Like with several other of my favorite series like Mario Kart, Zelda, and Mega Man, one project I wanted to start doing is to review all the boards and minigames in each Mario Party game. I do intend on doing most of this chronologically, but with the recent release of Super Mario Party Jamboree, I thought this would be a good place to start.
Mega Wiggler's Tree Party: This is a pretty standard first board for Mario Party. The layout is pretty much just a circle with a few branching paths, and the main gimmick is that there's a wiggler that you can use to walk from one end of the circle to the other. You can use an item or hit a Happening space to get the Wiggler to move, and making the Wiggler angry will change all the spaces on his back to red. It's a cool concept with a lot of potential for strategy, but since the Stars seem to just keep spawning one after the other, I rarely ever actually felt encouraged to use the Wiggler. Beyond that, the piranha plants that take increasingly more coins is a fun take on a standard Mario Party trope, the fairly linear layout can make the final stretch really tense when people start tossing around Star Steal spaces, and the general atmosphere of the board feels really festive and happy. Mega Wiggler's Tree Party is a solid middle of the road Mario Party board that doesn't fully make use of its premise, but can be a fun time regardless.
3/5 Stars
Roll 'Em Raceway: Roll 'Em Raceway was a board I was very skeptical about upon its announcement. It reminded me a lot of Island Tour's Rocket Road board, purely focused on rolling big without any sort of depth. And to a certain extent, I was wrong. It actually plays out more like your standard linear board in that the Star is on a split path and switches sides whenever someone retrieves it, so there's that classic tension of someone stealing the star before you and causing you to whiff out on it. There's a lot of neat ideas here like the spaces that shuffle around and launch you across the track, as well as the cool Turbo Dice item, which lets you roll four die at the cost of skipping all events on the board, kinda like the Mega Mushroom in 4 but on crack and actually good. And of course, the presentation absolutely rules, they really ran with the racetrack theming and it's a joy to look at. I can see this board being someone's favorite, it's got some cool ideas and real mechanical complexity to them... but it's just not for me.
When I think about my favorite linear boards, I think of Castaway Bay or Shy Guy's Perplex Express where every few steps will take you to some unique biome, but so much of Roll Em Raceway feels really empty. And this heavily impacts the gameplay flow too because this board primarily focuses on rolling high, so if you happen to get stuck in one of those empty stretches of the board without a movement-enhancing item, you're just straight-up screwed. You fall far behind the pack and the only way you can conceivably catch up is if you have a decent amount of turns left. As a result, Roll Em Raceway feels like a bit of a crapshoot in terms of whether you'll have a good time or have a very miserable experience. It's still not on the same level on most of the series' worst boards, but by Jamboree's standards, it's an easy least favorite.
2/5 Stars
Goomba Lagoon: Goomba Lagoon is so close to being a perfect board. It's got pretty much everything I want in a Mario Party board. It's nice and compact, there's a lot of junctions allowing you to go from one side to the other fairly easily, item shops are quite plentiful so you can't go too long without running into one, and the upped amount of VS and Unlucky spaces makes for a more competitive experience. The main gimmick of tide rising and falling every two turns is a cool one conceptually that allows for a lot of strategizing around its patterns, like all the best Mario Party mechanics, and the comfy tropical atmosphere ties the whole place together. Unfortunately, this board suffers from one pretty big issue and that's its layout. In its low tide state, Goomba Lagoon is a pretty messy board filled with sprawling paths and dead ends, and in its high tide state, it's very easy to get yourself stuck on an island until the tide lowers again. It's a very Mario Party 4-esque layout that only manages to be saved by just how good the item play is in Jamboree, there's a lot of warp items that are pretty easy to get that you can use to get yourself out of a sticky situation, but that's only if you have the foresight for it. Not to mention, the tide changes so often that you usually won't get stuck for more than two turns unless someone really wants to screw with you and hits a Happening Space. Despite its glaring flaws though, I had more fun with Goomba Lagoon than most boards in Jamboree as I personally really like its more strategic flow and pacing. It just frustrates me that with a better layout, it really had the potential to be one of the series' best.
4/5 Stars
Rainbow Galleria: Rainbow Galleria was easily the most anticipated board in the game, and for good reason. The concept of a mall-themed Mario Party board seemed like a match made in heaven, and I'm pleased to say that it was everything I could've hoped it would be and then some. As a matter of fact, this might genuinely be one of my new favorites in the series. This board is absolutely huge with multiple floors and a ton of different shops and events. It's often in your best interest to not just beeline it for the star, but instead to wander around the mall, check out the huge variety of weird and wacky shops, participate in the raffle, and get money by doing the Stamp Rally. Whenever I play, me and the other players often sprawl out into different directions as early as the first turn, and that really helps each playthrough of this board feel fresh. That being said, the sheer scale of this board does mean that it's best experienced in a longer match, there's really no way you can cover all of this ground in only ten turns. Beyond the mechanics, Rainbow Galleria obviously has a fantastic presentation, some banger music as is the usual for this game, and once again boasts a solid amount of VS and unlucky spaces. The sheer amount of Happening spaces around also makes going for the Classic Bonus Stars really engaging here. It's just such a wonderful map, definitely a new favorite.
