“Super Mario Party, Mario Party Superstars, Mario Party 1, 2, & 3; what does that tell you about Mario Party games on Switch”

“There’s too many of them?”

“Or, people like them, let’s release some more of them.”

That’s how we imagine the initial pitch for Super Mario Party Jamboree went down, and after Nintendo invited us to their offices to give it a go for ourselves, not much has changed. It’s touted as being ‘the biggest Mario Party on Switch’, and frankly, we’re inclined to agree.

We sat down and played the standard mode on the new Mega Wiggler’s Tree Party board with a suitable array of three other players. You could probably have garnered this from the trailers, but the presentation this time around is properly stunning. Camera angles are more dynamic, character models are as sharp (and rounded) as ever, and the UI’s had a complete (and welcome) overhaul, meaning now you can easily see at a glance when to expect the next minigame.

It’s a shame that this was the only board we were able to play during the session, and whilst we weren’t able to play long or hard enough to get a true feel for how ‘good’ it is as a board, nothing leapt out at us as being truly awful about it. In the moment we were honestly having too much fun to really analyse it, so that probably speaks for itself.

The minigames that appended every round were also largely a delight. Again, we didn’t get to play as many as we wanted, but we only found one stinker in the lot, and we use the term ‘stinker’ lightly. Smashing nails into a table with motion controls, playing mind games with the opponents to make Bob-Ombs land on them and not ourselves, avoiding and clambering over falling sandwiches, it was all lovely stuff bar the one in question.

It was a 3v1 where the three had to run around in a capsule Monkey Ball-style on a spinning platform, and the one had to simply grab them with a huge crane arm à la Link’s Awakening’s Trendy Game. The problem here is common to a fair few of the asymmetrical minigames of yore, where one side has it too damned easy compared to the others. In this case, the singular player (us) absolutely wiped the floor with the others. It’s fun to win, of course, but it’s a hollow victory when everything’s so stacked in your favour.

Aside from that one blemish, we had a ball with Mega Wiggler. All the typical Mario Party tropes are here in spades, the standard of polish throughout is higher than ever, and Stars cost the correct amount of coins (20).

We were also able to sample two new modes, namely Koopathlon and Bowser’s Kaboom Squad. Koopathlon pitted twenty of us against one another in a pseudo-battle royale sort of affair, and it seemed to work mostly rather well. Rather than playing against others directly, it’s more of a Tetris 99-style situation where your solo minigames boost your character around the minimap further the better you do.

After a few solo minigames, we were all thrown in against one another in a fight for survival against Imposter Bowser, this game’s excuse as to why you can play as Bowser to try and overcome a giant Bowser. Due to our short playtime with this mode (and, to be honest, the game in general), it’s hard to come to any solid conclusions, but it seems like a decent online mode that, provided it gels with enough people, could stand the test of time.

Bowser’s Kaboom Squad is a similar story. A bigger-than-usual-depending-on-the-specific-game Bowser is trying to… err, maybe ruin everyone’s fun? It’s hard to tell what Imposter Bowser’s motivations are, but we assume it’s something to do with reclaiming his master creation (Monty Mole) to cover Middle Earth in a blanket of darkness. This time, the free peoples of Ennorath the Mushroom Kingdom must work co-operatively to blast his face with bombs and deal with 8-player minigames for some reason.

We only managed to have time for a single minigame, one where we were all wearing the same pair of skis and had to march in time with a standard Wiggler. It was fine enough, fun even, but it did highlight that this mode will make you reliant on your teammates, for better or for worse.

Our time with Super Mario Party Jamboree may have been brief, but it was very sweet. It brings the best bits of both the other Mario Party Switch games into one package; as soon as they re-add Diddy Kong in a free update (or else), we could be looking at the definitive Mario Party experience on Nintendo’s hybrid. Time will tell, naturally, so keep both eyes peeled for our full review when it pops up in the future.