Get ready to roll some dice, play some minigames and torment your friends by stealing their
stars because Mario Party Superstars is finally here on the Nintendo Switch.
It’s a proper return to form, restoring the classic Mario Party gameplay across 5
updated boards from the original Nintendo 64 titles, along with over 100 Minigames from
across the series and it’s all topped off with robust online support right out of the
box.
Could this finally be what Mario Party fans have been waiting over a decade for?
Let’s find out in our in-depth review of Mario Party Superstars!
In case you’re new to the series, Mario Party Superstars is a virtual board game,
in which four players compete a set amount of rounds to be the one to buy--or steal--the
most stars.
But to do so, you’re first going to need some coins which you can earn by winning minigames
played between every round.
It all amounts to some of the most hectic and heated multiplayer in gaming--and it’s
a ton of fun, even when you’re losing...most of the time.
For the first time ever, Mario Party Superstars brings back fan-favorite boards from the first
three parties while infusing them with some modern twists.
These include Yoshi’s Tropical Island and Peach’s Birthday Cake from Mario Party 1,
Space Land and Horror Land from 2, and Woody Woods from 3.
While they’re mostly faithful recreations, though looking better than ever, they’re
accompanied by much-needed improvements to the general flow, such as changing the direction
of locked doors, or letting you use items on the Mario Party 1 maps for the first time
ever.
One of my favorite examples is in Peach’s Birthday Cake, which cleverly moves a Bowser
encounter to after the star rather than just before it, which means instead of potentially
losing out on a star.
it acts as a dangerous shortcut back to it!
Not all changes are quite this drastic, though.
While the general layout of the spaces are similar to before, some of them have changed,
especially with the new addition of Lucky Spaces, functioning similarly to how they
were in Super Mario Party: giving players a roulette that will grant them coins, an
item, or some other reward, which is mostly a nice addition.
Beyond that, the locations of some shops, Koopa banks, and more have also been moved
around giving the boards a better flow.
The maps feel far more balanced in general now, making them a ton of fun to play.
Despite the changes, plenty of classic features return too, such as the Versus Spaces, which
are basically Battle Minigames from the older games, where all players put in coins to be
divided among the winners of a free-for-all minigame--and it’s always a fun but scary
time.
On a more drastic side is Chance Time, a concept bringing chaos to Mario Party for over 20
years now, where two players might lose or gain coins, or even trade their entire inventories
of stars or coins...
And I love having it back, as it adds an exciting twist that can completely change the game--even
in the final few turns.
Even though I quite like all 5 boards, Horror Land is my overall favorite!
The map has plenty of different paths to take, each with different points of interest, and
having to plan around the day and night cycle is pretty entertaining, as it changes which
options are available.
Plus, the board looks really great, especially at night when all of the hauntings start.
Of course, items are also back to help shake up the gameplay too, and can be purchased
at stores located around the board!
The selection this time includes the typical Mushrooms to increase your dice rolls and
Custom Dice Blocks to move a specific number of spaces, along with Cursed Dice Blocks to
restrict movement, Chomp Calls to move the star location, Plunder Chests to steal items
from your opponents, Golden Pipes to move directly to the star, which are far more elegant
and natural to Mario than...a giant genie, and so many other items.
Whether you purchase them from the shop or earn them in one of 5 item minigames, these
items will change up the gameplay, and you’re absolutely encouraged to use them...at least
if you want to win!
The selection of items this time around are honestly pretty great, and is a step up from
those in Super Mario Party, being closer to that of the original games.
They’re always fun to use, especially to thwart an opponent!
Though, I did find that computer opponents, annoyingly, will often stock up on multiple
Chomp Calls, making it pretty difficult for anyone to get a star for quite some time.
Eventually, whether you play for the minimum of 10 turns or the maximum of 30, the game
enters the final 5 turns.
Spaces give and steal more coins, duel minigames can begin, and the general stakes of the entire
game are risen.
It really feels like the Final 5 turns of classic Mario Party games, meaning they can
be crucial to winning!
And the Bonus Stars are back too, being awarded to different players at the end of each game...if
you enable them.
But this time, you have a couple of options: By default, they’ll reward players with
two randomly picked stars from a pool of options, like in Super Mario Party...but you can enable
Classic Bonus Stars instead, which will reward the original three that Mario Party fans have
come to know and love across the series’ history: based on winning the most minigames,
collecting the most coins, and landing on the most event spaces!
While I generally prefer the Classic Bonus Stars option, I find myself defaulting to
the random bonus stars to see what surprises might come up!
