What makes a Mario party worth a visit? Sure, it’s great to get a few friends together for an evening of mini-games, backstabbing, and luck, but it’s been a while since the series felt relevant. Like a middle school dance, Mario party In memory, games often feel funnier than they ever were.

But looking back at the original Nintendo 64 trilogy that began in 1998, it’s clear that the bones are there for a good time. Choose your mascot, roll the dice and see what chaos reigns around the digital table. Throughout the GameCube era of the 2000s but up until 2007, the series largely maintained a basic standard of quality, albeit with diminishing returns Mario Party 8 For the Wii, the novelty had worn off. What followed was a decade of meandering, culminating in 2018 Super Mario Party for the Switch, easily the most anemic game in the series, with a handful of maps and modes that provided telephone energy.

But Nintendo knows where to turn the nostalgia screws, so 2021 Mario Party Superstars served as a mnemonic, bringing together all of fans’ old favorite maps and mini-games into a familiar but welcome reminder of why anyone would want to play a Mario board game in the first place. Now, Super Mario Party Jamboreeout October 17, aims to find out what’s next, and the results are surprisingly effective. If Superstars was a reunion of old friends, jamboree is what happens when everyone actually behaves well at the next meeting and reminisces a little about where things stand before turning the conversation onto something new, with a few awkward moments in between.

Out of the gate, jamboree It feels like you have something to prove. The game begins with the flying turtle wizard Kamek appearing front and center and literally saying, “Welcome to a bigger, bolder Super Mario Party.” Why one of Bowser’s henchmen is hosting a tropical shindig destination for 22 people is beside the point.

Kamek quickly goes through the different locations/game modes available, some of which are familiar but immediately shows that there is even more to offer jamboree more than just the core concept of board and mini games. Players can start in a party square where they select their character from a list of well-known characters such as Peach, Donkey Kong and Wario. In addition, there are some newer, returning faces such as: Super Mario Bros. 2is Ninji and Mario’s original lover Pauline Donkey Kong (1981), which has become a staple of the Nintendo-verse since its reintroduction in 2017 Super Mario Odyssey.

Looking through binoculars from the sky, the oceanic world map reveals an island with the various gaming options available, including the standard Mario Party board game, a section just for mini-games – including ones dedicated solely to motion-based play for anyone who really cares miss the Wii – and several new modes that still utilize the mini-game aspect but swap out the framework in inventive ways.

When you focus on the new additions, Koopathlon stands out. A twist at the core Mario party Competition, it replaces that CandylandSmall town style maps where 20 players (online or CPU controlled) have to run a marathon through the city. To race, players must participate in three mini-games that are completed at increasing levels of difficulty. Collect coins at a time to move one space per coin. Play better, move faster – it’s essentially a glorified progress bar, but the ever-changing pace of the marathon makes for a faster, more streamlined form of competition than base mode. Here, a game can last five to 15 minutes instead of the 90-minute playing time shortest fight of Mario party correct.

Next up is Bowser Kaboom Squad, a cooperative take on the formula that could be a nice change of pace for anyone tired of screaming fights between friends. Here, a Kaiju-sized Bowser impostor wreaks havoc in a city square, and eight players must team up to collect bombs and load them into a cannon to take him down. It’s a free-roam battle where the great Bowser and his minions stomp around destroying players, but at the end of each timed round a mini-game appears from the same group as the other modes, in which good performance will make you better at it Items can be equipped to advance in the next phase.

In the movement-specific spaces there are three modes of different quality. The worst is Paratroopa’s Flight School, a 1v1 matchup where you play as Mario or Luigi with a pair of wings and compete while flying in various missions. Using a pair of Joy-Con controllers (the gyroscope-activated snap-on parts of a Nintendo Switch), players must physically move their arms to level up and tilt the controllers to steer. The Joy-Con have never been particularly accurate and are prone to errors when mapping inputs, so like many of the laziest games from the Wii era, the exercise quickly becomes boring.

Toad’s Item Factory, one of the few experiences in, fares better Mario party Story that could be described as relaxing and is as rare as a satisfying single player experience. With the Joy-Con, players will have to experience a motion-oriented version of the old one labyrinth Ball game in which a floating small pearl is guided through a series of mazes. The left hand controls red gates, fins and more while the right controls the blue ones. Together, it conveys the feeling of patiently pantomiming to guide the marble through physics challenges. Unlike all the other modes, there is no timer in this mode, making it a more calming, low-stakes affair that’s worth it even when the inputs become frustrating.

Finally, there is Rhythm Kitchen. It’s a music-based mode wrapped in one Iron kitchen styled frame. Players must complete consecutive rounds of preparing meals as a team by cutting, skewering, picking and whisking various ingredients in time. It is a simple but effective and intuitive use of motion controls. Oddly enough, it works leaps and bounds better than the movement and rhythm-based mini-games you’ll find in the core experiences.

Outside of the Diversion Library is the main game mode. It’s simple Mario partyexactly as you remember it. Four players (or eight online). Two of the cards are from the original game, the rest are brand new and overall creatively designed. There’s a cute forest board where players can anger the caterpillar-like Wiggler to change the terrain. There is a race track where things go fast. There’s also a multi-story mall, which brings an eerie sense of dissonance to the Mario world (he only shops at a mall?).

A new feature is a Pro Mode that allows players to increase the excitement with customization options, such as reducing the random element in certain dice rolls or games and making them more skill-based. If you have friends who are irritatingly competitive, this is the mode for them. It’s the no-item style of play Super Smash Bros. for Mario partyto make the game more difficult for casual players and take the blame away from the sore losers who claim that everyone else only wins by luck.

A final feature that improves the overall package is available in the Party Plaza, where you can select your character and purchase unlockable items. It’s called Party Planner Trek and it’s the best way to play Mario party alone. It’s ostensibly a tutorial-meets-story mode, where a single player can explore each of the maps and complete small tasks for side characters, with the goal of assembling the party for everyone. Completing missions such as delivering food or items and completing mini-game challenges earns you Ministers. Collecting 30 per level starts a boss fight game – something completely new there is Mario party the sense of purpose, the classic gamification of busywork to progress in an otherwise lateral game.

Party Planner Trek gives players a reason to break out of the game, even if they’re just in a group, and feel like it’s really giving in jamboree Purpose that goes beyond a fun time waster among friends.

After the success of the nostalgia bait, it would have been easy for Nintendo to simply rest on its laurels again SuperstarsBut jamboree feels like a game designed with intention. Aside from some solidly crafted external content, decent motion-based gameplay, and a truly immersive single-player experience, it’s also simply the best core Mario party Experience that Nintendo has delivered over 20 years.

It’s definitely one of the last big games we’ll see for the Nintendo Switch before it ends, but if the franchise continues to evolve in this way, there’s certainly a reason for Mario and friends to come back to it Great cold-like party purgatory again and again.