Super Mario Party Jamboree Review – A Jam-Packed Jumble (2025)

Other Nintendo franchises may rise and fall, but the ever-dependable Mario Party has been steadily rocking since 1998. We’ve already received two entries in the franchise on Switch, the fairly well-received soft reboot of the series Super Mario Party and the more barebones throwback Mario Party Superstars, and now, we’re getting a third. As the name implies, Super Mario Party Jamboree is largely a continuation of what Super Mario Party started, with a focus on new modes and features over nostalgia.

So, is Super Mario Party Jamboree one of the series’ good ones? Or are you going to want to take a rain check this time around? Time to scope out this shindig!

One of the first things you’ll notice upon jumping into Super Mario Party Jamboree is that developer Nintendo Cube has gone and invited all the modes to the soiree. In addition to the core Mario Party board game, you get a pair of large-group online modes, a series of motion-control-focused modes, the full-on single-player campaign “Party-Planner Trek,” and more.

For those unfamiliar with the standard Mario Party formula, four players roll dice, move around various themed boards, and earn coins based on the spots they land on and winning minigames, which are then used to buy Stars. The player with the most Stars at the end of the game is the winner. Super Mario Party Jamboree serves up seven boards (five fresh, two returning from past games), with most of the new ones revolving around some relatively-clever gimmick -- Goomba Lagoon has rising and falling tides, Rainbow Galleria has more shops than usual that may host random flash sales, etc.

New this time around are "Jamboree Buddies," a rework of the Ally system from some past Mario Party titles. Buddies are earned by winning an elaborate minigame specific to them and, once acquired, confer some sort of passive boost (a bonus dice roll, extra coins) and, perhaps most importantly, double the effects of every space on the board. Yes, that includes being able to buy two Stars at once. That may sound a bit overpowered, but Jamboree Buddies only stick around for three turns, and other players can steal them if they pass you on the board.

Relatively small tweaks like the Jamboree Buddies aside, this is still largely Mario Party as you likely already know it, with all the good and bad that entails. At its best, that core Mario Party board game experience can be a rollicking good time, but it can also be overly drawn out and frustratingly arbitrary, with winners and losers too often determined by chance. At least, that’s the case if you’re playing in standard Party Mode. Surprisingly, Nintendo has actually done something to address the longstanding complaints about Mario Party’s arbitrary nature with new “Pro Rules.”

This somewhat confusingly-titled new way to play the game essentially cuts down on the amount of random chance -- for instance, Lucky Spaces now allow you to pick an outcome rather than depend on a roulette, and there’s only one Bonus Star at the end of the game and you know what it will be ahead of time. As somebody who's never particularly liked the fickleness of Mario Party, I pretty quickly gravitated to this mode.

Of course, the boards and rules are only part of the fun – the minigames count for a lot in Mario Party and Jamboree’s are a good, if somewhat mixed, bag. Classics from Mario Parties past like Platform Peril, Treasure Divers, and Three Throw return, and frankly, they're the most fun of the bunch. While there are certainly some good additions, a few too many of the new minigames are too complex for their own good, often lasting for minutes at a time. Mario Party is at its best when it keeps it simple.

Super Mario Party Jamboree’s 100+ minigames certainly look nice. Mario Party has quietly been one of Nintendo's more visually impressive series for years, and that holds true with Jamboree. Boards and minigames are colorful, sharp, and packed with detail. Performance hiccups do pop up at times, but they're relatively rare and not overly noticeable, particularly compared to some other recent Nintendo titles.

Looking beyond the board, Jamboree serves up a trio of new motion-control-focused modes, some more successful than others. Paratroopa Flight School, which tasks players with physically flapping their arms to complete Pilotwings-style challenges, is far too fussy for its own good, bringing to mind the worst of the Wii era. Toad's Item Factory, which challenges up to four players to manipulate blocks in order to guide a ball to a goal, is decent, if a bit dry. The winner of the bunch is Rhythm Kitchen, a series of beat-based cooking-themed minigames that are simple enough not to be frustrating while still delivering some pizazz.

Players can also look forward to a pair of online-focused modes (they aren’t the only online options as the core Mario Party mode and more can also be tackled via your friends list or matchmaking). Bowser Kaboom Squad is a cooperative mode in which an 8-player team gathers bombs to fight off a Kaiju-sized Bowser, with team minigames intermittently being played to earn helpful items. Koopathlon is a racing-themed option with 20 players playing solo minigames in order to earn coins, which determine your placement on the track. Following each round, a frantic 20-player survival minigame is played, giving this mode a distinct Fall Guys flavor.

Note: While both Koopathlon and Bowser Kaboom Squad show quite a bit of promise, I couldn't play either online during the review period due to their high player requirements. Somewhat frustratingly, your options for playing both modes are rather limited -- either you play with a full complement of online players, or you play solo against CPU opponents. There’s no more nuanced option for mixing local and online players. While I think the CPU opponents gave me a pretty good feel for how these modes play, I'll tackle them online post-launch and update my review. That said, it's unlikely my score will change unless these larger-scale online modes simply don’t work due to server issues.

The Party-Planner Trek single player campaign is a welcome gesture -- many Mario Parties completely skip such things -- but if we're being real, this series has never really worked as a solo endeavor. Party-Planner Trek tasks the player with making their way around Jamboree's game boards and completing "missions" for various NPCs, which usually involve completing a minigame or retrieving an item located somewhere else on the board. This all works well enough, but aside from a few unique challenges designed specifically for the mode, everything kind of feels like it's been hacked together with existing parts.

And that's not all! "Minigame Bay" allows you to engage in free play, daily challenges, a ranked online survival mode, and more. There are also various basic cosmetics available to purchase with in-game coins in the central plaza or by completing achievements to work through a battle-pass-style progression track. Nintendo is promoting Jamboree as the series' biggest entry yet, and there's no denying they've brought the content to keep this Mario Party rocking into extra hours.

This review was based on a copy of Super Mario Party Jamboree provided by publisher Nintendo.

Super Mario Party Jamboree doesn’t bring anything overly surprising to this well-worn series, and not every mode and minigame will put you in a festive mood, but overall, the game offers plenty to celebrate. Jamboree may not entice those who have had their fill of Nintendo’s shindigs, but those still down for a good button-mashing bash should appreciate just how much they’ve stuffed into this goodie bag.

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