The One Thing the New Mario Party Needs to Get Right

Posted on 2024.08.08

If you read my thoughts on last month’s Nintendo Direct, you might have noticed me sounding desperate for the new Mario Party to be good. And it's just that, I love Mario Party as a concept but if you know anything about the series’ history, then you know the most recent games have dropped the ball by varying degrees. (btw I don’t claim to be a Mario Party expert, but I do have some knowledge on the whole series). Here's the aspect I wanna highlight: the boards. This is one of the most, if not the most important part to get right. Crappy minigames will always happen, but a crappy board will ruin the experience the whole way through, and if it makes you not wanna play it, that's one less board in the already small pool of available boards.

Super Mario Party had FOUR boards, and they were all tiny and uninspired. One of them only had 29 SPACES!!!! It's actually criminal how small that is. Superstars, in a way, was a step in the right direction by virtue of the boards coming from old games (which were way better in that aspect). The problem is they brought back only 5. Not only is that a small amount, but they're ports! It’s not like they had to spend a lot of time making them as if from scratch. And when you bring back some of the more lackluster boards (like Yoshi's Tropical Island), you can just feel the small number of boards and how repetitive it makes the game.

Super Mario Party Jamboree will have 5 new boards and 2 returning ones (side note, I like the idea of bringing 1 or 2 old boards alongside new boards, I hope they keep this up à la Mario Kart). This already gives me a lot of hope, as even the classic Mario Parties had an average of 6 boards. And from what little we've seen, the new boards look promising. They're large and expansive, with multiple routes and options that give players agency, and hopefully their gimmicks spice up the boards in positive ways. But, I'm cautiously optimistic. I won't believe it till I see it. These boards will make or break the whole game’s experience.

Also, I really hope they keep the moment-to-moment pacing of Superstars since that was one of its best improvements to the gameplay. Snappy menus and dialogue, fast movement, quick animations and transitions… that Mario Party has the least downtime of any game in the series and I hope this continues.