The huge variety of minigames in Super Mario Party harness them in creative ways, like using the accelerometer to fly an aircraft or bring a magnifying glass into focus. The Joy-Cons are standout controllers for the Mario Party franchise. Go against your Wii Remote instincts and avoid flailing with large arm motions, and this mode becomes a lot more fun - though maybe only for short amounts of time. Yes, your forearms may still get tired from relentlessly pumping an imaginary baton. But what I found most amazing was how much the Joy-Cons have improved motion control technology.
MARIO PARTY 10 CHARACTERS SERIES
It’s a dizzying series of minigames aimed at testing your rhythm while performing certain offbeat activities. Motion controls extend to the game’s rhythm-based Sound Stage mode, which feels like a second cousin to the Rhythm Heaven franchise. The cast of characters, both playable and non-playable, in Super Mario Party. Each win had us all cheering for our victories, helping each other along and relishing at the in-game group high-fives you can perform each time you succeed. They’re also critical to adding time to your run, as your main foe in River Survival is the constantly ticking timer. The mode’s minigames, which are triggered by navigating through balloons floating on the river, are also cooperative, and emphasize strong communication skills. While it may be shocking to hear something positive associated with the phrase “motion controls,” the act of padding a boat cooperatively - and attempting to communicate effectively - had my crew rolling with laughter. The cooperative mode sends four players in a raft down river rapids, which they have to navigate using motion controls to pump the oars. If you’re tired of competing with each other (and having your friendships ended by the game’s arbitrary distribution of star rewards during the final award ceremony), Super Mario Party’s River Survival mode is a breath of fresh air. Not only is it cute to see all your allies - a who’s who of secondary Mario characters - but accumulating a squad is a good strategy to push yourself ahead.
You can unlock additional blocks through each play session by earning allies, who also add small numbers to each of your rolls on every turn, a mechanic borrowed from the handheld-only Mario Party: Star Rush. Bowser can roll a 10 with his special block, but he can also lose coins and not move at all. The dice offer their own advantage and disadvantages. Characters each have their own custom dice blocks, which they can choose to roll instead of the traditional 1-6 block. And, like always, each round is punctuated by a minigame, culled from a new collection.Ī handful of changes add just enough depth to improve the formula. You can foil your fellow players, but the map has plenty of its own obstacles: an angry Blooper smashing a bridge, or a Thwomp that will only move for coins. Mario Party 9 and 10 were particularly boring, as all the characters were locked in one cart together, traversing around the map as a unit.) Star collection is the ultimate goal they’re purchased from Toadette, who travels around the map to random spots each time a player buys a star from her.
(The game’s return to the original formula is welcome. In Super Mario Party, up to four human players can traverse a game board, rolling dice to progress from space to space. This giant Blooper will send you back to start if you activate it. While the Switch has already had some fantastic single-player experiences, this is easily one of its biggest party game highlights, which the system felt like it was really lacking until this fall.
The base formula is one you definitely know, but small touches to the main game and standout side experiences offered me plenty of surprises in a series that can sometimes feel one-note. Despite - or maybe because of - the predictable formula, Mario Party hasn’t been an essential purchase for Nintendo console owners for many iterations.īut Super Mario Party adds enough to the formula to feel like a must-buy for the Nintendo Switch, which is fitting for the social gaming powerhouse that the console has become. The game’s contents feel inevitable, too: You play on a digital board game with your friends as Mario universe avatars, and you all end up possibly disliking each other at the end. Along with series like Mario Kart and Mario’s various sports outings, a Mario Party for Nintendo Switch felt inevitable. Mario Party is, at this point, a 20-year-old Nintendo franchise that feels like a constant staple of every system.