Super Mario Party Jamboree - Switch Review

This is now the third new Mario Party release on the Switch, with the N64 titles in the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass included, rounding the total number to six. The Switch truly has a jamboree of Mario Party games—a Super Mario Party Jamboree, you could even say. With the first terrible dad joke out of the way, we’re treasure diving into Super Mario Party Jamboree today with Rosalina (because I always main Rosalina) and looking to become the star of the party!

The Good

We’ve got a total of 22 characters to choose from in Super Mario Party Jamboree, with the majority returning from Super Mario Party. You can also find Pauline and Ninji by looking around in the balloon when choosing what game mode you want to play, which will then permanently unlock them as playable characters. The best thing though is that the character dice from Super Mario Party have been removed, so there’s no mechanical advantage for playing any character over another.

Mario Party as a franchise has previously had iterations of mini-game marathon modes. Jamboree’s take is a daily mix of three mini-games where the goal is to collect as many coins as you can to make progress around a board in a race against 19 other racers to finish a set amount of laps. At the end of the three mini-games, there is an Imposter Bowser mini-game that will send you back spaces and force you to regain that ground. Rinse and repeat until everyone has finished, with the mini-games increasing in difficulty each consecutive round, but more coins are on the line.

The other new major game mode is a cooperative fight against Imposter Bowser, where you have to work in a team of eight to collect bombs and slowly chip away at his health. These are timed rounds with Imposter Bowser and his minions causing havoc for the players. In-between each round is a mini-game where you’ll be ranked, with better performances providing more useful items to help win the fight. The Imposter Bowser game mode is a nice change of pace, but I don’t feel like it’s worth too much time investment, while the coin marathon has much more replay value.

Now for the meat and potatoes of any Mario Party title: the boards and mini games. A total of seven boards are here to explore, with two returning boards from the original Mario Party and Mario Party 2. The new additions are some of my favourite boards in the entire franchise, with the race track course being a particularly interesting one, by introducing 4 die block items for maximum distance covered, at the cost of not stopping unless it is at a crossroads. Regarding the mini-game selection, I genuinely prefer that of Mario Party Superstar; however, Jamboree isn’t without some classic entries and some really fun new ones, especially Waluigi’s Pinball Machine.

TL;DR

• Fun character list 
• New game modes
• Interesting boards and mini games

The Bad

The BANE of my existence is chance time and watching my three or more stars be swapped for zero is pure frustration manifested. Ultimately though, I have no true complaints about Super Mario Party Jamboree. Well, except maybe that the title is too long.

TL;DR

• Chance time still exists

Final Score: 9/10

As a Mario Party title, Jamboree does exactly what it needs to do by providing a platform for friendship destruction while adding in a few new features to test them. While definitely more of a party game, the majority of its features are able to be played online if you have a stable enough connection. For any fan of Mario Party, I’m sure you already have this title in your library, but if you’re on the fence, I can personally recommend it’s worth picking up, especially if you have kids in your household.

Thank you for checking out our Super Mario Party Jamboree Switch review, thank you to Nintendo AU/NZ for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

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