In any case, I love having the bonus stars here, as it leaves you guessing until the
very end.
While the boards are generally improved, there is one thing that I'm not entirely fond of:
this game gives a lot of coins.
Seriously, in the majority of the rounds I’ve played, all players were ending with well
over 100 coins each by the end.
Sure, There’s plenty of ways to lose coins through gameplay, but the amount of Lucky
Spaces more often than not will award more than enough to make up for it--and more.
To the point that paying for stars was rarely a problem.
It’s not too unbalanced, but some slight tweaks to the economy, like more expensive
items, might help it feel less bothersome.
I adjusted fairly quickly, but it’s certainly a bit different when compared to the economy
of older Mario Parties, and is more similar to Super Mario Party in that respect.
That aside, the main Mario Party gameplay really comes together.
Strategizing across the 5 different boards, whether to work out how to best make it to
the next star, or how to steal a friend’s, or using items to thwart their attempts at
buying one entirely.
It all comes together to give players plenty of options to choose from, making for rounds
that can be surprisingly strategic.
Personally, I love inciting chaos in Mario Party, it’s what keeps the energy high and
fun.
So while I generally strategize a path to victory...If I get the opportunity to start
a Chance Time, I’ll take it!
...Even if it ends up at my own expense.
This is the first Mario Party in well over 15 years to give me that chaotic opportunity,
and I’m happy to take it.
Overall, the board gameplay to Mario Party Superstars is nothing short of fantastic.
These boards have never been more fun, and it’s been a long time since the main gameplay
of Mario Party has felt this good.
The items are great, specific board events are wild enough to shake up the gameplay,
and the boards bring a fun charm that we haven’t seen in Mario Party for more than a decade
now.
Of course, the board action is only half of the Mario Party experience, with minigames
being the other and Mario Party Superstars brings the most featured yet in a mainline
game, with over 100 classics picked from across the entire series!
While the first three Mario Parties have the most Minigame representation here, there’s
plenty of picks from the GameCube era as well.
For better or worse, Mario Parties 8, 9, or 10 got shafted a bit with far less representation,
but it’s nice to see they weren’t completely forgotten, at the least.
I need to stress just how good most of these minigames feel, with incredibly tight and
responsive controls.
The hitboxes, for the most part, are solid, and the physics make sense in each game.
In fact, many of these minigames feel far better than they did in their original games.
Yep, there’s No more strangely clunky, floaty physics here!
At least for the most part, as a couple of standout minigames, like Coconut Conk, where
it feels way too easy to ground-pound your allies.
But the vast majority of them are wonderful.
There is, of course, one questionable minigame that returns: Tug o’ War.
This minigame from the original Mario Party was a problem back then, to say the least.
It encouraged players to spin their control sticks as fast as they could, which caused
injuries to many players who used the palm of their hands to spin the stick.
To the point that Nintendo had to send out free gloves to anyone who requested them.
Well, Tug o’ War is back, and rather than changing the control scheme, the practice
screen simply has a warning for players to not use the palm of their hands.
Frankly, I’m baffled that they didn’t turn this game into a button masher, or skip
it entirely.
Regardless, competitive players will likely find themselves trying to spin faster by using
their palm anyway, so if you do, don’t say the game didn’t warn you.
Beyond a couple of questionable minigame choices, looking at you Cast Aways, I have to say that
these 100 minigames are an overall better selection than what we had in Mario Party:
The Top 100.
There’s a great variety here that compliments the board gameplay nicely, whether you’re
looking for free-for-alls, 2v2s, or even coin minigames!
Several of my personal favorites made it in, like Look Away from Mario Party 2, Leaf Leap
from 5, and Dungeon Duos from Mario Party 4, which is undeniably one of the best 2v2
minigames in the series history!
The minigames play incredibly well on the whole, and the overall selection is perhaps
the strongest we’ve ever had in a Mario Party title.
Minigames aren’t reserved just for the board games, though!
Because Mt. Minigames is a new, expansive side-mode featuring plenty of different ways
to play them.
You can play choosing specific or random minigames in Free Play, even marking your favorites
along the way, take on tag-team challenges in 2v2 minigames, test your teamwork in the
Trio Challenge with 1v3 minigames, earn the most coins in Coin Battles, or compete for
the best score in special minigames in Sports & Puzzles!
There’s a lot to do here, and it’s all pretty fun.
Tackling the Trio Challenge with two other friends was a good test of our teamwork, while
Coin Battles were where things got really competitive.
