The game takes various components from previous Mario Party games but if—like me—you’ve only ever dabbled in the series, Mario Party Superstars still serves as a great introduction to the party game. There’s also no need to have much experience with games before, meaning this is an ideal title to pull out when less-experienced gamers are visiting. It’s got “future holiday season tradition” written all over it.
Part Board Game, Part Minigame Collection
Mario Party Superstars plays out like the best kind of board game. Up to four players (either human or CPU) race around a board by rolling a die before partaking in a minigame after each round. There are five boards to choose from, each representing a different Mario Party game and also offering a different difficulty level. It’s likely you’ll start out with the first—Yoshi’s Tropical Island—which is a little basic when it comes to offering branching routes and twists. Other boards such as Space Land introduce challenges like the need to interact with other characters, as well as the risks that come from a spaceship rocketing at you and propelling you and others to a different route. It’s charming to watch your chosen Super Mario Bros. character navigate the board, and that’s before you get to the core of the game: the minigames. Simply rolling a virtual die and roaming the board harkens back to childhood memories of board games, even if you can’t blow on it for luck.
Minigames for Everyone
Mario Party Superstars is actually accessible. If you’ve played WarioWare: Get It Together! you’ll know what I mean. WarioWare is fun, but you need to have fast reactions to stand a chance. If it takes you a moment to take in what’s going on, or you’re physically limited in some way, you’re likely to fail. That’s how it felt when trying to play WarioWare with my keen gaming mother who also has a neck disability. Mario Party Superstars is different. It’s reasonably balanced. Some minigames may require you to hammer the A button to swim to safety away from a monster, but another might have you running to collect falling ice cream scoops. A different kind might be more luck-based, with players choosing a lever with one of them causing Bowser to explode and the player to fail, but at least it’s accessible. Motion controls have been skipped here, too, further ensuring everyone stands a chance, gimmick free. Such options mean it’s ideal for gathering around the TV together during the holidays, even if one or more of the players isn’t exactly a dedicated gamer. It’s not as refined as Mario Kart 8 in its ability to give everyone a good chance, but it goes some way to giving you extra options when physical games have been used up.
Many, Many Options
Mario Party Superstars goes a little further elsewhere, too, to keep everyone happy. When you set up a Mario Party game, you can change settings like how long the game lasts, but you also can handicap players. If you think a player is a little too good and things are becoming unbalanced, this is your opportunity to give them a Stars handicap to slow down their progress. You always can choose to play Mount Minigame, too, so you focus on minigames rather than the board game experience. This can be ideal if you’re short on time, but Mario Party Superstars lets you resume a party game so you can always pick up where you left off.
Ideal for the Whole Family
The beauty of Mario Party Superstars is that it will keep everyone happy. For old fans of the franchise, it has minigames from the Nintendo 64- and GameCube-era games, and you can even specifically pick those games to relive the good old days. For those less experienced, it takes seconds to pick up and play. Every minigame comes with clear instructions and a moment to practice what you’re doing before you do it for real. And it’s all mashed up with the happiness that you always get with all things Mario. What more could you need?
