Mario Party is a game that I have always had a soft spot in my heart for. I was six years old when the first entry came out for Nintendo 64, and I always thought those original games were a blast. Sure, it was never perfect, especially the first game with its tendency to tear up your palms, but it wasn’t very often that I was one to turn down a game of Mario Party 2 with my friends.
While it had a strong start, a long line of oversaturation and questionable decisions have often pushed the Mario Party series back at times. While Nintendo regularly treats it as one of its core releases on nearly every one of its consoles, there was definitely a period where the usual fun and quality weren’t being delivered. Let’s take a look back at the rise, fall, and rebirth of Mario Party.
The Rise of Mario Party
As stated above, Mario Party got off to a strong start with its N64 releases. These games created a genre of party games that could bring people together and tear friendships apart. Competing in mini-games to earn the coins you needed to buy stars was rewarding, while you could also set your opponents up for failure with some random chaos thrown in there.
The GameCube followed the N64 up with an additional four sequels, each coming annually between 2002 and 2005. Some of these are still considered favorites by some players, but things were starting to get a little weird. Mario Party 6 and 7 included microphone support. You could turn it off, but it was a gimmick that really wasn’t worth making games for. The Game Boy Advance, of all things, got its own entry, which was mostly focused on being a single-player experience. You know how partying by yourself is the most fun, right?

Regardless, these releases were generally still considered a good time. They were never in contention for game of the year or anything like that, but if you had a friend group, you had a much better option for board game night than Monopoly. The problem was how frequently the games were coming out. Too many games had been released in too short of a time, so people were ready for a break, but Nintendo (and likely Hudson Soft, the development team) wanted more money, so they kept pushing their plumber and his friends to continue the festivities.
With the Nintendo Wii being such a waggle-fest machine, you knew Nintendo was going to focus on motion control mini-games for its first entry. Mario Party 8 isn’t terrible, but it definitely doesn’t do anything amazing. We got a little bit of respite when the DS entry came out, and it was a pretty standard entry on a handheld console. Sure, it came out the same year as MP8, which is more proof that Nintendo couldn’t help themselves with making these games. If you still have one of the dual-screen handhelds around and can get your hands on the game, I recommend giving Mario Party DS a try. The Mario Party games were too abundant, but at the very least, they had something to keep bringing people back. Then things went off the rails for a while.

The Fall of Mario Party
After Mario Party DS, Hudson Soft was acquired by Konami and later merged with one of Konami’s internal studios. From this point on, NDcube handled Mario Party, and for a long time, it wasn’t that good. Honestly, this development team doesn’t have the greatest of track records under Nintendo. It developed the Wii Party games, Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, and helped with Everybody 1-2-Switch. When it was time for Mario Party 9, it was time for a big change. Something that would reinvigorate life into this series. Something that would make players say, “Wow, this was what we always wanted!” Instead, they put all the players into a singular car.
Putting everyone into one car and having them move along the same path took any strategy out of MP9. Sure, there is a great deal of luck when playing these games, but now the experience was mind-numbing. You no longer tried to gather coins so you could stars. Instead, you were given mini-stars depending on what you rolled and if you happened to pass the right space on your turn. You are completely at the mercy of the board, the other player’s rolls, and your dice. There is minimal, if any, player input that matters when you are on the board. There is no economy because there are no coins to earn your stars. Just hope you roll right when you its your turn so you can win. The mini-games are fine, but Mario Party 9 burned a lot of players.

Now, a sane person would look at the problems in MP 9 and think that it has to get better with the next game, right? Well, you, my friend, must have been lucky enough to avoid Nintendo during the Wii U days. Mario Party 10 was the previous game again, but this time, a fifth person could play as Bowser and chase the car down. There’s not much more to say about it. It’s not necessarily worse than before, but by no means is it substantially better.
To mercifully put an end to this fall section, Mario Party had a pretty bad run on the 3DS as well. Island Tour, Star Rush, and The Top 100 are the entries we have this time, and they’re all just awful. The car concept never made its way over this time, but the boards don’t get any better. All the maps in Island Tour are linear, Star Rush had Toad Scramble (which was admittedly improved on in Super Mario Party), and The Top 100 is just a trainwreck.

An optimistic gamer might find at least something to enjoy in Island Tour and Star Rush, but Mario Party: The Top 100 doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. When it was released in 2017, the Nintendo Switch was out, so it was confusing to see this be a 3DS exclusive. Looking at it now, you can get an idea that Nintendo just kind of threw it out on a console that was nearing its end already. After nearly 20 years and 13 releases, it makes sense to make a game that celebrates the series. The name tells you everything you need to know: these are (in NDcube’s opinion) the top 100 mini-games throughout Mario Party’s life. Except they don’t play that well, there are a lot of luck-based entries, and only one board in the entire game to play on.
The Rebirth of Mario Party
When Super Mario Party was released on the Switch, things finally started to move in the right direction for the series. Sure, this game wasn’t perfect. All five of the boards are too small, and you could only play with one joy-con. If you own just the Switch Lite, you can’t feasibly play this game. The important thing, though, is there is quality in this game. Coins and stars were back and the mini-games genuinely have some of the most interesting uses of motion controls and HD rumble ever. The character you chose has a special dice, bringing a new angle of strategy to the game, and overall, it’s a fun time. During the pandemic, online multiplayer was added, which ran horribly back then, but you could see the stepping stones being placed for future improvements.

Next, Mario Party Superstars came out and this was the celebration of the series that we deserved all along. Five boards remade from the first three games, a new lineup of mini-games that are actually considered some of the best in its history, and online play that isn’t god-awful. Mario Party Superstars brings back classic favorites and improves them a lot of the time. We wish we would have gotten some more boards added later on, but for what this game is, it trounces The Top 100 in its goal to celebrate the franchise.
That brings us to today. As of this writing, Super Mario Party Jamboree isn’t out yet, but it genuinely looks good. It is being billed as the largest game yet. We have five new boards, which all look to have interesting gimmicks to them, and two more remakes from the N64 days. The mini-game list has been expanded with a focus on joy-cons again, which hopefully maintain the same quality as the previous Super Mario Party game. Probably the thing that has me the most interested is the new mode called Koopathlon. This appears to be a mini-game battle royale mode where 20 players compete against each other. There is a lot to be optimistic about with Jamboree.

Mario Party has had quite the roller coaster of a lifespan. The first games are still loved today, but a run of annual releases will tire people out on any series. NDcube had a long stretch when they got their hands on the games that were just bad and, surprisingly, didn’t completely sink the opportunity for more games to come. The Switch games have provided a good look at the value Mario Party can give. These games are at their best when they’re fun and chaotic and bring ideas to the table that facilitate those motives. Hopefully, Jamboree is as big of an entry as it’s touting itself to be, and we can continue to celebrate good games.