Normally, I don’t find myself playing the minigame-exclusive modes too much in Mario
Party, but this time around I was constantly returning for more, even if it was to boot
up some favorite minigames and attempt new records in them!
The breakdown of these different modes made them fun and quickly accessible, with a variety
of minigames across them all!
Mario Party Superstars looks lovely, and as a celebration of the entire series, it’s
clear a lot of love and attention was put into the experience.
The visuals look fantastic.
The lighting, the details on the boards and minigames, character animations...I was surprised
that this game looks even better than Super Mario Party does.
The cute relaxing Yoshis and extremely high quality fruit on Yoshi’s Tropical Island...the
delectable sweets of Peach’s Birthday Cake that are sure to make you start craving some
yourself...the spooky yet bustling night time atmosphere in Horror Land...to even the dusty
metal box for Bowser’s Big Blast, beautiful space background in Mass Meteor, and mouth-watering
food in Easta Pizza and Coney Island...every part of this game is visually stunning, and
left me impressed.
The boards especially.
Seeing what were originally flat images turned into large 3D environments is absolutely stunning,
and really sells these locations far more than the originals ever did.
The wonderfully expressive animations and attention to detail in the characters, boards,
and more are really great.
To add to the charm, there’s even a bit of a story here, though not quite as much
as the original game!
Koopa Troopa brings everyone to these classic boards that are once again looking for a new
Superstar, just like they did over 20 years ago, even referencing how long it’s been.
It’s a bit weird to think that Mario Party has an established canon now…but it’s
cute to see the callbacks to the original games.
Plus, the entire main menu is literally the Village Square from the original Mario Party!
All of the original buildings are back, and seeing this location updated so faithfully...I
can’t help but smile every time I see it.
Sure, the quirky Toads from before are replaced by more standard Mario characters, like Kamek
running the Data House or Shy Guy running the Options, but I think that’s ok!
It’s still incredibly charming, and demonstrates a clear love for where this series began.
The game also makes great use of a variety of 2D Mario illustrations for the different
stickers in the game!
Similar to the various stamps in Super Mario 3D World, this charming artstyle is usually
just reserved for various marketing materials so it’s great to see it being used in games
more.
Those stickers, by the way, are a great evolution of the taunting system that we’ve been missing
for almost 10 years now.
Rather than spamming one particular voice clip or two from your character, you have
access to more than 50 stickers you can use at nearly any point during the main Mario
Party mode.
Want to congratulate a friend on getting a star, or express your frustration at losing
the last minigame?
Use a sticker!
I’ve come to love these a lot, and it’s hilarious to see friends sync up with specific
stickers.
Plus, the detailed stats at the end of a game track how many stickers get used by each player!
The music is another great example of the love and care put into Mario Party Superstars.
Every single minigame has its original theme remixed, and the same goes for the boards
too!
On top of that, once the Final 5 turns kick in, a homestretch version of the board music
starts playing as well!
Plus, if you go in the options, after playing a board for the first time, you can choose
to play its classic music from the Nintendo 64 version instead of the modern remix, which
is awesome!
You can even listen to the music in the Data House, though you’ll have to buy it from
the shop first.
The shop in the Village Square is how you’ll unlock various extras, like the 50+ stickers,
as well as different things for the Data House, such as music and card designs for your player
profile.
As your player level increases, even more items will be added to the shop, but they’re
just more of these same items.
Truthfully, while collecting items for completion’s sake is often nice, I wish there was more
to be found in this store.
Unlockable characters, an unlockable board, even some of the minigames would have been
nice.
I don’t think the shop has enough to really motivate players to actually buy its stock
of items out.
While the lack of major unlockable content devalues the purpose of the shop, it never
took away from my experience with the game overall.
While Super Mario Party could only be played with a single joycon, Mario Party Superstars
supports pretty much everything.
Single joy-con, two joy-con, handheld mode, Switch Lite, a pro controller, etc, which
makes it far more accessible..
Although with some button-mashing and control stick-spinning minigames, I think a pro controller
may be the best way to play.
Regardless of your controller, it just feels good overall . However you play, the controls
are nice and responsive, perhaps because none use motion controls.
And regardless of whether you play in docked or handheld mode, it always runs at a smooth,
consistent FPS, even online!
Speaking of which, Mario Party Superstars, for the first time ever, comes packed with
full online functionality for every mode in the game right out of the box, including the
Mario Party board games and Mt. Minigames!
When playing online, you can create a room that’s either open to everyone or friends
only, with the option to lock it behind a password.
