Super Mario Party (Switch)

Near the end of the Wii U’s life and the start of the Switch’s, Nintendo’s release model of adding frequent free content updates to games after release allowed games like Arms, Mario Tennis Aces, and Splatoon 1 and 2 to continue to grow beyond their initial offerings. This approach conditioned many consumers to expect this model from many more Nintendo titles going forward though. Super Mario Party got plenty of attention for seemingly taking the game back to its simpler virtual board game style rather than the car focused board games of Mario Party 9 and 10, so when many people saw how few boards were available in the game, they were optimistic, hoping this potential return to form would later be updated into something more substantial. However, these updates never came, but while their focus was on the meager typical Mario Party mode,  Super Mario Party’s appeal truly lies in the many modes on offer.

 

Super Mario Party begins with a throwback to the first title in the series, Mario and his friends debating who is the best hero of them all, or as they call it, a “Super Star”. It’s agreed they’ll settle the question by playing the Mario Party board game, but when Mario’s long time enemy Bowser shows up, he demands to be allowed to play as well, many of his minions tagging along to raise the chances a villain might be the Super Star instead. With the princess’s mushroom servants Toad and Toadette keeping the game fair and Bowser’s wizard Kamek making the game boards into massive detailed areas the players could run across, the competition begins, but there is more than just the simple board games being judged. There are five gems that need to be earned before someone is declared the Super Star, each major mode rewarding one after you’ve completed its content.

 

The basic Mario Party informs the design of the others, many of them choosing new directions for certain elements featured in this main mode. A normal game of Mario Party involves four players, human or computer controlled, competing to earn the most stars in a virtual board game. Stars appear in a single spot on the board and will move after being purchased with coins, the player earning coins typically by performing well in the minigame that is played at the end of every turn or under special conditions. Progress on the board is made by rolling a dice, everyone having access to a typical six-sided die but each character having a unique die as well that may have different numbers on the side and can sometimes provide coins or take them away instead of letting the player move. The character specific dice are a small but interesting injection of risk versus reward that already adds a bit more thought to simple board navigation rather than each turn being mostly just a straightforward random roll. Items can also influence movement around the board, the player able to purchase these from shops or get them by landing on certain spaces. A Mushroom will add a set amount to their rolls, a Poison Mushroom detracts from another player’s roll, and special items like the Golden Pipe can take you right to a star, although it is expensive to balance out its power.

While the die rolls and somewhat random minigames at the end of the turn due introduce a degree of luck into play, Super Mario Party is structured well so that a player who makes smart decisions, uses items well, and is skilled at minigames can usually get a decent lead. However, random factors can allow less experienced players to sometimes seize victory as well, especially with things like the randomly selected end-of-game Bonus Stars where people can be rewarded for things outside the main goals like using the most items. While the game boards are mostly focused on forward movement, there are many points in the four available boards where you can choose which direction to head. Different paths to the Star can be picked, or players might want to alter their route if they are heading towards a certain space that might benefit them. Players might want to head for the Ally Space where they’ll be joined by an extra character who not only lets them borrow their specific die, but they’ll also roll a small die every turn to add 1 or 2 more spaces to your roll. These allies can even contribute to specific minigames such as Pull It Together where they strengthen your tug-of-war team and Bumper Brawl where they’ll help you try and knock other players out of the arena in the hamster ball like devices you find yourself in. Each board has unique event spaces you can utilize as well, some simple like letting you travel across the four giant fruit islands of Megafruit Paradise, some dangerous like lowering the counter on a devastating detonation in King Bob-Omb’s Powderkeg Mine, and others potentially beneficial like the event space near the top of Kamek’s Tantalizing Tower changing the price of the Star.

 

Despite the small amount of boards to play in the main mode, they do have quite a few interesting aspects to them, and the selection of minigames is very strong, none of them feeling entirely dependent on luck and featuring some fun chaotic interaction with other players. Coming in free for all, 1 vs. 3, 2 vs. 2, and the team minigames where allies are involved, the 84 minigames featured can be creative and make smart use of the Switch’s unique features. The joycon’s motion sensor is used in games where you need to shake a bunch of oddly shaped candies out of a jar, evenly cook a cube of meat in a skillet, and complete tasks that would have been too simple with button presses like a tricycle race. The HD rumble is used for things like a metal detector game and finding out how many nuts are in a box just by shaking it, although Rattle and Hmmm’s “match the rumble to the character” gameplay is slow and grows old after the first play. There are definitely some simple ones like pounding a button at the right time to get coins and some that can be ruined by stupid computer players like trying to recreate an image with a crane game whose controls you share, but games like Slaparazzi where you bully other characters to try and be front in center in a picture and Gridiron Gauntlet where you avoid charging football players do ensure that most minigame rounds will be enjoyable.