5/5 Stars
King Bowser's Keep: King Bowser's Keep is going to be an easy sleeper hit, I just know it. I was so skeptical going in with how strange it layout looks, but damn it, everything just clicks with this one. It's been so long since we've had a Bowser board that feels genuinely hardcore, and at its best, King Bowser's Keep reminds me of Mario Party 2's Bowser Land in all the best ways. The board revolves around this central square called the Bowser Byway where you travel in a set direction. Most of the time, stars will appear within that square, but Bowser will also start spawning Bowser spaces on there as the game goes on, and you can change the direction that players within that square move. Thankfully, there are also a lot of exits which take you to more helpful and harmful events along with a pipe that sends you to the start. Like Goomba Lagoon, this board feels really compact, and the abundance of shops, Boos, happening spaces, events, and eventually Bowser spaces makes it feel like something crazy happens pretty much every turn. Messing around with the Bowser Byway lends a lot of fun strategy, the many sprawling exits means you always have a bunch of options at any given time, and the punishing Bowser shenanigans helps make the board feel really competitive. Every time I play this one, people are constantly gaining, losing, and stealing stars, and it's just plain great. Once again, the layout could be a bit less all over the place, but in practice, King Bowser's Keep is way more fun than it looks.
4/5 Stars
Mario's Rainbow Castle: Mario's Rainbow Castle was the best board in Mario Party, but keep in mind that the first Mario Party game has pretty crummy boards. The main reason why this board was so great was because it was one of the few that actually felt like it was designed around the game's lack of items. When you put it in a game like Jamboree, it's sadly a lot less impressive. That being said, it's still got a lot of merit. It pretty much codified the tried-and-true formula of a linear board where you're constantly switching between two modes of play, racing to the Star and stalling to prevent yourself from running into Bowser. There are multiple split paths that you can use to go faster or slower as you want, and its short length compared to something like Roll Em Raceway means it feels a lot brisker in terms of pacing. It's also very cool to see Ztars returning after so long, and the announcer's voice whenever you get one is absolutely hilarious. The only major addition in the Jamboree version is of course a single item shop in the early stretch of the board, which is great in theory. In practice, you have the issue of people losing all their coins to Bowser and not being to buy anything worthwhile at the shop when they'd desperately need it the most. As a result, I think this board has a similar issue to the Mario Party 1 boards in Superstars. You can make the argument that this iteration is better than the original by virtue of having items alone, but why would you play it over the boards designed around the mechanics of the later entries?
3/5 Stars
Western Land: Western Land was always one of my favorite boards in Mario Party 2, and this version perfectly captures the same magic. What I love about Western Land is that it's simultaneously one of the biggest boards in the series, but also really seamless to navigate. The sheer amount of junctions along with the train you can use as fast travel means it's not hard to go all over the board even in a short ten-turn match. It's all so condensed too, with multiple Skeleton Key gates, multiple item shops, multiple Boos, there aren't any dry spells across the entire board. I also just love the train mechanic in general, it really forces you to think spatially about where the train is in relation to you and the other players, and this version allowing you to move it two stops instead of just one only increases the possibilities. The fact that getting hit by the train only takes you to the start rather than taking your coins or anything like that means that sometimes, it's even the optimal strategy to purposefully get hit and send yourself across the board. This version does make a few other tweaks, and all of them feel logical. There's a new junction after the first train station so you don't get locked onto the tracks for too long, the end of the board now has a loop that lets you visit Boo twice if you have a Skeleton Key, and best of all, the hootenanny is now locked behind a Happening space so players can't just spam it. Add in a beautiful visual overhaul, and yeah, you get a pretty fantastic iteration of a classic board that still stands out as one of Jamboree's highlights.
5/5 Stars
Here's my overall ranking of the boards in this game:
1. Rainbow Galleria
2. Western Land
3. King Bowser's Keep
4. Goomba Lagoon
5. Mario's Rainbow Castle
6. Mega Wiggler's Tree Party
7. Roll Em Raceway
*minigame introduction*
4-Player:
Lumber Tumble: Lumber Tumble has you run across a tight path while dodging giant swinging logs that shift left and right forcing you to move. On its own, it would already be a fun time, but the final phase where one of the logs drops down and starts destroying the bridge behind you, complete with dramatic zoom-in, really elevates this to one of Jamboree's most memorable outings. (5 stars)
Big-Top Quiz: Big-Top Quiz has you study a bunch of Toads balancing on circus balls, each with an image on it. Quiz minigames tend to be pretty hit-or-miss in Mario Party, but having to wait for a long animation where the Toads roll around makes this one drag a bit too much to be especially fun. (2 stars)
Camera Ready: Camera minigames in Mario Party are always great, and this is one of the best ones yet. You get a picture and you need to scout the area around you for a scene that perfectly replicates the picture, so there's not only an element of finding the right spot but waiting for the right time to snap the picture. But what really makes this one is how utterly charming it is. There are so many fun little animations and interactions crammed into this area, and if you zoom into certain characters, you can even hear them talk amongst each other. The highlight was zooming into a Hammer Bro playing guitar and hearing it sing, truly wonderful. (5 stars)
