Mario Party is my far and away favorite franchise, to the shock and dismay of my 15 year old self. As much as I adore JRPGs, I’ve had too many games that disappoinetd me. Yet even, the most banal Mario Party title has enthralled me in one way or another. Even mediocre titles like Island Tour gave me some handheld fun with my wife, and Super Mario Party looked wonderful, even if the boards were limited as hell. The last Switch entry, Mario Party Superstars, let Nintendo know that fans liked nostalgia: the old games are viewed as some of the best. Instead of doubling down on pure backlog, Nintendo instead decided to mix the old with the new and pack it to the rafters with content, characters and choices. The result is the absolute banger that is Super Mario Party Jamboree.

It feels like this review could be a tome unto itself to try and capture everything about Jamboree, but I’ll try and keep it brief. At the core of everything is the same old game, thankfully devoid of the bizarre mini star collecting mechanics of Mario Party 9 and 10. Get coins, buy stars, win the game. With a grand total of twenty characters to choose from (18 from the start, 2 to unlock), there’s almost literally someone for everyone. Fan favorites like Yoshi and Mario remain, while the more obscure fellas like Monty Mole and Spike show up to really round out the cast. People pining for Pauline to finally join get their wish, along with the bizarre addition of Ninji. I love that these “unlockable” characters can simply be found and added with a moment of exploration and not grinding points.

I know that Nintendo developing a good looking game for the Switch is basically winning hide and seek against your friends in your own home. The wizards of Big N know the Switch inside and out. But that doesn’t change the fact that Super Mario Party Jamboree looks and plays so damn good that it feels unfair. There’s a real craft that goes into making the mascots and characters of the Mario universe look especially clean, colorful and animated to really sell the magic of it all. Peach and Daisy are so very similar in character design, yet their movements, actions and swagger all feel totally independent. Monty Mole is adorable in his rotund appearance, and his steps around the board are the slightly ungainly gait of an overweight, subterranean mammal. It’s a joy to behold every time the cameras cut to the portraits of the characters.

For the most part. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that I play as Toad. I almost exclusively play as Toad for every Mario universe game, he’s my spirit animal. So more than once, I had to see the camera lock in on a wide mouthed Toad as he’s yelling greetings or celebrating his win, and I could see the back of his throat. I don’t know why this was so uncomfortable and weird, maybe because I’m a video game player and not a dentist, but there are times when video games cross the line for the level of graphical upgrade they can provide. This was a time where I wished I could see less, and was glad that Toad’s uvula was less visible in handheld mode.

Moving right along, Jamboree has a ton of options out the gate, though players are going to want to care the most about the main Party gameplay and the solo story mode. Both of these options are ideal for grinding out achievements, which are the real victory aspect of the game. Instead of relying on doing your best with wins and stars, like previous games, players want to be focused on unlocking new ways to do things, both successes and losses, so that they can further progress on what they’re able to purchase (if that’s something that appeals to you).

To explain more, your Party Plaza has three shops that allow you to purchase reactions, card upgrades and musical tracks from the game. While the points you get from the different modes actually let you buy things, it’s the achievements that give you more. If you just keep grinding the same board over and over, you’ll eventually buy everything in a given shop because, frankly, there’s not that many at the beginning. But if you do amazing in Dominion, or manage to hit three Bowser spots in a single game, you’ll unlock a new achievement and that will level you up and allow new things to be purchased. 

The music is obviously the big win for Mario Party fans, because the soundtrack is a constant banger of upbeat, exciting tunes that give a real sense of clarity to how the mood and effect of the game is supposed to come across. Full of iconic stings that evoke the very best of the franchise (the full Mario timeline, not just Mario Party), it’s a jubilant affair and, yes, it’s great to listen to the tracks on their own while increasing the robust ambience of the full game. I still wish the Switch had a more dedicated way to listen to just music, but we’re about to cross into a new generation: I might as well be wishing my grandfather had better racial tolerance when we go to Golden Corral.