Once it’s made, or you join another, you can then freely choose between Mt. Minigames
or a round of Mario Party without having to make a new lobby!
This system is pretty nice, but it works best when trying to play with your peers.
So if you instead go straight to Mt. Minigames or Mario Party when playing online, you can
actually search for games and other players!
You get to choose your settings and preferences, then look for any open rooms using the same
criteria.
It’s actually incredibly versatile.
I was quite surprised at just how many ways there are to connect with other players.
Unfortunately during the review period, there wasn’t exactly a surplus of players to connect
with when trying to play with random players, so I stuck to private matches.
But out of all the online rounds I played, I can confidently say that the online connectivity
is great in this game, in my experience.
WAY better than in Super Mario Party.
When playing with 2 or 3 others, I rarely noticed any slowdown.
I did experience the occasional hiccup with 4 players, but it was so far and few between
that it barely made a difference to the game.
This likely differs depending on your connection to other players, so remember to use a wired
connection if you can!
The Mario Party mode saves every turn by default too, so if someone disconnects, rather than
crashing the entire party as in Super Mario Party, they’ll be temporarily replaced by
a computer player...and can even rejoin the round!
You can even decide to save and continue the party another time, both online or off, and
your group can return to the in-progress round at any point!
Beyond the main Mario Party mode, all courses of Mt. Minigames are also available to play
with others online!
Two modes in particular are available exclusively when playing online: Survival, which prompts
players to win as many minigames in a row as possible, and Daily Challenge, which gives
players daily rotating sets of minigames to complete.
I can see myself completing Daily Challenges a lot, and I really like this addition.
But you can’t play either of these modes with friends, as they match you with other
random players.
Online rankings are also present here in Mario Party Superstars.
You can compare your minigame records to other players in the world, which is sure to help
you aim for even higher scores!
Overall I’m really impressed with the online functionality here.
It ran way better than I was expecting in my tests, and the ability to thoroughly enjoy
full rounds of Mario Party with anyone online, with little to no connectivity issues, is
incredibly special.
Despite the lack of meaningful unlockables, there’s a lot of content in Mario Party
Superstars, with 5 boards, 10 characters, and 100 minigames, plus various modes in Mt.
Minigames.
But as a celebration of the Mario Party series, I couldn’t help but wish it had just a bit
more, like a 6th board, perhaps from Mario Party 3 so all N64 games had 2 boards total
here...or even a board from one of the Gamecube titles!
Especially since 5 boards is less than the amount any of the original N64 games featured,
which is a bit odd for a game that celebrates them.
And while the roster of 10 characters is more than the first 4 parties had, it’s significantly
smaller than the 20 in Super Mario Party.
Finally, what if we had Minigame modes from the later games, like Treetop Bingo from Mario
Party 6?
Super Duel Mode from Mario Party 5?
Pipe dreams of course, but such a celebration of the series definitely leaves me hungry
for more.
Maybe DLC will address this one day.
But despite wishing the game included some of these things...what we have here is fantastic.
And while many of the original Mario Parties had some sort of single player campaign mode
there is Unfortunately nothing like that here.
While all modes are available in single player with computer opponents, and you unlock some
small things for completing a round on every board,...that’s about it unfortunately.
So it’s definitely a game you’ll want to play with friends, as playing by yourself
isn’t much of a party at all.
Even upon its reveal back at E3 earlier this year, Mario Party Superstars immediately became
my most anticipated title.
It looked like the right step for a multiplayer series that so many of us felt had lost its
way over the last decade.
...And boy did Nintendo and ND Cube deliver.
Mario Party truly is back, and better than ever.
Not only is this what fans have been asking for for more than 15 years, it’s one of
the best Mario Party games I’ve ever played.
Between a wonderful selection of minigames that feel great, fantastic updates to the
classic boards that make them play better than ever, and enough charm to match or exceed
that of the original titles, it’s a perfect love-letter to the entire series that was
a total blast the whole way through.
The solid online seals the deal on this being one of the greatest Mario Party titles we’ve
ever had, and it feels amazing to be able to say that.
I Loved Mario Party Superstars and I can’t wait to play even more of it.
This is absolutely going to be my go-to Mario Party game, and it may even be one of my favorite
titles on the Switch!
With that, thank you all so much for watching our review on Mario Party Superstars.
We have a ton of content on the game, so make sure to subscribe and ring that bell for plenty
more!
Let us know if you’re excited to party down below, and stay tuned for various upcoming
livestreams and more!
Until next time...farewell!