Scare-ousel: A solid obstacle course with some strong theming. I love the various Boo-themed hazards and the slightly unnerving music, and it can get pretty panic-inducing once the carousel speeds up. Sadly, the CPUs tend to die before this happens but at least there's an Endless variant. (4 stars)
Snag The Flags: Snag The Flags has you race to collect as many flags as you can on a planetoid. Sphere walking is always an easy way to my heart, but I especially like how the unusual perspective makes it surprisingly difficult to find the last few flags, serving to heighten the tension of a match. It actually reminds me a lot of that desert minigame in Excitebike 64, weirdly enough? (4 stars)
Sandwiched: Sandwiched is a pretty standard falling block minigame not too dissimilar from something like Super Puzzle Platformer. The minigame taking place in the third dimension does add a unique wrinkle, though, as figuring where the sandwiches are gonna land can be surprisingly tricky to gauge unless you're staring solely at their shadows. (3 stars)
Hot Cross Blocks: Hot Cross Blocks is what I like to call a "mindgame minigame". These are minigames where you're supposed to infer what option your opponents are going to pick and avoid picking the same thing as them. ND Cube loves these types of minigames and there's quite a few in Jamboree, which is a shame since I'm not a huge fan of these at all, especially in singleplayer since playing against CPUs make them all but luck-based. That being said, Hot Cross Blocks is at least one of the more novel executions of the idea. I like how there's a lot of things to consider when picking your next bridge piece beyond psyching out your opponents, like whether the piece can connect to yours, how long it can be, and how much room it leaves for the next bridge piece. It goes on a bit long and I still don't love the concept, but there's a decent amount of strategy to be found here. (2 stars)
Light-Wave Battle: Light-Wave Battle is a simple but very clever little minigame. All you need to do is ground pound to create shockwaves while dodging your opponents' shockwaves. Unlike Hot Cross Blocks, it's a great mindgame that's fun regardless of the player count that keeps a brisk pace and comes almost entirely down to your own skill and ability to gauge your surroundings. (4 stars)
Thwomp The Difference: Pretty much just another version of Big-Top Quiz but this time, there's Thwomps obscuring the images. With five rounds, it once again drags a bit too long, and the central spot the difference premise isn't especially unique or interesting. (2 stars)
Cold Front: ND Cube also seems to love minigames where they plop everyone in a room with a random Mario enemy and force them to survive, and I'm always a sucker for these. Cold Front has you dodge the gusts of a bunch of Ty-Foos while also dealing with slippery ice physics, and it can be surprisingly tense. The low camera angle and more punishing wind physics really help to paint the Ty-Foos as more threatening than they usually are in the platformers. (3 stars)
Hot Hot Hop: Hot Hot Hop is basically Cold Front but with the Magmaarghs from Super Mario Galaxy 2, and it's very cool to see them get another minigame after Star Rush. Once again, there isn't too much to this one beyond simply dodging the enemies, but it's suitably tense and challenging. My only major gripe is that the Magmaarghs are so big that they can often obscure the battlefield. (3 stars)
Domination: The first of several returning minigames, Mario Party 4's Domination is a weird case where it's not a minigame I particularly love... but also, I totally see why it's here. This is arguably the most iconic button-masher in the series for its absolutely bizarre premise of building up Whomps that you proceed to knock down as dominoes. I'm pretty tepid on button-mashing minigames myself, but yeah, the presentation alone makes Domination one of the better ones. (2 stars)
Three Throw: Three Throw is another pick from Mario Party 4, and I don't have especially strong feelings on it either way. It's a fine basketball-themed minigame and I like how much skill is needed to hit the gold hoops in the middle, but it's not hard to notice that the players on the far left and right have a pretty blatant advantage since they can easily enter a rhythm and steal every hoop as they slide in. (3 stars)
Granite Getaway: Granite Getaway is one of my favorite minigames of all time, and one of the biggest and most blatant snubs in Mario Party Superstars, so I'm very glad to see it's here. Not much has really changed outside of the presentation though, so I don't have too much to say about it. It's still an absolute gem. (5 stars)
Tilt-A-Golf: My favorite minigames in Super Mario Party were the more delicate motion-control minigames involving carefully manipulating the Joy-Con in some way, like Candy Shakedown or Sizzling Stakes, so I'm glad to see those return in the form of Tilt-A-Golf. It's a pretty simple and easy marble rolling game at its core, but being able to flick up to fling the golf ball upwards adds a decent amount of depth. I always like replaying this one to see how fast I can beat it. (4 stars)
Night Lights: Crank To Rank is back, let's goooooo. Seriously though, one of the weirdest things about Jamboree is the fact that several of its minigames feel like blatant throwbacks to Mario Party 8... but they're not full-on ports. Night Lights plays exactly like Crank To Rank in that you spin your Joy-Con around to spin a crank, but it takes a bit longer to beat so there is a bit more tension and competition to it compared to how comically short its predecessor was. (2 stars)
Hammer It Home: While I generally like motion-control minigames myself, there are a few in Jamboree that feel frustratingly unresponsive, and Hammer It Home is one of them. It should be a pretty simple minigame about timing your hammer swings to hit the nail without wasting time charging them up to max level, but I find that the minigame keeps eating my inputs occassionally even when I think I found an optimal strategy. Is this a common thing, or is it just me having a skill issue? I don't know, but I always dread this one popping up. (1 stars)
