Mario Party Superstars Review – Passionate Fight

Wario has already enjoyed a few minutes of party glory this year thanks to the title WarioWare: Get It Together! (review here). It contained hundreds of different microgames, which, with their concept and visual design, offer players absolutely crazy entertainment. However, this kind of perhaps too crazy entertainment may not be for everyone, so Nintendo decided to release another episode of the long-running Mario Party series that dates back to 1998. The last step is later called Mario Party Superstars, when you can guess from the name that this time it will pay homage to the previous titles, which means that there are no significant changes to be expected, which is a bit disappointing. But is it really a fun party-family holiday? We will try to find the answer to this question in the following paragraphs.

• Platform: Nintendo Switch
• Publication date: Oct 28 2021
• Producer: NDcube
• Genre: party
• Czech location: Not
• Multiplayer: yes (local and online)
• Data to download: 2.9 GB
• Game time: depends on you
• Price: 1,399 crowns in Xzone

Mini games

In the classic case, I would start my story about the game with a paragraph about the story or the single player campaign. However, I can’t do that with Mario Party Superstars as there is no such mode. Essentially, immediately after the introductory short cutscene (which you will see every time you start the game) you are thrown to the local village, which acts as an interactive main menu from which you can enter the game, visit your friend’s house and go to settings, database or to a local store where you buy various unlockable items with your accumulated money, but you probably don’t care because it doesn’t offer anything worth unlocking (basically it’s just a background for your player profile, alternative music, encyclopedic snippets, or additional stickers). This defunct campaign is thus a relatively untapped opportunity for me, as at least some short form, such as WarioWare’s already mentioned, would be nice.

There are many mini-games, and they are pleasantly varied.

Your game will take place in two main modes – Mario Party and Mt. Mini games. And since you’ll probably spend the most time in the former, we’ll take a look at the latter first. This will allow you to compete with up to four people in over 100 local mini-games, a selection of those that have already appeared in separate older works in the past. The figure is certainly respectable, as it will take you some time to play around. At the same time, I praise the pleasantly varied selection, which includes free mini-games, team challenges, and 1v3 handicap matches. Of course, there is also considerable beauty. In any case, in the mountains. Minigames can also complete two purely online challenges. The first is the Daily Challenge, which has three rotating sets of three mini-games in which you try to earn stars and compete against other players. The second is the so-called survival, in which you try to win as many mini-games in a row as possible and thus take the highest possible place in the global ranking. Simple, but you’ll probably waste those few tries anyway.

Bones Paradise

However, as I wrote above, most of the time you will probably spend in the Mario Party mode, after which the name itself is named. In it, again, up to four players (or up to three opponents controlled by artificial intelligence) will fight on one of the five available playing fields, which are updated versions of those that appeared in the first three parts of the series. As with the mini-games, I have to commend the selection, where each one offers completely different environments and game mechanics. On these boards, you end up moving around the squares with a dice roll, similar to Human, don’t get angry, with your ultimate task being to collect stars when the game is won by whoever has the most at the end.

Chances are you’ll spend most of your time in Mario Party mode.

Then each of the boxes has a different function, where it can, for example, trigger an event on the given card, or collect/give you money. And you definitely don’t want to lose money, as it is the second important commodity for which you can buy stars, as well as various gadgets, such as double / triple dice, cursed dice or a teleportation block, with which you can exchange positions with the enemy . At the end of each turn, when all players take turns, there will be a duel in a randomly selected mini-game (you can choose their theme pack before the session starts), in which you will receive a specified amount of money depending on your performance. One whole session in this mode can then quite comfortably go by in as little as two hours, so I appreciate that the ability to interrupt the game was provided here, when you can return to the game, for example, the next day.

Lots of fun in the party, huge boredom in the solo

Both of these modes can then be played in singleplayer and local mode (4 players on the same console or via Switch Play you can connect different consoles) or in online multiplayer mode. I probably shouldn’t even tell you that you’ll have the most fun in local multiplayer, because that’s where emotes work best, you can sniff in different ways, and the whole game just has a lot more slicing. So for a party or family game, it’s still a great choice that even the little ones will love, as the controls are clearly perfectly responsive and simple once everyone gets the hang of it almost immediately. And English is also not a big barrier, which in principle is not even required here, or just the most basic one.

You will get the most pleasure in the local multiplayer game.

However, if you’re a loner, I can’t recommend purchasing Mario Party Superstars because the game against shoes will play out very quickly and there isn’t that spark. This problem could theoretically eliminate an online multiplayer game, but since direct combat is conducted through a peer-to-peer system, you need to be very lucky with the host, otherwise there will be a really annoying lag, which in individual mini-games you basically cannot win, which can reliably poison you (Nintendo may indeed finally offer dedicated servers). Well, what about playing team / handicap mini-games in Mt. Mini-games definitely need a friend, otherwise he will not let you go.

In both modes, you will end up with a choice of ten playable characters that are basically the same, only in appearance and the stickers used, which can be used to express your feelings when in online multiplayer, for example, this is an absolutely ingenious way to communicate. beautifully emphasizing all the cute atmosphere of the name. But if we look at the history of the Mario brand itself, I have to say that ten playable characters is a surprisingly small amount for me, and here the developers could catch “more”.

caress for the soul

But what remains for Nintendo is a very clever audiovisual representation of their games. From this point of view, the development studio NDcube has done an absolutely flawless job, where the title is really very nice to look at. Again, very colorful environments and characters play here, making the right impression. And that’s how the music and sound system work together, which is a combination that will make you smile while you play, even when someone blows a star in front of your nose.

The title is really nice to look at.

I can also appreciate a really smooth ride where I didn’t notice a single twitch while playing. And the nice thing is that there are almost no jagged edges issues that a relatively large number of games on the Switch suffer from due to less power.

Fun but down to earth

So, if you’re currently looking for a new game that you can spend some nice evenings with friends or family with, I can recommend Mario Party Superstars, although I may be sorry that the title looks to the past instead of looking to future and brought some significant changes and news. However, the selection of mini-games is really good, as are the game boards and audio-visuals that come with it, so we’ll take care of the fun this time too. You just can’t play alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDTTZisOtX0