My first dabble with the Mario Party series was Super Mario Party on Switch.

Having not experienced the series before I had a blast getting to experience playing aboard game loaded with mini games and having fun with the family on the couch.  Little did I know that the long series of Mario Party games had so much more to offer me.  Well now I get to experience some of them via the new Mario Party Superstars.

If you haven’t played a Mario Party game yet, basically it is a board game.  What you do is move around the board collecting stars.

Mario Party Superstars

Only one star appears on the board and once that has been collected a new one appears and the scramble continues.  Sounds pretty easy, and it kinda is in concept which is what makes it easy to play.  Winning on the other hand can be a different kettle of fish because when you get to the star you will need enough coins to buy it.

Coins are where the majority of the game’s strategy comes about.  You get them each turn, but can use them in multiple ways.

If you hit a shop then you can buy something like a triple dice which will get you across the board faster.  If you get there faster, but don’t have enough coins because you bought that dice, then you won’t be able to collect the star anyway… hence the challenge.  I did come across the stars multiple times with insufficient coins and that is infuriating.

Mario Party Superstars

The board game is a cool idea and a great premise for the game, but the real stars are the mini games.

Every round of the game ends with a minigame where you go head to head and try to score some more coins by winning.  These come in different shapes and sizes including having 2 v 2 games, all against all, or even 1 v 3.

A 1 v 3 game has you trying to move a platform to get the others to fall down a hole.  A 2 v 2 game has you trying to traverse a course which requires acting like a team to beat the other team.  An all v all game has you staying on a platform that rocks back and forth as long as possible.

Mario Party Superstars

I won’t go into all of the mini games as there are over 100 of them.

They vary from meh to excellent but that variety is essential.  The game only has 5 boars to play on so that variety really is the chaos of random events and mini games.  The Superstars part of the title is named after it taking some of the best from previous games, so it would have been good to see more game boards, but it is what it is.  Maybe we will get more via DLC.

If you haven’t played a Mario Party game before then this will be an absolute banger to start with.  If you have then this will likely be a nostalgia fueled romp.  Either way it is a consistently fun game that is well worth your time.

Especially if you have some family holidays coming up and you don’t want to go out and be exposed to that sun thing.

Mario Party Superstars
Mario Party Superstars (Switch) Review
Game details

Released: October 2021
Rating: G
Platforms reviewed: Nintendo Switch
Genre: Adventure
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Gameplay
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Replayability
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