Twist And Sort: Twist And Sort is a pretty basic sorting minigame, complete with standard tilting controls. The arena is fairly thin and vertical, so you don't have much room for error when you have multiple balls on the same screen, but it's overall a decent time. (3 stars)
Shuttle Scuttle: Shuttle Scuttle is another totally solid minigame where you pilot these bulky spacecrafts past Amps. The sheer size of them means you're encouraged to try to push around and weigh down your opponents, and I'm pleased to say this is a minigame I both get better at and enjoy more every time I play it. (3 stars)
Tiny Triathlon: Tiny Triathlon is a neat expansion on that bicycle minigame from Super which turns it from a single event into a full-on triathlon, complete with swimming, cycling, and hurdles. I like the variety of motion controls and the cute small-scale presentation, and while I don't love the controls for pedaling a bicycle (more on that later), it's not enough to prevent this from being one of my favorites in the game. (5 stars)
Pickax Dash: Onto another Mario Party 8-esque minigame, Pickax Dash has you rapidly swing a pickaxe to dig through some dirt. In execution, it controls exactly like the infamous Shake It Up. I actually adore Shake It Up, like so much. It might genuinely be one of my favorite minigames in Mario Party 8 because of how it forces you to look completely idiotic in front of your friends. But what really made it work was that level of tension where you don't know who won until the soda cans burst. Pickax Dash is still pure dumb fun, but it's not quite as competitive or hilariously stupid as its inspiration. (3 stars)
Gate Key-pers: WORST. MINIGAME. EVER. Gate Key-pers is pure luck in all the worst ways. You have five keys, and three doors, figure out which ones fit into which. Your ranking is determined by who got out first, and you can lose without doing anything because the order is random and if someone just happens to figure it out before you even get to go... Oh, well, no first for you. This minigame wants to be Bowser's Big Blast so bad, but it just doesn't have the sauce. (1 stars)
Sled To The Edge: Sled To The Edge is your usual game of chicken, but I find this one to be particularly tough to judge due to the lack of traction and lack of marks on the ground to keep track of where to stop. My strategy is to keep an eye on the icebergs in the background during the Toad's demo. (2 stars)
Rinks To Riches: Rinks To Riches is another case of ND Cube bringing in an element of the mainline games and building a minigame around it, in this case being the Kuribo's Skates from 3D World. It's a pretty standard coin-collecting minigame otherwise, but the unique control scheme helps it stand out just a bit. (3 stars)
Treetop Treasure: Treetop Treasure is an incredibly basic game that feels like an easy filler in theory. It's a basic coin-collecting game set on two balance beams. However, the coins placements shift around often forcing you to hop between the balance beams, and there's a lot of potential to screw over your opponents by weighing one down and trapping them on the other. (3 stars)
Treasure Divers: Treasure Divers is another retro minigame, but to my complete and utter surprise, it's so much better than I remember it being! You have to dive under water to grab treasure chests and pull them back to the surface, but on the way up, you have to deal with erratic fish, the varying weights of the different chests, a limited air meter, and of course, all the other players that can easily steal it from you. There's a lot to consider and it can make for quite the chaotic minigame. (3 stars)
Platform Peril: Platform Peril is a pretty iconic minigame from the first Mario Party that didn't show up in Superstars, so it's nice to see it here. However, this version changes quite a lot. Instead of a race to the finish, it's now an autoscroller that prioritized going for coins. It's quite the wild change but hot take, I think it's kinda for the better?
So let me try to explain. For as much as I like Platform Peril, it's an inherently unbalanced minigame. If a player doesn't have any walls in their way and plays flawlessly, there is no way anyone else can beat them. If you have to so much as turn an inch, there is absolutely no way you can catch up. Mario Party 2 makes a great compromise by simply adding more hazards for everyone to deal with, but in terms of adapting just the Mario Party 1 version, I think this new autoscroller format is a good change. (4 stars)
Stamp Out: Stamp Out is another classic retro minigame that absolutely should've been in Superstars, but I'm glad it's at least here. It's been left pretty much completely untouched so it's just as lovably competitive as always. (4 stars)
1-vs-3:
Sunset Standoff: Sunset Standoff is pretty much just a baiting competition. The one in the giant Banzai Bill has to bait their opponents to run into them, and the other three players have to bait the solo player into whiffing. It's a decently fun time and the cool sunset-lit backdrop adds to the memorability factor. (3 stars)
Cookie Cutters: Cookie Cutters has a classic 1v3 setup in that the solo player has to deal with multiple button prompts while the team of three gets one button each. From my experience, this one is pretty well balanced since each side demands a unique skillset (quick reaction time for the solo player, collaboration for the team) even if it's not especially standout in any way. (3 stars)
Unfriendly Flying Object: Unfriendly Flying Object has the solo player in a slow-moving UFO that slowly drops spiked blocks that slowly fall. You could try to bait out the other three players, but that's going to be hard, so my optimal strategy is to try and build walls to trap the opponents. This minigame does still feel a bit too biased against the solo player, but it's got a decent amount of strategy. (3 stars)
