Sunday, October 20, 2024

2024 Games I Played: Super Mario Party Jamboree

I've always been a bit kinder to ND Cube's (now Nintendo Cube's) Mario Party entries than most, especially the recent ones for the Switch. I actually quite like Super to this day despite its weaker main mode, and Superstars is still one of my favorite games in the series for just how much polish it exudes. So when Super Mario Party Jamboree aimed to combine the refinement of Superstars' gameplay and presentation with the scope and mode variety of Super, it's not hard to notice that it has the potential to be one of the series' best installments. But did it live up to all that hype?

Setup

Super Mario Party Jamboree starts by tossing a lot of tutorials at you. Like nearly every mode has a dedicated tutorial, so the early stretch of the game was honestly a bit of a slog. Once you do get into the game though, Jamboree immediately reveals itself as a pretty massive entry. Nintendo Cube visibly recognizes the criticisms towards Superstars' lack of content and aimed to craft the biggest Mario Party game to date, and it definitely feels like it. Beyond the standard Mario Party mode with its seven boards, there's the two Bowser Challenge sidemodes, the Motion Island with its various extra modes, the single-player campaign in Party-Planner Trek, the impressive 112 minigames, and a whole bunch of other features. You'd think the sheer amount of modes would make Jamboree feel overwhelming or disjointed, but the game also has a pretty cohesive island theming to tie everything together. Each major mode takes place on its own island, and you still have a little plaza to run around in just like in Super Mario Party. The character roster is also definitely one of the series' best and biggest, with an impressive 22 characters. The removal of certain characters from Super like Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong is a bit of a shame, but Jamboree makes up for that by bringing in Spike and Ninji, my beloveds.

With how much there is to cover, I'll go over each mode one by one.

Mario Party

In terms of the moment-to-moment gameplay, Super Mario Party Jamboree is quite possibly the best game in the series. At this point, it definitely feels like Nintendo Cube got the memo, I don't even need to tell you that it brings back the classic star collecting format and that it's as fun as ever. It feels like it brings together all the best aspects of every prior game, especially in terms of the item play. There's a whopping 37 total items, including all the Mario Party 3 mainstays, at least one unique item for each board, and even a few items that you can plant onto spaces like the capsules (5-7) or hexes (DS), with the Star Steal Trap in particular always leading to some incredibly hype moments. There's even multiple shop types that give you different kinds of items, it's great stuff. There's also no blatant gimmicks involving the items that could threaten to ruin the formula like so many of Hudson's games tended to have. No random item shops, no Mega/Mini mushrooms, no Bowser Time, it's just Mario Party, as pure as ever.

The only new gimmick here is a redone ally system. Now, there can only be one ally on the board at a time which you win by reaching it and winning a longer-than-usual minigame, and they only appear for a limited amount of time. Each ally has their own unique effect and can double the effect of every space you land on, but someone else can steal the ally from you if you're not careful. On one hand, a single ally in Jamboree feels more broken than in Super, but it feels there's more strategy and competition here. Now you have to consider if you want to prioritize the ally or the Star, you can't completely stack yourself with powerful allies like you could in Super, and while allies can help you get Stars or call Boo multiple times, they can also have you face Bowser multiple times if you're unlucky. It makes this one of the better game-wide gimmicks in a Mario Party game since it increases the amount of potential strategy and options each player has. My one concern here was that longer minigames that you play to get allies, but allies appeared so infrequently that it never actually made a game drag out. As a matter of fact, despite all the concerns about Nintendo Cube claiming a 10-turn match would take 90 minutes, that's not true in the slightest. Crank up the message and movement speeds, and I was able to finish a game in half that time.

And while we're touching on criticisms, the biggest complaints towards Jamboree's Mario Party mode is that not as many minigames are in circulation as they were in games like Superstars, especially if you choose to disable motion controls. Personally, I think this criticism is pretty overblown and Jamboree only really looks bad when you compare it directly to Superstars. When compared to most of Hudson Soft's games, including many of my favorite games in the series that I've replayed ad infinitum, the amount of minigames in circulation is pretty standard. For example, I'm gonna do some math here. Let's take only the minigame types you see every turn since these are the ones you're most likely to play a lot of, so that's 4-Player, 2v2, 1v3, and Battle:

  • Mario Party 2 has 52 minigames in circulation
  • Mario Party 3 has 48 minigames in circulation
  • Mario Party 4 has only 40 minigames in circulation
  • Mario Party 6 has 57 minigames in circulation, including the five Mic ones
  • Mario Party 7 has 49 minigames in circulation, including the ten Mic ones
  • Mario Party 8 has 42 minigames in circulation, and that's my most played one by far
  • And Jamboree has 53 minigames in circulation, including the 12 motion controlled ones

Nintendo Cube's games do tend to have more minigames in circulation, but they often came at the cost of variety. Island Tour had exclusively free-for-alls, 9 cut out 2-vs-2s entirely, and Superstars had barely any duel minigames (though admittedly Jamboree has the same issue). I think my biggest criticism on this front is just how many minigames are motion controlled, especially since online play automatically excludes them. It's a shame too because I do genuinely enjoy a lot of the motion-controlled minigames, more on that later, but it leaves me wondering if Nintendo Cube should have even bothered considering how many games would be cut out for players who choose not to use them. So yeah, I see why this could be an issue for some, but it's not a deal-breaker for me. Overall, I think Jamboree is one of the better iterations of the Mario Party formula.

Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention, there's also a new ruleset called Pro Rules which aims to make the classic Mario Party gameplay feel more competitive and less luck-based. Personally, I think this is a losing battle. Mario Party is inherently luck-based, and the times I played Pro Rules didn't feel that much more skill-based than the standard ruleset. Regardless though, I did find this to be a pretty neat ruleset for some of the tweaks it made. Bringing an item with you into a match is a really cool option, along with letting you choose which Lucky Space bonus you get and making items in shops limited. It all adds for a pretty fresh take on the formula that tweaks enough to feel like a somewhat different experience but not too much that it just stops feeling like Mario Party.

Boards & Minigames

But the gameplay is one thing, the real bread and butter of Mario Party are the boards and minigames. So, how are they? I want to go more in detail on them in another post, but just to sum it all up here, I think they're pretty great, definitely one of the better lineups in the series. Jamboree comes with five original boards and two retro boards from the N64 games. The original boards each have their own unique gimmick that makes them stand out and most of them manage to be quite fun, striking a good balance between being cuttthroat and competitive, and being generally fair and strategic. The only one that really didn't work much for me is the more linear Roll Em Raceway and even then, I can see it being someone else's favorite. My one gripe is that some of the board layouts can feel a bit messy or poorly thought-out, but the core gameplay is so strong that it never becomes more than a minor nitpick. And at their best, Rainbow Galleria is certainly a new favorite. As for the retro boards, yeah, they're pretty much on par with the originals. Mario's Rainbow Castle having items is a great upgrade even if it doesn't feel as special surrounded by most of Jamboree's boards, but Western Land is not only just as fantastic as ever, but it still easily manages to hold its own among all the more modern board designs.

As for the minigames, I'd say this lineup is generally on par with that of Super Mario Party. There's a nice variety of gameplay and control styles, a decent amount of platforming-centric minigames which always tend to be my favorite, and there's even a few returning minigames from prior Mario Parties. More specifically, I noticed there's quite a lot of minigames from Mario Parties 4-6 like Stamp Out, Granite Getaway, and Defuse Or Lose that I feel could've been shoe-ins for Superstars had it not focused so hard on the Nintendo 64 era games. The lengths of the minigames is kind of all over the place though, with some clocking in at like five seconds and others going upwards of over a minute. And then, of course, there's the showdown minigames which are far longer and more involved than your average minigame. I actually liked these a lot, they're easily my favorites of the bunch. Their longer lengths make them feel more like the rare minigames in prior entries, designed to be replayed over and over again because of how much extra substance they have. There's everything from obstacle courses to rhythm games to quiz shows to pinball games, and each showdown game fits the character they're based on perfectly. There are a few noticeable stinkers (Gate Key-pars, Dorrie Pedal-Paddle, Lost And Pound), but for the most part, this is yet another solid minigame lineup by Nintendo Cube.

Bowser Challenges

Bowser Challenges is meant to be the big online offering, though most modes can be played online anyway. It's divided into two separate modes, the Koopathlon and Bowser Kaboom Squad. Koopathlon is actually a returning mode, it's the Coinathlon from Mario Party: Star Rush, and it's just as fun as I remember it to be. The Coinathlon was easily one of my favorite modes in any of Nintendo Cube's games, and while this rendition doesn't change too much beyond adding some dedicated Bowser minigames to shake things up, it doesn't really need to. It's still incredibly fun, chaotic, and fresh to this day. As for which version is better, it really could go either way. Star Rush has more coin minigames and I don't love the Survivathlon stuff, but having 20 players on the board as well as online support does give Koopathlon a real edge (along with it being part of a much better game overall).

Bowser Kaboom Squad, on the other hand, is entirely new. The main premise is that you and up to eight players have to run around an arena gathering cannonballs to use on a giant Imposter Bowser all the while dodging him and his mooks. You play cooperative minigames to get items to help you out, and you have five rounds to take Bowser out. There's a lot of stuff you need to consider at any given time, from the time management of collecting bombs, going out of your way to get coins to activate a bonus mode, deciding which items you want to bring into each round, and figuring out where to place each item to either assist you or trip up Bowser. It almost feels like Mario Party crossed with an RTS game, and it can be quite fun. The variety of arenas and genuine XP system also does a lot to give the mode replayability, though my one gripe is that each match can go on for a bit too long. It doesn't feel like I can just hop into a match of Bowser Kaboom Squad like I could with Koopathlon, I have to commit to it.