Reactions and player cards are more for the younger players who want to engage on a social level, and I appreciate Jamboree finally implementing these elements in a more cohesive way. All players’ icons are now situated on the bottom of the screen, so now reaction images are in a singular bar instead of coming from the four corners of your television, making it significantly less intrusive and annoying (especially when drifting Joycons can cause spam to suddenly occur). The player cards, used for trading with other players online, have plenty of variety to them with titles, backgrounds and settings, plus a design aspect that lets you craft tons of unique scenery. This is something that I wish I could have seen more of, but, strangely, the online lobbies of a brand new Mario Party were shockingly empty.

I think the lack of online random pairings is a testament to what Mario Party is really about, and the backwards declarations of the casual fanbase. Yes, there’s online matchmaking with nearly every game that’s cooperative/competitive nowadays, but none of them are Mario Party. This series made its bread and butter from having friends and families get indescribably angry with each other over trivial slights on a digital board game, and we love it. It doesn’t make sense to enter into a covenant with three unknown folk where we’re separated by screens and very literal distance, because I can’t get properly angry with them. If I wanted to rage at strangers, I can play any number of FPS titles, for free, instead of waiting in a lobby for players who simply never came.

Jamboree finally took the hint that we’ve been dropping for the last four iterations and gave players a proper number of boards. Coming in at four from the drop and three more to unlock through success and skill, Jamboree has some of the best variety in player stages since the Gamecube days, with each board offering its own unique challenges. I’m rather partial to the Shopping Mall, as the three floor design gives plenty of looping sequences and ways to double back to give advantage to players who try random pathways when someone else is close to the star. Each board has some gorgeous layouts, but one thing is back in a big way: absolutely screwing over someone, be they computer or friend.

The classic Mario Party titles could be absolutely brutal with allowing abuse to target a player, such as moving stars when just in arm’s reach or pinning someone down with no-win traps everywhere. Jamboree has that in spades, both with the return of trap items and specific sequences that can be used in seriously nefarious ways. For example, between timing and a board specific item, I was able to trap Mario on a small island for the duration of a ten turn game when playing the Goomba Island board. This resulted in him running in futile circles, buying nothing, getting no stars and only occasionally picking up extra coins from the lucky spot. There was a chance he could have gotten a Pipe and exited, but luck was not on his side, and it filled me with awful, awful joy.

The items, combined with the thieving Boo and the Chance spaces, make this one of the most aggressive Mario Party games in the modern incarnation, and easily the most deceiving with how whimsical and colorful it is. Over the course of a normal game, players can expect inventory to change hands with breakneck speed, as the sheer number of items makes constant shopping (including at the new, negative-focused Kamek shop) a must. The reliance on purchase power can sometimes be daunting, which is why the new Buddy system can assist in a big way. Jamboree Buddies can allow players to actually buy two items when they stop at the stores, which has an OP element to it…if there wasn’t such a stigma around the Buddies.

While getting a secondary character added to your team is far from new to Mario Party, the way it works for Jamboree feels like one step forward and two huge steps back. Each ally has their own special ability, like assisting dice rolls or giving you coin bonuses. Some are crazy OP: Yoshi actually copies the items of players you pass and gives them to you. Some make no sense: Donkey Kong just randomly warps you somewhere before your dice roll. The Buddies then allow you to have double effects from everything: you can buy two stars at once, you can buy two items at once, you activate the Unlucky Space twice when you land on it. As you can see, it’s not all cream and sugar, but it’s certainly a massive unbalanced move.

Additionally, the developers try to even this out by limiting the Buddy’s time and having them only appear for three turns. Also, if you pass someone with a Buddy, the Buddy then joins you instead. Pretty decent, and, as long as it’s a dead heat, the Buddy can change hands quickly, leading to some excellent chaos. But simply getting the Buddy in the first place is a time sink, because the game won’t just give it to you. Instead, everyone has to compete in a Showdown series of mini games to see who “wins” having the Buddy initially. The Showdown usually takes longer than the entirety of the turn itself, and it can be a huge disappointment to win the Buddy only to then have the very next player steal them away. 

The time aspect is something Jamboree does exceedingly poorly, and I understand why. In order to make this game bigger and better, they’ve jammed everything in for every turn beyond the first. After turn two, you have to contend with item selection, random events happening, Buddy actions, complex interactions, duels, and goodness knows what else. The fact that ten turns – the minimum number for a party – is estimated to take 90 minutes (and often does) is an absolute shock. I loved picking up Mario Party 7 because a ten turn game could easily be finished in 30 minutes or less, even with young children as fellow players. Now, my kids are seasoned game veterans and we watch nearly two hours disappear for what feels like very little gameplay. This is further compounded by the fact that all that time unlocks very little unless the main account player is the champion.

