Mario Party Superstars review: The return of the OG friendship ender

Title: Mario Party Superstars
Developer:  NDcube
Publishers: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (reviewed on)
Release Date: October 29, 2021

About three years ago, on the Nintendo Switch, we saw the release of Super Mario Party. And while the game was fun and had a lot of different things people could do together — from the traditional board game setup to the four-play co-op white water rafting mode to a series dedicated to just rhythm games — it just felt different. I feel a lot of this came from the game’s heavy insistence on motion controls which were a little awkward and didn’t always work well.

It was fun but felt more like a tech demo. It also seemed to heavily focus on the idea of cooperation.

Now, as a parent, I am all about cooperation. But that isn’t why I go to Mario Party. Going to Mario Party for team-building exercises is like going into a Burger King for a taco. Luckily, Mario Party Superstars is here and it brings back a lot of what made this series so memorable. The sound of buttons mashing and friendships rapidly being drawn into question.

Mario Party Superstars is a remaster of sorts. It brings back five remastered game boards from the Nintendo 64 era with a ton of mini-games from both the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube eras of Mario Party games. And not a single one uses any sort of motion control, making it a lot easier for newcomers and those who just don’t have the mobility to play something that requires frequent movement.

My immediate thoughts when jumping into the game was happiness that it didn’t spread a slew of options out over an oversized sprawling map like Super Mario Party. Everything was just right there and ready to go.

I hopped into a game with my kids and the first thing it allows is for you to select from a series of game options such as if you’re going to be playing online or local, what characters you want the computer to play as and how tough do you want their AI. You can even pick what kind of mini-games you can play. If you want to keep purely with Nintendo 64 mini-games, you can do that. Or you can pick games of a particular theme. Personally, I’ll always pick to play all of them but I think it’s a cool feature.

We got into a pretty solid game that, given Mario Party, can be turned around rapidly causing infinite levels of frustrations as stars are stolen and gained and people shuffle around the leaderboard.

One of the biggest problems is that a lot of these games are very short. Although  Nintendo claims that the game is designed to create an equal playing field, it absolutely did nothing to stop me and Waluigi from completely trouncing on my kids in a matter of seconds.

The online is an absolute joy to play to play as long as you have a decent internet connection. While it does take a little bit away from the experience of not being able to physically hear the sounds of frustration or your children learning to swear, Nintendo does provide a bit of personalization online in the form of emoticons you can use when you’re not the one playing. A simple flick of the joystick brings up pages of emojis that come with their own sound effect, allowing you to post how you’re feeling.

The only thing I didn’t like about it is the emoji menus take up a lot of the screen. If people have them popped up, like words and dialogue. Thankfully, this can’t happen during mini-games.

Graphically, the game’s really pretty. The boards rebuilt from the ground up along with the mini-games. And when you start each board, Toad will show you “pictures” from the first time you visited the island, allowing you to see how parts of the board looked in the Nintendo 64 era so you can witness the nightmare of a Yoshi covered in sharp corners.

So how do you know if this is the Mario Party for you? Well, if you liked Super Mario Party‘s wealth of unlockable content and variety of modes, or just preferred the motion controls, this probably isn’t for you.

But if you’re looking for a reliable rainy day board game with simple controls that anyone can play, this will be very well received. Just make sure if you’re playing it locally you aren’t sitting within arm’s reach.

Mario Party Superstars (Nintendo Switch) Sore: 9.5

Mario Party Superstars completely rebuilds some of the Nintendo 64 era’s best Mario Party boards of varying difficulty and gives them a gorgeous modern veneer. The game plays exactly as you’d expect from a Mario Party with smooth yet simple controls. The frustrations stem. from the fact that your opponents can benefit from the same perks that just helped you take a lead, equating to more first-to-last-place moments than Mario Kart itself. A lot of the older mini-games can end in a matter of seconds so if you’re playing it mostly for the mini-games, it can be a bit of a letdown when a game ends in under five seconds.

A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.