It’s not much of a secret that Mario Party has had a bit of a rocky history since the early 2010s. When NDCube took over, things went out the window for a while, and game-wide gimmicks became the main selling point rather than the core party game itself. It wasn’t until the Nintendo Switch came out that the Mario Party series finally started to get back on track.
2018’s [Super Mario Party](https://youtu.be/by_XTria-mQ) was the best selling and most critically acclaimed game in the series in a very long time. For the first time since Mario Party 8, the traditional board game mode was back, only this time with some new frills. The (admittedly broken) ally system, the (admittedly coin showering) minigames, and the use of single Joy-Cons made for a truly unique party game experience, all wrapped up in a beautifully polished package. There’s even a rhythm game and a 4 player co-op mode, but both modes are pretty short lived. Too bad there were also only four boards to play on, with none being added post launch. And the online play was laughable at launch, especially since it was the very first Nintendo game released after the Switch’s online became a paid service.
Regardless of these shortcomings, the next game was better in pretty much every conceivable way. Last year we got [Mario Party Superstars](https://youtu.be/2jEq0F656aY), which featured button controls so you can play on the Switch Lite, 100 multiplayer-focused minigames curated from across the series (a first for the franchise), and some of the most robust online play I’ve ever seen from Nintendo right out of the box. It easily curbstomps the hell out of Smash Ultimate’s online that’s for sure, though that’s admittedly not a high bar to clear. If you ask me, **if you never played Mario Party before and want a good place to jump in, this is the one to get for absolute sure.**
Reviews for both games, especially Superstars, have eclipsed those of previous Mario Party games, and fans can come together to agree that ruining friendships (and our palms and sticks) hasn’t felt this good in a long time. So much so that people have been clamoring for more boards and characters in Superstars ever since it released, but as of now we got nothing.