This is another game that House Shiney was very much looking forward to! And sadly another 2021 game with lacklustre performance. We played 4 out of 5 of the boards in our release day/first play which you can watch here.

I’d never played a Mario party until we got the Switch, as I’d never had a Nintendo console until we got the Switch. That first Mario party game for me was so much fun, because I loved it being both a board game and having the river rapids other game that was more cooperative.

Guess what they don’t have on superstars? A CO-OP GAME MODE.

It’s basically just 5 boards, some crap about an online card which you can’t bypass even if you don’t have the online subscription service and stickers and things to unlock from Toad. The card creation at the start was especially irritating and not intuitive.

I suppose because I didn’t grow up with all the old Mario party games a lot of what this title is trying to do is lost on me (with the nostalgia etc)

I was really disappointed with the limited range of character selection (although Daisy is now a new house favourite purely because of how she shouts her name) and the unlocks from Toad seemed very ‘going through the motions’.
We haven’t yet gone through and tired every mini game separately but I imagine Duck will be happy with some of the old call backs, as the viewers were thrilled to see Shy Guy says come back.

I think it will be better with 4 human players, as we initially had two people & two AI (which seemed to be ridiculously good at mini games when on hard or above) and the AI seemed to have a more unfair advantage on certain boards.

I really do miss the co-op game mode though, whilst this is a nice simplistic Mario Party I think I was spoiled with the first one I played (and still play) and I just don’t know how much house Shiney will keep going back to Superstars. We do need to play the cake map though and try the other mini games.

Don’t get me wrong, its as nice game and we had fun playing it (with the usual domestic arguments because that’s what happens wen you play Mario Party with people you love). It is a bit lazy though, everything in it is from games gone by with no new content or game modes.

Shiney rating
3 paws out of 5

Lack of game modes, limited character selection & nothing new.
Its nice but it could’ve been so much better!