Lost And Pound: Lost And Pound is yet another "mindgame minigame" and stands out as one of the worst balanced 1v3 games I've ever played. It's like a reverse hide and seek where the solo player is hiding and the team gets three chances to seek per turn, but since there's always four hiding spots and the solo player needs to be found three times, it feels heavily biased against the team. That is, of course, unless you happen to be the solo player against a team of CPUs at which point it really just becomes a luck-based crapshoot. (1 star)
Arch Rivals: Arch Rivals was a decently fun 1v3 minigame in Mario Party 2, but this version is pretty much entirely different and also kinda worse. Instead of trying to shoot the other players, you have to shoot at targets they're holding up. The team can wave around the targets to try to bait out shots, and the new perspective makes aiming a bit hard to gauge for an inexperienced player. (2 stars)
On-Again, Off-Again: Easily one of the most devious 1v3 games of the bunch. The solo player has to activate on-off switches to drop Grrols into where their opponents are, and it leads to a real tense mindgame on both sides since the solo player needs to consider the best place to drop the Grrols and the team players need to prepare for any situation. The balancing is perfect here, it's a rare 1v3 game where it really can go either way. (4 stars)
Broozer Bash: 1v3 minigames where the solo player gets to pilot a giant robot tend to be pretty skewed in one direction or another, but Broozer Bash really stands out as quite balanced. The unique tank controls of the Broozer Mech mean that despite how large and powerful it is, the solo player never really feels 100% in control of the thing, but with enough skill, they can still try to corner the team players. And on the other side, skillful dodging can still easily lead to a win from the team. Broozers in general are also just really silly so I'm always glad to see them in a minigame. (4 stars)
Cage Catch: Cage Catch has an interesting concept where the team tries to control a crane-operated cage and drop it on the swimming player and when you're playing with all four human players, it can be a decently competitive challenge. But have a single CPU on the team and the solo player will always win, they absolutely suck at controlling the cage properly. As someone who plays their fair share of Mario Party in singleplayer, when the CPU AI harms a minigame this severely, I can't not dock some points. (2 stars)
Income Stream: Income Stream is basically Cash Flow from Mario Party 6 but the players are all sharing the same map. It's fun to try to stay on the path and Plessie showing up is always a pleasure, but the solo player doesn't seem to have that huge of an advantage since the coin placements don't really take advantage of their bigger hitbox. Whoever wins really just depends on which player is able to hug the top of the screen the longest. (3 stars)
Blame It On The Crane: This is one of the weirder retro picks as I don't believe Blame It On The Crane is an especially well-liked minigame. Depending on the skill of the players, it can feel a bit too biased towards one side. The team can easily bait out the crane, but there's also not much they can really do to avoid getting grabbed if the solo player is skilled enough. Personally, though, I never hated it. I really like the chaotic tension of being in the team, and Jamboree's version heightens that feeling further by speeding up pretty much everything. (3 stars)
Snow Brawl: Snow Brawl is another fan favorite from Mario Party 6 that I'm very glad to see back, and it's as fun as ever. Snowball fights will never not be a joy, and I can easily call this one of the better-balanced 1v3 minigames since it's pretty much purely based on skill. (5 stars)
2-vs-2:
Rocky Rope Race: Rocky Rope Race is a pretty standard 2v2 minigame where the players try to swing along a cave wall, each grabbing onto the next handle one after the other. It's a solid timing challenge and I can't even really say there's anything wrong with it, but I find myself forgetting about this one more often than not. (3 stars)
Pickin Produce: Pickin Produce is a sorting minigame that does a solid job at encouraging players to work together and keep each other in mind. I like how there's strategy to putting items at the end of the center conveyor so that the other player has time to retrieve it. (3 stars)
Prime Cut: Sizzling Stakes from Super is one of my favorite Mario Party minigames of all time and while Prime Cut isn't quite as stellar, my god are those steaks still mouth-wateringly rendered. This is a really fun minigame on its own though, trying to figure out a perfect 50/50 cut for each uniquely shaped steak is a genuinely engaging challenge of intuition and it can lead to some really close competition. (4 stars)
Dorrie Pedal-Paddle: Remember when I said I didn't love the bicycle controls in Tiny Triathlon? I always found it pretty hard to do that pedalling motion consistently with the Joy-Con, but that's fine since bicycles in these games have a lot of friction. It doesn't take a lot to start moving again. But then, what happens when you translate those controls to a pedalboat? And also make it a 2v2 minigame where multiple players need to coordinate with these iffy controls? Well, you get Dorrie Pedal-Paddle, probably the most unresponsive and finicky motion-control minigame in Jamboree. When the fucking rowboat minigame in Mario Party 8 feels more reliable than this, you know you screwed up. (1 stars)
Robo Arm Wrestle: Robo Arm Wrestle is a standard button-mashing... or I guess waggle-mashing minigame. It does it's job, I think it can be decently tense with friends, but I really don't have that much to say about it. (2 stars)
Shadow Play: Shadow Play is actually a really creative minigame about matching shadows to form a shape. It's a cool puzzle concept and some of the combinations did genuinely have me stumped for a bit, even after multiple playthroughs which made for a minigame I was always happy to see show up in circulation. (4 stars)
Match Makers: Match Makers has you go through a few floors to find the matching pair within a deck of cards. It definitely had the potential to be luck-based, but the fast pacing and the heavy focus on teamwork means that two skilled-enough teams should spend the game close together. I just find card games to be pretty uninspired personally, but Match Makers really isn't that bad.