The alternate modes outside of the main party tend to focus on the minigames, presenting them in a new way besides the board game format. One stand out mode is the Sound Stage, the players participating in a series of rhythm focused games where you need to do things like wash windows, pull tablecloths out from under champagne glasses, and stab at falling fruit to the beat to earn the best scores. Fast paced, heavily skill focused, and featuring different difficulties that can really tighten the requirements for successful scoring, the Sound Stage is thrilling but sadly rather short, there only being ten rhythm minigames and the speed of them meaning you can blitz through them all fairly quickly. It’s enjoyable for brief visits though, and it comes out better than River Survival in terms of not overstaying its welcome. River Survival has all four players working together to row their raft down a river that splits into different dangerous paths. The goal is to get to the end before time runs out, the players earning extra time by piloting their raft into balloons to play cooperative minigames. Despite having many paths with different hazards like whirlpool-making squids and plenty of rocks to maneuver around, there are only ten minigames on offer here as well, and since the game wants you to reach the river’s different end points to get its gem, you’ll see quite a lot of repetition in these otherwise decent cooperative minigames. Every minigame from these modes is available for individual play after they’re unlocked, but most of them also feature in Challenge Road, a single player mode where you need to either finish each game, achieve certain scores in them, or complete special conditions to earn that adventure mode’s gem. Challenge Road comes out pretty enjoyable for featuring that upwards climb and the different goal types, and while it’s not too difficult overall, it is an interesting framework that really emphasizes the minigame design.

 

There are some side areas in Super Mario Party such as special Rec Room minigames or the sticker area where you can make pictures with the game’s characters, but the final mode is one that perhaps should have been the game’s main focus. Partner Party takes the regular Mario Party mode and introduces an interesting degree of freedom to the experience. While it is structured so it’s always a 2 vs. 2 battle to collect the most Stars, the four boards from the regular party mode have been restructured into more grid-like shapes to allow for much freer movement. Rather than traveling a mostly linear but branching path, the boards now allow you to move about a more open space as you please, characters able to more easily land on preferred spaces, collect coins scattered around the board, or do things like bounce on opposing players to drain their cash. Allies, events, and most stuff found in regular Mario Party is here but the level of strategy is heightened and boards feel much more interactive because of it. There are even nice touches like the player being able to highlight a desired destination and the game will figure out the path to it, this feature subtly informing the player if their die roll isn’t sufficient to get them there. Its complexity isn’t so great that casual players can’t grasp it, but much like Sound Stage, its an enjoyable mode that doesn’t disappoint so much as shows that so much more could have been done with it if it was the focus. Still, a selection of enjoyable modes means that the lean nature of many of them is made up for by a robust overall package.

THE VERDICT: While many of Super Mario Party’s modes are shallow if focused on exclusively, the collection featured ultimately comes together in a package with plenty to enjoy. The main Mario Party mode is an enjoyable virtual board game, Partner Party elevates it with its greater focus on strategy and free movement, Sound Stage gives you a quick burst of quality rhythm minigames, and Challenge Road lives up to its name when it comes to recontexualizing the game’s mostly enjoyable minigame selection.  River Survival exhausts its pool of cooperative games a little too quickly sadly, but even it is at least an enjoyable first trip. While none of these modes reach their potential heights because of the split focus, they are sturdy enough pillars that the whole turns out to be a fun party game all the same.

 

And so, I give Super Mario Party for Nintendo Switch…

A GOOD rating. Even ignoring Nintendo’s then-current trend of free content updates, it’s not hard to see why people wanted Super Mario Party to receive more content. All the modes are well built and enjoyable in some manner, they just end up coming to an end sooner than you might like as their available pool of content can’t quite support a friend group focusing solely on that mode. Each mode does bring something fun and distinct to the table though, and it would be very interesting to see these fully fleshed out in their own games focused solely on them. In fact, things like Sound Stage are already fairly close in design to something like Rhythm Heaven, and Partner Party could have potentially found an audience if the Mario Party playerbase was more open to something experimental and involved. Instead, they all combine together here into a game that does have plenty to offer on the whole, but each unique experience isn’t meant to stay in the spotlight for long. Very few minigames or play concepts are bad, so Super Mario Party is still able to entertain casual audiences and provide some options like Challenge Road for a solo player to dig into and enjoy.

 

While it would perhaps benefit the series to provide a robust traditional Mario Party series with the next installment, it would be a shame to see so many of the ideas present here completely dropped. There are more ways to enjoy minigames and competition than through mostly linear virtual board games, and that seems to be what Super Mario Party was aiming to explore. Super Mario Party was stuck in a trap of expectation both in what Mario Party in general should be and what a Nintendo game of the time should do after release, and while it’s not the best Mario Party, its merits shouldn’t be ignored just because it wasn’t what everyone thought it would be.