My kids had a litany of questions during our first game of Mario Party Superstars. Where, my 12-year-old son asked, was Monty Mole, his favorite character from the last game? Why are there no minigames where you have to waggle the controllers around, my seven-year-old daughter asked? Why are there so few characters to choose from anyway? And why does everyone have the same dice block?
My kids have had a lot of experience with Super Mario Party (the previous game in the series, which was released on the Nintendo Switch in 2018), so these comparisons were inevitable. The newest entry, Mario Party Superstars, is a deliberate embrace of the Mario Party series' early days before motion control gimmicks and twists on its classic game mode became the norm. This is a game that delivers on the core Mario Party experience and is high on nostalgia, but my kids' questions highlighted the trade-off that comes with that approach. In embracing the old, Superstar loses a lot of tweaks and additions that have livened up recent Mario Party games, making Superstars as much of a step back as it is a throwback.
That step back doesn't necessarily mean Mario Party Superstars is a bad game, but it does feel like a dated one. If you've ever played a Mario Party game before, then Superstars will feel instantly familiar thanks to its stripped-back focus on the series' staples: dynamic, shifting boards, a huge selection of fun minigames, and more than a hint of tear-your-hair-out randomness that gives (almost) every game an anything-can-happen feel. Depending on your age, that familiarity may also extend to Superstars' selection of boards and minigames, many of which were taken from the very start of the Mario Party franchise back in the Nintendo 64 and GameCube days.
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