After a significant post-GameCube slump, the Mario Party franchise showed signs of new life in its first two titles on the Switch. While both Super Mario Party and Mario Party Superstars were commercial successes and well-received by fans, the former leaned a bit too heavily on a new Ally system while the latter was essentially a "greatest hits" of classic maps and minigames. As the console approaches the end of its lifecycle, Super Mario Party Jamboree ends this Switch trilogy by attempting to find the sweet spot between its two predecessors and stumbles into an issue of quantity over quality in the process.
One aspect that Jamboree inarguably has going for it is sheer quantity. Nintendo touts this entry as having the most playable characters (22) and most minigames (112) in any Mario Party ever. A big roster isn't necessarily a bad thing, although I have one nitpicky complaint about Bowser's inclusion. I've got no beef with the man—he's been a playable mainstay since the SNES after all—it's just the fact that him being playable means that the "Bowser" that appears as the antagonist throughout the maps and modes is constantly referred to as "Imposter Bowser," which feels a little hamfisted and unnecessary. Just take him off the playable roster or have some new placeholder villain, we don't need a fake Bowser with spooky purple lines and PlayStation symbols surrounding his body all the time.
With that important complaint out of the way, let's get to the party. It's been a while since we've been treated to great original maps. Super Mario Party's were lackluster, and Mario Party Superstars featured five solid ones but they were all from the Nintendo 64 era. Jamboree's offerings are a satisfying mix of five new maps and two returning favorites. The five new maps are better than Super Mario Party's offerings, with the standouts being Roll 'em Raceway and Rainbow Galleria. Only two retro maps made their way in, but I'm very happy with the returning Mario's Rainbow Castle (the first Mario Party map) and Western Land (from Mario Party 2).
Each new map has a gimmick, of course. Mega Wiggler's Tree Party features the perpetually sleeping-or-pissed-off Wiggler in the center, and you can ring a bell to move him around and create new paths. Goomba Lagoon surrounds a volcano that erupts and creates dangerous spots, as well as a tide that ebbs and flows to obscure parts of the board. Roll 'em Raceway puts your characters into race cars, which could trigger some Mario Party 9 and 10 flashbacks but it's actually done well this time. Rainbow Galleria is a three-story mall that has you going up and down escalators and collecting stamps for coin rewards. King Bowser's Keep (manned by the aforementioned and stupid Imposter Bowser) has players navigating perilous conveyor belts and attempting to open a vault of potential riches. The two retro maps feature minor tweaks and changes, but are mostly prettier versions of the classic maps you remember.
Games in the traditional party mode will feel familiar to anyone who has ever played the series. You'll pick your characters, set the turn count, and get to collecting coins in the effort to gain more stars than the others. You know…Mario Party. There are a couple nice changes and additions--like the timeline at the bottom of the screen that lets you know the order of turns and board events--but the biggest tweak to the usual format lies in the Jamboree Buddies and Showdown Minigames.
Jamboree Buddies are characters from the series that will appear on the board at various points during a game. If you can get to them in time (they disappear after a few turns), you'll trigger a Showdown Minigame for everyone in which the winner gets the Jamboree Buddy's company for the next several turns. These minigames are significantly longer and more involved than the traditional ones. Wario puts the players through a lengthy game show segment, Mario presents a three-game gauntlet composed of standard minigames, and Donkey Kong triggers a bongo-based rhythm game that gives each player time for their own solo. Some are a lot of fun, like Yoshi's platforming race or Daisy's coin-collecting challenge. Others tend to drag and go on far longer than you'd expect. Between these Showdown Minigames, duel games, versus minigames, item games, and more, that 10-turn game you selected might feel more like 20+ turns by the time you're done.
If you win the Jamboree Buddy's company, benefits can range from inconsequential to game-changing. DK can launch you to random spots on the board, Luigi helps you roll bigger numbers, and Bowser Jr. can set traps for your enemies, for example. But the biggest potential boon is their ability to let you purchase two stars at one time. If you've got 40 coins and you happen to reach a star space in the few turns that your Jamboree Buddy is with you, you can shift the leaderboard very quickly. If another player passes you on the board at any point, however, that Jamboree Buddy will jump ship to their side. It's ultimately a better and more intentionally limited system than the omnipresent ally feature in Super Mario Party, in which your sometimes multiple allies could give you an unfair advantage in dice rolls and minigames for the duration of a game.
Super Mario Party Jamboree has the unenviable task of following Superstars, a game composed of the best minigames throughout the entire series. Ultimately, the quality difference is noticeable. Most of the new minigames are fine at best, with some standouts like Slappy Go Round, Prime Cut, and Unfriendly Flying Object. But for every genuine crowd-pleaser, there's one that would make me groan when it popped up. Gate Key-pers is my least favorite, featuring five keys and three locked gates. Players laboriously rotate through turns as they randomly use keys on doors and try to memorize which combinations were already attempted. It takes forever and really slows down the pacing, which is something numerous minigames are guilty of this time around. More than one minigame also features the mechanic of "pick one of these things and hope no one else picks the same one or it doesn't count," which has never been fun even once. I expect a certain amount of nonsense and randomness in a Mario Party game, but Jamboree feels like it's leaning too far into it at times.
Super Mario Party Jamboree ends this Switch trilogy by attempting to find the sweet spot between its two predecessors and stumbling into an issue of quantity over quality in the process
A few games in, I started wondering why I was seeing so many repeat minigames. After all, Nintendo touted Jamboree having the most ever, right? It wasn't until I played all of the modes that I realized what was going on here. Sure, there are 112 minigames, but almost 50 of them are exclusive to side modes that you might play once or twice and be done with. So that 112 is almost halved if you're spending most of your time in the party mode, which is what I assume most players will want to do.
