Don’t Fret with Frido – Super Mario Party

Frido is back for a special look at Super Mario Party for the Nintendo Switch!

The classic friendship ruiner is back.  Super Mario Party has a long history of me wanting to murder my friends and family for extremely valid reasons: they took my freaking stars.  As the first Mario Party on the Nintendo Switch, this game set a lot of expectations. Let’s dig in and see how it did!

The Bad

One thing I always remember is the diversity of maps within the Mario Party games.  Super Mario Party only contains four maps to play on.  The maps are cute and fun, and they still pose a bit of difficulty at points, but the lack of maps makes for a short amount of time within the game.  Playing the same couple of maps over and over can be boring. The maps are also a lot less linear than they used to be. On the megafruit paradise map there are only some areas that are connected by regular dice rolls.  To proceed to the other areas of the map, characters need to land on a special space that put them in a pipe. While this can be fun, it is also kind of tedious if no other players are on that side of the map. Until someone is able to reach the star, that’s where it will stay.  

As in all of the newer Mario Party games, there are motion controls.  Some of these motion controls are very touchy, and there are some points where they don’t work at all, but this is something that is really to be expected in motion control games at this point.  The mini games are still fun, but when the motion controls are included, it just sparks some anger if someones loses and starts yelling that their joycon doesn’t work. If you’ve played any Mario Party with motion controls, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

The Good

Every Mario Party always includes new modes; this one is no exception.  The modes included in Super Mario Party are Mario party, partner party, river survival, sound stage, challenge road, mini games, online Mario-thon, Toad’s rec room, and stickers.  Most of these are seeing how good players are at the mini games which is always fun against friends.

The mode that I found most entertaining is the river survival mode.  Players are on a raft and have to work together to row down the river.  There are winding paths to take as players proceed. There is a time limit, and players can do mini games to increase the time they are on the river.  It is kind of hard to steer the raft with motion controls, especially if players aren’t working together on where they are going.

Super Mario Party has added new characters to play.  These characters include Pom-Pom, Dry Bones, Hammer Bro, Goomba, and Monty Mole.  In addition to new characters is the introduction of the character dice blocks. Every character has their own special dice block with different numbers on each side.  The numbers can all be the same with one having a +3 coins instead of moving. Or there may be a spot with no benefit at all just a zero.

Super Mario Party has added a team high-five where all players will use the motion controls as if they are giving a high five.  It gives players some extra coins but is not necessary. However, I love the team high five. It may seem like something that is really cheesy within the game, but I love it.  Just thrusting your hand up and going, “YEAH!” is fun.

The End

Super Mario Party is a fun addition to an already great series.  It’s fun to play with all ages, even though you may lose some friendships while playing it.  It points out who your enemies are. Highly recommend.

Written by Frido
(Frido is an avid gamer and plays games when they should be doing homework. Their other hobbies include sleeping, eating, drinking, and acting like they’re going to start exercising when we all know they’re not. Some of their favorite games include The Bioshock Series, the Resident Evil series, and Luigi’s Mansion. They figured if they’re gonna have all of these opinions might as well put them to paper.)