Super Mario Party Jamboree Review: When More Isn’t Always Merrier

Through the years, the Mario Party series has been a staple of Nintendo consoles, bringing friends and families together for nights filled with minigames, board game strategy, and the occasional destroyed friendship. With Super Mario Party Jamboree, Nintendo aims to make this the perfect party game experience on the Switch, but does this ambitious title deliver a fiesta worth attending or is it a party trying too hard to please everybody?

The Bloated Guest List

A total of 22 playable characters are housed in Super Mario Party Jamboree, which contains the largest roster ever to star in a Mario Party game. While variety is normally a good thing, a Bowser playable character does lead to some awkward narrative gymnastics-the title features an “Imposter Bowser,” after all-complete with purple outlines and PlayStation symbols, which seems like a bizarre choice for a Nintendo game, and the whole experience was made to be forced and unnecessary.

New Maps Breathe Fresh Life into the Party

Jamboree really starts to get rolling with its boards. Five new, unique maps are a long way from the pastel-hued guilty pleasures that have been paraded out in the recent years:

1. Roll ’em Raceway
2. Rainbow Galleria
3. Mega Wiggler’s Tree Party
4. Goomba Lagoon
5. King Bowser’s Keep

Each board offers some gimmicks unique to that board, adding strategy depth to play on. Navigate a three-story mall in Rainbow Galleria or dance around volcanic eruptions in Goomba Lagoon: the boards offer plenty of new challenges for seasoned Mario Party veterans.

Other nostalgia buffs will love that two classic maps are featured: Mario’s Rainbow Castle from the first ever Mario Party and Western Land from Mario Party 2. The retro boards were beautified graphically but retained their essence.

Minigames Galore: Quantity Over Quality?

Nintendo boasts the most prolific use of its series yet with 112 minigames in Jamboree. Of course, quality is not always measured by quantity. Beyond the better-finished additions, such as “Slappy Go Round” and “Unfriendly Flying Object,” much of the new fare is underwhelming or frustratingly random.

Showdown Minigames” with the Jamboree Buddies develops an interesting twist to this recipe. These longer, more complex games have a great impact on the tide of a game. Their long length results in times during an otherwise well-paced party game experience.

New Modes: Hit or Miss?

Jamboree brings several new game modes available from a central hub. It’s nice to see this variety, though the quality of these additions is spotty:

• Koopathlon: A 20-player race mode that reads out tantalizing on paper but really suffers in repetitive minigames.
• Bowser Kaboom Squad: An 8-player cooperative mode that can be fun with friends but has very little legs.
• Motion Island: A clutch of motion-control-based games that feel rather more like Wii-era experiments than polished experiences.

Most of them are exclusive minigames, so nearly half of the supposedly 112 minigames advertised are locked away from the main party mode.

Pro Rules: A Step Toward Competitive Play?

For the masochists who crave a more strategic experience, Jamboree offers the “Pro Rules.” As you’d expect, it supposedly cuts down on randomization by disclosing the bonus stars beforehand, limiting items, and removing some of the luck-dependent pieces. By this standard, an interesting concept doesn’t quite work out so well in the creation of a Mario Party that’s truly skill-based.

Verdict: Mixed Bag Party

Super Mario Party Jamboree is a game of contradictions. It provides the most content yet in series history, but it also helps to dilute the core experience in the process. New maps are great, but many the minigames and modes feel like unnecessary fillers. For die-hard Mario Party fans, there’s still loads of fun to be had, especially with a group of friends, but the bloated nature of this game may leave some yearning for a more streamlined party experience.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Best of the originals ever
• So much game modes
• Ally system improved, really compared to previous iterations

Cons:

• Too many minigames are locked within side modes
• Quality of new minigames varies dramatically
• Some modes are absolutely unnecessary; underdeveloped

Rating: 7/10.

Super Mario Party Jamboree isn’t a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but it fails to be the definitive Mario Party experience on Switch. While it offers countless hours of potential fun, especially in local multiplayer. Its attempts to please everyone result in a somewhat unfocused package. It’s still worth picking up for fans of the series for game nights, but newcomers may want to start with the more streamlined Mario Party Superstars.

Have you played Super Mario Party Jamboree? What’s your reaction to the new modes and minigames? Share your thoughts!

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