Mario Party Jamboree takes the best of its predecessors and simply adds more

That there’s about to be a third Mario Party entry on the Switch, three years after Mario Party Superstars, speaks to the extraordinary life cycle of Nintendo’s record-smashing hybrid console. But if Super Mario Party Jamboree is arriving at the platform’s twilight, then it’s packed to the gills with content to make this a farewell party to remember.

Set on a large island resort that feels reminiscent of Wii Sports Resort, with hot air balloons and jet skis thrown in, it’s being described by Nintendo as the biggest Mario Party title to date, including more than 110 minigames and 22 playable characters. Obviously, with just around an hour of hands-on time with other journalists, we can’t fully validate those claims, while it was a bit disappointing to discover that the two brand new playable characters, Pauline and Ninji, were locked during our session.

Nonetheless, we could get a sense of the scale Jamboree is going for while playing through a broad selection of the modes on offer, from the traditional board game aspect to the focused Minigame Bay, as well as its new exclusively online competitive and co-op modes.

Whereas Super Mario Party doubled down on the Joy-Con’s motion controls and Mario Party Superstars as a pure throwback compilation sticking with button controls, Jamboree takes a best of both worlds approach. This isn’t to say you’ll get to choose between control options, as each minigame has been designed with its own specific but approachable controls, which players will have the chance to familiarise themselves with in a tutorial before each minigame starts.

The only exception is on the Boards where you can roll your dice (or rather, bump) with a button or a gestured fist bump. It’s hard to guess how many of the 110+ minigames actually utilise motion controls but we unfortunately didn’t encounter that many in our session. The only one that sticks to mind involves holding the Joy-Con up like a hammer before competing to hammer down nails the fastest, while holding up the hammer to charge its power for the taller nails sticking out. It’s fun, if not as ingenious as trying to cook all sides of a cube of meat on a frying pan.

Of the seven boards featured in the game, we get to try a new one, Mega Wiggler’s Tree Party Board, with three other players. As is the case with other Mario Party boards, there are multiple routes your characters can end up, more so here as there’s a giant Wiggler in the centre who you can also cause to change position and therefore the route.

But the goal isn’t strictly who can get ahead of each other on the board but rather who can finish their turns with the most stars, which can appear anywhere on the board. Of course, you’ll also need to ensure you’ve got enough coins to buy a star if you manage to reach it, which you’ll accumulate around the board but also by playing a minigame at the end of each turn, though you can also land on a shop to spend those on items to give yourself a boost, or hinder other players including the dastardly chance of stealing a player’s star.

We suspect Boards remains the staple Mario Party experience that’s most appealing to players of all skill levels, just like busting out a board game at any gathering, but with a lot more chaos and the kind of balancing shenanigans that’s typical of Nintendo. Another way to say that a lot of times you’re at the mercy of Lady Luck.

“Whereas Super Mario Party doubled down on the Joy-Con’s motion controls and Mario Party Superstars as a pure throwback compilation sticking with button controls, Jamboree takes a best of both worlds approach.”

Witness our dismay as we get through a few turns with some decent results in the minigames and then finally getting our hands on a star, only to have our ranking plummet from 1st straight to 4th after landing on a Bowser square where we also land on the penalty of forfeiting a star. Hilarity, drama, rage – just what to expect from Mario Party, in other words.

Nonetheless, just before our time on this board came to an end, we did get to experience one new surprise that could help turn the tide for anyone languishing in last place. Towards the end of the game, an ally character can appear on the board with the chance of joining up with a player that then doubles their earnings, whether that be coins or stars.

In this case, the ally was Donkey Kong, who also happened to be closest for us to reach once our turn came up. While who DK joins as an ally has to first be determined by a special rhythm-action minigame where players tap the shoulder buttons like a pair of bongo drums, the player who reaches the ally first also gets an advantage, in this case a bigger timing window for the rhythm notes.

Next, we proceeded to another part of the Jamboree island resort, Minigame Bay, where Mario Party is distilled to just the minigames themselves, from free-for-alls team-based ones, where, of course, your partner can change each time, or you might find yourself in a 1 Vs 3 scenario. However, there’s an option to take part in Daily Challenges, for which there is a theme.

Our theme was food, cue a minigame where we paired up and tried to get our characters in the right position that would cut an enormous and oddly shaped piece of grilled meat so that each was as close to 50:50 in size as possible. Or another, whereas 3 Vs 1, we race to cut the most cookies by selecting the correct cookie cutter shape in sequence, where the three players are each only responsible for one shape, giving them an advantage over the single player, provided they can work together in sync.

Of course, when chaos and tempers will mostly likely come down to whether or not you can rely on your teammates, we much preferred a free-for-all like trying to avoid getting crushed by falling square sandwiches, getting ever trickier the higher the bread stacks, as you have less time to see a shadow that indicates a sandwich is going to fall there.

“Boards remains the staple Mario Party experience that’s most appealing to players of all skill levels… but with a lot more chaos and the kind of balancing shenanigans that’s typical of Nintendo.”

Towards the end of our session, we were also able to get a sample of the two exclusive online modes made especially for Jamboree, albeit not enough time to see each mode through to completion. The competitive Koopathlon is a 20-player affair where players race each other on a map.

But in a nod to old roll-a-ball arcade games, most of the screen has you playing through quickfire minigames where you collect coins, whether that’s rushing on a minecart or running up a hill while avoiding spiked rollers. The more coins you collect, the more your character runs around the race course, displayed on the right side of the screen.

Meanwhile, Bowser Kaboom is an 8-player co-op mode where everyone works together to try to take down a giant Impostor Bowser within five rounds by gathering a set number of water bombs and dropping them into a cannon that can then damage the big Koopa. Besides steering clear of Impostor Bowser while smashing boxes containing water bombs, this map also had Chargin’ Chucks we had to avoid.

In between rounds, there is also a minigame requiring everyone to work together to get the best result, such as everyone trying to get a spinning image to stop on the same icon as fast as possible. The team is then awarded a rank, which determines what bonus item players can vote on to help them out in the next round, such as banana peels to trip Impostor Bowser up or boost pads to get around the map faster.

While our time with them was brief, these online modes, which you can also play against CPU while minigames are playable waiting during matchmaking, are a novel addition to the package, while a ranking system for the Koopathlon would imply Nintendo hopes for players to get more skilful and return to this mode.

Nonetheless, we still feel that the best way to experience Super Mario Party Jamboree when it launches in October is going to be when you’re sitting down with friends and family in the same room, sharing the fun and frustration together. Just like all the best Mario Party games, then.