Defuse Or Lose: Defuse Or Lose is yet another brilliant retro minigame pick. I always loved the frantic nature of this one, and Jamboree's version keeps up the same desperate energy. I find myself overshooting or undershooting the fuse a bit more in this version, but comparing them side by side, I really think it's just a skill issue. This minigame is still great. (5 stars)
Jump The Gun: Jump The Gun is another retro minigame I've always loved, but this rendition makes one of the bolder changes. In the original, the player with the cannon could kinda just shoot endlessly without any consequences. In this version, you have to wait a bit to reload after every shot, so you're encouraged to maximize the distance between each bullet to waste the least amount of time reloading. I'll admit I kinda like how unrestricted the original is, but it's hard to deny that this version is probably a lot better balanced. (5 stars)
Two-Axis Taxi: Two-Axis Taxi has you and your partner pilot a hovercraft through quite the intricate obstacle course filled with barriers, sharp turns, and Walleyes. Each player can only move on a single axis but if you're able to coordinate, moving through the course without stopping feels incredibly satisfying. This one's a really solid sleeper hit
Tricky Turntable: Tricky Turntable is one of the better mindgame minigames of Jamboree since you're always able to see what the other players are doing. There's a lot of strategy to trying to bait out the other players and get the titular turntable to hand you as many coins as possible, and even with the CPUs, it doesn't feel luck-based like it usually would. That being said, seven rounds? SEVEN?! If any minigame in Jamboree was too damn long, it's this one. (2 stars)
Duel:
Fast Fishing: Just a simple quick draw minigame with motion controls. It works fairly well, and I don't really have anything else to say about it. It's a tried-and-true duel formula. (2 stars)
Slappy Go Round: When played with another player, Slappy Go Round is a devious mindgame reminiscent of Advance's Slammer where you have to consider when to defend yourself or go for the attack. It is a really well-crafted minigame, so it's a shame that I've mostly been able to win against the CPUs without any effort since they rarely ever bother trying to attack me. (3 stars)
Fuzzy Heights: Fuzzy Heights is a pretty tricky minigame about squeezing through a bunch of Fuzzy patterns that prides itself on its cycle-based design. If you're skilled enough, you can go take some very risky and narrow cuts through the Fuzzies and go quite far, but it's tough to pull off and even the slightest bit of hesitation will probably knock you back down. (4 stars)
Stone Eye Bowling: Stone Eye Bowling is similar to Prime Cut in that it's very focused on the player's intuition, as they need to figure out where to push a giant boulder so it knocks down as many pins as possible. The abundance of randomly-placed ramps makes this quite the challenge, so getting used to how the boulder's physics work is key. I also just like seeing the giant Moai Eyes from NSMBU returning. (3 stars)
Item:
Roll With It: Roll With It is easily my favorite item minigame in Jamboree (if not the entire series) for how involved it is, using the same physics-based control scheme as Tilt A Golf. I just like marble-rolling games in general, I suppose. (4 stars)
Prize Line: Prize Line is a cross between a slot machine and something like Pipe Maze in Mario Party 1, in which you have to quickly gauge which path will take you to the item you want and select the correct path when you can. It's another more involved item minigame than usual and I quite like it. (3 stars)
A Stone's Throw: Now, this one's just way too easy. It's a curling minigame where you use a power meter to launch a curling stone onto an item, but the power meter moves very slowly and it's very easy to judge when you need to press the button to get whichever item you want. (2 stars)
Flip N Find: This is another pretty basic item minigame, it's literally just a memory game. It's fine, it does its job, but compared to how creative all the other ones have been, Flip N Find stands out as pretty generic. (2 stars)
Prize Drop: Prize Drop is just pachinko. It's easily the hardest of the item minigames to nail down, but pachinko is always a good time so I can't even be mad if I don't get the item I want. (3 stars)Showdown:
Mario's Three-Peat: As I said in my review, I actually really love the Showdown minigames for how long and developed they are. Mario's Three-Peat is such a clever and charming throwback in how it combines Leaf Leap, Bumper Balls, and Shy Guys Says. Even the way the music transitions between each minigame is so creative. (5 stars)
Luigi's Rescue Operation: Luigi's Rescue Operation is a fun little escape room with a solid variety of puzzles ranging from lighting floor tiles to assembling paintings to entering a code. The order of the puzzles being the same every time does diminish replayability a bit, but overall, I still love the variety of gameplay styles in this one. (5 stars)
Peach's Day Off: I love the premise of Peach's Day Off, the thought of Peach's minigame being to just go on a day out with her is pretty perfect for the character. This showdown minigame is pretty much just three unique minigames of uneven quality stapled together. The first section about balancing presents is actually really fun and reminds me of Wii Party. The final section about collecting fireworks is fine but pretty unremarakble. And the middle section about getting donuts is yet another mindgame minigame, dragging down the entire package. (3 stars)
Daisy's Field Day: Daisy's Field Day basically tosses the players into four different obstacle courses and tasks them to gather as many Daisy medals as you can. It's quite the fun time overall, and the setting being some kind of athletics tournament just fits Daisy perfectly. (4 stars)
Wario's Buzzer Beater: Wario's Buzzer Beater is absolutely perfect for the character too, a WarioWare-esque quiz show primarily based on the Wario Land series. There's a solid variety of different kinds of questions and the little skits involving Wario are a joy to watch. (5 stars)
Waluigi's Pinball Arcade: Waluigi Pinball is actually back, I still can't believe it. In practice, though, this showdown minigame really is just you having to play pinball for three minutes to try and get the best score. The physics are pretty on point thankfully, but it's pretty heavily biased towards people who are already very skilled at pinball. Also, the CPUs are absurdly difficult in just this minigame and I have no idea why. (4 stars)
Yoshi's Mountain Race: Yoshi just straight-up gives us a 3D platforming course which is pretty awesome. I already loved the 3D platforming minigames in Mario Party games but this one in particular easily ranks as the most developed out of any of them, even packing in a few shortcuts for the more savvy players. My only gripe is that similarly to the other Showdown minigames, the lack of course variety between playthroughs does diminish its replayability a bit. But otherwise, this is an easy favorite of mine. (5 stars)