Motion Island

I've seen a lot of people criticize the game for including Motion Island and claim it bloats out the package, but... really? I don't know, this just kind of feels like your average Extras Mode that most Mario Party games had. It's not really meant to have the same kind of billing as the Mario Party or Bowser Challenges mode, just fun little distractions you can do when you want something quick and easy. That being said, the Motion Island modes are a bit of a mixed bag. Rhythm Kitchen is easily the highlight, it's basically just a returning Sound Stage but with new minigames, a cute kitchen theming, a ranking system to give the mode a bit more replayability, and an incredible Rhythm Heaven-inspired Remix mode. For me, it's an absolute improvement over its predecessor. Toad's Item Factory is the obligatory level-based puzzle mode, another mainstay for many of Nintendo Cube's party games. I actually really enjoyed this one, it reminds me a lot of the marble games I used to love as a kid like Screwball Scramble, and the variety of gizmos they toss at you keeps things fresh. The one mode here I'm really not a fan of is Paratroopa Flight School. It's got a decent amount of mode options and exploring the island can be fun, but having to hold out your arms to fly around gets tiring fast. It's still a pretty inoffensive addition though, which is my take on Motion Island as a whole.

Party-Planner Trek

Party-Planner Trek is the dedicated single-player campaign, and it might legitimately be the best one to date. The main premise is that you need to help Kamek set up all five new boards, and you do so by running around the board and doing missions to get Mini Stars, before fighting a boss once you have enough. It's like a weird blend between the progression of Mario Party 9, the campaign of Mario Party Advance, and Nintendo Cube's recent minigame gauntlets like Super's Challenge Road, and it works. The quest lines aren't quite as quirky as the ones in Advance, a lot of them are fetch quests, but not having to roll a dice to navigate the board keeps the pace up and there's still plenty of charming bits of dialogue. There is still some variety though, with events like quizzes, rock-paper-scissors matches, and the ability to test out all the board events. The boss fights are generally pretty fun too, boasting enough flair to feel like climactic caps on each board. My only gripe is that it does kinda feel like this mode is mostly just an extended tutorial to all the boards and minigames, but going for all 300 Mini Stars should still feel like a satisfying enough achievement. With how lacking for single-player content Superstars was, this is a pretty great addition to the game in my eyes.

Other Modes

Even beyond all of those offerings, Super Mario Party Jamboree still has a lot of other features. Many of Nintendo Cube's recent mainstays are still here, like achievement systems, purchasable music, the adorable and goofy reactions you can buy, and online leaderboards. The battle pass system from Superstars is back, but instead of grinding for XP to unlock stuff, you instead have to complete achievements. You only need to do around 50% of the achievements to unlock everything, so I found myself getting everything a lot faster than I did in Superstars, though I'm not complaining considering how much of a grind that game was. The sticker system from Super is also back, but now it's been blended with the Mario Party Card from Superstars. You can buy stickers and decorate your card however you like, a pretty nice touch. On top of that, you can also get decorations from doing missions in Party-Planner Trek to deck out and redesign the hub however. There really is a lot of room for customization and player expression in Jamboree, and it does a lot to lend the game this definitive feel.

Presentation

Just like Superstars before it, Super Mario Party Jamboree still looks pretty amazing. I don't really have much to add, it's obviously built on the same engine, and it looks just as clean and detailed. Though the biggest surprise for me has to get the general presentation of the board gameplay. Slick and stylish UI, behind the back camerawork reminiscent of the car games, dramatic zoom-ins even within some of the minigames, it all helps to make a standard game of Mario Party feel more energetic and dynamic without dragging down the pace. The soundtrack was also a surprising highlight. Nintendo Cube has been using the same composers since Mario Party 9 and while their soundtracks often aren't bad, they haven't been quite as stellar for a while, so I was quite surprised to find out that Jamboree came with two entirely new composers who I've never heard of before. And they did a great job, this is easily my favorite Mario Party soundtrack since 9. It's punchy and upbeat in a way reminiscent of the Gamecube games, though it also kinda reminds me of the sweeping scores of Wii games like Wii Sports Resort or Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games.

Conclusion

Overall, Super Mario Party Jamboree is a wonderful celebration of the Mario Party franchise, bringing together all the best aspects of most of the prior games, including the ones people didn't like. It might not be quite as focused as Superstars, but with its strong presentation, infectious energy, stellar core gameplay, and absurd amounts of content, I think Jamboree is the better game overall. As a matter of fact, I think this might be the best and biggest Mario Party we've gotten since Mario Party 6. It's taken long enough, but Nintendo Cube finally seems to have hit their stride.

4.5/5 Stars

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