You can offset some of these extras by doing a Pro Rules game, but there’s two hang-ups there. One, you don’t have Pro Rules from the beginning, so, while it’s an early unlockable, it still needs to be manually unlocked. Second, the Pro Rules only curtails some of the time sink, like making Homestretch (the last five turns) no longer a big event. It mostly just makes the game more aggressive, like having Bowser space always result in a star loss. This is great for veteran players who want a volatile game, but you still need a lot of free time to get through it all, so it does nothing for those of us just looking to get in a game before leaving for work.

Thankfully, if you’re just looking to grind open more unlockables, the single player options are plentiful and fun. The Marathon, a game of twenty players, can be done with everyone (and I do mean twenty players) or in a solo mode and feels accomplished very quickly. It’s masquerading as a massive investment, but really plays off like you’re doing something quick and efficient, and I enjoyed the more focused version of the approach (no Buddies here!). This will more than likely be the game mode that gets focused on for streamers in the future, as it has a healthy amount of competition, plenty of active playing and very little downtime when it comes to the neck-and-neck race for the finish.

Additionally, Jamboree’s single player mode, Party-Planner Trek, is just delightful. I loved the concept of getting to experience the game’s myriad of boards and activities from behind the scene, essentially getting everything set up so the “real” party can be played. It’s an unhurried way to see that you’ve gotten much worse at old games (the basketball freethrow minigame is now beyond my capabilities) and how temperamental the new games are (which one of five keys unlocks a door, and is everyone else luckier than you are?). Being able to do fetch quests to find items, deliver news and test out events just felt fun and very experimental, and I’m still enjoying it as a good way to fully immerse myself in the overall atmosphere.

Lastly, it’s best to just avoid looking at the online rankings for different events and games. While there are some where you can feel the challenge looming, others have evidence that this is a very unpoliced area. Dominion, the aforementioned minigame, is won by being the person who mashes the A button the fastest in ten seconds. The current record holders are two folk who both got 266 buttons mashed, which reeks of turbo controllers. I see very little point in looking at placements where someone can “pay to win” and then be held to the highest standard on a global scale. Instead, just keep local ranks in mind and challenge your friends and family frequently.

I’ve barely touched on everything else – Motion Control Island, for example – but there’s still so much more to discover in Super Mario Party Jamboree. While this isn’t the very best that the franchise has to offer, I sincerely appreciate the massive step up from Super Mario Party and the lessons learned from Superstars. If I had to rank this, I would put it at maybe number four on my list: higher than any of the WiiU, N64 or handheld entries, better than most of the Gamecube titles, but still falling behind 8, 6 and Superstars. It’s a smashing bit of fun, it’s got a lot to it, and it’s good for a long form investment in party gaming. This is a fantastic swan song for the series on the Switch, and I hope it helps to set the pace for whatever is coming for the next console.

Graphics: 9.0 Nintendo wizards have done it again in making something look polished, colorful and explosive on the screen of a device that’s at least a full generation behind the competition. Zero issues in pixelation, tearing or artifacting, but I am so disturbed by seeing down Toad’s throat.	Gameplay: 8.0 The classic gameplay is still tight and even better than recent original iterations, but the sheer number of bells and whistles can seriously bog down what should be a breakneck game. Plenty of extras to explore and bonus game modes to keep you entertained for hours. Wonderful QOL choices to change reactions, player cards and move motion controls to their own space.
Sound: 10 Zero complaints, all the praise. Bombastic, upbeat and excellent, the music is shot through with appropriate and timely clips from everyone. I love hearing Birdo, Bowser, Pauline and Boo all yelling things in the midst of a car chase to buy mushrooms.	Fun Factor: 8.5 There’s no doubt in my mind this is my mainstay Mario Party for the immediate future, and I hope that Nintendo considers adding more in some way to the game as we move forward. As I unlock more, I can improve my own experience, and I think that it’s great, even if it’s not perfect out of the box.
Final Verdict: 8.5

Super Mario Party Jamboree is available now on Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Super Mario Party Jamboree was provided by the publisher.