Rosalina's Radical Race: Rosalina's Radical Race is an absolutely magical minigame, it's a fun Mario Kart-inspired snowboarding race where you chase after a flying Rosalina. The music is sweeping, Rosalina sounds like she's having the time of her life, and then you get hit by the second half taking place on goddamn Rainbow Road. What an amazing love letter to the Mario Kart series, and easily my favorite minigame in all of Super Mario Party Jamboree. (5 stars)
DK's Konga Line: DK's Konga Line is a pretty standard rhythm-based minigame, though compared to the actual rhythm minigames, I find the timing in this one to be a bit too unforgiving for your average player. I do like how each player gets to do a solo halfway through the track though, even if it does mean the game tends to drag a bit. It's down there with Peach's as my least favorite showdown minigame but the fact that I can still get a lot of enjoyment out of it just shows how great most of this minigames are. (3 stars)
Koopathlon:
Noggin Knock: Noggin Knock is a solid game of Whack A Mole, with the higher difficulties being especially overwhelming as you have to consider multiple planes of Monty Moles to whack. It's definitely one of the more basic coinathlon games in Jamboree, but it does the job. (3 stars)
Brick Breaker: Getting to play a full-on brickbreaker game is quite fun, especially if you're able to get multiple shells in play. It's a bit of a slow-burner though as it might take a bit of playing before you can really start to rack up the coins, but regardless, it's a really fun and fleshed out minigame even on its own merits. (4 stars)
Gold N Brown: Gold N Brown is probably one of the less remarkable coinathlon minigames for me but it's not even all that bad, just a basic cooking minigame where you have to retrieve the breads right before they burn. It's got the cadence and urgency of a solid Game And Watch game, and I mean that as a compliment. (3 stars)
Spike's Gambit: Spike's Gambit is a pretty solid platforming challenge with a lot to think about since there's multiple areas to hang around in to rack up coins, and you need to consider that going up the hill takes a lot longer than going down. Add in the abundance of spike rollers to dodge, along with that giant one that jumpscares you occassionally, and yeah, this one feels pretty involved. (3 stars)
Down The Hatch: Down The Hatch seems like the most basic of the minigames, solely focused around pushing plushes out of an arcade machine, but actually finding the optimal position to get everything into the hatch in one go is a genuinely fun puzzle. (4 stars)
Lane Change: Easily my favorite of the bunch, Lane Change is basically Rapid River Race but with more lanes, more obstacles, and a sick futuristic aesthetic. The sense of player control over your speed is still as fun to mess around with as ever, and being able to pull off a full top-speed run without getting hit feels amazing. (5 stars)
Coin Conveyor: Sadly, Jamboree doesn't really have a dedicated puzzle minigame, which leaves Coin Conveyor as the next best thing. If anyone's familiar with the mobile game 1010, this is basically that but with Bob-Ombs that you can use to blow up the field. You can play fast and recklessly and already rack up a ton of money, but you can also get some pretty great coin bonuses for knocking out multiple lines at the same time which lends this game a decent amount of strategy and depth. (5 stars)
Which Door Has More?: Easily my least favorite of the Coinathlon games. Weirdly enough, I have been able to rack up quite a bit of coins by playing this one, but a more slow-paced counting game just doesn't have that same level of dopamine that all the others are able to provide. (2 stars)
Sky-High Cannons: Sky High Cannons is basically a barrel cannon sequence from a Donkey Kong Country game with more player freedom in mid-air. It is a really fun little platforming challenge, but the fact that you need to collect every coin for more to show up can be quite frustrating with how easy it is to overshoot or undershoot a single coin. (3 stars)
Survivathon:
Burning Bridges: The survivathon minigames basically feel like Fall Guys events where you're not usually expected to make it to first, and as such, I've never actually won one of these. Burning Bridges is sadly one of the least interesting as it mostly just has you jump over fireballs until everyone else screws up. I tend to prefer the ones where the other players can actually get in your way. (2 stars)
Castle Hassle: Speaking of which, Castle Hassle is a tense autoscrolling obstacle course where you have to deal with pitfalls, falling fireballs, Bowser chasing after you, and of course, everyone else. It feels like one of the more manageable Survivathon minigames but you still need to be razor-focused as to not accidentally screw up. (4 stars)
Sleight Of Shell: Yeah, this one is just your standard cup shuffle minigame. There are really no frills or cheap tricks here, which makes this far and away the easiest Survivathon minigame to win. (2 stars)
Fire Away: Fire Away has you mash to climb up a tall pole while dealing with rising lava and an absolute onslaught of Bullet Bills. This is easily the hardest of the Survivathon minigames in my opinion, there's so little room to move, it's practically a bullet hell. (3 stars)
Kaboom Squad:
Juiceworks: Juiceworks is a pretty lobsided minigame in terms of enjoyment. The team is split into three groups each with a different task. The first and third groups have to deliver stuff to and from the conveyor belt at the front, and these parts are actually quite fun. You don't have much ground to move around in so you have to try not to get in each other's way. The second group, on the other hand, simply has to try to fill up the juice bottles without getting them to overflow. Not only is getting the timing for this really hard, but it's just nowhere near as fun as what the other six players are doing. (3 stars)
Ball Volley: Ball Volley initially seemed like a really basic volleyball-themed minigame where you need to time your spikes and nothing else, but I was pleasantly surprised to be dead wrong. There's multiple types of volleyballs each with different bounce arcs, you can move around so positioning is an actual factor here, and most importantly of all, there will be multiple volleyballs in play at the same time so making sure to keep track of the ones you need to return can be a genuine challenge. This is a genuinely really fun time with some strong camerawork to keep the excitement going. (4 stars)
Ballistic Bingo: Ballistic Bingo is a minigame with an incredible concept and presentation but slightly lopsided execution. You each have three cannonshots and you need to use them to blow bingos through the sails of several pirate ships. The first two pirate ships are very easy to get a full clear on, but the final one has more spaces than there are cannonballs and coordinating to get enough bingos for an S rank is quite tough, especially if you have CPUs on board who can and will waste a lot of their cannonballs. (3 stars)