From a hot air balloon that hovers over the various islands of Jamboree, you can select between the other modes. Those range from "decent distraction" to "why did they include this?". Three waggle-based modes lie on Motion Island. Paratroopa Flight School feels like a bad Wii experiment. It has you and an optional second player flapping your Joy-Con-wielding arms to soar around the map to collect coins and Para-biddybuds or participate in a wonky Crazy Taxi-like delivery game. It is not fun. Rhythm Kitchen supports up to four local players, and offers some genuinely fun minigames based on cooking and rhythm, but wrapped in a vaguely-scored chef battle format. I really wish the minigame ideas from Rhythm Kitchen had been incorporated into the standard party pool, as there are some good ones in here but this mode will not be getting a lot of play in my house. Toad's Item Factory feels like an early iPhone game and has you tilting and rotating your Joy-Cons in an effort to guide a ball into a hole. I'd imagine most people will play this once, and I'd have greatly preferred a handful of new minigames in the party mode instead of this addition.
A real eyebrow-raising tease in the trailers for Jamboree was the mention of a mode that supports 20 players. That would be the Koopathlon, which puts 20 live players (or bots, depending on how full your game is) on a race track. You advance by collecting coins in various minigames, all of which are exclusive to this mode. These are lengthier than your usual minigames and are frequently repeated. By the third time you're taking rolls out of the oven before they overcook, the thrill of racing 19 other players is diminished significantly. There's a kernel of a great idea here--Mario Party has room for a mode that features tons of players and big minigames that take inspiration from Fall Guys or the battle royale genre, but this doesn't feel fully baked.
Bowser Kaboom Squad is another online mode that lets you party up with seven of your friends to take on a CPU-controlled Imposter Bowser. Its minigames are unique in that they feature eight players in a co-op environment. You'll work together to arrange cards in order or stop Bob-Ombs from destroying a castle gate, and these games can be hectic fun in the vein of Overcooked. Only 10 minigames are present in this mode, and when you're not participating in one, you're running around a map collecting bombs to launch at Imposter Bowser. If you perform well in the minigames, your team will be granted helpful items like gloves to carry more bombs or dash pads to deliver bombs to the cannon faster. It's fun if you get a group together, but I really can't imagine how often people are going to be calling up seven friends for a round of Bowser Kaboom Squad.
The modes don't end there. Minigame Island features numerous ways to play the full assortment of minigames, including free play, a daily challenge, and a playlist of only Showdown Minigames. Party Planner Trek is a single-player mode that has you completing tasks, playing minigames against CPU opponents, and collecting mini-stars as you explore the five new maps.
A lot of this ends up feeling like bloat. Having more modes can be a good thing, but I feel like the amount of mode-exclusive minigames encroaches on how much I enjoyed the core party mode. It's like Nintendo wanted to cram as much in to make this a fun experience even if you're solo or have only one friend over, but Mario Party has always thrived when it's you in a room with three buddies. There are so many great solo and two-player experiences across every console. That's not what I'm looking for in Mario Party. Plenty of fun ideas are present in each mode, but if they were incorporated into the main party mode I feel like this would be a much more appealing total package.
Some of the moves they've made to increase longevity are appreciated. As you play you'll accumulate Party Points which you can spend on an expanding assortment of stickers, music tracks, and reactions. There's even a Battle Pass-like system (don't worry, you can't spend money on it) that has you unlocking new rewards as you rank up your player level.
In a surprising move, Jamboree also introduces a Pro Rules option to the base party mode. I expected this to be a toggle that simply turned off rubberbanding, but it's actually more complex than that. It attempts to remove some randomness from the chaos by announcing the (one) bonus star at the start, allowing players to choose an item to begin with, limiting shop items, and placing signs around the map that determine possible next locations for the star space. It removes several random elements--you won't find Chance Time or hidden blocks here, and minigames are voted on out of a limited selection like in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe online.
It's an interesting idea, but it really doesn't strip the luck elements out of the Mario Party experience at all. At one point near the end of a Pro Rules game on King Bowser's Keep, I had 130 coins and no stars. Imposter Bowser covered the map in Bowser Spaces and I landed on one. Pro Rules dictate that if you land on one, you lose a star. Since I had none, he opted to take all 130 coins from me. So even in Pro Rules, you can be completely screwed beyond your control with the random roll of a dice. And with no Chance Time spaces or hidden blocks, the chances of an exciting last-minute change of fortune are effectively zero. At that point you're just rolling the dice and limply participating in minigames as you wait for the game to end, which isn't fun at all.
Many new elements are attempted in Super Mario Party Jamboree, and unfortunately I feel like a lot of them are unwelcome. The new modes are largely duds, the tantalizing promise of 20-player online falls a bit flat, and several of the new minigames are a slog. That said, the new maps are the best original ones in many years and Jamboree promises to still be a blast when you've got some friends over. I've reviewed many Mario Party games over the years and it's always a weird series to assign a number to. During the review period you get to play the occasional online session with Nintendo reps and fellow games media members, but a lot of time is spent exploring the maps and minigames solo. In this form, the faults of the game are laid bare and you see it with clear eyes. But once you grab a few close friends and you're laughing with it over a few beers, the deeply flawed game turns into a raucous night of camaraderie and laughter. Jamboree is no more or less nonsense than any Mario Party, and it's one I'll still be playing a ton of despite its flaws.
