Party on, Mario.

Couch gaming is a magical thing.

To look your friends and family in the eyes as you destroy them in a competitive match, or to cheer and throw around high five as you overcome the odds together, it’s really one of my favorite ways to game.

Unfortunately, with the advent of the internet, couch gaming sessions have become increasingly rare. Not to say that I don’t appreciate online gaming as the convenience and accessibility it provides is really quite special but as I often find myself talking into a mic alone in a house that is entirely too big for only myself, I couldn’t help but long for the couch experience.

In that spirit, I make it a point to keep an eye out for games designed for just that and given I have never really had a chance to check out the Mario Party series, I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to do so.

It’s all in the roll of the dice.

MSRP: $59.99
Platform: Switch Exclusive
Length: 20~ hours to get to the “ending”

While there isn’t really a story worth talking about presented here, there is a goal to- what else, collect a number of gems which will trigger an ending once they are all collected. However, this goal of reaching the ending was the furthest from my mind as I delved into the various modes the game had to offer.

First and foremost was of course, the Party mode which is the staple of the series as the players rolled dice in order to move around on a board collecting stars, triggering a mini-game at the end of each turn. At the end of regulation, bonus stars are rewarded and the winner is crowned. This and the team based Partner Party modes were where I spent the vast majority of my time playing the game.

River Survival mode, where a party of four players must work together, navigating the rapids and completing mini-games in order to add more time on the clock so they can get to the finish line. Sound Stage was a collection of mini-games focusing on the theme of rhythm as the players competed for the high score. Challenge Road was a single player campaign of sorts where I could put my skills to the test to complete challenges in the context of the various mini-games. I could also just play any of the minigames I unlocked individually or as a package online to test my mettle against the people of the internet.

Most of the mini-games are pretty fun and can lead to good moments.

Unfortunately, I have not subscribed to the Nintendo Network nor do I have any plans to do so in the immediate future so I was unable to test the network connectivity. Speaking of things I couldn’t test, there was a mode and a collection of mini-games that were only playable with multiple Switch consoles next to each other but I didn’t have a spare Switch to test that functionality, either.

If none of those modes that aren’t “Party” sounds rather uninteresting, that’s simply because they are. While I spent some time on each of the modes trying to collect their respective Gems in to reach the ending to the game, I found them to be gimmicky at best- a novelty that I did not want to come back to after playing it once.

The biggest shame of Super Mario Party is that while it has all these extra modes, the Party modes is seriously lacking in content with a paltry four boards to play on. It feels as though the time and effort that were spent creating these numerous novelty modes would have instead been spent in making more boards, this would have made for a much more compelling package.

On the side of grievances, Nintendo’s insistence on shoving motion controls on their player base remains as obnoxious as ever as many activities required crude waggling of the joy con and futile attempts at fine movement which ended in frustration.

Forced motion controls. Is there any other kind?

As someone that hasn’t really been exposed to the series proper, the only expectation I had going in was that it would be a fun couch gaming experience and in that regard, Super Mario Party is a rousing success as I saw nothing but smiles all around during my numerous play sessions with over a dozen different people. However, those smiles were short lived as they soon faded when we realized that there were only four boards to play and the rest of the other modes were simple novelties at best. A shame as this party was one I was glad to be invited to- I just didn’t feel the desire to stick around for too long.

Fun Tidbit– I picked up an extra set of joy-con controllers because this game does not support any other type of controllers.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.