Super Mario Party Jamboree Preview
My Here & Now appearance and the end of a Nintendo era
My childhood dentist had a small arcade in the waiting room — Mario Party 2 was nearly always loaded into the N64. Sure, the minigames were brief enough to enjoy between my frequent fillings and orthodontia appointments, but I could only play a few rounds of the overarching board game at a time — leaving a young James bewildered by its variety, the full experience forever out of his tiny grasp.
That changed with 2018’s Super Mario Party, the first game in the series I’ve owned. I carefully plotted my way through its capricious levels. I weighed the advantages of each character’s unique dice. I conscripted aunts, brothers, sisters, and cousins to sweat through its challenging co-op modes. I burned out on it after a few months but then came 2021’s Mario Party Superstars, which remade classic minigames and cemented itself as a bonafide Mastromarino family past-time.
Now, ahead of the Switch’s imminent retirement, Super Mario Party Jamboree may take Superstars’ crown. I spoke to Here & Now’s Scott Tong about my experience previewing it (and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom) in NYC. Here’s some of my WBUR.org write-up:
The upcoming video game — out Oct. 17 — boasts seven boards, more than 110 minigames, nearly two dozen characters and online modes that can accommodate up to 20 players. That’s altogether more stuff than we’ve ever seen from the series, and Nintendo seems focused just as much on quality as quantity.
In the hour I had to preview the game in New York City, I cruised through one of the new boards, “Mega Wiggler’s Tree Party,” snatched a few minigame victories and just barely missed out on scoring a star. PR reps then rushed us into a “Koopathlon,” where 20 players race around a track by competing in special minigames that include Nintendo’s take on the old classic, whack-a-mole. We finished the session with the eight-player co-op “Bowser Kaboom Squad” mode. Here, we helped each other win power-ups, collect coins and fire cannons to take down an oversized “imposter Bowser.”
I can’t see myself securing enough online friends to make “Boswer Kaboom Squad” and, especially, “Koopathlon” feel worthwhile, but the game otherwise impressed me. The developers of Jamboree appear to have learned the right lessons from the success of 2021’s Mario Party Superstars. That title remade past, popular minigames and swerved away from the motion controls that could hamper 2018’s Super Mario Party. My little nephews insist on hours of Mario Party whenever I see them, and Jamboree is likely to become the new family favorite.
Other Here & Now Mastromarino Productions
The most promising TV shows to watch this fall — one of my best Eric Deggans collaborations! Plenty of great stuff to discuss, between Slow Horses, A Very Royal Scandal, Disclaimer, and, of course, The Penguin.
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