Bath Bob-Ombs: Bath Bob-Ombs is a frantic minigame where you have to toss an onslaught of Bob-Ombs into the water to stop them from blowing up a gate. The sheer amount of Bob-Ombs that pour in from all sides make for a really tense, chaotic, and overwhelming minigame that reminds me a lot of Sort N Splode from Super Mario 64 DS. Another really fun teamwork minigame. (4 stars)
Chomp Wash: At The Chomp Wash was never the most intricate minigame in Mario Party 8, but it was decently fun and had a cute premise, so seeing that concept expanded upon in Jamboree made me so happy. This is easily my favorite co-op minigame in the game, with one player getting to use a hose to clean up a Chain Chomp and everyone else having to frantically block pipe leaks to help them out. There's a strong sense of teamwork here and regardless of your role, you're bound to have a pretty good time with this one. (5 stars)
Match That Item: Match That Item gives everyone a roulette and tasks them to time a button press to match the item on the screen. It's not a bad minigame, the roulette is the perfect speed to be realistically timeable while still being a bit of a challenge, but it feels like this kind of minigame could work with any amount of players and doesn't really take advantage of the collaboration between eight players like some of the others do. (2 stars)
Trading Cards: Trading Cards is literally just one of those icebreakers you'd have to do in school where the class would had to sort themselves by birthday or height without speaking or something. It's quite entertaining and chaotic and really requires all of the team members to be on a similar wavelength with each other. (4 stars)
Ski-Daddle: Ski-Daddle is basically Dungeon Dash but with eight players and without any hazards, so it's really just about pressing the right button combo at a good pace. There really isn't too much to it, and as such, securing an S rank is incredibly easy as long as your team members aren't actively trying to hold you back. (2 stars)
Look This Way: Look This Way is an obvious throwback to Look Away but this time, you do need to look in the same direction as the arrow. Personally, I think this does kinda make the minigame less interesting, but aside from that, there's nothing especially wrong with it. (3 stars)
Rhythm:
Soup Troupe: Okay, so most of these rhythm minigames are pretty similar so I have the least to say about all of them. They're generally all pretty fun and the food theming is really cute. This is obviously meant to be the easiest of the bunch, but it's a solid tutorial that plays quite well. (3 stars)
Parfait The Course: Very standard rhythm minigame that keeps a fairly slow pace, but seeing the parfait build up in front of you is quite satisfying. (3 stars)
Whisk Cream: I really like this one since doing a whisk motion with the Joy-Con feels really intuitive and satisfying, and it allows for far denser note patterns than in most of the other rhythm minigames. (4 stars)
Spread N Butter: Far and away the easiest minigame because of how easy it is to keep track of the time, but that's not exactly a bad thing. The controls work pretty much perfectly here and there's a real rhythm game-esque feel to how everything is laid out. (4 stars)
Short Stack Chef: This is one I find really hard to gauge. The music is so complex that I find myself accidentally flipping my pancake early to a nonexistent beat, but once you've played it a bunch, it's really not too bad. (2 stars)
Burger Builders: This is one of my favorite rhythm minigames in Jamboree both for the groovy rock music and the shifting tempo. The turntable suddenly reversing and you having to do the stanza in reverse order is a fun twist, and the way the game keeps getting faster makes for a really satisfying one to nail. (4 stars)
Footlong Frenzy: Footlong Frenzy is probably going to be the hardest rhythm minigame for someone with a poor sense of rhythm because it starts tackle some wild polyrhythms that are absolutely going to mess with you on your first time. I appreciate how nuts it goes though, even if I myself end up getting tricked by the patterns every once in a while. (3 stars)
Copycat Curry: A fun sequel to Super's Time To Shine even bringing back Waluigi as the host, though it doesn't really do too much to evolve it in any way. It's just Time To Shine again but with a goofy curry theming. (3 stars)
En Barbe: En Barbe is basically Take A Stab again, but I weirdly find it a bit harder to gauge where the food is falling in relation to my sword? Is it just me or does this game actually control worse, who knows? (2 stars)
Boss:
Dragoneel Slayers: Man, am I glad to see boss fights back again, and this is a pretty solid lineup. Dragoneel Slayers is easily the most cinematic of the fights, as you get to chase down a giant Dragoneel on a jetski while dodging obstacles and tossing shells at it. The rocking music also really helps give this fight a ton of energy. Upon replays, there is a decent amount of dead air compared to some of the other fights, but man, that first impression sure was something special. (4 stars)
Mega Stingby Stompers: Mega Stingby Stompers is the obligatory platforming focused boss fight where you have to ground pound onto the titular Mega Stingby. You can't ground pound more than once between touching a platform, but the short size of most of the platforms makes it really easy to fall off and have to slowly climb back up to the top of the arena. It's not a bad fight, it's still fittingly skill-based, but it is probably my personal least favorite. (3 stars)
Mega Rocky Wrench Wreckers: Being able to fight a Rocky Wrench is a really cool concept, especially with their fantastic new design, but this boss minigame is mostly just a standard gallery shooter. With friends, it's a really fun time as you're basically playing a game of whack a mole with guns, but some of the harder CPUs are way too good at immediately locking onto the Mega Rocky Wrench. (3 stars)
Boss Sumo Bro Blitzers: This is a more puzzle-focused boss fight that's mostly just a pipe maze, and I can definitely see others finding a bit dull compared to all the others. Personally though, I love pipe mazes, and the second half adding in a time limit and smaller Sumo Bros that mess with your tiles do a lot to add some extra tension. (4 stars)
Bowser Crashers: And MAN, is it good to have another final boss fight in a Mario Party game, arguably the first one since 10! Bowser Crashers is a pretty solid finale, it's basically a shmup but instead of shooting projectiles, you need to charge up a dash. I'm not a huge fan of this method of attacking him, but Bowser's variety of attack patterns and the cool perspective shift in the second half still makes this a pretty fun fight all around. (4 stars)
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