As it’s been over the past few years, Nintendo’s presence at Brasil Game Show 2024 was sizable. Their booth is one of the biggest at the event, sporting most of their recent releases on Nintendo Switch, as well as its upcoming release happening on October 17th, Super Mario Party Jamboree, which was fully playable at the venue.
The game is, as its name implies, a new entry in the Mario Party series following 2021’s Mario Party Superstars. Honestly, I’ve had little to no experience playing any of the previous titles, hardly ever dabbling at all the insanity that goes on in them outside of a couple of visits over to my classmate’s decades ago. So that helped give me a fresh perspective when it came down to Jamboree.
The demo I was a part of consisted of me and two other players, so the fourth chair was filled by a computer-controlled character, and that’s probably the reason why my reaction to playing the game ended up being what it is: I think that the game is merely okay. We messed around with three of its more than 100 activities, and through two of them, I wasn’t even sure what was going on!
First ‘round was a cooking minigame where the objective was to pick the correct cookie cutter shape, which is simple enough to figure out, right? Well, it didn’t go so smoothly with me and I found myself scrambling for the entirety of the minute that the game lasted, obviously losing badly, since not only me but my partner hadn’t a clue about how it all worked, even with the quick pre-match on-screen tutorial. I hoped the next one would be better…
And it was, actually. Standing on opposite sides of a circle, two players could step on a huge switch that would make a ring between the two teams spin once, split into six spaces, each containing either a coin prize or some sort of trap. That minigame in particular turned out to be quite chaotic and fun, and thanks to it having multiple rounds, it ended up being the majority of our time playing, with us trading the lead until the very end.
At the tail end of the demo, we had a way more analog experience that I’m sure has been in just about every Mario Party game ever, where it’s a free-for-all match as Bowser Jr while riding his clown car drops all manner of hazards onto the field, eventually going in himself as the ultimate challenge. As you’d expect, it turned out to be complete and utter insanity, and, admittedly, fun. But I don’t think this would be a recurring deal as it’s a simple game structurally that I doubt would hold up in repeated play.
That’s the big issue with Super Mario Party Jamboree and other games in the series, being able to get an audience that’s enraptured enough at its spell in order to play more than one full game. Even with its slate of over 100 minigames, how long would it take before a player has had the chance to play through all of them and see all that there is to be seen? Granted, it goes without saying that this one is probably not a game for me, something that will suit my tastes, as someone who looks towards replayability when it comes to Nintendo games.
As for the crowd that likes quick jump in and jump out party games like this, then Mario Party Jamboree might suit their needs well, as I’m sure the older ones probably did. It’s the sort of thing that has the potential of capturing those who have a few friends or family members around to play and enjoy a bash like this one. The game will be out in a few days, so it won’t be long before you can get a chance to find out if it’s for you.
Eduardo is a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none when it comes to videogames and someone who likes talking about them a whole lot. You can find him on Twitter and Bluesky.
