Mario Party Superstars (Switch)

Mario Party Superstars is the latest in the long running, controller and friendship ruining board game simulator starring everyone’s favourite Chris Pratt voiced plumber, is the game a superstar? Read on to find out. 

Mario Party Superstars is somewhat of a “greatest hits” title of the series unlike the previous release Super Mario Party, this title takes 5 game boards from Mario Party 1 to 3 from the Nintendo 64 and recreates them on the Nintendo Switch. 

If for some reason you’re not familiar with the Mario Party formula they are board games, fused with mini games where the objective is to get to a particular place and earn a Star, the person with the most stars wins. 

Obviously there is a little more to it, you have various events such as Versus Mini games for coins, item shops, events which change the game board or chase you from your position and so on. 

You can get items, either through events or the shop and these range from extra dice you can manipulate or my personal favourite the Golden Pipe which positions you to the closest start, beautifully diabolical. 

There are stage events too such as one involving a giant laser beam you can trigger by hitting a certain area enough times, needless to say it’s not just a case of getting around the board quickest, rather playing strategical which is easily done using the button to see anywhere on the board.

The game features over 100 minigames all hand picked from the N64 and GameCube selection of games and fortunately unlike the previous version can be played with Pro Controller and other set ups rather than just the Joycon with motion detection which is brilliant for oldies like me who don’t believe in that fancy wand waggling. 

All your favourite Mario characters are here from the title character to the internet’s favourite yellow dressed princess Daisy and the meme lord himself Waluigi and even the Mario 2 legend that is Birdo makes an appearance. What I did feel let the selection down was the lack of character specific dice that was an inclusion in the previous game. 

If you want to skip the board game section and just dive into a deluge of mini games you can always direct your attention to MiniGame Mountain which is a fantastic option for those who just want quick action or the younger audience. 

The actual board game section is brilliantly customizable too, you can have quick 30 min games or go to the extreme of 30 turn games which would run around an hour and half. You can also turn off those pesky bonus stars so you won’t lose out at the end by a stray RNG drop, finally you can give less experienced players a handicap to balance the odds for them. 

Mario Party Superstars has online much like I believe the last title had but now it has stickers which you can plaster the screen with when you’re winning or losing in place of actual communication and it’s glorious. 

The online is actually really smooth and you can have the fun of the Mario Party without all the extra bodies in your living room which really does add an extra dimension to the game, no longer do you need to just settle for the cheating A.I who steals all my stars and ruins my night…..

It’s hard to knock the whole experience, it looks brilliant, plays fantastic and the music and sound effects are top notch, the usual fare for the series and it addresses the issue I had with the previous release. 

For me it’s a great purchase but my experience with the series is limited to the Wii-U title and Super Mario Party, potentially those who are die hards may find this “Greatest Hits” selection a little too familiar and the fact the game only has 5 boards when there are so many more it could have had is a shame. 

Overall it’s an absolutely brilliant time on offer here for those who love party games and the online mode gives it the extra legs in needed, just don’t steal my stars anymore and we will be cool!