Super Mario Party Jamboree – Review

This is my first time playing a Super Mario Party title…

I’m in the lead again. The gods of luck have smiled upon me once more — I rolled three consecutive high dice, bringing me menacingly close to the shiny golden star on the map. The rule is simple: the player who collects the most shimmering celestial bodies at the end of 10 rounds will hoist a virtual trophy above their head and smell the fragrant scent of flower crowns, transmitted as hot air emanating from the console's ventilation system.

I chose to embark on the adventure with Donkey Kong. My girlfriend, leaning on the sofa to my right, opted for Princess Daisy — the same damsel in distress from the classic 1981 arcade game, where the moustachioed Jump Man (later Mario) tries to be a hero. And the other two players, controlled by the boundless intelligence of the computer, are represented by the mushroom man Toad and the ghost Boo.

This is my first time playing a Super Mario Party title… and apparently, I’m about to win. When I roll the dice at the start of a round, the numbers displayed on the screen are so high that my girlfriend huffs and asks me which button I’m pressing. And when I land on spaces on the map, I always receive a bonus of golden coins — presumably, this is how the artificial intelligence recognises my intellectual superiority and years of platforming excellence alongside the red-and-blue-overalled plumber.

What I’ve described above are my thoughts halfway through round 3 of the game. Because the outcome will follow a much more winding path, strewn with small frustrations. By far, the most annoying moment was when the AI-controlled Boo landed on the space that triggers “Bowser Revolution” — a mechanism by which all players’ coins are confiscated and redistributed equally. A true communist revolution, bizarrely sweetened by cute, smiling polygons. A moment of maximum frustration, when I realised it didn’t matter how well I performed in the mini-games between rounds, and it didn’t matter how I rolled the dice. The Jamboree universe is subject to chance, and the only constant is unpredictability.

I say this because the Bowserian revolution isn’t the only highway robbery experience I had on first contact. Later, I discovered there’s also a system where other players can steal one of your hard-earned stars. And yes, I might also find myself in a situation where I dispossess other players of coins and stars… but the events that unfolded before my eyes took a completely unfavourable turn for my competitive spirit.

The map itself, delimited like a board game such as Monopoly, is constantly changing and can completely mess up your plans. Oh, you meticulously planned a strategy to reach a certain spot? Watch out, by the time you roll the dice again to make your moves, you’ll find that certain parts of the world have been swallowed by water or covered in lava.

Plans made at home rarely match the reality after the dice roll. And the only element that sweetens the chaotic mix is the mini-game between rounds, which actually gives you a chance to demonstrate your skills… before another unfavourable event deprives you of your earnings.

Yes, I lost the first game. I admit, I lost the second one too. And I can admit that I got annoyed every time and had less-than-pacifist thoughts, which might have involved the controller in my hand and the TV screen. Not because I was consistently in last place, but because my leading position was repeatedly stolen from me through dubious circumstances… which I would have contested if there had been a referee to listen to me!

But Super Mario Jamboree is a permanent reminder of one of life’s cruelest realities: nothing in this world is just or fair. Meritocracy doesn’t exist. Excellence isn’t always rewarded. And sometimes, even if you’re mediocre and lack relevant qualities in context, a fierce dragon might appear to confiscate the earnings of successful players to suddenly enrich you. But even this communism can’t last too long, because sooner or later, effort and excellence will triumph. At least, that’s what I like to believe before venturing back into the colourful chaos of Jamboree.

Nevertheless, I must praise the accessibility of the entire experience. My girlfriend, despite being a novice when it comes to video games and often having trouble identifying buttons on the controller, immediately learned what to do and how to act. Each mini-game between rounds offers the opportunity to get acquainted with the rules and requirements — and the real challenge can only begin when all players confirm they are ready by pressing a button. In addition, there are multiple moments when you need to use the motion sensors in the controller. Thus, acclimatisation is sometimes similar to playing tennis on the Nintendo Wii — instinctively, you’ll know exactly what to do.

I should also mention the characters that appear randomly on the map — usually 2-3 times in each game. You have a limited time to meet a potential friend who offers various bonuses: bigger dice, generous coin rewards, and facilities to attack other players. Sometimes the effect is positive for your controlled character, other times you’ll see a curse befall the other participants… whether they are human or AI-controlled.

During the games, you’ll also find an item shop where you can spend your coins. You can opt for a small dice bonus to cover longer distances. Or you can choose one of the warp pipes popularised in the Mario universe: the green one will teleport you to another random spot on the map, while the golden variant will bring you just one space away from the coveted shining star. You also get spaces that help you get closer to other players to breathe down their necks, or bring you near a shop to buy even more items. All of these can be used strategically at the beginning of each round, before rolling the dice. But let’s be serious, all plans and strategies are an illusion in the face of the chaos that reigns over the entire kingdom.

If I were to describe Super Mario Party Jamboree to my father, who hasn’t played many Nintendo titles but has far more experience than me with board games, I’d tell him it’s a digital version of “Ludo!”, which also contains elements from classic Monopoly. You have to collect money to acquire properties (represented by golden stars), but at the same time, the competition isn’t entirely fair, and various events or phenomena can intervene, tipping the scales in favour of a specific player (and against the others). However, no such board game can have a game board as dynamic, full of unpredictable changes that can sometimes rewrite the rules from the ground up. Chaos is a primary factor that will sometimes help you, but most of the time it will remind you that life is unfair.

What’s more, the small competitive games between dice-rolling rounds are designed to test the reflexes and spatial awareness of all participants. Sometimes the battle is a “one against all” type, other times teams of 2 are randomly assigned to spontaneously compete in achieving an objective. These challenges can also be accessed separately, in a different context from the classic “Mario Party” game mode. And this option is a useful opportunity to practice for decisive moments — but also to enjoy the best part of the entire Jamboree experience, which encourages skill development and rewards merit.   

If you’re subscribed to the Nintendo Switch Online service, then you can enjoy Super Mario Party Jamboree with distant players. You’ll compete against other enthusiasts from around the globe, even having the option to challenge friends who, for various reasons, couldn’t make it to your place. But the real fun happens when you have someone else in the same room, so frustrations can be shared and turned into a memorable source of humour.

As I mentioned earlier, Jamboree is the first Mario Party game I’ve tried. But there’s another first worth noting: it’s the first time I’ve accepted a review code for a Nintendo Switch game, in my capacity as an editor for GRIND magazine. And on that note, I must thank the folks at CD Media and Leo — because he surprised me with a phone call and subsequently facilitated the operation. Previously, other opportunities arose… but I preferred to grant other editors the joy of receiving a free game, choosing to write only about releases I buy myself… because I buy more titles than I ever get to play anyway.

But now I have a girlfriend who can be my playmate… and most likely I wouldn’t have paid 250 lei just to test a multiplayer experience that could have turned out to be a disappointment for me and/or my loved one. Therefore, I accepted the code and set out to recount the events from the perspective of a layman discovering the Mario Party phenomenon for the first time.

I intentionally refrained from reading others’ opinions before I had even finished one complete game. I didn’t look at Metacritic scores, I ignored sales reports, and I isolated myself as much as possible in a bubble to allow for a pure experience. Now that I’ve read the opinions of other, more experienced Mario Party editors, I realise that Jamboree is a triumph in every sense — the kind of game where veterans find the most successful elements, while novices enjoy a smooth journey sprinkled with small surprises. And here I must make an important remark: my small frustrations described at the beginning of the article are related to the chaotic nature of the game and not to technical issues.

Super Mario Party Jamboree fulfils its purpose brilliantly: it’s exactly what you’d want at a party with friends who aren’t necessarily hardcore gamers. It’s something you could just as easily start at the end of a family gathering, or the kind of game you can use to make new friends online. But is it worth paying 250-300 lei for this occasional fun? That depends solely on the quality of your friends. It could be the new topic of discussion in your WhatsApp group and the much-anticipated activity at the end of anniversaries and reunions, or it could just as easily turn into an embarrassing expense that draws frowns before someone more popular than you says, “let’s play poker!” In any case, I recommend Jamboree exclusively for playing in the same room, with someone you know well enough — it will help you discover new facets of their personality, as well as elements of chemistry that hadn’t interacted before.

Played on: Nintendo Switch
Release date: 17 October 2024
Developer: Nintendo Cube
Publisher: Nintendo

Review by Vlad Costea