues, but ones I think bear mentioning.
Perhaps this is cynical of me, but it’s refreshing to speak about a Nintendo Switch game in a positive light when it comes to presentation. Unlike recent releases on the Switch, Jamboree runs at a very delectable sixty frames per second. Combine this with the bright and colourful artistic direction that we’ve come to know and expect from the world of Mario, and Jamboree is easily the best-looking Mario Party so far. It doesn’t do anything too outlandish or outrageous when it comes to artistic direction, though the performance is especially appreciated, especially in a game that can be so competitive.
Such a strong sense of presentation is just icing on the cake – Super Mario Party Jamboree seemingly does the impossible. It has expanded the idea of what a Mario Party game can be well beyond anything the series has done so far without skimping on the most crucial factor – quality. Everything that it offers, whether it be a traditional Mario Party experience or some of the newer, more novel motion-controlled games, Jamboree more than lives up to its name, and that’s worth celebrating. Get your RSVPs in; this party is well worth attending.
